Q&A: How to Tear Your Achilles Tendon at Art Basel with Havi Green

Photo by Ziggy Mack

Creative genius, writer, musician, and subversive style icon Havi Green is like really creative. Read the Q&A from our interview available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

ZACK:

I'm joined by Havi Green. He's a poet, fiction writer, community catalyst, musician and style icon, obviously. And, Havi, I met you for the first time in 2021. It was at Art Bazaar, and it was the first time I had publicly displayed my art. I was nervous as hell. And you came up. You were dressed in all black. You had really dark shades on. I thought you were so cool. And you came up and looked at a series of my paintings of lottery tickets with glitter on it. You were smiling, and you said, “That's a really good idea.” And in that moment, I was like, well, I've made it. You know, that really inspired me and motivated me. So I had to have you on the show.

HAVI:

I guess like being an artist and let alone an artist with a little bit of umph to them, it's almost like being a planet in the universe. And you can send out radio signals for forever and not get anything back. So it's nice when you cross paths to make sure, you know, wave a signal. So that's what I was doing there and I'm glad that that stuck.

It had an effect. But most importantly, we're circling back right now. So I appreciate that.

ZACK:

I'll never forget that. It made a huge difference. So with all those mediums I listed, how would you describe your creative practice and how do you balance those mediums?

HAVI:

First and foremost, I think that I really don't try to have to make an effort to balance art.

Everything else is balanced around the art, for the most part. And also, as I live and evolve, the medium usually evolves with me. And I just take it as it, as it comes. If something has to get dropped, it just drops a little bit. And, you know, I hope it'll come back around, but if it doesn't, I have my time with it, you know, and then from, like, a day to day, it's just certain formulas that lead to certain modes of expression.

If I'm like, kind of going through it emotionally and then I drink, I have a good night out, I dance or something. If I wake up hungover, I am going to write a good poem. Like immediately after I'm going to be my most emotional state. A poem is going to come out. So I mean I don't have to balance. It just happens, you know.

ZACK:

I've definitely written some bangers in a depressive spell. You know it just comes out. It's hard to write about happiness sometimes.

HAVI:

It's not depressive for me. So much as it's, like, fragile. I don't know, I feel like I'm just cracked open.

ZACK:

Vulnerable.

HAVI:

Very vulnerable. Yeah. Very vulnerable. I'm a sensitive boy.

ZACK:

Yeah, I think that's why, like, we connected. I myself pretty sensitive, too. And also, like you, with these mediums coming in and out, like I do visual art, writing and music and, right now, visual arts have kind of taken the back burner. And my music is what I want to focus on.

So with that, what's your current focus?

HAVI:

I'm writing my first novel. You say a writer, and I wanted to stop you. Just a fledgling writer. You know, I don't like this art form right now. Feels like the toughest to crack as far as, like, wearing the badge and being able to, you know, pull it out, like, “Hey, I'm a writer,” you know, it’s taking a while. So I've been working really hard on that, for a few years now, man.

ZACK:

I remember when you first posted about it, I was like, that's going to be amazing.

HAVI:

Now it's kind of coming along. Well, I think I'm on the sixth draft, and it feels like I found my voice during this last go round and I think that I finally got it.

I think once I finish it, it'll be where I could hand it off and be satisfied with it, with whatever happens.

ZACK:

So what do you think led to you like finding your voice finally, after all these drafts?

HAVI:

Man, so many things. The repetition of making drafts. A lot of writers tell you when you write it, one of the most important things you can do is read it out loud.

But I never did. That was like, fuck that, I'm not reading it yet, but I do already have a nice, like inner voice from being a rapper for so long and just hearing what things sound like in my head. So I'm really good with rhythm in that way.

So I finally started to catch the rhythm a little bit more. But I had also put it down for a while and listened to a shit ton of audiobooks, and just listened to other really good novels being read out loud. And then when I finally went back to it, someone had just said something that inspired me to just crack it open.

And then as soon as I started reading, I was like, actually, I need to move that here. And before I knew it, I was like, oh shit. Like all my bravado, all my daring, all my clarity, everything was there. And I was like, this is it.

It's in exactly what I wanted to, not only story wise, but me as the writer is coming through without seeming like I'm just taking up too much space.

ZACK:

You're talking about audiobooks. What are some really good audiobooks that you listen to?

HAVI:

Oh, man. You know, one thing about me, I'm so quick to forget it. I love to, like, ingest art and then be like, it's a piece of me. Like, I don't have a GoodReads. I don't have like a LetterBox or any of that. I'm just old school, like, get in there, just disseminate.

So I can't think of like the most of them off the top of my head. So the ones I name are going to be the ones that stick with me. But, in no regards claim that these are the best of our time, right? However, Moby Dick. Moby Dick is, like, one of the most American books I've ever read.

