At BeautyBoiz, we’ve always believed that queer art, Black art, and radical art aren’t side stories, but the triple heartbeat of the culture. (Fun fact: did you know octopuses have three hearts?) Few artists embody that truth like Jaiden Grayson.

For nearly two decades, Jaiden’s been a force in Seattle’s creative and activist scenes – a poet, musician, and truth-teller whose work blurs the boundaries between art, justice, and survival. In 2020, during the height of national unrest following the murder of George Floyd, Grayson became one of the city’s most visible community leaders and organizers. Her courage made her a target, but also a mirror, reflecting both the beauty and the brutality of that moment in history.

BeautyBoiz’s Shai Micaiah was honored to sit down with Jaiden not just as an artist, but as a whole human being: a mother, a survivor, and a storyteller whose work continues to challenge what healing and freedom can sound like.

*Jaiden Grayson lensed by Joe Moore for BeautyBoiz*

**Shai Micaiah:** Let's start with who you are, because I want to introduce you to whoever does not know you. I Googled you using AI, and it defined you as “an artist, musician, and compassionate activist. She is Black, non-binary, femme.” Would you like to take a moment to redefine yourself, or do you want to add something that you don't want overlooked?
**Jaiden Grayson:** Oh, I mean, AI did a good job. You know, you've got to give credit where credit is due. I'm an artist, I am a musician. I'm a writer. People may assume that my interest in music happens in the vocal aspect of it, but really lyricism and writing is the pathway that took me to music. I started out as a poet and a writer in general, just journaling as a child, writing down my experiences, writing stories, telling stories. That has turned into visual representations as well as things you can listen to over time. So I think that AI got very close.

*Original Art by Jaiden Grayson PROMINENT SPEAKERS 2023 acrylic on canvas (available for purchase)*

**Shai Micaiah:** I want to talk about your art that I immediately recognize as yours in the background, your painted art, versus your performance art, which I got to watch. To me, that sort of performance art, the physicality of it, just feels so much more scary and vulnerable. Whereas art like the art behind you, I sense more ambiguity. There's more openness to interpretation. It's not as direct. And that feels, maybe, safer to me. But I don't want to make that assumption. So I want to ask you, how do you experience those two art forms differently?
**Jaiden Grayson:** Music is really scary for me, likely because of my experiences, and those of many others, within the industry. I’d like to say that you're sitting in your room and you're so comfortable and safe, and you write these sacred lyrics, and you go to the studio and everyone is so excited, and open, and available, and you record, and it all comes out beautifully, you release it, put it on the internet waves, and then all of a sudden, you're on stage, but that's the furthest thing from the truth. It’s not even just a labor of love, it is a *labor* to make music, and a lot of the music that I've made has required me to fight. Whether it's over my lyrics and someone in the studio not agreeing with them, or figuring out how to really distribute it in a way that is going to be impactful and serve the art itself, to preparing to get on stage, to dealing with sound checks, or lack thereof, or whatever it is that comes up when you get into the live space of performing your music. And the remedy that I've kind of given myself is my painting. So you were really spot on with that. And when I paint, no one's going to tell me what the next stroke is. No one can. So it is a way to remain autonomous and independent, where so much of my other forms of creativity are reliant on and involve working with other people.

*(Image Left) Promo image for BeautyBoiz Black Pride Celebration Volume 3 (2022)*

**Shai Micaiah:** And that's its own beautiful thing.
**Jaiden Grayson:** I love working with other people, but I also don't. It's a very double-edged sword where it's like, yes, it serves its purpose, and I need an engineer. I need a producer. I need people to come in with live instruments. I need the sound person and the people that work at the venue and everyone that pours into this effort – and at the same time, if one person's not feeling it, it can really throw everything. That's the case more times than not, and I struggle with that. So for me, the painted art is the opportunity to not hyper-individualize, but to really depend on myself, and it does feel safer there. I think you can see that in how that art comes out versus how my music comes out, because I still don't feel like I've reached or released something that truly, truly represents me as an artist when it comes to music. Whereas I feel like there are many representations of me in my painted art.

