ANTHOLOGY OF BOOTY TRANSCRIPT

Oral History Interview with Ebony Dumas

Conducted by Miriam Zoila Pérez for the DC Oral History Collaborative

June 11, 2019 Two hours and 19 minutes

Ebony’s Home in Edgewood/Brookland NE DC Washington, DC

Transcribed by rev.com and Ebony Dumas

Biographical Information: Ebony Dumas is an urban planner, a long-time DJ as part of Anthology of Booty and as a solo artist. Description of interview: Ebony Dumas' childhood in Tulsa, OK, her connection to music, her life experience in D.C., and her experience as a founding member of Anthology Booty.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 1 of 63

Interviewer: 00:00:02 All right, so we are recording. I'm Miriam Zoila Pérez and I'm interviewing Ebony. Ebony, how do you say your last name?

Ebony Dumas: 00:00:16 It kind of depends on where I am. In Oklahoma, it’s Dumas and generally in DC it's Dumas.

Interviewer: 00:00:22 Dumas.

Ebony Dumas: 00:00:23 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 00:00:23 Is that what you prefer?

Ebony Dumas: 00:00:25 I really don't care.

Interviewer: 00:00:25 Okay.

Ebony Dumas: 00:00:26 But thanks for asking.

Interviewer: 00:00:27 You're welcome. I'm going to do that over. My name is Miriam Zoila Pérez and I'm interviewing Ebony Dumas and today is June 11th, 2019 and we're in Ebony's ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:00:42 Den.

Interviewer: 00:00:44 Den, I like that, Ebony's den, in Northwest Washington, DC.

Ebony Dumas: 00:00:48 Northeast.

Interviewer: 00:00:49 Oh God. Yeah. Northeast. I don't know where I live. We are in Ebony's den in Northeast Washington, DC Ebony is going to be talking about their life and their experience in DC, her life and experience in DC, but also experience with being part of Anthology Booty, The DJ Collective. What pronouns do you use, Ebony?

Ebony Dumas: 00:01:07 She / her.

Interviewer: 00:01:08 Awesome. All right, well thank you for doing this. I mean, it's your project. Why don't we start with just a little bit about kind of your childhood. Where were you born and raised? What was that like?

Ebony Dumas: 00:01:23 Yeah. I am not a native Washingtonian. I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was born February 13th, 1983 in a lovely hospital where my mom actually worked for about 15, 20 years growing up in Oklahoma. I lived in Tulsa all the way until I was 18 years old, and then after I graduated I left Tulsa, but I definitely have an affinity to Oklahoma, definitely toward Oklahoma. A lot of my family is still there. My dad, my grandmother, lots of aunts

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 2 of 63

and uncles and cousins. So yeah, it was a great place to grow up. Very different from DC and part of my growing up there was in Tulsa, which is essentially a city, we'll call it a city, they're highways there, but there's also open fields in the north side of town where most of the black people live. You're not surprised to see horses walking around. And so it was like this interesting kind of juxtaposition of city and rural.

Ebony Dumas: 00:02:47 But my dad is a preacher and the church that we grew up in was about 50 minutes north of Tulsa. And so once, sometimes twice a week, we drive 50 minutes north of Tulsa to Muskogee, Oklahoma and that was a large part of my growing up as well, the church folks, and that was more of a rural area and so I had a little bit of city, a little bit of rural growing up.

Interviewer: 00:03:16 Right. What denomination is your dad's church?

Ebony Dumas: 00:03:18 Baptist.

Interviewer: 00:03:19 Baptist.

Ebony Dumas: 00:03:19 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:03:20 And how long has he been the minister? Is that the ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:03:23 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 00:03:24 The minister there?

Ebony Dumas: 00:03:25 He's been the preacher at Dean's Chapel Baptist Church for 37 years.

Interviewer: 00:03:31 Wow. So your whole life.

Ebony Dumas: 00:03:32 Yeah, my whole life. He started one year before I was born and so that's pretty much everything that my whole life has spent growing up there. The congregation petitioned to have a street named after him there, and so that was pretty cool to go back to Tulsa and stay there for a few days, but then make the drive to Muskogee to have a street unveiled with my last name on it.

Interviewer: 00:04:03 That's amazing. So did you grow up religious?

Ebony Dumas: 00:04:07 Yeah. Yeah, definitely grew up religious. There's a large part of how I grew up in the church that feels very similar to DJ work that I do now, and like creating a space for community together, something that's regular that people can look forward to and kind of plan around. And yeah, the church that I grew up in was

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 3 of 63

pretty small. I'd say it was probably like 60 people in the congregation, 25, 30 on any particular week.

Interviewer: 00:04:45 That's a good turnout if you get half of the people.

Ebony Dumas: 00:04:47 Yeah, true. I guess when you're thinking about percentages. That's a good percentage.

Interviewer: 00:04:51 Percentages. Yeah, wow, 60 people. Did he get assigned there by the Baptist leadership or was he connected before he became the minister?

Ebony Dumas: 00:04:59 No, he wasn't assigned. And so talking to him, like once I got a little bit older and was in the job world, it seems like at least in the circles that he runs in, it's more of like you apply, just like a general job application. I think maybe Catholic priests are moreso assigned, or maybe even some [inaudible 00:05:24], but the way that he's been rolling is I think you have to apply, which means not only talking to the board of the church, but also giving a sermon and then kind of get judged. So I guess he was judged well-

Interviewer: 00:05:42 Right. By all 60 people.

Ebony Dumas: 00:05:44 Well maybe 65.

Interviewer: 00:05:44 Yeah. Okay. There we go. There we go. Wow. So did you feel like all of those people knew you really well and knew your family really well since it's such an intimate community?

Ebony Dumas: 00:05:57 Yeah, absolutely. I was definitely a known as Dawn Ebony, so my first name is Dawn, D-A-W-N.

Interviewer: 00:06:06 I did not know that.

Ebony Dumas: 00:06:08 Yeah. Not many people know that about me.

Interviewer: 00:06:09 Yeah. Got it. When did you start going by Ebony?

Ebony Dumas: 00:06:13 I think most of my life.

Interviewer: 00:06:14 Okay.

Ebony Dumas: 00:06:15 Yeah. I believe my aunt, my mom's one sister, suggested Ebony as my name, and then I guess it could have been a conflict of interest to have two Dons in the house in Oklahoma. Our accents don't really allow for much distinction between Don and Dawn.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 4 of 63

Interviewer: 00:06:38 Right. Yeah. Did your family have roots in Oklahoma before your parents? Do you know how long they've been there?

Ebony Dumas: 00:06:48 Yeah. There's this folder I found from high school on my recent trip back to Oklahoma and it had the story of a number of generations before me. I guess this was some research I did in probably senior, junior year in high school, and 1877 was the first person that I was able to trace at that time. I think it was from like talking to my grandmother who then remembered and I guess knew and spent some time with her grandparents, and so I forget his name, but maybe Julius. Yeah, that's a good name. Julius Cato.

Interviewer: 00:07:34 That is a good name.

Ebony Dumas: 00:07:34 But yeah, he raised cotton and did that whole thing in Oklahoma. That's my father's side. And then on my mother's side, the tree is a little bit more scattered just because she didn't really have much of a relationship with either of her parents. And so what we do know is Susie Walkingstick was her great, great grandmother. And so Cherokee was part of her bloodline, my bloodline, from that, but I don't know if they were in Oklahoma. I know my mother was born in Kansas City, I think Kansas City, Kansas, but there has been a long history of my family members there.

Interviewer: 00:08:27 Got it. Got it. And so was your father's church had a lot of music?

Ebony Dumas: 00:08:31 Yeah, yeah. Lots of music. Had a great pianist, Sister Norma Mayfield, she was a character in a way that, us as kids, we loved to laugh at her, but of course we would never do it in front of her face because then we would be harshly punished and so she would scream a lot and we didn't have drums or other instruments at our church when I was growing up. Now they have this drummer who's amazing and I'm just like, "What is going on?" But she used to like thump her foot instead of a drum beat, she would thump her foot on the floor, and that became the drum beat for the music.

Ebony Dumas: 00:09:17 She was also someone who never learned to read music, and so she picked up everything by ear in the very traditional African American church kind of way. But she was also very old school, and so I think her and my dad has some conflicts because he was like there's a lot more young people here at the church and wanting to do newer stuff, and she was way more like-

Interviewer: 00:09:41 Like rock and roll.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 5 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:09:44 No dancing in Oklahoma.

Interviewer: 00:09:46 Right, right, right.

Ebony Dumas: 00:09:49 But I do remember, I was in the choir and I enjoyed that experience and was hilarious because one time I think I was making fun of her and got caught and so she made me do a solo.

Interviewer: 00:10:05 Oh no.

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:06 And I thought she was just joking.

Interviewer: 00:10:07 That was your punishment?

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:08 Yeah, pretty much, because I think she was doing like a Kirk Franklin song, so it was like a little bit more contemporary and there was like this speaking, kind of like, "Patient love, kind love."

Interviewer: 00:10:19 Oh wow. Was any of this caught on tape?

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:23 Oh man, I hope not.

Interviewer: 00:10:25 There's probably a VHS tape somewhere.

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:26 Probably. Or a cassette tape.

Interviewer: 00:10:29 A cassette tape, yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:30 I feel like the services were probably recorded on a cassette tape back then.

Interviewer: 00:10:31 Right, right. Wow. So did you like singing?

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:37 I enjoyed singing with people. I didn't enjoy singing by myself and I felt like I didn't have strong enough of a voice.

Interviewer: 00:10:46 So that's why the solo was a punishment?

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:48 Yeah, that's why a solo was a punishment because I had never had another one before or after that.

Interviewer: 00:10:52 Oh wow. So she knew how to get to you?

Ebony Dumas: 00:10:55 She knew my insecurities. Isn't that great?

Interviewer: 00:10:57 Yeah. Oh well. So what communities did you identify with growing up?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 6 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:11:03 Well, definitely with my church community, but I also didn't go to school with those people because they all went to school in Muskogee and I went to school in Tulsa and my sisters and I, we all pretty much went to the same schools. But our ages were spaced out enough where we never really spent a lot of time at the same school. And so my church community, because there would be a lot of times when my dad would have meetings after church or there'd be other services and we sometimes were able to successfully petition to not go to the second service. And so there'd be people that we were kind of like allowed to stay with if they were close to the family. So those people were definitely very close to me and how I learned how to transcribe rap lyrics so I can memorize them, particularly Tupac and Snoop Dogg, so definitely around The Chronic era and Doggystyle. I feel like I probably, if I dig deep enough, I would still find some transcriptions of this, that.

Interviewer: 00:12:24 Did you want to be a rapper?

Ebony Dumas: 00:12:26 No, I didn't. I think I moreso felt like this is a cool thing and people in the big city are talking about what it's like to be in the big city.

Interviewer: 00:12:36 Right. That being like L.A.?

Ebony Dumas: 00:12:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah. L.A., Compton, learning all these names, especially in California and New York City and the neighborhoods, in different boroughs, so that all seems like, "Oh man, yeah that's cool. I got to get there one day."

Interviewer: 00:12:55 Yeah. Was that kind of music like off limits? Would your father had been upset if he knew or it was okay to be listening to rap and so?

Ebony Dumas: 00:13:06 Well, I think it's interesting, I don't know because I imagine there was also some familiarity, especially with the West Coast rap of that time because it was sampling a lot of funk music and so music that he was familiar with. But in the East Coast rap, it wasn't as much of a sampling from funk music, and so as long as it was the radio version, I don't think he would be too adverse-

Interviewer: 00:13:35 Okay, not too many swear words, yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 00:13:36 Yeah, not too many swears, the TV version is fine. My mother on the other hand was not very happy with a lot of that hip hop and rapping and all that noise. She was definitely more conservative than my father.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 7 of 63

Interviewer: 00:13:57 Oh, interesting. In a like social way or in like a religious way or what do you ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:14:00 I'd say that she definitely grew up in a really small town and so she just literally did not experience a lot of things that my dad experienced growing up in the big city of Tulsa. So I think she said she had never been allowed to go to a football game or really many social gatherings growing up. Her mother disappeared from her life when she was about five years old and kind of gave her and my aunt May to their great grandmother who unfortunately at the time, like very soon after, developed what they think to be Alzheimer's.

Ebony Dumas: 00:14:43 But during that time, I guess my mom was born in 1955, and so it had to be like mid-60s and it was small town Oklahoma and it was just like the crazy colored woman down the street as opposed to someone who needs care or has this disease.

Interviewer: 00:15:01 Right, right. That sounds hard. Yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 00:15:04 So yeah, she worked from the time that she was 14, had a really intense life, but just kind of, I think, evolved from that where she wanted us to have as many choices and opportunities, but didn't necessarily have the same outlook on what it meant to, I don't know, be out in the world.

Interviewer: 00:15:27 Oh, okay. What kind of nurse was she?

Ebony Dumas: 00:15:31 She was actually a pharmacy technician.

Interviewer: 00:15:33 Okay. [inaudible 00:15:35].

Ebony Dumas: 00:15:33 Yeah, at Hillcrest. She worked in the pharmacy there and she worked there for so long that she said she was doing the exact same job as the pharmacist, but since she didn't have that degree, she was paid for like a quarter of what they made. So yeah, I also remember a story where she told me how, in some of her first years there, one of her coworkers kind of like was, "Oh, you know what Patty, you are really good little nigger."

Interviewer: 00:16:06 Oh my God.

Ebony Dumas: 00:16:06 And she had to just like kind of hold it-

Interviewer: 00:16:08 Wow, shit.

Ebony Dumas: 00:16:10 ... and that was kind of the work environment that she had to work in.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 8 of 63

Interviewer: 00:16:13 For all those years.

Ebony Dumas: 00:16:15 Yeah, for a lot of those years. And I think, you know, once the 80s came, then people were a little bit more-

Interviewer: 00:16:24 Political correctness.

Ebony Dumas: 00:16:24 Yeah, definitely political correct, but yeah, I remember like one or two friends that she had from work who were white and everybody else was just kind of like, she didn't really mess with them.

Interviewer: 00:16:38 Do you know why they chose to live in Tulsa and not in the town where the church was?