Being that it is a fucking con of a book, because the goddamn whale don't—the goddamn Moby Dick. And I mean dick in both ways. That dick, Moby Dick don't show up until, like, the last two pages.

ZACK:

Just edging the whole time.

HAVI:

Yes. You just getting edged the entire time man. Like you go through whole cytology, which is the study of whales, just like, "And they have five bones in their fins." And you learn all this shit about whales, and then it show up, wreck some shit, and then we never saw it again.

It is such an American book. Pull the rug from under your ass. So yeah, but it's still a good book. I loved it, and it got the pirates. It got that like, really epic biblical, legendary type shit going on. And then there's like the story of, like, America. Just when we start to find out shit and the Industrial Age and we were starting to send out—like we needed all this whale oil. So, you know, we were hunting whales by the fucking ton.

And he's just asking interesting questions, you know? Underneath this story is about like, this fucking whale. And I love stories, that you know like really got more than one thing going on.

ZACK:

Or learn.

HAVI:

But also fool the masses like, no, this is whales. And then's it like no, this was slavery. The whale was slavery the whole time.

ZACK:

With your current novel, are there any underlying themes that you have that you're exploring?

HAVI:

Yeah. Man. And where do you start with your first novel? You know, they say the first, it takes your whole life to write your first novel.

And they say it for a reason because when you sit down and especially if you didn't like really like nerd out and plan it to the tee, then everything just comes out of you. You try to make sense of it and there's a, you know, thread of a story, but there's just so much. But, with that being said, as a Black man in America, I am trying to walk in the footsteps of such great writers who happen to be Black, but also, you know, writers in general.

But because I am Black, I'm walking in their footsteps first and foremost. And I can relate. I can see their story so clearly as much as I might relate to, like Ernest Hemingway and, whoever the fuck wrote Moby Dick, I can't even remember.

ZACK:

Herman Melville. I don’t know how I just remembered that.

HAVI:

Yeah. Thank you for pulling that out your blow hole.

Like I can relate because I got crazy empathy, but I don't really need that to relate to Toni Morrison. Yeah, or Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison. I just got to be Black and have, you know, a writer's intuition about things. So I feel like I'm trying to take the next step where they and others have left off in that and that as far as Black consciousness. What it means to be Black in America. But I'm also trying to figure out what to do with my, Americanness. You know, that's hard to unpack. It's very complex, man. And, you know, I think everyone does. But as a Black man, it almost feels like fucking like How to be a Sith Lord or How to Like the Sith Lords When You're a Jedi. It don't even feel right, you know? But I know that it needs to be done. And I love a good challenge, so I'm trying to figure it out. And I know so many friends who, you know, the more conscious we get, the more we're wrestling with what it means to be a man.

Like, we don't even want to say it, and yet we are so much, you know, Americans. So, how do we figure that out?

ZACK:

Exactly. And you're talking about consciousness, which I think is a great segue to talk about your love of mysticism. I love mysticism. It's a big inspiration for my artwork and my writing and my poetry.

HAVI:

Who said I loved it? I’m stuck with it man.

ZACK:

So how does mysticism translate into your creative practice?

HAVI:

Man. I am mysticism, man.

ZACK:

Yeah. You have an aura about you. Like when I first saw you, I was like, this guy knows something. There's, like, a glow about you. And us just talking now I feel so comfortable and like, there's got to be some training behind that.

Did you learn that through mysticism?

HAVI:

I went to the Himalayas.

ZACK:

You took ayahuasca.

HAVI:

First and foremost— another thing. This is also going to tie back into the book. Another theme from the book is how the artistic journey is the human journey, which is the spiritual journey.

There's the Zen saying, it says like, you can learn all that there is to know about the universe through your art form, or through something that's even more trivial. If you really want to get down to the nitty gritty. But it's easier with your art form, especially in this day and age. And I've taken my artistic journey really seriously.

Everything else is, you know, superfluous. That's my Northstar. So that being said, it's taught me a lot and it's taught me how to be human. Showed me how to be, more human than human, as my boy Nietzsche would say, you know, so it’s led me through philosophy and Zen and Christianity and astr–, or whatever.

ZACK:

Astrology?

HAVI:

No, not astrology. Fuck astrology. Zoroastrianism is what I mean. Sufism. I've traced this path of of how the art and creativity naturally comes if you are spiritually aligned. And, you know, I’ve just honed that to a certain point.

I'm very Zen these days. I used to meditate more.

ZACK:

So yeah, I was going to ask you about that. So when you're trying to get inspiration, what does that process look like? How do you kind of fuel your action?

HAVI:

Like I said, I've been doing this for a long time. I don't have too many rules these days. As far as like the formula, ’m never not inspired. I would say that. I think what I will say, though, is that I spent—there's another Zen saying, I'll drop Zen sayings all day, but it's like, the last level of your art form is when you carry something for so long, you carry your art form for so long, you carry with you and the last level is when you finally drop it.