Shai Micaiah: In another podcast, you mentioned that your great grandmother came here to the Pacific Northwest, Washington specifically, from New Orleans. And I just want to know, you credit it with inspiring your activism, but what role do you think that ancestral memory plays in your creative process?

Jaiden Grayson: My great-grandmother, her name is Bernice — she passed away at 100 years old a year or two ago — she used to always say, “may you live forever and I never die” when she would toast. She has a timelessness, a foreverness, that despite the obvious atrocities that she endured and lived through, that my family has endured and lived through, that generations of people who look like me have endured and lived through — was unaffected. And I found that to be, and I continue to find it to be, so inspiring. I would say that that was a gift that was given to me as well, that determination to understand the shortcomings of the country that I'm in, the history, the where and how of the failures of America. And in the same breath, I think it is from my lineage that I exist in such a kind of effortlessness in grace, in class, in blackness. And I feel like that's a part of the generational gift that I was given.

Shai Micaiah: And you became a mother and will pass that on. How has that changed your art?

Jaiden Grayson: Oh, completely. Yeah. Throw out whoever I was before, she's dead.

Shai Micaiah: Yeah, is that what it feels like?

Jaiden Grayson: Totally. Absolutely. Yeah, and it was terrifying. I mean, there's two parts to this, which is true with most things involving humans, but especially me. Before, time felt like, in the words of Mariah Carey, like I just didn't believe in it. I didn't pay attention to time. There was no real thing about it for me. And after having my son, suddenly this timer started, “you've got work to do,” and an awareness of myself, an awareness of the fact that I was now responsible, even if I didn't understand the scope of responsibility, that I had something to do, and that I would be doing it day in and day out. Time became this physical manifestation in my sweet baby, my child, and I credit where I am right now as an artist, as an activist, as a human being to my motherhood. My time is so precious to me now, my energy and where I put things, how I do things, what I care about being representative of. It's informed by the experience I'm having as someone who's raising another human being. I'd never recorded music before I had my child. I'd never done that. I wasn't painting. I painted for the first time when I got pregnant. That was the first time I ever picked up paint.

Shai Micaiah: Well, that gives me hope. Because I've taken a couple of classes and just don't have that skill. But some of us can do some things and some of us can't do other things and that’s life.

Jaiden Grayson: No, I would say that you can... you know, if someone asks me to paint a realistic something, it's not possible for me. It's never going to happen. That's not happening. But I think art is an opportunity to define yourself. When you’re trying to copy and paste from our brain to the page, you're not really creating at that moment, are you? You're trying to copy something and acting as a copier, whereas if you just let yourself make, and you don't have this end goal of what it's supposed to look like, but you allow it to become whatever it is, that's where I've found freedom.

Jaiden Grayson lensed by Joe Moore — *(Photo Left) Jaiden Grayson Lensed by Joe Moore for BeautyBoiz*

