Interview with Akia Dorsainvil (he/they) 30
Lake Worth/ Liberty City

Where are your ancestors from? 

I come from a mixed cultural background. My father is Haitian, and my mother is African American.

What is your religion, practice, or spirituality? 

I'm trying to be closer to God and find all the different ways and languages that allow me to feel close to the source. I do that by praying. I do that by practicing magic. I do that by trusting in the healing powers of herbs. I do that by listening to my elders. I do that by practicing in the ways that they used to practice. It’s a mixture of a lot of different religions. I'm learning along the way, and that helps me feel at peace. It's me doing my own excavation of my personal archives in the world. I try to be authentic and honest with all the versions of me, because I really do believe that we are as wide and expansive as the universe. I try to really tap into what those universes look like, particularly for me. I honor it in the best way that I can. 

 
How would you describe your practice? 

You know, maybe it's church. I grew up in the church, and I come from people who had power in the church system. My uncle was the deacon of the exact same church my great-grandmother went to. So, I was baptized in the same church that a lot of my elders were also baptized in. The church I grew up in was a Non-denominational Church of Christ, you don't even use instruments. It's only your voice, everything is acapella.

 
What is your first memory of spirituality?
My first spiritual memory is seeing someone, just with the stroke of holy water, catch the Holy Ghost. I used to go to church with my grandmother, my sibling’s grandmother, a lot, that is my earliest memory. 

Who introduced you to your practice?
I would say my mother when speaking about my father. In general, I don't know a world where all this just doesn’t just exist or is just unknown. My family has always known about the power of hoodoo and voodoo. My great-grandmother is from the deep South of Georgia, as deep as you go in the country, so there's bound to be a bit of magic in the room, because that's what it takes for Black people to exist. 

 What has spiritual practice looked like in your family? 

 I've grown up with what I guess people would call superstition, but as I've grown and learned in my own study, I have found these superstitions are hoodoo traditions. You couldn't dare be in my house and let my mom sweep your foot. You would have to spit on it three times for whatever luck or whatever bad juju would come your way. You can't step on any cracks or split poles. My mom was big into that. My great-grandmother didn't believe in crossing Ts. I don't know a world where spirituality is not at the center.

What is the history of your practice? 
We are a collection of all the sounds we've ever heard—our prayers. Our existence is truly magical, as Black folks, because we're “not supposed to be here”. There’s a beautiful quote that I reflect on: “God does love Black people because he keeps creating Black babies.”

I want to use the wisdom of what I'm made up of and find really dope and creative ways to share it. Whether that's through my music practice, ceremony practice, my own individual research, and the archiving of it, my research can be my practice because they're reference points. I want to carry on and use what I am collectively.

Do you consider your relationship to spirit, ancestor work?
It is ancestor work; I'm an ancestor worker.

Do you have a spiritual home?
It's cliché, but the dance floor is that in a lot of ways, especially the work that we're doing as a Queer community, a Black Queer community specifically, it takes a lot of magic to make that shit happen, for these spaces to be materialized. It’s the connection, how we can foster a real connection with music and the audience and the people that came together to put this out there. If you're truly being intentional about the space that you're creating for folks to release and express, it’s all the same thing. It's customary when visiting your church home to pay your tithe. So, when you pay your admission, that is your tithe. Also, anytime I go home to my mom, that is a spiritual house. Like I said, I come from a family that believes in having communication with the spirits, that they can see spirits, or that they have had a conversation with spirits.

Who do you consider a teacher, leader, or mentor? 
My mother.  My mom told me about her grandmother, my great-grandmother. They were close, and she was a spiritual home for my mother. They both had the gift of being able to see spirits. So, my great-grandmother would teach her about how to speak to spirits, the kind of voice you need to have. She was her mentor in spirituality, and now my mom is my teacher. I have gone to get tarot readings with her. It's normal for us to just bring up whatever spiritual experience we have had in conversation, has a passed relative visited us in our dreams, who's having dreams about fish, aka who's about to get pregnant… all of that

Who do you think of as the spiritual knowledge holder in your family?
In my family, specifically, I feel like it would be my dad. My father got deported back to Haiti and died there. So, my whole life has been me trying to figure out and get answers I probably will never get in the flesh. So that's one thing. My mother is, she holds knowledge.

My uncle Pete as well, he's my grandmother's older sibling, that’s important to him. He's the family historian. He knows all the family stories. He has been very invested. The main ones in my life are my mother, my father spiritually, and, of course, and my own spiritual leaders that I have found along the way. I've always been someone that can engage. I was always in grown people's business. So that means I was always in grown people's spirituality asserting myself like, ‘Yes, you have lived longer than me, and yes, you are an elder, but I have my own spiritual knowing to bring in an environment that's supposed to be advancing spiritually.’ Kids are some of the most tapped in, they just came directly from the source. I feel like I can engage in conversation about spirit. So, in every botanica I've ever been to, I try to engage, ask questions, and be inquisitive. My mentor, Andre Sol, God bless the dead, his spiritual name is Baba Kai. He was a natural born drummer. His family is from New Jersey, and they come from that post Black Panther moment into the New African identity, trying to decolonize, and putting an emphasis on the Black family. He grew up in his version of a tribe. And he really tried to impart that in his life and to the people that he brought into his world. So, he was definitely a spiritual leader that I would speak to. And because we both were using music as a form of spiritual practice for ourselves, I was able to learn a lot about how I want people to feel. As a DJ, I want people to really communicate and ‘tap in’ in a different way. Before sets now, I call him in. My mambo, Vivi, she is the voodoo queen in my neighborhood in West Palm. Like I said most of my work in life is trying to figure out all the versions of me, and I have a huge one that's missing. I didn’t get the opportunity to know my father in the flesh. My mom always tells me that I'm living so parallel to the life that my dad was living before he passed. I ended up finding my mambo from a completely different experience. My best friend was working at a hair salon that I would visit all the time, and me and the me and the salon owners and the shopkeepers, we all connected. I ended up having the same last name as their younger brother. So, we would always kid that I’m the cousin and family. They’re creative people, so they had a fashion show and, of course, your family's going to come to show off. I ended up meeting their mother and she was so beautifully regal, and she had all these people, fanfare, around. “The diva is in the room.” As I had gotten closer with these people, they ended up sharing that their mother owned a botanica and that she's a voodoo queen. Of course, I start going to the botanica, supporting them and participating in shows. As I go there, and I tell my mom, she lets me know that my father used to come here too. My mom didn’t know I was practicing voodoo at all. I remember as a kid coming into the plaza that the shop is at all the time. It's all ancestral work.

What are some important milestones in your practice? 
My work with Masisi is such a milestone, because I could never have told young, Queer me that I really get to create beautiful experiences for other Black Queer people. I feel like my ancestors did what they needed to do for me to even get to this point, there's so many things and actions that I was not privy to that created the moment I'm experiencing. I know that it is a privilege that I get to do that and make my dreams happen through making other people feel comfortable, safe, and joyful. It's affirming.