Ebony Dumas: 00:16:42 Well, they tried at first, and so when I was born, even though I was born in Tulsa, because that's where my mom was working at that hospital, they lived in Muskogee. And so I think when my dad got that job in Muskogee, then he, my mom, and my older sister, the three of them moved to a house close to the church. And then reality set in where like all of our family and support system was in Tulsa, and also my sister was still going to school in Tulsa and they didn't want to take her out of school, and then my mom worked in Tulsa and so it was just kind of like, "All right, everything else except your job is back in this one place."

Interviewer: 00:17:29 Got it, got it. So where did you go at 18?

Ebony Dumas: 00:17:35 At 18, I graduated high school. That's what I did, which is a good thing to do.

Interviewer: 00:17:42 Yeah, congratulations.

Ebony Dumas: 00:17:43 You know, I'll take it.

Interviewer: 00:17:43 It's no small feat.

Ebony Dumas: 00:17:44 Exactly. I went to the University of PITTsburgh, in PITTsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Interviewer: 00:17:51 How did you end up there from Oklahoma?

Ebony Dumas: 00:17:56 Yeah. So as I mentioned, my sisters and I went to the same school and they were all magnet schools, and so I feel like a lot of places don't have that same kind of a system. And so from what I've understood in other places, a school would be a magnet for this thing. Like, this is a science magnet school, this is an arts magnet school, but the schools that we went to, I don't know if it's because of the size of Oklahoma or the limited

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 9 of 63

options that were available, it was like an all around kind of magnet school. And so we all had to apply to get in and maintain certain grades to stay there. It was just really one of the few diverse places in Oklahoma, and so I was able to have the option of learning Mandarin, taking photography class-

Interviewer: 00:18:48 Oh wow. In the 90s.

Ebony Dumas: 00:18:48 Yeah. Well, oh yeah I guess it was in the 90s, huh.

Interviewer: 00:18:49 Right, yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 00:18:51 Because I graduated high school '01.

Interviewer: 00:18:53 Okay, late 90s, yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 00:18:55 Yeah, 2001. So yeah, there was a gay-straight student alliance there-

Interviewer: 00:18:59 Okay, okay, work it Oklahoma.

Ebony Dumas: 00:19:01 ... and of course lots of Christian Sports Alliance. So it was on the more liberal side, especially for Oklahoma, and it was definitely expected that people were going to college. So it'd be 90 something percent rate of people who went to a four year university, and so it was just expected. And so she went to the St. Louis University and she graduated in '93 and this really had the experience of being outside of Oklahoma and wanted that for everybody else who could at any point in their life just like leave Oklahoma.

Interviewer: 00:19:39 Who was that that graduated in '93?

Ebony Dumas: 00:19:40 Oh my older sister.

Interviewer: 00:19:41 Your older sister. Okay.

Ebony Dumas: 00:19:43 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. So Nesha, she's an attorney and knew that she wanted to be an attorney for a really long time, so she went to St. Louis University and then essentially it was like, "Ebony, you need to consider where do you want to live outside of Oklahoma." I knew I wanted to leave but I didn't know where I wanted to go and what it meant to apply to schools, what it meant to figure out how to live and drive and get around in a different place. There was no GPS then, so you really had to-

Interviewer: 00:20:21 MapQuest.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 10 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:20:22 Yeah, I mean-

Interviewer: 00:20:22 Early days.

Ebony Dumas: 00:20:24 ... eventually there was MapQuest, but we used to have to like print it out and figure out, "Am I taking a right here? What street am I on?" So she was ... what was she doing? She was an attorney, like in her first year out of law school in PITTsburgh, and I went to visit and I got accepted and had a good financial aid package and I wanted to get out of Oklahoma. Had the opportunity to, like I could have played softball in college, but the schools where I got scholarships for they were more like North Dakota State, like smaller schools, and I didn't want to go to North Dakota or really stay in the same kind of Bible Belt of the country. So yeah, PITTsburgh was far enough away and I still had family and my niece was like four or five at that time, so it was really nice to be able to watch her grow up.

Interviewer: 00:21:23 Okay. So you were at the same school while she was in law school, was she at PITT? Your sister.

Ebony Dumas: 00:21:28 No, she had finished law school and then moved to PITTsburgh for a job.

Interviewer: 00:21:33 I see. Okay. Okay. What other activities did you do in high school besides softball?

Ebony Dumas: 00:21:39 I did track and field, I was the number eight in the state for shot put my senior year.

Interviewer: 00:21:48 Wow, shot put. Okay.

Ebony Dumas: 00:21:50 Absolutely.

Interviewer: 00:21:51 Wow. I can see that.

Ebony Dumas: 00:21:54 We had a really good team and so that was really fun. It's like a team comradery kind of thing. I also did a year of golf in school and haven't really played a full round of golf since, but that is okay. And then I also was in the marching band for a few years and that was definitely a big part of learning to perform and express myself musically.

Interviewer: 00:22:31 Right. What were you playing? In the marching band?

Ebony Dumas: 00:22:33 Well I guess freshman year actually I think I started off playing the clarinet and I ended up not completing the full season that time because I wasn't really feeling the clarinet and I was like, "Ah, I don't think is me."

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 11 of 63

Interviewer: 00:22:46 Reeds and stuff you have to suck on. Not that fun.

Ebony Dumas: 00:22:49 Yeah, it's not that fun. And my older sister had did it, and so I was like, "I think this is not for me, but I don't really know what else yet." And so the next year I tried out for the drumline-

Interviewer: 00:22:59 I was going to say drumline, yes.

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:01 Yes, you got it. And so I was playing the cymbals in our marching band and if you've seen Beyonce's Homecoming or Drumline, the movie, or Drumline 2.

Interviewer: 00:23:13 Yeah, I've seen both of those. I have not seen Homecoming yet, but I've seen both Drumlines.

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:14 Oh wow. That's great.

Interviewer: 00:23:21 So was that fun? It seems fun.

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was totally fun. I think watching my older sister be in the band, I was always really drawn to the drumline when we would go to the football games and watch her perform. I was really into the drumline and the drum captains and the ... what'd they call the band leaders?

Interviewer: 00:23:44 Conductors? No.

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:45 No, that's like the teacher person. Drum major-

Interviewer: 00:23:53 Major, yeah. Drum major?

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:54 Yeah. It's drum major.

Interviewer: 00:23:55 I think it's drum major.

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:56 Let's go for that.

Interviewer: 00:23:56 Yeah, that's right.

Ebony Dumas: 00:23:59 So yeah, and I was also a pretty quiet kid growing up and kind of kept to myself especially at home or when I'm around people I didn't really know, and so when my parents saw me for the first time, in the bleachers and dancing like that, and twirling the cymbals and moving around, they were a little shell shocked.

Interviewer: 00:24:23 Oh were they?

Ebony Dumas: 00:24:24 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:24:24 They did not expect it from you?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 12 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:24:25 Mm-mm (negative). Mm-mm (negative).

Interviewer: 00:24:29 Oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. Did you keep up with any of that at PITT?

Ebony Dumas: 00:24:33 No, I didn't keep up with it at PITT and I don't think I even continued into my senior year in high school and not so much because I didn't enjoy it, but moreso because I knew I had the opportunity to play softball in college and then also wanting to do AP classes. The travel schedule with the band was really kind of intense and not just like home and away games, but also we would go to different HBCUs, go to their homecomings, and so it'd be like on a bus with 80 wilin' out youth driving to Jackson, Mississippi or Atlanta, and then performing and marching there. Definitely, that was really fun.

Interviewer: 00:25:31 Yeah. Sounds fun. So was that your main experience with music growing up, like as a teenager, was it kind of the marching band and then sort of what you talked about at church and choir and that kind of thing?

Ebony Dumas: 00:25:44 Yeah, I would say that those are my main experiences, like me and myself doing music. My dad listened to music a lot and he was more in the jazz, like old school R&B kind of kind of vein. My mom only really liked to listen to gospel music.

Interviewer: 00:26:09 Proper.

Ebony Dumas: 00:26:09 Yeah, very. She was very proper, very proper lady, and then I think I started to get into more like late 80s, early 90s R&B because of my older sister, and then from there, some of her guy friends were really into, I want to say like Kris Kross and she was like a New Edition person and then like Al B. Sure, Keith Sweat. And so those are some of the artists where I first started to listen to music on my own and recognize it on the radio, like this is a song that I like, and then starting to listen to music from her friends. Yeah, and then high school, I ... Oh no, it was middle school when, was it Green Day was dropping some tunes-

Interviewer: 00:27:02 Dookie.

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:06 Dookie, yes, exactly. And so it was like, "Whoa, okay, I have white friends now." This is what-

Interviewer: 00:27:10 Green Day are your white friends, or no, that's the music of the whites.

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:14 I mean, at that point I would've definitely been friends with Green Day, at this point too, let's be real.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 13 of 63

Interviewer: 00:27:19 Yeah, yeah, they seem fun.

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:21 So yeah, it was like I had white friends for the first time in middle school because there's some classes that I was in and I definitely remember the Green Day album, No Doubt album, which I think I still have that CD, and Pogs. For some reason those are like three things that I associate with-

Interviewer: 00:27:40 They're like the little games?

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:40 Yeah, the little circle-

Interviewer: 00:27:40 That you could trade?

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:42 I don't even know how it works.

Interviewer: 00:27:43 I think it was something like that. All right. Okay.

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:45 Yeah, but it was a little circle with a little character on it.

Interviewer: 00:27:49 Children of the 80s, you know. Yeah. So what did you get involved in when you went to PITT? What kind of activities did you do?

Ebony Dumas: 00:27:59 At PITT, I don't remember like the first year or two, but I'd say after I got my bearings a little bit, it was definitely the black student union, and then, what was it, like the women's group on campus, and then I'd say probably into junior year is when I started to dip my toe and peek into the LGBT office and started hanging out with those folks. And that's when my mom told me, "If you hang around them, you're going to become one." She knew.

Interviewer: 00:28:36 Okay. How did she know you were hanging around them?

Ebony Dumas: 00:28:40 So that actually leads into some of my first times in DC because I would be on a road trip, we were a part of the USSA, United States Students Association, and so it was LegCon and one of the LegCons is when I came to DC maybe for the first time, and there were definitely like the queer kids who were big in that, in school. And so I'm making a trip to DC, I'm kind of telling her what it's about, who am I with, and then I don't know how she knew that these particular friends were gay, but I guess at some point it came out and then she like remembers like, "Okay, Kiersten. All right, you're with that Kiersten? She's ..."

Interviewer: 00:29:37 Okay, okay. She's tracking people.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 14 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:29:38 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 00:29:41 Did you know at the time how she felt about gay people or homosexuality? Did your dad minister about those kinds of topics?

Ebony Dumas: 00:29:52 I don't remember him speaking about it. I remember more so like one or two young women at my church who were a little bit older than me who are rumored to like go both ways, and clearly the dyking way was bad. And so that's some of my early memories of picking up the shame and the judgment, and then I definitely knew that my parents weren't really pro gay. I remember when the Ellen show was happening and my mom just stopped watching.

Interviewer: 00:30:39 When she came out?

Ebony Dumas: 00:30:40 Yeah. When she came out, and I didn't really particularly identify with Ellen or I don't honestly even remember watching the show. I was probably early middle school at that point, but at some point later on, I remember her reflecting back one day while I was still living at home and it was just like, "Well, no, I don't watch it anymore because I have nothing in common with her and I don't agree with that lifestyle and so there's no reason for me to watch it." And so it was like, "Oh, okay, well that's ..."

Interviewer: 00:31:10 That's a statement.

Ebony Dumas: 00:31:11 That is a statement.

Interviewer: 00:31:14 What was your gender presentation like as a kid?

Ebony Dumas: 00:31:19 Definitely a tomboy. Definitely a tomboy. I'd say T-Boz from TLC was definitely a style icon, also had her hair cut for awhile in high school.

Interviewer: 00:31:36 Okay. Nice, nice. So when your mom, you guys talked about your trip to DC and she made that comment, did that turn into more conversation or was that a moment that then you came back to later?

Ebony Dumas: 00:31:49 Yeah, we don't really talk about things in Oklahoma and so, I mean, I think whenever there was another instance of us being together and then eventually Kiersten was like two years ahead of me in college, and so when she graduated she moved to DC and then two years later she was headed to do Peace Corps. And so since she was leaving her group house, I was just

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 15 of 63

graduating and took her place in her group house, and so, you know, I was like-

Interviewer: 00:32:26 She was a gateway.

Ebony Dumas: 00:32:27 She was a gateway [inaudible 00:32:28].

Interviewer: 00:32:27 Your mom knew, your mom knew.

Ebony Dumas: 00:32:27 She did. She said it, if you hang around them.

Interviewer: 00:32:32 Right, wow.

Ebony Dumas: 00:32:34 That's what it was, mom.

Interviewer: 00:32:37 Yeah. So did you ever have a coming out conversation with your parents?

Ebony Dumas: 00:32:42 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so my dad, I knew he had gay friends, so there's at least one guy, Eugene, who was really close to him and was a part of his group of guy friends and will come over to the house and even in church, in a lot of churches that I grew up in and around, it was very common for there to be a more effeminate man and it to be maybe assumed that he was gay, and then we just don't talk about it. And so as long as he didn't bring a partner or boyfriend or if he did, they would sit-

Interviewer: 00:33:23 Roommates.

Ebony Dumas: 00:33:24 ... not too close. Yeah, they were roommates, they were buddies. And so-

Interviewer: 00:33:29 Don't ask, don't tell.

Ebony Dumas: 00:33:30 Yeah, pretty much that was pretty heavy. I mean, these also folks who thought Luther Vandross was a ladies man and really into other women so it's very selective and-

Interviewer: 00:33:49 Right, right. Believe what they want to believe.

Ebony Dumas: 00:33:49 What you believe, yeah. And so I guess I had decided to tell them during a trip home over the winter holidays, but I had finished college and I had found a job and I was able to pay my rent and utilities and eat, and so I wanted to make sure that I could do those things before telling them just in case. Not that they were supporting my finances at the time, but they would help if I needed something. And so I was on my way out from the house to meet up with a gay cousin in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 16 of 63

he was at the gay bar, it's called Renegade or Ramrod or something like that, Titan, I don't know, one of those gay names, and my dad, he asked like, "Oh, where are you going?" And I said, "I'm going to meet up with [inaudible 00:34:45] Junior, gay club," and he was like, "Oh yeah, they sure do like to dance. I've been to one of those."