**Shai Micaiah:** One thing that I appreciate is your unique color combinations, and how you pair them with shapes. It sounds basic, but sometimes things are basic because they're simple and there's beauty in simplicity.
**Jaiden Grayson:** Totally.
**Shai Micaiah:** And I do feel like I see a style and a story. I see that New Orleans heritage. I mean, I think I do.
**Jaiden Grayson:** Carolyn at Blue Cone, I'm so happy to shout out, they do Blue Cone, or run Blue Cone Studios up in Capitol Hill. They were my art mentor for a long time, and still are. It's a lifetime thing. It never expires. But really, watching them, and watching the way that they use color and understand color in this non-traditional and yet very effective way, certainly is sitting in a lot of my art. I've learned so much from them.
**Shai Micaiah:** I love that. Okay, so you've already described being all of these things, right? You're a visual artist, a performance artist, a mother, a producer. So I want to know, when you step into a performance space, do you think of yourself first as a musician, a messenger, something else entirely…?
**Jaiden Grayson:** I'm not necessarily thinking of myself at that point.
**Shai Micaiah:** You're just being open?
**Jaiden Grayson:** I don't know if I would even describe it as open. If I’m performing, it means there's been months, usually, at least, of rehearsal. There's a rehearsal element that happens in the shadows that is constant. How can I also receive and be perceptive? And aware and in touch with the needs of the moment because sometimes, you know, showing up like Pride is a really wonderful example and I'm so blessed to have been brought on by BeautyBoiz for many years now. But they're a perfect example of that, because you're showing up and let’s say my slots at four o'clock, you're greeting people who have been under hot tents all day long. You've got a sound guy who hasn’t heard every set. They haven't had an opportunity for a sound check or for their ears to have a break.

Shai Micaiah: They're usually blown out by that point.

Jaiden Grayson: If I showed up and it was all about me and what my performance was going to be and is everybody ready for me, me, me, it feels so hollow and empty when it's like… has anyone said thank you? Has anyone offered them water? Has anybody taken a moment to self-check? Have they had the opportunity? And what does that look like? How can I be a part of facilitating? That's what's needed. And I rehearse in my own time, and I make sure that my track is set up in a way that, for the most part, if it's that type of a show, you can just hit the space bar, and then, you know, they can maybe have that moment to have a break, and they don't have to worry about adjusting and editing things on the fly. That's how I like to show up in performance spaces.

Shai Micaiah: Okay. It's kind of like acting, then. As an actor, I just become that person. You know what I'm saying? Like, I leave my body, and I just become that other person. What about you? Like, are you still you? Or another version of you?

Jaiden Grayson: Oh, is this like a Sasha Fierce versus Beyonce question?

Shai Micaiah: I didn't think of it like that, actually. But I guess it could be. Is it?

Jaiden Grayson: On stage, it's about leaving everything there. I’ve prepared with rehearsal and now I’m meeting whatever inspiration is available to me on stage in the moment.

“ the moment that you start to explain yourself in a way where you’re bidding to be understood, you’ve lost the plot.”

— Jaiden Grayson

Jaiden Grayson performs an original track for BeautyBoiz Black Pride Celebration in 2022

Shai Micaiah: So this next question is kind of tough, but it's one that I struggle with a lot personally. How do you navigate the difference between being seen as a representative voice and just being yourself?

Jaiden Grayson: In 2020, when everything was occurring — you've got COVID meeting up against this conversation about police brutality, meeting up with this conversation about Black liberation or lack thereof, and there's demonstrations happening, and all of these things. And overnight, it seemed, the local scene, in a sense, was exposed to me and I was exposed to it. And I think that in the aftermath of the efforts of trying to educate, I learned something extremely important, which is that – I'm gonna have to explain myself for saying this – but it didn't mean a damn thing. And I really had to sit with that, and I don't mean that as a knock or to put myself or my efforts down. It did make some differences. It did have impact. There are people who learned, but I wasn't doing people a service by putting myself in a position of free labor, and people saw a Black woman volunteering her time, and came to expect that of me. The most critical work that I've done has been since then. It has been just being myself. It's been in showing up and being a mom, being a neighbor that you can actually knock on their door and ask for a cup of sugar, or whatever it is. You know, knowing the people that live next door to me and having relationships with them. That is true, and real, and tangible, and is living in the work I was spending all my time talking about. I think that there's a big difference. I was talking about liberation, and I was talking about the oppressive aspects, and plight, and yada yada yada, but it was the most caged I'd ever felt.

Shai Micaiah: I totally relate. Sounds like you were doing more explaining than you were living.

Jaiden Grayson: Totally.

Shai Micaiah: And that's not a way to live.

