Terrell Villiers and Akia Dorsainvil: From Masisi to Myristica by Jason Fitzroy Jeffers
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Terrell Villiers and Akia Dorsainvil: From Masisi to Myristica by Jason Fitzroy Jeffers
If there are any lessons to be taken from the existential meltdown that is the year 2020, it’s that our restrictive ways of seeing and being in the world that destructively mine the more vulnerable among us and no less than the earth itself will not serve us any longer. Reality itself is to be unbraided, and who better to do it than artists who already operate outside of the limiting social binaries and extractive operating systems we’ve submitted to for so long? Here in Miami, Caribbean-American creatives Terrell Villiers and Akia Dorsainvil are working to do just that, hand in hand with their supportive community. As two of the key figures behind the Black, Queer Caribbean and Afro-diasporic party Masisi, they’ve now expressed their worldview through another creative avenue, the new comic book “Myristica”.
Created in collaboration with avant-garde cellist and songwriter Kelsey Lu and growing out of their recent album “Blood”, “Myristica” takes further inspiration from Grenadian author Richardo Keens-Douglas’ story “The Nutmeg Princess” and serves as the first project from Masisi Studios. Illustrated by Villiers, written by Dorsainvil and vividly brought to life by colorist Catherine Villalonga, “Myristica” swirls through Lu’s sonic and personal cosmology, positioning them as a protagonist in a sensual, psychedelic story of Black, Queer awakening. Released by the bi-annual art magazine Kaleidoscope in partnership with Gucci, it can be purchased as a supplement to issue #36 on Kaleidoscope’s website.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Myristica, a special supplement to KALEIDOSCOPE’s #36 created in partnership with Gucci, portrays experimental cellist and songwriter Kelsey Lu as the protagonist of a comic book.
Jason: Much like Masisi, the party, “Myristica” carves out space for a beautiful, transformative narrative that is too often shunned. What went into bringing it to life?
Akia: The script is loosely based off of something I was personally going through but once we spoke with Lu it was about creating dialog and script based around the outline they gave us of the album, and then bringing all these different points of inspiration together. It was important to take into account their identity, as I wanted to be sure we were being thorough in queering the writing within this work. So it involved getting to know Lu, and that this person goes by they/them pronouns and coming to understand the intricate dynamics of their relationships since this story is based in part on real people. So it was all a very expansive process, unlike what I’ve personally experienced in the cartoon and comic space.
Terrell: From a visual perspective, it was amazing to work around a story that was inspired by the Caribbean. Tying in this folklore is something that Akia and I have always talked about. It’s there in the sunset, sunrise and cherry blossom scenes, and of course the ocean. We spent some time with Lu in the Cayman Islands and we shared what the water means to each of us, how feeling it is and how floating is a perfect meditation. All of these elements found their way into the work.
Jason: How did your Caribbean background influence “Myristica”? And in general, how does it influence your work and how you navigate the world?
Terrell: My parents are both British-Jamaicans, I’ve always been inspired by the music that I grew up listening to. Around the time that I started to become a part of Masisi, we were researching a lot of 90s dancehall archival footage. It jogged my memories because my dad listened to this music when I was growing up. Tapping into it and learning the artists sent me on this wave in my illustration where I really wanted to incorporate not only this style of Caribbean culture but also the movement, the bodies and the energies I feel from the people in the videos, in their positions and their faces. A lot of people tie it to sex, but it’s very queer in the sense of how free it is. You see men doing moves that elsewhere might be considered queer, like wining, things I remember doing at family barbecues. I just became more infatuated with it.