Interviewer: 00:34:52 Okay, dad.

Ebony Dumas: 00:34:53 I was like, "Oh, okay." He was like, "Have fun, be safe, dah dah dah," and then I leave the kitchen and go out to the living room where my mom is, and she's overhearing this.

Ebony Dumas: 00:35:03 She asked me to repeat where I said it was going, and asked, why do I hang out with “those people,” and not regular people, like the party that my sister went to the night before. I was like, "Mom, somebody got shot at that party.

Interviewer: 00:35:23 Regular people.

Ebony Dumas: 00:35:23 I don't think that's “regular.” I'm not going to accept that as regular. Then, it devolved for a while. We had a bit of a tough relationship for about three or four years. Before she passed, in 2012, we had definitely got a good relationship back.

Interviewer: 00:35:44 You moved to DC, into Kirsten's house.

Ebony Dumas: 00:35:49 Yes.

Interviewer: 00:35:51 Why DC?

Ebony Dumas: 00:35:56 DC was close. It was familiar. I had been here a couple of times. I came for LegCon. I had also come for this conference. I'm blanking, I forget the name, but I think it was maybe called GenderPAC? I don't know if you remember that.

Interviewer: 00:36:14 Yes, that was an organization called GenderPAC, that did trans stuff, or something. Gay, trans stuff.

Ebony Dumas: 00:36:16 Gay, gender, trans stuff, yeah. I remember going to that conference. I think I had also started to perform in drag at that time. During the GenderPAC conferences, there was always there was always the great big drag king show, that was at The 930 Club. At that show, I just really started to hone my gender performance. I was performing in drag and PITTsburgh, and I really liked DC. I also went to a big nightclub and I was blown away by, and it's no longer here, RIP.

Interviewer: 00:37:12 Which one was it?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 17 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:37:13 Nation.

Interviewer: 00:37:15 I remember that.

Ebony Dumas: 00:37:17 There was definitely a cage that I danced in, baby Ebony.

Interviewer: 00:37:22 Coming out of your shell, dancing in a cage. You from being shy around people you don't know, to dancing in a cage. That's an arc right there.

Ebony Dumas: 00:37:30 I think it was ... Well, I don't know if anyone else had this experience, but going to conferences in college, where you just drink a bunch of cheap liquor in the hotel room before you go out, because you can't drink at the club. I'm sure that was going on. What was your drag persona? Natty Boom.

Interviewer: 00:37:52 Natty Boom. That became your DJ persona. When did you start doing drag?

Ebony Dumas: 00:37:58 That was definitely junior year in college. At that point I was still like figuring out my sexuality, and my gender presentation, and drag seemed to be a really fun way to just play with the masculine side of what I'm maybe thinking about.

Interviewer: 00:38:17 Do you remember your first number? What song you did?

Ebony Dumas: 00:38:23 It was a Hey Ya, by Andre 3000, Outkast. I always wanted to do something big and theatrical. I had a fake guitar player, a fake background singer, a keyboardist. We had dance moves. I won Mr. Pittsburgh.

Interviewer: 00:38:46 Wow, with your first number?

Ebony Dumas: 00:38:48 My first one for the Gay Student Alliance drag night. Then, my second one, I redid that, and revamped it.

Interviewer: 00:38:57 Got better.

Ebony Dumas: 00:38:57 That's when I won 2004 Mr. PITTsburgh.

Interviewer: 00:39:02 Wow, look at that. Is that your only title? Do you have any other ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:39:07 Oh, man.

Interviewer: 00:39:09 You wear a crown somewhere, sash?

Ebony Dumas: 00:39:12 No, just trophies. I do keep my trophies, from freakin' T-ball, basketball in 5th grade.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 18 of 63

Interviewer: 00:39:23 Shot put.

Ebony Dumas: 00:39:23 Yeah. I might have a shot put trophy.

Interviewer: 00:39:25 That was beautiful. You performed when you moved to DC, with the DC Kings?

Ebony Dumas: 00:39:30 Yeah, DC Kings. That was a large part of my decision to move to DC, as well, because I really liked that troupe. I had seen them at The 930 Club a couple of times, for the conference, and also with the PITTsburgh Drag King Troupe. We traveled to the now- defunct International Drag King Extravaganza, IDKE. I was starting to be more on the drag king circuit. I knew I wanted to continue to perform, and DC had the troupe that I wanted to join.

Interviewer: 00:40:03 You moved here in 2005?

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:05 Mm-hmm (affirmative), yep. September 2005.

Interviewer: 00:40:08 What was the job that you moved for?

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:11 I didn't have a job.

Interviewer: 00:40:12 You didn't? [crosstalk 00:40:13].

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:13 I eventually found one, fortunately.

Interviewer: 00:40:16 You said when you went to see your parents, you said you already had a job. That was a little bit later, after you'd graduated.

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:22 Yeah. I guess that had to be December of 2005.

Interviewer: 00:40:27 Drag King, you can make a little bit of money. Were you able to ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:30 Mm-mm (negative).

Interviewer: 00:40:32 No? Not that kind of money.

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:33 You would get, like, $25 plus tips, and that was for a really long time.

Interviewer: 00:40:41 Enough to buy your drinks for the night.

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:44 Maybe get you home.

Interviewer: 00:40:46 Got it. What did you think of DC when you first got here?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 19 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:40:50 I was really excited to meet these people I had seen on stage. I was excited see really just gay spaces. I wasn't plugged into that in Oklahoma. I wasn't out to myself, or even thinking about that really. Then, in Pittsburgh that was the Gay Center of Pittsburgh, or something like that. It didn't really leave me with a lot of, "I feel affiliated with this." It was a lot of White folks. Then, there was the Gay Student Alliance in college, but it was also pretty White as well. In DC, I was really looking forward to being in gay spaces that were not majority White. I also felt really uncool. I didn't really have a place to be, or call my own, or be familiar with. I definitely remember picking up the free weeklies, and finding all of the really cheap happy hours, or the free things to go to. One of them was at The Black Cat, where it was the First Ladies DJ Collective, who eventually became some DJ mentor mentors for us, in Anthology of Booty. At that point, I was just like, "I am terrified. They must be so cool. I can't even go to that party."

Interviewer: 00:42:29 Look at you now.

Ebony Dumas: 00:42:33 Right. I am a lady DJ.

Interviewer: 00:42:34 Right, and a very cool one. I feel like your reputation in DC, a lot of people know you, and you're part of these very cool spaces. It's funny to think about you as a 21 year old, like, "I don't have friends." Obviously, we all do that, but where was your group house?

Ebony Dumas: 00:42:54 920 P Street Northwest.

Interviewer: 00:42:57 What neighborhood would that be?

Ebony Dumas: 00:42:57 Shaw.

Interviewer: 00:42:58 Shaw?

Ebony Dumas: 00:42:59 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:43:00 Very different Shaw than the Shaw we know now, I imagine.

Ebony Dumas: 00:43:02 Mm-hmm (affirmative). There was this gay, White dude couple that lived next door. I'm pretty sure they owned, they're still there. One's name is Ken, and the other's name was Bobby. We used to call them Ken and Barbie.

Interviewer: 00:43:17 Were you right near Be Bar?

Ebony Dumas: 00:43:19 Yeah.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 20 of 63

Interviewer: 00:43:19 Did you live there when that Wednesday night thing was happening at Be Bar? That was later on, right?

Ebony Dumas: 00:43:24 That was a little bit later on. My time at 9th and P was, like, two and a half, three years. Then, I moved to 1st and O Street northwest, 52 O Street, the art studios there.

Interviewer: 00:43:38 Art studios. You moved there pretty early on.

Ebony Dumas: 00:43:40 Yeah. I want to say 2008 or so.

Interviewer: 00:43:45 What would end up being your first job in DC?

Ebony Dumas: 00:43:48 Barista as the 14th Street Whole Foods, when there was a coffee by there.

Interviewer: 00:43:56 Early on, when it had opened recently?

Ebony Dumas: 00:43:59 I think so. I remember it was formerly a Jamba Juice. Can you imagine that? When Whole Foods didn't-

Interviewer: 00:44:12 It was a Jamba Juice.

Ebony Dumas: 00:44:12 Didn't own everything that was inside of its building.

Interviewer: 00:44:15 I know.

Ebony Dumas: 00:44:15 It was a Jamba Juice. That was before my time there. Then, when I started working there, I went to interview, they had just started being a coffee bar for a few months. Then, that interview was also one of the first times I decided to leave the house in more masculine clothing. I remember having this intense back and forth. Like, "Should I do it? I don't think so. Yes." Then finally, I decided, "Yes. Let's go ahead and do it, because then, I just get it out the way. I don't have to tell anybody anything." They get it, they see it.

Interviewer: 00:44:55 Did you feel like that was coming out, sort of, by dressing that way? Or, it was more about a gender piece that wasn't about your sexuality?

Ebony Dumas: 00:45:07 I think it was definitely a coming out. I'm in this city that I hear is very gay-friendly. What does that mean? My last year or so in Pittsburgh, I was still ... While was a tomboy, I was still conformed to more so feminine gender presentation. I was still trying to be comfortable with, "Why do I like this button down shirt?" Being in DC, it was like, "Okay, I think I want to explore this a little bit more, as a part of coming out, but also, I think

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 21 of 63

this might be something to do with my gender presentation, and not just, "Hey, I'm gay."

Interviewer: 00:45:57 Got it. How long did you work there?

Ebony Dumas: 00:46:02 Until they tried to promote me. I was like, "Oh, no. I'm not getting stuck here."

Interviewer: 00:46:06 You'd end up being in Whole Foods Corporate by now?

Ebony Dumas: 00:46:10 Which probably wouldn't be ...

Interviewer: 00:46:12 You could make some good money.

Ebony Dumas: 00:46:13 a bad gig. I think I was probably eight or nine months or so. Then, I moved a few more blocks up the street, and started working as a bank teller at SunTrust, on DuPont Circle.

Interviewer: 00:46:27 What did you study at PITT?

Ebony Dumas: 00:46:28 Not bank telling.

Interviewer: 00:46:31 Not barista and bank teller. Yeah, not usually.

Ebony Dumas: 00:46:35 I did Africana studies, and I did a women's studies certificate. My concentration in Africana studies was sociology, if I remember correctly.

Interviewer: 00:46:49 Do you remember how long it took you to feel a little more confident about where you fit in, and your people in DC?

Ebony Dumas: 00:46:56 Yeah. After that interview, I was like, "You know what? I'm just a few blocks down from DuPont Circle. There's the gay bookstore there." I kept walking down the street, and went to Lambda Rising. One of the Black drag kings that was in the DC Kings was working there. I was fangirling a little bit, and then introduced myself. Soon after that, we became really good friends. That's the person who actually introduced me to most of the people in Anthology of Booty.

Interviewer: 00:47:30 Wow. Did you join the Kings officially?

Ebony Dumas: 00:47:34 Yeah. I think the process was you perform ... They had multiple shows at that time. I want to say it was definitely a weekly Wednesdays at Chaos. Then, there was Sunday nights at Phase. I think that was maybe once a month, not weekly. You had to do a Phase show before you could get on the big stage, with the big lights.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 22 of 63

Interviewer: 00:48:02 The big stage was Chaos?

Ebony Dumas: 00:48:05 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:48:06 It's like, there's wasn't actually a stage. It was just ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:48:08 There might've been a little step up.

Interviewer: 00:48:11 A little riser? I feel like it was in the middle of the dance floor. I think I only went there once.

Ebony Dumas: 00:48:17 I remember, we had a dressing room in the back. When you came form the back, there was dance floor, and then another wall. I feel like there was at least a little bit of a stage against that other wall.

Interviewer: 00:48:34 Got it. How long were you involved with The Kings?

Ebony Dumas: 00:48:39 When I moved here in 2005, and I'd say my last performance with them was probably around 2013-ish, 2012.

Interviewer: 00:48:53 It was a good run.

Ebony Dumas: 00:48:55 No, not that long. I couldn't stand Ken Vegas that long.

Interviewer: 00:48:59 I was like, there's a lot of politics there.

Ebony Dumas: 00:49:01 Yeah, lots of politics.

Interviewer: 00:49:02 There was a split at one point, between the Phase crew, with Ricky? Was that his name? There was King that was Black and older, and he led the Phase show. Then, Ken was doing the other stuff.

Ebony Dumas: 00:49:18 I definitely know who you talking about.

Interviewer: 00:49:18 I don't think it's Ricky.

Ebony Dumas: 00:49:18 It is not ...

Interviewer: 00:49:23 I can picture him.

Ebony Dumas: 00:49:24 Yeah, exactly. Same.

Interviewer: 00:49:26 You left because of the politics and the personalities?

Ebony Dumas: 00:49:31 Yeah. There wasn't the space to grow how I wanted to grow, within those smaller spaces and structures. The person that worked at Lambda Rising, Kwid, let me give this person a name now.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 23 of 63

Interviewer: 00:49:53 Yeah, Kwid.

Ebony Dumas: 00:49:54 They're entering the story. Kwid and I became really good friends, and we started to do additional shows, outside of the DC Kings shows. That became embracing more queer, gender bending, and fluidity, not so much strictly masculine presenting.

Interviewer: 00:50:20 Got. When's the last time you did drag?

Ebony Dumas: 00:50:23 About five years ago. It's generally, for the years around then, when I would do drag ... It's, what, 2019 now? It had to be, like, 2014. It's before I met my wife, so she's always like, "I hear you're this big drag king, but I never seen it."

Interviewer: 00:50:48 There's no videos on Facebook anywhere?

Ebony Dumas: 00:50:51 Not really videos, because videos weren't really ...

Interviewer: 00:50:53 Right. People didn't have smartphones.

Ebony Dumas: 00:50:55 Easily accessible then. Cheryl Specter, who recorded all of our performances, she had a ton of videos. I hear they're being digitized somewhere.

Interviewer: 00:51:07 That would be cool.

Ebony Dumas: 00:51:08 Yeah, whoa. I should find those records and check it out.

Interviewer: 00:51:14 Kwid introduced you to Anthology of Booty folks.

Ebony Dumas: 00:51:17 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 00:51:18 How did that happen? That collective didn't exist, but the people in it, how did that happen?