You know, you just drop that because by the time you do that, you're dropping all the rules, all these things that, you know, the formulas, your go tos.

You used to have to go to the Well, but now you are the Well.

So the Source is here. If I sit down and I write then, I just do it and you learn it a lot with writing though, like writers are really good at turning like motherfucker inspiration. The muse is going to be out the room sometimes, you know, and you still going to have to get it done, you know?

So stop waiting on that. You just do it anyway.

So you whether you want to be a dick like the writers about it or, you know, or woo-hoo like the, like the mystics about it, you just go about it and understand that if you—I saw this Rick Rubin quote like maybe yesterday or a day before on Instagram, it was like, "The better you feel, the better things go."

So I feel great.

ZACK:

There's nothing like getting an idea and feeling that energy to, like, actually make it and love it and, like, forget to eat.

HAVI:

Forgetting to eat, that’s like my favorite thing.

ZACK:

Sometimes I'm like so focused and I get so like keyed up that I finally have this idea, and like, I want to get to a place where you're talking about this like, "I am the Well." That's such a great mindset to think about with our culture.

HAVI:

How our culture is and how we understand production and manufacturing—we think we're, like, excavating these things from somewhere else. And we bring it in and we're manufacturing it in, in the body and the mind. It is us. And then we produce it, you know, but it's more so like you're the everything, you're connected. It might synthesize through you or like, flow through you, it's already there.

You just kind of allow those connections to be made inside of you. So just saving the space for it usually just helps it happen.

ZACK:

I've noticed that you're pretty put together.

HAVI:

You mean, my fit?

ZACK:

You always look healthy. How do you kind of maintain consistency with health? Because I know health is a huge part of what fuels my creativity.

HAVI:

Yeah, but what is consistent health mean, you know, like, I think that no one plans to be unhealthy, right? It happens, you know, because life is long, things happen or things get out of your control. So, I think: one, I'm just gifted with the genes of my slave ancestors, you know?

I can still be 35 and still have a pretty good shape. I work with that, but I'm also super conscious. I don't have to have a diet or anything or think about it. I'm just aware, like, "I think my body needs some greens," or "A piece of bacon won't be so bad." And, four days out of seven,I might not eat breakfast because I just feel like I don't need it.

But I've also had my setbacks.

Because I am human. I remember a couple of years ago, I tore my Achilles on an all expense paid trip to Miami at Art Basel. Like the first day, the first thing I did, I went to, like, this legendary, street taco place. And they were slinging tacos, like, 9 in morning. I got four of them motherfuckers and threw ‘em back.

Went to the Airbnb. My homies were playing basketball, and I started playing basketball and like, some fucking Yohji Yamamoto and instantly ripped my shit. So, you know, I immediately, when that happened, it felt like one of the biggest tests I've had because it was like, alright you can either like get really sad right now or like, you can start to listen even closer to the humor behind all of this and the lesson behind all of this.

And I got deep into it because first and foremost, I had to navigate fucking Art Basel on one leg.

ZACK:

How did you get to go to that? What was that process like?

HAVI:

I think I've always been planting seeds, especially around Midtown, telling people that I like their art, and then it coming back to me and something like that happened. Some friends of mine were going to Art Basel to sling some art. And they were taking a group of people and I really was not about to go because I was like, "Why do you want me?"

You know, I could be working on my novel or working my job. And it was just like, "We just want you there. We want you your energy there." And at the last minute after asking a bunch of people, I was like, all right, I'm gonna go. Yeah, broke my leg.

But it was worth it.

ZACK:

Did you get any creative energy from that?

HAVI:

Yeah, man. I think the second day after I finally got, like, a cane, wrapped my shit, a bunch of ibuprofen, I rented a car, and I went down to Key West and I visited Ernest Hemingway's mansion down there.

I spent a lot of time in Key West, and he's like one of my idols. So it was like a pilgrimage for me, man. I'm already like limping and going through this trial and tribulation moment. And then I take this two hour drive to Key West and I get to walk through, you know, his house and they got a really good tour there.

They got a bunch of four-toed cats. He was gifted I think 1 or 2 four-toed cats from a sailor. They got like a million bajillion fucking stories about him, man. So, yeah, one of them is he was gifted some four-toed cats, and now it's like a cat sanctuary for four-toed cats.

ZACK:
OK, that sounds like heaven. Are you a cat person?

HAVI:

I am a cat person. I’m a cat and a dog person. I'm a very balanced guy there. But yeah, I really enjoyed Key West. And I've dreamed about, like, "Man, I could live down here."

I can see why he spent time down there. It's a great place to write. I would love to write down there one day.