Akia: I’m from Lake Worth, which is in some ways the Little Haiti of Palm Beach. My father, who passed when I was a baby, was Haitian, so my mother, who’s African-American, made it a point to try to connect me with my culture the best way that she knew how. It started with food and restaurants. And then by going to Haitian barber shops. And because I live in South Florida, I’m surrounded by nothing but Haitian people. It became a part of everything I do. Here, we live on the coast, and so much of our culture is about mirroring the Caribbean, but Americanizing it. We’re the Northern Caribbean, but with American privilege. With Masisi, the party, I wanted to explore and incorporate things like the Haitian Revolution, but in a digestible way so people can really learn about and understand where we come from.
“It gives me so much life to create these little melanated cartoons that just shine in every room they’re in.”
The comic illuminates protagonist Kelsey Lu’s journey—with references drawn from fable, cosmology and afrofuturism.
Illustration by Terrell Villiers
Jason: What else inspired you to become creatives?
Terrell: I was kind of a weird little kid. I was very flamboyant and loud and would flail around all over the place. I had trouble making friends and sticking with the boys, so when I started drawing, I found solace and joy in creating little characters and giving them their little story lines, their own lives. I really didn’t grow up reading a lot of comic books, but I was inspired by a lot of R&B and hip-hop, different looks I’d see on CD covers or in music videos by Mariah Carey and Mary J. Blige. When I was around 10, I wanted to become a designer, but I soon realized I liked cartoons more, so I started to incorporate them both into my work and started drawing fashion cartoons. Akia was actually the first person to commission me to create black artwork — it was a flyer for an event in West Palm — and he was also my introduction to Miami. Before then I was always the only black person in the room in many creative spaces. I was going to school in Tallahassee at the time, and he was living in Miami. He’d share these ideas and images with me and I was like, whoa, this is black as fuck and artsy as fuck and it’s cool. I started tapping into a part of myself that I was kind of disconnected from for a large part of my life. Masisi is that energy. These are the people that are creating so much from the ground up, and we need to be represented in new ways. It’s important for Black kids to see that it’s OK to move like this or dress like that. It’s actually very beautiful. I love creating this work. It gives me so much life to create these little melanated cartoons that just shine in every room they’re in.
Akia: I have these four aunts who are completely different. One did hair, one was a photographer, one was a dancer, and another one was a musician. And then my mom, she was a lover of 90s R&B. So I grew up in a very creative environment where I was able to be myself in this beautiful way. But it wasn’t “normal” outside of that. I grew up in a town full of Haitians, and they used to call me Masisi all the time — gay or faggot in Creole — because I was flamboyant. I was bullied a lot. So I found my solace in things like dance and singing with my sister. In middle school I went to an actual dance studio and became a member. At that time, Florida was really big on dance crews and battles. In that world, we learned how to be entertainers, how to work lighting boards, etcetera, and I took all of that with me and some of the community too. I believe I’m really good at spotting talent, and through Masisi we amplify those voices. That’s in everything I do.
Jason: What has it been like putting this comic out into the world right now, of all times? It’s being released at such a turbulent, redefining moment.
Terrell: So what was really interesting was that it was initially soft released the day after George Floyd was murdered. And I didn’t feel comfortable promoting the comic around then. It was just a really heavy time, with a numbness setting in; the entire world is talking about what happened, but our community has dealt with this our entire lives. So we put a halt on the roll out process, and after some time and conversation with Lu, we realized it was something that we wanted to use to honor Black artists working collectively through this time to create something really honest that there hasn’t been much space for before. That really aligns with our work coming from Masisi, and my own coming into my Caribbean and first generation American heritage.
“This is the work of honoring the truth of our community.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Fitzroy Jeffers is Miami-based filmmaker, journalist and co-executive director of the Caribbean filmmaking collective Third Horizon. As a filmmaker, he has produced award-winning short films such as "Papa Machete", which world premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2014 and had its U.S. premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2015, and "T", which won the Golden Bear at Berlinale 2020. Jason’s journalism work has appeared in The Intercept, The Miami Herald and American Way Magazine. If you’ve ever been to the Third Horizon Film Festival, it’s no surprise that it was named "one of the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World" by MovieMaker magazine in 2019.