Ebony Dumas: 00:51:24 The first meeting I remember is when Kwid and I were doing a fundraiser for a performance that were were putting together. This performance involved a lot of lame, bodysuits, and roller skates, and practice faces. ECAC, the Emergence Community Art Center, that's where we would have a lot of our practices for these bigger shows. We did a fundraiser, and I was DJing the fundraiser. I had maybe had literally two or three gigs before then. I was DJing this fundraiser at Fab Lounge.

Interviewer: 00:52:09 RIP.

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:12 RIP again.

Interviewer: 00:52:13 All of these space.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 24 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:14 The changing landscape of Washington DC.

Interviewer: 00:52:17 Right. Literally, everywhere we've named no longer exists. All the bars we we've talked about.

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:22 Yeah. B-Bar, Chaos, Nation.

Interviewer: 00:52:26 Phase.

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:26 Phase, dang.

Interviewer: 00:52:28 Fab Lounge.

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:29 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:52:30 ECAC is still there.

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:32 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:52:33 It's not a bar, but ...

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:33 ECAC is still there.

Interviewer: 00:52:35 Wait, let's back up then. When was your first time DJing?

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:38 My first time DJing was at my house. I had started-

Interviewer: 00:52:44 At O Street?

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:45 No, I'm sorry, on P Street.

Interviewer: 00:52:47 [inaudible 00:52:47].

Ebony Dumas: 00:52:48 920 P Street. This part was a fundraiser for Girls Rock DC. At that point, I had started to become an organizer with Girls Rock, and had met Megan Wood, who was also one of the First Lady DJ Collective folks, that I thought was too cool for me to go to that party.

Interviewer: 00:53:13 Look at you now.

Ebony Dumas: 00:53:16 Mm-hmm (affirmative). She was also one of the organizers. I expressed interest in DJing. She was like, "Yeah, come by the house. I'll bring out the turntables." She taught me the mechanics of the equipment, what it meant to count beats, and to mix on a mixer.

Interviewer: 00:53:36 Was it very digital then?

Ebony Dumas: 00:53:38 No.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 25 of 63

Interviewer: 00:53:38 Were you actually using records?

Ebony Dumas: 00:53:41 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 00:53:42 Wow.

Ebony Dumas: 00:53:43 Actually using records. I didn't have a record collection at that point. She had a huge one, so she picked out certain sounds. We listened to them, we learned how to count them. Then, she introduced me to putting them on the turntables, and going back and forth with the cross fader. That was a very quick lesson.

Interviewer: 00:54:09 In preparation for the fundraiser?

Ebony Dumas: 00:54:10 Mm-hmm (affirmative). In preparation for the fundraiser. It was an amazing party. You can get a punk rock haircut in the back, in my kitchen. People thought that was a great idea.

Interviewer: 00:54:26 Of course. [inaudible 00:54:27].

Ebony Dumas: 00:54:28 Then, there were some Anthology of Booty people who were also DJing. This was during the time where, I don't know, nobody who DJ'd on the house party scene was really DJing out and about a lot. People had side projects, and DJ'd a little bit. I don't remember who all DJ'd, but it became 2am, and it's like, "All right, Ebony. You said you want to do it. Are you going to do it?" Then, I was just like, "oh, no. I'll just get drunk and hang out in my room with a bunch of people." Then, I don't remember who it was, but somebody said, "No. You really need to do that. Just do it. It's 2:00. There's not a lot of people here." I did it.

Interviewer: 00:55:18 Were you nervous? Is that why you were like, "Eh ..."

Ebony Dumas: 00:55:22 Yeah. I was really nervous. I wasn't really sure how the music selection was going to work. Of course, at that time, everybody else sounded like a much better DJ than I thought I would ever be. I was intimidated. I remember one song that I played, where I was just like, "Yeah!"

Interviewer: 00:55:44 What song was that?

Ebony Dumas: 00:55:45 Rock Lobster.

Interviewer: 00:55:47 You had the feeling, because people were into it, and you saw people enjoying it?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 26 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 00:55:51 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Saw people enjoying. I was also in my drag king mode of instructing and moving the crowd to go down, down, down! That was my first time.

Interviewer: 00:56:09 Was it like, "I'm hooked on this."? What was the feeling of doing it that first time? How did it feel?

Ebony Dumas: 00:56:17 Yeah, but it wasn't like riding a bike. Like, "Oh, I did it. I want to ride a bike again, and I can do it just by picking up a bike and going to do it again." I didn't really know how to do it again. I didn't want to have another big party at my house, and that be the only way to do it.

Interviewer: 00:56:38 Cleaning hair off your kitchen floor.

Ebony Dumas: 00:56:43 Yeah, for weeks and weeks.

Interviewer: 00:56:45 It wasn't a question of interest, it was a question of you didn't know how you were going to be able to do it again?

Ebony Dumas: 00:56:49 Mm-hmm (affirmative). I don't remember if the next time was at the fab Lounge, or if there was maybe one other time in there. I think I did meet some folks in Anthology of Booty that night, but it was very brief.

Interviewer: 00:57:11 At your party?

Ebony Dumas: 00:57:11 Yeah, at my party. Then, I think maybe they had a house party a couple of weeks later, and it was like, "Do you want to play again?" I was like, "Absolutely."

Interviewer: 00:57:24 "They", being Girls Rock DC?

Ebony Dumas: 00:57:25 I'm sorry, the Anthology of Booty people who, at that point, where not Anthology of Booty.

Interviewer: 00:57:33 Just the individual folks that then became involved. They had a party, just as friends throwing a party?

Ebony Dumas: 00:57:39 Well, they were working with Radio CPR.

Interviewer: 00:57:44 It was a Radio CPR party?

Ebony Dumas: 00:57:46 It was a Radio CPR fundraiser. They did a lot of those at Kristen's house, and also at Darby and Selena's house. One of them was hosting a party soon after that, and the group invited me to play for a little bit, and I did. I think that was probably my third time. The small window in between, now i'm trying to remember all of my early sets.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 27 of 63

Interviewer: 00:58:15 This was, what, 2007? What year do you think we're talking about?

Ebony Dumas: 00:58:22 I want to say yeah, 2007. Probably late 2007.

Interviewer: 00:58:27 Do you remember what it was that made you want to DJ? Why you were like, "I want to try that."

Ebony Dumas: 00:58:36 I think it had to do with being around a lot of the organizers in Girls Rock DC. A lot of them were musicians, and so wanting to continue to be involved in that space. I didn't really feel like, "I want to like learn the bass, start a band, be in a band, and play the bass." Although, the bass is really cool. Eventually, one day, I do want to learn the bass. I think it was like being around other musicians, and feeling like this was a way that I could like bring a lot of performance element to it. It felt good.

Interviewer: 00:59:25 Do you want to say what Girls Rock DC is, for folks who might not know?

Ebony Dumas: 00:59:30 Sure. Girls Rock DC is a nonprofit organization. The DC chapter was started in 2007, and we had our first camp in 2008. Essentially it's a music education organization that works with girls, and non-binary folks, ages 8 to 18. The main program is a one-week day camp that happens every summer. Then, there's supplemental, year-round programming that happens, whether at a library, or after school programming. That's Girls Rock DC.

Interviewer: 01:00:14 The girls, when they're in camp, or the kids can choose, to learn to be a DJ.

Ebony Dumas: 01:00:20 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 01:00:20 Was that part of it, at the beginning? Or, did that come along later?

Ebony Dumas: 01:00:24 Yeah, that was also part of the beginning. Megan Wood was one of the folks that felt that it was really important to have that option. I think not only being around musicians, but also seeing where there was space to step in, help, and learn, was also part of me wanting to be a DJ.

Interviewer: 01:00:47 You kept building your skills just by doing it? Or, did you get more mentoring and education around how to DJ?

Ebony Dumas: 01:00:58 I honed my skills by doing it, but the equipment is really expensive. It's cost-prohibitive, especially if you're just starting out, and not sure ... IF I could've seen even three years in the future, and realized that it was going to be a pretty large part of

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 28 of 63

my income, then I maybe could've made a different choice. I didn't know that at the time. How I got a lot more practice, was having a radio show. I had a lot of these choice, chance encounters with the other folks in Anthology of Booty before we fully became friends, before we became Anthology of Booty. Part of that, beginning more of a working relationship together, at least three of them were managing the station at that time. They invited me to do a show there. I was like-

Interviewer: 01:02:07 At Radio CPR?

Ebony Dumas: 01:02:07 At Radio CPR.

Interviewer: 01:02:08 Which is lo-fi radio?

Ebony Dumas: 01:02:11 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Lo-fi FM. I want to say even back then, and maybe a little bit before then, it started in, I want to say, the early 90s, or sometime in the 90s, by Natalie Avery, Amanda, and this woman, Athena, who I don't know very well. The three of them started. Anyway, here we are, in early 2000s, or the late 2000s. I think Darby, Kristy, and Selina were definitely managing the station, different parts of it. I want to say Natasha was managing part of it, as well. After we had these choice encounters, a couple of house parties, they suggested I do a show. I was like, "No, no. That seems like a lot of big stuff that I'm not too familiar with. Seems a little overwhelming." They were like, "No, it would be a really great way for you to practice DJing. That way, you're not having to buy the equipment. It's already there. You have a set time to practice." I did that for about a year and a half, maybe two years. My show was called Doing It In The Park.

Interviewer: 01:03:27 Why was it called that? You weren't DJing in the park.

Ebony Dumas: 01:03:32 I was not DJing in the park, I was DJing in the studio. It was called Doing It In The Park, it's the chorus of this Blackbird song about Rock Creek Park. (singing)

Interviewer: 01:03:54 DC, wow. Very cool. How long were you doing that radio show?

Ebony Dumas: 01:03:58 I think it was close to two years, like a year and a half, two years. That's when I got to know the folks in Anthology of Booty more. As I mentioned, having a more working relationship. That's where Anthology of Booty was formed.

Interviewer: 01:04:26 Were you still working at SunTrust during all this time?

Ebony Dumas: 01:04:35 No. I was not working at SunTrust at this time. I was working at the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 29 of 63

Interviewer: 01:04:40 What were you doing for them?

Ebony Dumas: 01:04:41 I was the Development Assistant, I believe. It was a tough environment. I think it there about eight or nine months, and then just needed to step out. Then, that's where performing and DJing became a lot more central to my income.

Interviewer: 01:05:07 Was it how you lived?

Ebony Dumas: 01:05:09 Mostly. Like, odd jobs, social media stuff maybe. Then, I also started working at The 930 Club, and was able to probably work there three or four nights a week. Then, DJ a few times a month. I had my radio show. Those were me piecing together a lot of different incomes.

Interviewer: 01:05:34 Tell me about how Anthology of Booty came together. You were talking about these house parties that you were all DJing at, and you started to get to know them, and the radio show. You became friends first, before the collective was born? Or, was it the same ...

Ebony Dumas: 01:05:50 Definitely friends first. I think one time, I remember us all together, we made a trip to Baltimore to visit some friends of ours who were also a part of their previous collective. When I say "previous collective", I think it was way more loose than Anthology of Booty. They were a group of friends who came together and did a dance at this dance competition.

Interviewer: 01:06:20 Who was involved in that?

Ebony Dumas: 01:06:23 It was everybody else. Natasha, Darby, Selina, Kristy, and then Ryan. He was the other person. That's the distinction, that you'll probably learn a lot more about, between the DC Hot Commodities-

Interviewer: 01:06:38 That was their group?

Ebony Dumas: 01:06:40 That was their group. Then-

Interviewer: 01:06:41 It was a dance troupe? Have to ask about this.

Ebony Dumas: 01:06:45 Yeah. I would say definitely check in with them about some official details.

Interviewer: 01:06:49 Interesting.

Ebony Dumas: 01:06:50 They were on a trip somewhere, and there was a party where there was a dance competition that happened. They had to

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 30 of 63

represent DC, so they called themselves the DC Hot Commodities.

Interviewer: 01:07:02 Hot Commodities.

Ebony Dumas: 01:07:02 I think there are even airbrushed t-shirts with that.

Interviewer: 01:07:07 Beautiful. That makes sense. They were part of this loose collective, but then, you started to become friends with them.

Ebony Dumas: 01:07:13 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 01:07:15 Then, what were the steps toward becoming a DJ collective?

Ebony Dumas: 01:07:20 Right. We were visiting in Baltimore, and this was one of the first times we had made a trip together. I remember the next morning, just sitting around a table, having brunch at a friend's house, and starting to share a lot more about music, in the way that eventually started to ... What formed and solidified our relationship was sharing music. That was a really beautiful time, where I was able to talk about my experience growing up in church, and how some of the similarities between music I grew up in, in church and gospel, and with even Baltimore club music, or go-go, and other genres that I was playing at the time, with call and response. Or, just the syncopation. Then, people were sharing about different musical styles that were from their cultures and backgrounds.

Ebony Dumas: 01:08:25 That was one of the first times I was like, "Whoa. I think this is a good thing. This is getting to be something bigger." That was a nice experience. Then, I had a show, my show on Radio CPR, was right before Christie and Natasha's show. Their show was called Late Night Confessions, and mine was Doing It In The Park. We had a hour overlap this one time, and decided to talk about some late night confessions, but also our biography of dance, our autobiography of the dance floor, of the anatomy of the song. Then, oh wait, anthology of booty. It was one of those word plays that were were throwing back and forth, that I believe result in Anthology of Booty. Other people might have a different story.

Interviewer: 01:09:24 All right.

Ebony Dumas: 01:09:24 Or, a different recollection.

Interviewer: 01:09:26 I'll make sure to ask. Was there an official moment when folks said, "Hey, let's be ..." Was it like, "Let's [inaudible 01:09:36] party together."? What was the impetus to become something more than just a group of friends?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 31 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 01:09:43 Our houses had taken a beating. There was, at one point, I remember at Darby and Selina's house, where it was people lined down the block, trying to get into this fundraiser house party for Radio CPR.

Ebony Dumas: 01:10:03 And at that point it's 2008. The neighbors were cool. They had been there for a really long time. It was before the Target was there.

Interviewer: 01:10:15 I think it opened in 2008, didn't it? Some of that development?

Ebony Dumas: 01:10:20 Some of it. Okay. Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:10:21 Yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 01:10:22 That sounds right.