ZACK:

And, speaking of writing, I know you're starting a writing group. I saw calls for submission go out. What made you want to start a writing group?

HAVI:

Who said I wanted to start it? It feels like a a natural progression. I'm, like, one of the most curmudgeonly, curmudgeonly motherfuckers out here, man. Meaning that I'm going to do the work, but at the same time, I'm going to be a little bit of a grumpy uncle about it. I'm working right now with a friend of mine.

I started a writers workshop with Tone not too long ago, because any time I get really deep into my art, of course, the question of how do I bring this into the realm of community, you know, is a question that naturally just pops up. I'm rapping. I'm like, "I need to get a studio. I need to have a posse."

You know, if I'm writing a novel, it's like I need to have a writing group. So, the workshop ended up, you know, running this course. And now that I'm close to finishing the novel, me and my friend, Kylah.

She'll get mad if I don't say her name.

ZACK:

Yeah, shout her out. What’s her Instagram?

HAVI:

I'm not going to shout her Instagram. She’s a little private.

ZACK:

Okay. That's fair.

HAVI:

Then she she's just going to bite my head off that way. So shout out to Kylah. @KylahDumpTruckBooty. Follow her. Now, I just leaked your secret.

ZACK:

That's her official author name? Oh my gosh, everybody's going to follow her now.

HAVI:

But no, she has a really nice place that she's moved into. We've been dreaming about, starting it. It’s really just being me and her, like, tagging into each other work. Now we're like, we need a few more people to come along.

Super intense. I think I'm ready for the harshest critique. Yeah. And I don't know if I'm going to get it yet, but I got to do the work and build a network myself to try to bring it to me, to make it, you know, try to find me because I'm ready to really, like, see blood on the page.

Kylah's super excited about, like, "Oh, we can like, you know, have a photoshoot." I'm like, no, I just want to be just we about the words: "We are starting a writers group. This is where it is going to be. If you think this is you, email your best work."

I think it’s going to be chill. I also don't put any expectations on it just because the more serious you are about your art, the more you know that you can't—you gotta, you know, be loosey goosey about it.

ZACK:

You can't be too precious.

HAVI:

Yeah, yeah, I tell people all the time: the only thing I take serious is the art, and it allows me not to take anything else fucking serious.

ZACK:

I love that. That's a great mindset. I like to ask this of artists but, if you had had all the resources in the world, what would be your dream project?

HAVI:

Man, I'm about to drop another wise words. Havi's Wise Words. Havi’s Homonyms.

ZACK:

I like that. I would read that.

HAVI:

No, Havi's Hummer's. That better. Great artists or even good artists, Capital A artists, do what they can with what they got, wherever they're at. I think that's also really in tune with the Black struggle. You know, we turn fucking cow intestines into chitlins, you know what I mean. So, I don't dream that way about art. I'm always just so into where I am that I can't imagine the only thing that I would be doing differently.

I guess I might be writing a book in Key West, right?

ZACK:

Yeah. With the cat sanctuary.

HAVI:

Yeah, yeah. So I think maybe that I—I do dream about having a, I guess almost like a commune, where more artists here in Memphis, more artists like us can, you know, crash out. Yeah. That's the dream. Do what we want and grow some food. Have our little polycules. Cat fighting and shit.

So I think that idea is kind of answering, I think, the question of our time: is how do we be revolutionary as Americans in our time? And I think, what we really want is to produce things that don't feed into the machine, that don't feed into the violence that is the big machine. How do we stay away from those teeth, you know, how do we stay away from supplying it with the energy that it needs?

So, the closer and the more of an adult I get, the closer I get to fulfilling that dream. And, I'm doing it.

ZACK:

You are the Well.

HAVI:

Yeah, man, the more means I have, the more I'll be able to do it. You know, donate to my Cash App.

ZACK:

What's your Cash App?

HAVI:

@HaviDumpTruckAss69.

ZACK:

Million dollars just dropped.

HAVI:

No, man. I'm not looking for no handouts. But, you know.

ZACK:

It doesn’t hurt.

HAVI:

I don't think I've ever, you know, really opened it up to donations. Again, I just do what I can, with what I got, wherever I'm at. When it's time for me to sell something, you’ll know. I’m gonna drop this book on their head tops. And buy the book when it comes out.

ZACK:

I can't wait. I've learned so much from you just in this 25 minutes we've talked. Thank you so much for coming. I can't wait to read your book. I know it's going to blow people's minds of all the experiences you've had. And, thanks for coming on my show and talking art and creativity.

HAVI:

This has been, like, really creative, man.

ZACK:

Yeah, it's so, like, really creative.

HAVI:

Like really, really creative.

ZACK:

Really, really, really creative.

HAVI:

Really?

ZACK:

Really.

Where to find Havi Green

Instagram: @airhavi