Interviewer: 01:10:22 But not as much as what's there now.

Ebony Dumas: 01:10:24 And then used to be a laundromat over there. So with that, that wasn't the only time stuff like that was happening where the floor was bouncing a little bit more than it should have, not that they should ever really be bouncing.

Interviewer: 01:10:40 Right, but you're not, there's no security at the door counting people. Right.

Interviewer: 01:10:47 [inaudible 01:10:47] lounge the floor used to bounce to, and I was always like we're going to fall on the strip club below us.

Ebony Dumas: 01:10:53 That would be something.

Interviewer: 01:10:54 Above a strip club. But yeah. So it started to feel unmanageable at their house?

Ebony Dumas: 01:10:59 Started to feel unmanageable like, but we still wanted to do it. We still want it to bring these different communities of people together. We still wanted to work together. And I happened to be, that was when I was still working at the 930 Club pretty regularly. And I heard word that Lisa White, the Booker, was starting to do some booking downstairs for the Back Bar.

Interviewer: 01:11:27 Back Bar. Right.

Ebony Dumas: 01:11:30 And it was also really terrifying too because I had also heard of a coworker being fired because he slipped her his band CD one day randomly. And so I was "I'm not this dude with the swing band trying to get booked at the 930 Club. But I also don't really want to lose my job. And so should I do it?"

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 32 of 63

Interviewer: 01:11:54 What were you doing for the 930 club at that time?

Ebony Dumas: 01:11:56 Security.

Interviewer: 01:11:56 Security.

Ebony Dumas: 01:11:58 Yeah. So I started off working in door staff/security and then I'd started working a little bit in the financial office, and eventually I started to do merch as well, which is something I still do every once in a while at the 930 Club.

Ebony Dumas: 01:12:14 So I think I spoke to Jean Homza, who was the bar manager at the 930 Club. And old, cantankerous dyke.

Interviewer: 01:12:26 Sounds right.

Ebony Dumas: 01:12:28 Often at the phase and pretty much in that scene. And so I think I talked to her about this idea and she was like, "No, that's actually what Lisa needs to hear. She needs hear what you're saying about bringing different communities together and what you all are doing is cool."

Ebony Dumas: 01:12:46 But I think she gave me some encouragement but also like, okay, here's how you kind of frame it.

Interviewer: 01:12:52 Frame it. How queer was the 930 club at that time? What was the space like?

Ebony Dumas: 01:13:05 Well, the 930 club was definitely a collection of weirdos, and so I personally never felt like the odd person out. I will say like there weren't, there definitely were not a lot of out gay people working there when I was working there. When I started working there in the first five years or so, because I remember it being like a big kind of deal, a topic of conversation when one of my coworkers was coming out, as well.

Ebony Dumas: 01:13:43 And not necessarily in a negative way, it was just like, "Oh, did you hear such and such doing such and such." Now I started picking up a couple of shifts there and I go back to see a show and I'm half the damn staff.

Interviewer: 01:14:03 Gay?

Ebony Dumas: 01:14:03 It has to be something.

Ebony Dumas: 01:14:06 So I think you know that change is interesting and I do kind of wonder where that's coming from. But yeah, Jean was very visibly out and in a position of power there. And other than that, I guess there's not a lot.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 33 of 63

Interviewer: 01:14:26 And what was Jean's advice about framing it to Lisa?

Ebony Dumas: 01:14:30 I don't remember. I'm not really sure. I think it was probably something like "Keep it short and think about, probably talk about numbers."

Interviewer: 01:14:43 Like how many people you can bring? Got it. And had there been queer party and 930 club is a concert space, but they were hosting drag shows and things. So there had been like queer centered events there. So that wasn't like a new thing.

Ebony Dumas: 01:14:58 Yeah. And for years the Mr. Mid Atlantic Leather would have their main showcase pageant at 930 club. Yeah. And what's his name? Bob Mould. He was big in the gay scene and he had a band, I forgot the name of the band, but it was maybe it was Husker Du, and so he was big and kind of underground punk music scene.

Ebony Dumas: 01:15:29 And he starts doing this party there called Blow, I want to say? It sounds about right. So that was like a big party upstairs, like a Man Meat Monday.

Interviewer: 01:15:41 Okay.

Ebony Dumas: 01:15:41 Shirts off.

Interviewer: 01:15:42 Main space?

Ebony Dumas: 01:15:42 Yeah. But it actually started in the basement. And so there had been a history of other queer centered events there.

Interviewer: 01:15:52 So you were saying, Anthology of Booty, you were done hosting in people's houses because it was just too much to manage the capacity.

Ebony Dumas: 01:16:00 And when, since we also have to do the bar and you have to do security, we had to clean up the next day, we had to do all the outreach to our neighbors. Going and.

Interviewer: 01:16:12 Let them know.

Ebony Dumas: 01:16:12 Let them know this is about to happen.

Interviewer: 01:16:14 And were you charging at those parties?

Ebony Dumas: 01:16:16 Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:16:17 It was because it was a fundraiser.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 34 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 01:16:18 Donations.

Interviewer: 01:16:19 And donations. Got it.So and then you hear about this opportunity at Back Bar. So is that the moment where you guys start to think about yourselves as more of a collective in order to pitch to Lisa, or just becoming more [crosstalk 01:16:35]

Ebony Dumas: 01:16:34 I think so. To pitch to Lisa was also on the table, because we wanted to have a name to call ourselves. So we also wanted to there should be like a name for the party as well. And so I imagined Anthology of Booty was something that came out of my mouth talking to her.

Interviewer: 01:16:56 Right. Do you remember having a first meeting as a group?

Ebony Dumas: 01:17:02 I vaguely remember it. And I guess that's another thing where I think you'll get some varying accounts of it, but I think I recently heard Christie talk about it being at her house at the machine was on Gerard street, and had like a big dining room table. Bringing together of the minds.

Interviewer: 01:17:28 Yeah. And it was the five of you? Yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 01:17:30 Yep.

Interviewer: 01:17:32 So what was it like pitching to Lisa? How did that go?

Ebony Dumas: 01:17:33 I think I literally ran into her on the outside of the club, maybe while she was smoking one day and I was just kinda like, "Oh Hey, you know, Jean told me that you were doing some stuff in the Back Bar." And so a casual conversation. And then her suggesting "Let's follow up via email. And give me these pieces of information."

Interviewer: 01:18:07 Got it. And then it was like a yes?

Ebony Dumas: 01:18:12 Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:18:12 Yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 01:18:12 And it was like a yes. And we have an opening in August, let's try, she was saying opening in August, let's try for August, September, October and maybe November. Let's try three or four months, a monthly thing, see how it goes and then go from there.

Interviewer: 01:18:31 Right. So this is your first gig, Anthology of Booty? And when you were marketing the parties before at the house, were they,

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 35 of 63

was it flyers, trying to think about what the internet was like at the time. It was very different and open.

Ebony Dumas: 01:18:45 There were definitely flyers, a couple of video invites.

Interviewer: 01:18:55 Video invites. They would email people?

Ebony Dumas: 01:19:00 Email. That was a large thing that we were doing. And these long five paragraph emails that nobody would even dare read today, or even fix themselves to write to their name.

Interviewer: 01:19:15 You're right. I don't remember how I heard about your parties. And I can't remember because I definitely, I don't think I was at the house parties but I was at backdoor early on. But yeah, I can't remember. I mean Facebook was already a thing.

Ebony Dumas: 01:19:29 Facebook was a thing.

Interviewer: 01:19:30 I don't know if they had events.

Ebony Dumas: 01:19:31 I don't think so. Because there's been a number of times where we're trying to go back on Facebook to see like what we can gather and archive, and I haven't really found many events. I mean MySpace was a thing.

Interviewer: 01:19:48 Right?

Ebony Dumas: 01:19:49 But did they have events? So I really think it was us going out and stopping people, telling people, passing out flyers.

Interviewer: 01:19:58 There was texting then, but not as much because we have blackberries, that sort of the Blackberry era.

Ebony Dumas: 01:20:05 I did not have that.

Interviewer: 01:20:07 I had one for a little while.

Ebony Dumas: 01:20:08 I missed out on that trend.

Interviewer: 01:20:13 So was preparing for doing it at Back Bar really different than pulling together one of these house parties? How did that feel?

Ebony Dumas: 01:20:19 Well, it felt like a relief because we-

Interviewer: 01:20:23 Don't have to buy alcohol?

Ebony Dumas: 01:20:23 We didn't have to buy alcohol, didn't have to find people to volunteer or quote unquote volunteer, and like we'd give you free drinks for the night, and then didn't have to worry about

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 36 of 63

like safekeeping the money, and doing drops every hour and a half to make sure that wasn't $1,000 at the door.

Interviewer: 01:20:46 Where were you dropping the money?

Ebony Dumas: 01:20:48 It'd usually be upstairs in somebody's bedroom, in a shoe box.

Interviewer: 01:20:51 Oh wow. Real safe.

Ebony Dumas: 01:20:52 In the corner. Well, I mean if you didn't know where it was, you'd have to go through the whole house.

Interviewer: 01:21:01 A lot of trust involved in inviting the entire community into your home, right?

Ebony Dumas: 01:21:04 Literally, yeah. I mean, just imagine like fricking flyer with your home address on it all around the city.

Interviewer: 01:21:11 Because now people do those parties, but you can have a private Facebook event, there's ways to do it that are less...

Ebony Dumas: 01:21:18 True.

Interviewer: 01:21:18 Everybody show up at my house. Although I think there's a sense that the community feels like somewhat safe too, right? I don't know. Did it feel risky to you all to be like putting this house out? Inviting everyone to come? Did that feel... were there concerns on them?

Ebony Dumas: 01:21:35 I don't remember ever that being an issue.

Interviewer: 01:21:41 It's more of the logistical pieces of it?

Ebony Dumas: 01:21:44 Yeah, logistical. And I remember at one party, some coworkers threw an outbreak and coworkers through, I remember hearing about the door person being held up at the door. Somebody's walking by essentially saying, okay, this is a party where people are like digging into their wallets and giving their money.

Interviewer: 01:22:06 That's smart.

Ebony Dumas: 01:22:08 So then it was like, Oh right. I think that was the beginning of we need to do more regular drops to make sure there's not a lot of money out the door.

Interviewer: 01:22:14 Right. Got it. Did anything difficult ever happened on one of those house parties that you had to deal with?

Ebony Dumas: 01:22:26 I really don't think so.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 37 of 63

Interviewer: 01:22:27 No.

Ebony Dumas: 01:22:27 I can't think of anything.

Interviewer: 01:22:29 Not even like someone passes out and you have to call 911?

Ebony Dumas: 01:22:33 No, I mean I guess the worst would be somebody throwing up, and that would usually happen like you know, fortunately outside.

Interviewer: 01:22:40 And the cops were never called?

Ebony Dumas: 01:22:45 Cops were starting to be called later on. And so, you know, we were doing back door at the 930 Club and we would still every once in a while go back to our roots and do a party at the art studio where I was living, or and like warehouse where...

Interviewer: 01:23:04 Small space. Right?

Ebony Dumas: 01:23:05 I mean it was 2400 square feet.

Interviewer: 01:23:07 Your individual spot?

Ebony Dumas: 01:23:11 Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:23:12 Oh wow. Yeah. I went there and it didn't seem that big.

Ebony Dumas: 01:23:13 But there was way too much open space, and our bedrooms on the side were really pretty small.

Interviewer: 01:23:22 That's true, that's true.

Ebony Dumas: 01:23:24 But the big open space with high ceilings. And then we would do one off parties, and I think there were times where cops would get called and that would be really frustrating.

Ebony Dumas: 01:23:39 And you could see it start to happen more. 2011, 2012, 2013, and at that point, our neighbors had changed. And honestly I remember one time, we had, there was a warehouse behind the studios where I lived, and I knew the guy who, I'm not gonna say owned it because I don't think he really owned it, but he had the keys and he was allowed to do stuff in there.

Ebony Dumas: 01:24:14 He gave us the keys and he's like, "Yeah, like I love what y'all do. Have a party." And it was set up, the lighting was on point. We had water available for whoever needed it. It was kind of like, bring your own drink situation. The music was sounding great. We had got the right combination of speakers and subs, and then about 30 minutes into the party, it was just so many

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 38 of 63

people had like already started to come and there was just good energy around it and people were really excited about it.

Ebony Dumas: 01:24:49 And then the toilet stopped working.

Interviewer: 01:24:51 Oh, quick way to kill a party.

Ebony Dumas: 01:24:53 Oh yeah, there was a buzzkill and then-

Interviewer: 01:24:56 And you had to handle it?

Ebony Dumas: 01:24:58 Yeah, pretty much.

Interviewer: 01:24:59 Right.

Ebony Dumas: 01:25:00 And then there's like the dude also had keys to the garage next door, that had a toilet in there. And so I was like getting him to take people from the party to the garage next door to use the bathroom. And then of course there were some people who were just like, "I'm not going to. That's ridiculous. I'm gonna pee on the side of the building." And then the neighbors are seeing people pissing across their alley, and when people are, you know, continually coming in the party was about an hour and a half, but it was like one of the best parties that wish we could recreate.

Interviewer: 01:25:36 And that was Anthology of Booty?

Ebony Dumas: 01:25:37 That was Anthology of Booty. That party was called Booty Call.

Interviewer: 01:25:41 Okay. And was it a fundraiser at that point or at this point you're just doing it as a gig for y'alls?

Ebony Dumas: 01:25:46 Just doing it as a gig.

Interviewer: 01:25:48 Yeah. And was it a fee at the door? It was donation based?

Ebony Dumas: 01:25:51 So I think we had set it up... At that point we had gotten a little bit more savvy, and so we have wristbands and there was a donation at the door, and we had hired a couple of people that I have worked with at the 930 club to do the door. And so there was actual checking of IDs, people who check IDs, and marking people who are under age.

Interviewer: 01:26:20 Because you're worried about liability.

Ebony Dumas: 01:26:23 Yeah. And just having the visual of people doing that also kind of helps the crowd understand this is not just a free for all, where I can do anything. You can do anything but there's also

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 39 of 63

some community standards and community norms that we're going to adhere to.

Ebony Dumas: 01:26:45 Then the cops came once, and I was outside talking to them, and they were just "You know, let's just try turning it down."

Interviewer: 01:26:56 Like a noise issue usually?

Ebony Dumas: 01:26:59 They were framing it in a couple of different ways, because they were addressing the calls that were coming in, and so like at first the calls coming in were "It's really noisy." Right? So at that time we still had the bathroom situation somewhat, working within the first hour, 45 minutes or so.

Ebony Dumas: 01:27:20 And then later on the calls were coming in, the cops would come back and I'm just like, "You know, it's not just noise anymore. People are saying that there's people urinating in their yards." And I was like "At this point, I can't argue with you." There literally were people pissing in the alley.

Ebony Dumas: 01:27:42 And so I just kept talking to them to explain who I was. I lived in the area, how long I lived in the area, how much I have seen the area change. We had some camaraderie around then and how we have been doing this for a long time. We're not amateurs. We've never had any problems, and there's never been any fights or any issues between patrons.

Ebony Dumas: 01:28:10 I even went to the ANC meeting a couple of weeks before. I understand there are some other parties that go on in the area that are not as friendly but we're a friendly group and so essentially I knew the party was going to get shut down but I was just trying to delay and give us a little bit more time and it worked. So the party ended up being almost two hours.

Interviewer: 01:28:32 Wow. That's another skill. Detracting the police. So what year was-

Ebony Dumas: 01:28:40 Oh, and then they told me which house it was that actually was calling because they said it wasn't a bunch of people in the neighborhood.

Interviewer: 01:28:49 One house kept calling.

Ebony Dumas: 01:28:50 It was one house that was calling. And of course it was like a very newly renovated house that was doing the calling.

Interviewer: 01:28:56 Did you do anything about that?

Ebony Dumas: 01:28:58 No.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 40 of 63

Interviewer: 01:28:59 Yeah, it's hard to know what to do.

Ebony Dumas: 01:29:02 Yeah. Do I egg them?

Interviewer: 01:29:06 Or try to talk to them. Because Booty Call, it wasn't like the radio CPR parties where you'd go and talk to the neighbors and let them know ahead of time?

Ebony Dumas: 01:29:12 Because it wasn't as residential.

Interviewer: 01:29:16 Next door to you in an alley.

Ebony Dumas: 01:29:18 Yeah. In the alley, in a brick building. And so we thought that would hold the sound in more. But I think it started to... There were some windows at the top that were maybe busted out or something. And so sound would escape from there. I think it was bouncing off stuff.

Interviewer: 01:29:41 Did Booty Call only happen once?

Ebony Dumas: 01:29:43 I didn't want.

Interviewer: 01:29:44 Because you knew if you did it again, it would get shut down.

Ebony Dumas: 01:29:48 Well we didn't have access to that space anymore, and we were really frustrated with the bathroom situation because there was a long conversation that we had been having with this dude for months.

Interviewer: 01:29:59 Ahead of time?

Ebony Dumas: 01:30:00 Yeah. Oh, right. Because I think when we first started talking, he was saying like, "They don't have water in the building, and they run it from somebody else," and then like, okay.

Interviewer: 01:30:14 Situation going on.

Ebony Dumas: 01:30:15 Okay, that's cool. It won't be the worst.

Ebony Dumas: 01:30:20 And then it became a week before, maybe even less than a week before, he was like, "Oh man, y'all, I gotta tell you there's no water. DC water has shut it off. I don't know how they found out about us." And so we were like, "What do we do? Homie, we've invited a couple hundred people out and like people are coming no matter what we do." He was like, "Okay, let me fix it." He tried to fix it and it didn't.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 41 of 63

Interviewer: 01:30:49 So you weren't trying to go back there. Yeah. So what do you remember what the first party at Back Door was like? That very first? Because that was your first in a venue situation.

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:02 I remember...

Interviewer: 01:31:04 Back Bar, right? It's called the-

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:05 Oh yeah, yeah. The Back Bar party in the back bar of 930 Club. I remember feeling really anxious, not only because this was a party and are people going to come, which is still a feeling that I get pretty much every time.

Interviewer: 01:31:26 Really? Even now?

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:27 Yeah. I mean.

Interviewer: 01:31:28 Even when you sell out?

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:30 Well yeah, but I mean at that point, people could all come at 11 o'clock. And then nobody's there for the set of music three hours before then, and then the bar isn't making that much money, and so then bartenders might be a little bit cranky for next year.

Interviewer: 01:31:50 They get slammed.

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:50 Then they get slammed and then people are having a bad experience.

Interviewer: 01:31:52 They can't get a drink.

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:55 Because they can't get a drink for 30 minutes.

Ebony Dumas: 01:31:58 So, yeah, I was like anxious around people coming but also really anxious because I work there and those are my coworkers who I generally have a... we talk about club stuff. We don't really get into each other's lives.

Interviewer: 01:32:14 They're about to see your whole community.

Ebony Dumas: 01:32:16 Come in and act up. But I knew people were good with just having... So what happens if somebody is making out, and they like happened to be of the same sex. So these are all conversations that we had to have with venues and clubs before we really got, because once we got into the back , we knew immediately after like two or three months this isn't going to be sustainable because it's such a small space.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 42 of 63

Interviewer: 01:32:57 Too small.

Ebony Dumas: 01:32:57 Way too small. And so then we're like, well, we're still having the party, we're still looking for other places to have the party. And we know coming out with the 930 club that, while there it was kind of taken. I had personal experience working with these people so I knew the way that they were react to something would be really cool. Then we start to have these conversations with other venues and it was definitely a different situation.

Interviewer: 01:33:27 Because they were not as queer friendly?

Ebony Dumas: 01:33:28 Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:33:29 What is it like if you don't have a conversation with the folks about if two people are making out and that are two women, what is it that would happen or what are you afraid would happen if you don't do that work ahead of time?

Ebony Dumas: 01:33:41 Well, it would be kind of gawking.

Interviewer: 01:33:50 The security folks, bartenders.

Ebony Dumas: 01:33:52 Yeah. And you know especially in security, there can be a lot of heavy dude energy, and so, we didn't want want that. We didn't want it to be bringing community out to be made a spectacle of, we knew that bathroom issues were common and people not feeling comfortable going into the bathroom that they wanted to.

Ebony Dumas: 01:34:25 But then we also knew that like if there was a single stall in a venue than it's supposed to be gender neutral. And so then that's kind of bringing that information to the venue and having that conversation.

Interviewer: 01:34:39 Because that was already true in DC at that time. Because I know now there's like different requirements around gender neutral bathroom space.

Ebony Dumas: 01:34:48 It was definitely during some point when we were having conversations with people. I'm not sure if it was the initial search.

Ebony Dumas: 01:34:54 I think we also wanted people to be treated with care and not just like they were a dollar sign. That's literally something somebody said to me once when they invited me to do a party at their venue once they kind of saw that I was DJing more, and had a conversation with him. "Okay, so there will be queer people here, there will be trans people here. What's your

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 43 of 63

experience having that crowd in your space." And he told me "You know what, I'm a good guy. I don't care. Everybody is a dollar sign to me." And I said, "All right sir. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead and head out. I'll call you."

Interviewer: 01:35:45 And you never did.

Ebony Dumas: 01:35:45 No.

Interviewer: 01:35:46 Money's money.

Interviewer: 01:35:47 So going back to the first party at that bar, did people show up right away? Or when you're sitting there waiting, was there that fear? I know you say it happens every time, but that was the first one, right?

Ebony Dumas: 01:36:03 Yeah. And we also, in those days we didn't start parties until 11:00 PM. So very different from-

Interviewer: 01:36:11 So 11 to 2?

Ebony Dumas: 01:36:13 11. Well, the 930 club has a CX license, which allows it to stay open. It's a cultural venue, cultural space, as opposed to just like a Tavern or a bar license so they can stay open 24 hours essentially. They just can't serve alcohol like past three o'clock, the same as everybody else in the city.

Ebony Dumas: 01:36:37 And I believe U Street Music Hall has that same thing. And so some of these venues that are all ages and are able to have like really late night things going, it's because of that license that they have.

Interviewer: 01:36:54 So it was 11 to three?

Ebony Dumas: 01:36:55 Yeah, 11 to three but we didn't have to leave at three, so people started to understand that. And so maybe you didn't start coming until like one or one thirty.

Interviewer: 01:37:05 We were young.

Ebony Dumas: 01:37:07 Because you could stay until four o'clock.

Ebony Dumas: 01:37:10 You know, you just have to drink water at that point.

Interviewer: 01:37:11 Right. Probably better anyway.

Ebony Dumas: 01:37:13 Which is fine. Yeah, this is great.

Interviewer: 01:37:15 So was the first one a success?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 44 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 01:37:17 The first one was great. We had some friends perform to Man After Midnight by ABBA. And they were I think three cis dude friends of ours who dressed in hot pink booty shorts and we presented them and strutted them out after midnight. And one of the DJs played that song. They had their moment on the dance floor.

Interviewer: 01:37:45 And where was the first place you did a party after Back Bar? After 930 club kick. What was the first thing?

Ebony Dumas: 01:37:51 As a group?

Interviewer: 01:37:52 Yeah, what's the bigger venue that you started? You were saying you were looking for a bigger venue.

Ebony Dumas: 01:37:57 Well the kind of easy step was Black Cat. Because we knew the people who work there and I knew Megan Woodworth there, Vicky. [Sebula 01:38:08] was the Booker at that time, and Christie had grown up there essentially, but they also have a very strict like 2:15 let's shut it down kind of thing. And we were coming from we're hanging out until 3:30, 4:00, and now needing to tell people that they have to leave at 2:15, we didn't really want to do that.

Ebony Dumas: 01:38:34 And so I think we did one party there as kind of like a one or two parties there. And then we did Local 16 at 16th and new street, which is still there.

Interviewer: 01:38:51 Upstairs?

Ebony Dumas: 01:38:53 Yeah. It was upstairs. And so it has that patio area but inside those little L shape situation.

Interviewer: 01:39:04 And at Black Cat were you upstairs?

Ebony Dumas: 01:39:07 No, we were downstairs.

Interviewer: 01:39:08 Because that's a big space. Upstairs.

Ebony Dumas: 01:39:11 That's a big space. We went from the back bar at 930 club to the backstage at Black Cat.

Interviewer: 01:39:20 So you were doing parties monthly. How often were your parties?

Ebony Dumas: 01:39:23 Monthly. Yeah.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 45 of 63

Interviewer: 01:39:25 And were you the only one who was like using this as part of your living or were other folks also using it to support themselves?

Ebony Dumas: 01:39:31 We all were. And just for like different amounts I guess. And so I mean I don't think we ever sat down and say "Okay, well this is 30% of my income, and it's like 10% of your income." But we all knew like we were all working multiple jobs, having multiple contracts, and just hustling a lot during those days.

Interviewer: 01:39:54 And the parties were lucrative?

Ebony Dumas: 01:39:59 I imagine so. So let's say at the back bar, there were times where we had, I mean the capacity is like what, 50?

Interviewer: 01:40:08 It's really small.

Ebony Dumas: 01:40:09 40. But we would get over 150 people coming throughout the night, and at $5 a head and then that split between the five of us,

Interviewer: 01:40:21 And there you'd just get the door. There is no percentage of the bar.

Ebony Dumas: 01:40:24 Correct. Yeah, that was that deal. Other places, it'd be... The Black Cat kind of does a more tiered situation, where after the first X amount of people within the first X amount of people, you get like 50% of the door and then after that you get 75% of the door. But pretty much not many places are open to giving you a bar cut.

Interviewer: 01:40:50 Dodge City is unusual then, right? Where OverEasy happens now. There's no door.

Ebony Dumas: 01:40:57 That's the thing. And they don't have [crosstalk 01:40:59].

Interviewer: 01:41:01 So they're happy. So were there like a certain number of years where you all were doing... how long were you doing these monthly parties, and that's a pretty high threshold of working.

Ebony Dumas: 01:41:13 Yeah. So honestly, mostly between late 2008 or into 2009, and 2013 and 14.

Interviewer: 01:41:28 Okay. So like four or five years. What shifted during one team?

Ebony Dumas: 01:41:38 So around that time, I think we had been with Tropicalia for maybe a little bit over a year. So I was in... You started that relationship, I think kind of coming out of local 16 yes, because it's the same owner.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 46 of 63

Interviewer: 01:41:56 Tropicalia is the newer...

Ebony Dumas: 01:41:59 Tropicalia hadn't even opened yet when we did that party at local 16, and it was kind of like a test party. Can you really bring people out kind of deal.

Interviewer: 01:42:08 And the answer was always yes.

Ebony Dumas: 01:42:11 Answer was always yes. We never had trouble bringing people in. We would sometimes get people not wanting to continue to work with us because our crowd didn't drink enough, and we didn't want it to be free, because then that kind of negates creating the safer space and doing all that.

Interviewer: 01:42:35 Because then anybody walks in.

Ebony Dumas: 01:42:37 Especially you know, off these streets.

Interviewer: 01:42:41 That's something I've heard for other parts like on Be bar, that was the story I heard at least when when the Wednesday night drag burlesque show was kicked out, and like whatever '08 it was because when they didn't drink enough.

Ebony Dumas: 01:42:53 Right. That's literally the excuse that is the so many times.

Interviewer: 01:42:57 Do you think that's true or it's just a a way to sort of make it look okay that they're saying no to this party or it's actually like you think we're spending less money?

Ebony Dumas: 01:43:06 I think there definitely are bar counts and so at the end of the night, the bar can run the tape and see the total that was spent that night. And then a lot of times people will take "Okay how many people came through? So if it's a hundred people who came through,, and only $800 of alcohol sold and that means $8 per head, which means people will only bought one drink.

Interviewer: 01:43:32 And that's just low.

Ebony Dumas: 01:43:34 And that's just low. But I'm also doubtful that the many times that excuse is used, it's actually like consistently showing that...

Interviewer: 01:43:48 Because what would have happened on Wednesday night at that bar otherwise?

Ebony Dumas: 01:43:51 Nothing.

Interviewer: 01:43:54 Were your parties always on certain nights or were you doing lots of different nights of the week?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 47 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 01:43:59 We were pretty consistently on weekends and that was an intentional decision, and that also made it like a little bit more difficult to find space. Because if we're bringing people who only drink one or two drinks and they can't like have no door cover and get people that get shit faced in the venue, then they're going to make money the other way. And they don't really care about like creating a safe space for queer centers.

Interviewer: 01:44:28 Did you work with any gay venues? Explicitly? None of the places you mentioned.

Ebony Dumas: 01:44:40 As Anthology of Booty? I don't think we did. At different points, some of us have DJ'd at Phase and I think in my experience, a couple of things have happened.

Ebony Dumas: 01:45:03 I've been invited to DJ at a gay club by a gay promoter, and they want to pay very, very little. So for example, multiple times, I've been invited to deejay a women's party, and I'm working for two and a half, three hours for the night and knowing my name on that flyer means something and brings a different crowd or more people, make sure that people are coming to the door, and they're trying to pay me $150. I do want to say, "No, thank you." Like, "All the best. No, thank you." Other experiences I've had, Phase One, they were very centered around wanting to have radio-friendly music.

Interviewer: 01:45:48 Meaning top 40s. Yeah. Right.

Ebony Dumas: 01:45:52 Top 40s. Yeah, yeah. So I feel like that's not the music that any of us play. If that's the preference over bringing in people who don't necessarily come to your venue on a regular basis, then that's where we had some disagreements. But I mean, I know one person who's DJ’d there, and they were playing Latin music, and some people were kind of "warned" at the door, "There's Latin night."

Interviewer: 01:46:31 I heard that story too. Yeah. I loved that night.

Ebony Dumas: 01:46:36 So-

Interviewer: 01:46:36 But it was not very well-attended. Yeah. Yeah. So you were saying kind of 2014 starting to transition because you've been in Tropicalia, yeah, for a long time at that point when something's going on.

Ebony Dumas: 01:46:49 Yeah. They weren't always the easiest to work with. The booker wasn't really a part of the management. So he would say, "Yes. Okay. We're going to change these things that have been issues time after time, after time, time after time, after time, after

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 48 of 63

time again." Then it wouldn't happen because the bartenders don't care what he says, or the sound person is a different person every night, so there's no relationship being built.

Interviewer: 01:47:28 What kind of issues were you having?

Ebony Dumas: 01:47:34 There was one point where they wouldn't give water to patrons unless they bought their fancy Voss glass water.

Interviewer: 01:47:44 Oh, Jesus.

Ebony Dumas: 01:47:45 It was like six bucks.

Interviewer: 01:47:46 Wow.

Ebony Dumas: 01:47:48 That's just like general human-

Interviewer: 01:47:51 DC tap water?

Ebony Dumas: 01:47:53 Yes. This is like being a decent humans saying like, "Okay. You are thirsty. You need some water. Here's flattened tap water.

Interviewer: 01:47:59 Wow. But the bartenders wanted to make money other than you want to make money.

Ebony Dumas: 01:48:07 I mean, there is some management getting a little more handsy and a little too friendly. Sometimes I think we would hear things like you girls being called you girls.

Interviewer: 01:48:23 Infantilizing?

Ebony Dumas: 01:48:25 Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I guess that's it. So just a number of those things and them really wanting to have it be free, so anybody could come in, and it was just like, "We don't really need to fight. We don't need to continue having this fight over and over and over again. It's not worth it."

Interviewer: 01:48:51 So you stopped at Tropicalia?

Ebony Dumas: 01:48:52 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 01:48:52 Then was that a pause for the parties overall?

Ebony Dumas: 01:48:57 Yeah. So I think, at that point, it became a pause. It was definitely the pause for the monthly parties, and then I think we would still do more kind of like quarterly soirees. Then at this point, we are pretty much annual for a booty wrecks and at least as far as a party that we organize and throw all together.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 49 of 63

Interviewer: 01:49:21 You together. So between 2014 and 2019, you basically just done the annual Booty Rex party?

Ebony Dumas: 01:49:28 As a group. Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:49:29 Is that also because you left to go to grad school, you moved to New Orleans, I think most people have full-time jobs? This also indicates sort of a shift in your [inaudible 01:49:40] professional wise?

Ebony Dumas: 01:49:41 Yeah. Yeah. Like I told a younger deejay who talked about struggling as mainly being a deejay. I said the queer community is not going to take care of you. I really hate to say it, but in my experience, I really thought I could supplement or at least have most of my income coming from doing these parties and everyone's like, "You should do more parties, and this is great." But I had no savings. When I would do those parties on such a regular basis, I wasn't able to go visit my family as much as I wanted to. When my mom was sick, I couldn't just take up and go visit her. So that's definitely a part of my decision to go to grad school just because I wanted to make sure that I'm not the kind of characters I've seen in the queer community in my experience doing these really amazing things and having this really amazing legacy.

Ebony Dumas: 01:50:51 Then we're all coming together, and I'm going to continue to come to gather and make sure this person has enough money for their medication. I want to be able to have health insurance.

Interviewer: 01:51:01 Right, right, right. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So was everybody kind of in the same boat in terms of trying to make it work with these gigs, or were you unique in that? I'll get to talk to people about it, but-

Ebony Dumas: 01:51:27 I think so. Yeah. I want to say I think so. Not that everyone had really steady other things going on. But I think it was also partly because I was in a longterm relationship with full-time artists. So that was part of, are we doing this thing as more full-time artist? That was on my radar, and then I would meet musicians and DJs, especially queer folks and especially queer folks of color who were making that life happen, and they were tired. They were sleeping on people's couches in a way to save money. They were in a van for hours and hours and hours and driving around the country.

Interviewer: 01:52:22 Traveling. Yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 01:52:23 I was just like, "I don't know."

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 50 of 63

Interviewer: 01:52:23 Not for me.

Ebony Dumas: 01:52:23 "I don't think that's the route I want to go."

Interviewer: 01:52:30 Right. Got it. So you decided to go to grad school. What did you study?

Ebony Dumas: 01:52:34 Urban and regional planning at the University of New Orleans.

Interviewer: 01:52:38 Did you know you wanted to leave DC for that?

Ebony Dumas: 01:52:42 Not really. I actually applied to University of Maryland. So since this had been 10 years from undergrad to when I was applying and trying to do this, I didn't have any connections or any relationship with my old professors. The degree that I got back then was essentially because I want to learn more about myself and myself within the world, context of a world, and I haven't had the opportunity before and not so much like, "Okay. I need to find a profession and go into... So let me pick a major." So I didn't really have a lot of academic background to bring, and they admitted me, but only on a... not a full student.

Interviewer: 01:53:37 Provisional or something?

Ebony Dumas: 01:53:38 Yeah. Something like that.

Interviewer: 01:53:39 To see how you do?

Ebony Dumas: 01:53:40 Yeah. I was like, "Okay. I guess I can do that and still work and go to school." But then it was just not sustainable in the way that I wanted to make a career change, not go to night school once a week. So at that point, I knew that I would need to leave DC because I couldn't afford to still live in DC and go to school full-time. It was like I had kind of ended a relationship a couple of years before, and I was really interested in being closer to my family because I hadn't lived close to Oklahoma or Texas where my sisters were in over 10 years, and so I don't know, like 15 years at that point. So I was more interested in trying to bring that relationship, nurture those relationships as well.

Interviewer: 01:54:42 What did your parents think about your deejaying? Family thoughts about it?

Ebony Dumas: 01:54:50 I'd say my mom probably wasn't too proud of just the fact that I was a DJ and working in nightlife a lot. But I think when I would do things like Girls Rock, and I could send Washington Post article home to show I was interviewed here, and my picture is here, mostly for like Girls Rock or if I was in some article like about me DJing, then she was definitely proud and would ask

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 51 of 63

for copies. I think my dad, a little bit more liberal for an Oklahoma [crosstalk 01:55:34].

Interviewer: 01:55:33 He'd been to a gay bar.

Ebony Dumas: 01:55:35 They sure do like to dance.

Interviewer: 01:55:36 Yes. Has he ever been to one of your parties?

Ebony Dumas: 01:55:40 Yeah. He told me he's come to-

Interviewer: 01:55:41 Oh, that's cool.

Ebony Dumas: 01:55:42 ... some parties. It was when I was playing at Town. That was my first time with him coming.

Interviewer: 01:55:49 That's amazing.

Ebony Dumas: 01:55:50 He came, so it had to be over the summer. Yeah. He came so he could see... what, to visit me. But also, I was like, "I would like for you to see Girls Rock Camp." I'm like, "So I can take you around."

Interviewer: 01:56:05 Oh, that's sweet.

Ebony Dumas: 01:56:06 Then I happened to get booked for a gig the Wednesday night of Girls Rock Camp or whatever. I'm pretty sure it was Cyndi Lauper after-party at town, Town Danceboutique, Also RIP.

Interviewer: 01:56:21 RIP.

Ebony Dumas: 01:56:21 Another gay one bites the dust.

Interviewer: 01:56:23 Yeah. Seriously.

Ebony Dumas: 01:56:25 So my good buddy, Alexander and where the girls go to that after-party, and so Alexander booked me to deejay. So I think I had had a conversation with my dad earlier. We had maybe dinner and then hanging out in his hotel room. I think we were actually talking about religion and some differences and maybe what I grew up learning and how I feel now. I was like, "Okay. So I'm deejaying at this gay club."

Interviewer: 01:57:02 You're ready?

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:03 "You should come by. But if you don't want to, it's totally fine. I understand. It'll be a late night. It doesn't even open until 10:30. I'll leave your name at the door. If you want to come, here is the address. No biggie." Then I was deejaying, and he showed up.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 52 of 63

Interviewer: 01:57:22 That's amazing.

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:22 I look up and went like, "Whoa, that's my father."

Interviewer: 01:57:24 Did he dance?

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:25 He did. I played some James Brown for him while he was there, and then he met Alexander for the first.

Interviewer: 01:57:33 Great with parents, I'm sure.

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:34 Yes. Absolutely. So Alexandra was at my wedding recently. They got to reconnect.

Interviewer: 01:57:43 Oh, that's sweet. That's very sweet.

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:45 My dad would always [inaudible 01:57:47] "Oh, yeah. How's that little fellow doing?"

Interviewer: 01:57:49 Alexandra, this is a small person.

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:51 He's a smaller person.

Interviewer: 01:57:53 He'd be a fun interview.

Ebony Dumas: 01:57:54 Yeah. Oh my goodness.

Interviewer: 01:57:56 Probably it'd be lot of telltales, but... So what was your deejaying like in New Orleans? I know you kept going, right, on your own. Obviously, Anthology of Booty was not part of what you're doing down there.

Ebony Dumas: 01:58:09 Yeah. So I didn't deejay as regularly partly because I was in school, and that's a big thing. But also, I got there, and I just kind of wanted to see what was happening. I didn't want to come in as I'm this DC deejay coming to showing you-

Interviewer: 01:58:29 Show you.

Ebony Dumas: 01:58:33 ... how to do it. So I think some people heard about me or knew who I was. But I still just kind of would come to people's gigs and kind of sit in the corner and hang out. What was my first gig there? I don't even remember what my first gig there was, but it was probably a house party, and I want to say, what do they call it? Pussy pop was the name of these parties. They wear black- centered cuddy park space. One of the organizers was a visual artist and deejay. She invited me to come, and I played a late- night set. From there, it was just like, "Yay, I'm here."

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 53 of 63

Interviewer: 01:59:21 How was it different, the scene in New Orleans for these kinds of parties?

Ebony Dumas: 01:59:31 Black people hang out with black people, and it's not even so much based around sexuality or where you're from. Here I feel like there's definitely a division between gay and non-gay parties. Then there's a division... There's native Washingtonians, native DMV folks. There's a scene, and then there's a transplant scene. Then I feel like a lot of that was broken down. A lot of those walls were broken down a lot more. For the first time, I was playing a predominantly hip hop in my sets, hip hop and afrobeats.

Interviewer: 02:00:22 No Robyn?

Ebony Dumas: 02:00:24 No. I think I've maybe played-

Interviewer: 02:00:26 Every once in a while?

Ebony Dumas: 02:00:26 ... one Robyn when the white queers found me and were like, "Can you play this Purim party?" They were like, "Oh, yeah."

Interviewer: 02:00:34 Okay. In New Orleans. Right. Right.

Ebony Dumas: 02:00:35 Yeah. I played a Purim party.

Interviewer: 02:00:37 [inaudible 02:00:37] yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 02:00:38 It was fun. So yeah. I really enjoyed that, and also coming back, I've like been craving that experience a little bit more.

Interviewer: 02:00:49 Yeah. Yeah. So what was it like? So while you were in New Orleans, were you coming back for Booty Rex? Was that still happening?

Ebony Dumas: 02:00:55 Yeah, I was still coming back to Booty Rex.

Interviewer: 02:00:57 So you were still kind of as involved as you had been because that was the main thing you all were doing?

Ebony Dumas: 02:01:01 Yeah. I guess the main differences is throughout the year, we all do events where there's one of us or two of us or three of us, and then we have Anthology of Booty listed as our affiliation. So that's part of keeping Anthology of Booty-

Interviewer: 02:01:16 Alive.

Ebony Dumas: 02:01:17 The name-

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 54 of 63

Interviewer: 02:01:19 Got it. Got it.

Ebony Dumas: 02:01:19 ... alive. That then leads to this annual party.

Interviewer: 02:01:22 Got it. Yeah. So yeah. What was it like coming back to DC after New Orleans? You were just sort of talking about some of what you were missing when you came back.

Ebony Dumas: 02:01:33 I missed knowing my neighbors more. In New Orleans, Magnolia Street across the street was the black matriarch, Miss Geraldine, and she loved gin. On Friday evenings, everybody would be out after work just on the porches and walking around, hanging out, talking with each other. She came over to my house and go to her house. You watch Girls Trip together, and Byron who lived in her back part of the house, he cut our yard. When we would have cookouts, he will come over and vice versa. So I came back here, and I would speak to people, speak to my neighbors in Northeast. Most of my neighbors are Black. The response is definitely more slow.

Ebony Dumas: 02:02:29 I think also, DC has experienced it. They're much hyper rate of displacement and change and demographics. So it's not necessarily you're a Black person. So there's some automatic kinship there. I felt in New Orleans, there was a lot more of this automatic kinship, and that could be in the South in general.

Interviewer: 02:02:55 In a smaller city too?

Ebony Dumas: 02:02:58 In a smaller city. Yeah.

Interviewer: 02:02:59 Right. What about the nightlife? Are there things you miss about New Orleans nightlife coming back to DC?

Ebony Dumas: 02:03:07 Yeah. I mean, you could have a drink at this bar, take your drink. You don't have to chug it or throw it away and waste your money, take it to the next bar. There's a lot more free... I don't know. I feel like here in DC, and it took stepping out of DC multiple times and coming back and seeing, and it's like, "All right. We're really heavily policed here to the point where we police ourselves a lot more here."

Interviewer: 02:03:41 Yeah. How has your deejaying changed over? I mean, we're talking 12 years maybe since the first time you deejayed. How do you feel like your deejaying and has changed over that time?

Ebony Dumas: 02:03:56 I feel like I'm a lot more in control over the space that I want to create. So I know how to do that with music more. I know how to do that with promotions and advertising more. I think even if I'm playing it, I don't know, something that's a little bit not

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 55 of 63

necessarily queer centered, if I'm on the bill, then it becomes no very queer centered. It becomes more black centered because I may get that way through my sets, and that has definitely been a change over the arc of this 12 years.

Interviewer: 02:04:43 Right. Do you have a favorite and least favorite thing about being a deejay? I know it's not your livelihood now, but it's still part of your work.

Ebony Dumas: 02:04:57 I'd say my favorite is being on stage and getting to see people react and move to the choices that I'm making in that moment. It's almost like an instant gratification thing in that kind of feedback. So I really love that. Almost like a calling response if you will.

Interviewer: 02:05:24 I just pictured it a little bit like the Fantasia wizard. [inaudible 02:05:27] just like... Make the people move.

Ebony Dumas: 02:05:32 Even my dad, he's come a couple more times. He's been to an Anthology of Booty party.

Interviewer: 02:05:37 How beautiful. All right.

Ebony Dumas: 02:05:37 ... as well at one of the ones at Tropicalia, where he got the nickname Daddy Boom.

Interviewer: 02:05:41 All right, Daddy Boom. I love that. He's still minister. That's beautiful...

Ebony Dumas: 02:05:46 He still has his job.

Interviewer: 02:05:47 That's beautiful. Right? All right. I love that.

Ebony Dumas: 02:05:50 Oh, man. So when we were in Oklahoma over the weekend, we had dinner after the ceremony. So we had kind of this private room that my sister had booked, and Amos and I and my wife, we were talking about how grateful we were to everyone for how present they were at our wedding and how involved they were. It was a really beautiful thing. I talked about how some people said they really changed their lives in a way that it was seeing a family in a queer space just being really there and how one person was like, " I tried to even imagined my dad being at something like this, and I couldn't even imagine it. So the fact that your dad was there and spoke was really great." So having all those nice little teary moments. Then my dad said that low and behold he has become the go-to preacher for other preachers who have gay daughters.

Interviewer: 02:06:53 Oh, they call him up and ask for advice?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 56 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 02:06:55 Yeah.

Interviewer: 02:06:56 That's beautiful.

Ebony Dumas: 02:06:57 Yeah. So he's like, "All my preacher friends, they all have a daughter just like you."

Interviewer: 02:07:00 Find how that happens.

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:04 I started naming a couple that I knew, and he was like, "Yep, those, those, and there's more. There's more." So-

Interviewer: 02:07:10 It's like an underground PFLAG.

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:12 Yeah, absolutely.

Interviewer: 02:07:14 Wow.

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:14 Yeah. That's really what it is.

Interviewer: 02:07:14 That's beautiful.

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:16 He says they asked him like, "How do you maintain a good relationship with your daughter while also doing this-"

Interviewer: 02:07:24 Your faith work.

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:25 ... your faith work thing."

Interviewer: 02:07:26 Right. Right. And he's not a Southern Baptist.

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:29 No. So those are mostly white people.

Interviewer: 02:07:31 Yeah. That was the part of the split. So his denomination hasn't had a... Have they had a stance on homosexuality. Do you know?

Ebony Dumas: 02:07:43 I don't know if there's... I don't know where people announce their stances. I do definitely remember going to some of the national meetings and learning that if you think about sex, and that's the same thing as having sex. So that's a sin too. So I mean-

Interviewer: 02:07:57 Okay. So probably not going to be big fans.

Ebony Dumas: 02:08:00 Yeah. Not everybody is the most affirming.

Interviewer: 02:08:03 No, definitely not. Definitely not.

Ebony Dumas: 02:08:07 What were we talking about?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 57 of 63

Interviewer: 02:08:10 You were talking about your dad. Oh, we're talking about your favorite and least favorite thing about being a deejay.

Ebony Dumas: 02:08:13 Oh, least favorite.

Interviewer: 02:08:13 So what's your least favorite thing?

Ebony Dumas: 02:08:15 Least favorite. Waiting for the count-out at the end of the night.

Interviewer: 02:08:24 Because you're tired and ready to go home?

Ebony Dumas: 02:08:26 Tired and ready to go home or hungry or a little bit too drunk. Yeah. I'd say that's it. Then long sets where I have to stand on my feet by myself for like four hours.

Interviewer: 02:08:44 Right. Yeah. How do you feel about requests?

Ebony Dumas: 02:08:50 It can be done. It can be done in a respectful way. I'd say at the last over easy red deejay, it was a like May 19th, somebody came up, and there's always this a little bit anxiety on my part.

Interviewer: 02:09:09 When somebody walks up?

Ebony Dumas: 02:09:10 Yeah, like, "What does this person about to do, say." This person made a request, and I was like... You know what, that actually is within the genres that I've been playing. It is also like women of color as the song that has a similar tempo and matches to what I'm playing. So I feel like that's a complimentary request. That's like a productive request. Say somebody comes up and asks for Phil Collins when I'm playing a tropical base set, then that's annoying. There's times where there are artists that I just don't play and feel confident saying about that.

Interviewer: 02:09:59 For political reasons?

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:01 Yeah.

Interviewer: 02:10:01 Like R. Kelly.

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:02 Like R. Kelly. I don't play Chris Brown.

Interviewer: 02:10:05 Chris Brown. Well, Michael Jackson.

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:09 People have been asking me about that recently.

Interviewer: 02:10:11 No, ever since the documentary.

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:13 Yeah. I don't really play Michael Jackson. So I haven't really-

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 58 of 63

Interviewer: 02:10:20 You weren't playing before either.

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:22 No. And-

Interviewer: 02:10:23 His music influences everybody. Right? So it's sort of everywhere.

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:27 So there's also that, and how do I separate the influence from the actual music that he made? Because he's not like R. Kelly, where R. Kelly took a tradition in RMB and gospel and made his thing, but nobody... People have been influenced by him, but there's not a direct-

Interviewer: 02:10:48 You're not sampling, and so yeah. Yeah. Got it. Do you see deejaying as a political thing? Does it feel political to you, your work as a deejay?

Ebony Dumas: 02:10:58 Yeah, generally. In my body, it's political to exist. It's political to go to work every day. It's political to take care of myself and make sure that I have a savings account or that I understand my finances. So yeah. I feel like the personal for me is very political and showing up in a space as who I am takes courage every day and is an act of... yeah. I'll just say it's an act of courage.

Interviewer: 02:11:39 So where do you think the future of your... I'll ask you two questions. One, the future of your deejaying and then the other is sort of like Anthology of Booty. It seems like they have a little bit of different lives, potentially. What do you kind of hope to see in the future?

Ebony Dumas: 02:11:56 Well, I really enjoy doing art events, so like museums. One of my favorites has been at the [inaudible 02:12:13]. Maybe it was like two years ago. Because one, it's an institution that had a lot of walls around it, literally and figuratively. Then being able to bring what I do, internet space, has felt really empowering and good for me. Then also currently, it's hot and hip to be knowing what the queer black scene is doing, and so featuring that. So yeah. I'd say I'd love to do more of that. For our group, I definitely hope that we can continue to do Booty Wrecks for at least a few more years.

Interviewer: 02:13:04 Yeah. How did it go? It was last weekend. So we're talking just like a few days after. I heard some reports from my friends. How do you feel-

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:11 The reports.

Interviewer: 02:13:11 ... it went? Yeah.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 59 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:13 I was extremely happy with it. I was very happy with my set. This year, it was really different because it wasn't downstairs. So the black-

Interviewer: 02:13:24 They sold the downstairs, right?

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:25 Well, I think they still own it.

Interviewer: 02:13:26 But they're renting it out.

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:27 But they're going to rent it out.

Interviewer: 02:13:28 To a friend resource.

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:30 Who knows? But right now, it's still under construction. So that meant everybody had to be essentially in the same space all the time. So that was new. But I think it went well, especially with the go-go dancers that we had.

Interviewer: 02:13:48 Yeah. I saw some picture.

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:49 That was really fun.

Interviewer: 02:13:51 So drag performance, right?

Ebony Dumas: 02:13:52 Yeah. They are both drag performers, and we invited them to go-go dance because we didn't want to have... After years and years, we've learned some tricks, and having a stop in the party is always a little difficult energy wise. Then whose set gets stopped at or-

Interviewer: 02:14:14 Or has to start after the stop.

Ebony Dumas: 02:14:17 Or has to start after the stop. So yeah, we just wanted to have a continuous music night. So yeah. I think it went really well. I was really happy with it, made a lot of money.

Interviewer: 02:14:29 Yeah. Was it a lower capacity because you only had upstairs?

Ebony Dumas: 02:14:32 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 02:14:33 But you sold it out?

Ebony Dumas: 02:14:35 So we were able to sell 800 online. To put that in perspective, normally, we have about 150 tickets sold until about three days before. Then we have maybe 400 or 500 the day of. But this year, it was a day before or a week before, and we were like, "Oh, Megan, check the count." She was like, "Hey y'all. Just so you know, we're going to sell out." We were not expecting this.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 60 of 63

She said there were even high schoolers who were calling and asking, making sure they could come because-

Interviewer: 02:15:16 Is it all ages?

Ebony Dumas: 02:15:17 It's technically all ages.

Interviewer: 02:15:18 All right. Because you get a wristband. Yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 02:15:20 So anybody could come. So apparently, the under 21 crowd, under 18 crowd who has me other place to go during pride, they've figured out the hotspot.

Interviewer: 02:15:30 They showed up.

Ebony Dumas: 02:15:31 Yeah.

Interviewer: 02:15:32 Wow. Beautiful. Yeah, I heard good things and friends who were there till like 3:30 in the morning. So heard a good side of.

Ebony Dumas: 02:15:39 Yeah. They didn't kick us out early. They've stopped doing that kind of like 2:15 thing. I think we always say every year or so like, "2:45, right? 2:50?" And just kind of pushing as much as we can.

Interviewer: 02:15:53 As long as the party is not going wild or something, where the people are-

Ebony Dumas: 02:15:57 Or as long as it's not empty because then-

Interviewer: 02:16:00 Oh, because then they want to go home. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Beautiful. Well, is there anything else you want to add or talk about?

Ebony Dumas: 02:16:11 I want to talk about the first time I met Christie and Natasha. It was through quid, and it was me in my very early deejay phase where I was like, "I'm the deejay, and I know what I'm doing, and everybody just needs to go with what I'm playing." Young deejay.

Interviewer: 02:16:30 That was a jump from your early days of being like, "I don't know. I'm nervous." That's sort of a leap too.

Ebony Dumas: 02:16:36 Yeah. I mean, I was still nervous to do it, but I was like, "No. A real deejay doesn't get requests." That's my thinking in that.

Interviewer: 02:16:43 So that's changed a little bit?

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 61 of 63

Ebony Dumas: 02:16:48 That's changed a little bit. Natasha and [inaudible 02:16:49] coming in bouncing around. I had heard about them like, "Oh, there's these two girls, and we shouldn't really have them in the roller skate performance. They already have roller skates, so they're shoe-in." I was like, "Okay."

Interviewer: 02:16:59 All right, little bar, a little bar.

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:02 Do you got roller skates? And so they came and bopping around, and they came to the deejay booth and I was like... and they were like, "Can you play a Beyonce, to the left, to the left?" I was like, "Why are you asking me this? I'm not playing that music right now." Then there was also kind of like, "I don't really like that song. It's like a dance club." But I can just say, "Oh, actually, I don't have it. I'm sorry."

Interviewer: 02:17:29 Is that what you say to people when you don't want to play their song?

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:31 Yeah. Because I mean, also, if I don't, you want play it, and I don't have it.

Interviewer: 02:17:34 You're going to have to forward it to them [crosstalk 02:17:34] yeah.

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:34 Right, right, right. I don't want to do that.

Interviewer: 02:17:38 Might feel like the internet.

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:42 The internet, dah. Then out of nowhere they came out of the back pocket and say, "Here it is. Here is the CD."

Interviewer: 02:17:47 Like a CD? A literal CD?

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:48 It's number seven on here.

Interviewer: 02:17:50 This is Chrissy and Natasha?

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:51 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Interviewer: 02:17:52 Was this at the house party at your spot?

Ebony Dumas: 02:17:55 No. It was the second or third time that I deejayed, and it was at the Fab Lounge.

Interviewer: 02:18:00 Okay, got it. All right.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:02 So at that point, I was like, "I don't know who these people are, but I kind of don't like them."

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 62 of 63

Interviewer: 02:18:09 The truth comes out.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:10 The truth comes out. Then years later, here we are telling our histories together.

Interviewer: 02:18:13 They're at your wedding. So you got over the Beyonce moment.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:17 I did. I did. I still tease them about that.

Interviewer: 02:18:21 I can't see Christie playing that song now.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:23 No. Can you see it, by the way?

Interviewer: 02:18:25 I could see some deejays playing that song.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:25 Irreplaceable.

Interviewer: 02:18:29 But not Kristy. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, anything else you want to add?

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:35 So with that, I'll close out.

Interviewer: 02:18:36 All right. Well, thank you so much.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:38 Yeah. It's been great.

Interviewer: 02:18:39 Appreciate it.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:40 Thank you.

Interviewer: 02:18:43 All right.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:46 Welcome back to-

Interviewer: 02:18:48 I know.

Ebony Dumas: 02:18:49 ... reality with no headphones.

Interviewer: 02:18:49 I know.

Ebony_edited (Completed 08/31/19) Transcript by Rev.com Page 63 of 63