Jaiden Grayson: Yeah. And it's a terrible pathway for an artist to choose, because the moment that you start to explain yourself in a way where you’re bidding to be understood, I mean, you've lost the plot.

Shai Micaiah: I love that. Something that we talk about a lot, just in BeautyBoiz as a collective, is the difference between art and politics, and if that even exists, right? Like, we don't know exactly if there is such a thing as art that isn't political, especially in today's age. Speaking of art, I'm curious, where can people find yours?

Jaiden Grayson: Oh, gosh, you can find me, I mean, if you just look up my name, I think I will pop up all over the place. I'm pretty sure you can just put Jaiden Grayson into Google, YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.

*(Image Right) Jaiden Grayson Performs Original Music for BeautyBoiz Black Pride Celebration Volume 3 (2022)*

**Shai Micaiah:** You can. I can confirm that you are Googleable, and I loved visiting your Instagram. It’s great. I got to watch some fun videos, got to see some of your art there. I definitely gave you a follow. Now, a couple of bonus questions. If you were a tarot card, what tarot card would you be?
**Jaiden Grayson:** I don't know.
**Shai Micaiah:** If you don't know anything about tarot cards, just make one up.
**Jaiden Grayson:** I would... Maybe… Queen of Hearts? The Empress? No, that's a regular deck of cards.
**Shai Micaiah:** Oh, yeah, there's queens. There's four queens. But if you don’t want to be just any queen, there’s the Empress. She's, like, the main queen. The queen of queens.
**Jaiden Grayson:** Oh, no, I changed my mind. I wouldn't want to be a queen. Maybe… Is there a messenger? I'd want to be a messenger.

Shai Micaiah: Oh, I love that for you. Yeah, I could see that. The messengers in tarot traditionally are the pages, but nobody knows what a page is. It was somebody that helped a knight. Yeah, like get into their saddles because, you know, it's pretty hard to do that by yourself. It actually is. I went horseback riding once. I was a horse girl, briefly. Like, you know, the girls in elementary school who collected horses and only wanted to talk about horses and were usually named Catherine.

Jaiden Grayson: I thought you meant the people that ride a stick and they're, like, you know, it's not a real horse, but pretend it’s a horse.

Shai Micaiah: Well, so I highly recommend that instead, because my parents finally were, like, okay, we're going to take you horseback riding to find out if you actually like it. And it was really hard!

Jaiden Grayson: How old were you?

Shai Micaiah: Oh, my gosh. I don't know. Probably, like, 11 or 12. I don't know. Old enough that they were, like, okay, if you really want to ride horses, it's time for you to ride a horse. And then I got on one and I was, like, oh my God, this is the worst form of transportation I can imagine.

Jaiden Grayson: No, okay, so I did the same thing. When I was like, maybe nine or something. And I absolutely hated it. I was like, this is a large animal. They're huge.

Shai Micaiah: They’re huge! Okay, one last question. Can you name a Taylor Swift song yet?

Jaiden Grayson: How do you know that? Wait, how do you know that I don't know?

Shai Micaiah: I did my research... Just one. She's written a lot of songs. It's gotta be over 200.

Jaiden Grayson: This is very Nardwuar of you to know that I literally know… I have no idea. I know not one. I know that they exist.

Shai Micaiah: You somehow got vaccinated against hearing a Taylor Swift song.

Jaiden Grayson: I don't know how. I've heard them.

Shai Micaiah: No, I know. You just couldn't name them.

Jaiden Grayson: No, I certainly couldn't. But my best friend Jessie recently came out to me as a Swiftie, and she's going to be sending me some songs.

Shai Micaiah: I can definitely name one, and that's because Kaleb has it tattooed on him.

Jaiden Grayson: What is it?

Shai Micaiah: Oh, should I tell you, or should I let him tell you? It's “Trouble.”

Jaiden Grayson: Oh, wait, I know “Trouble!”

Shai Micaiah: Right? Well, this was so wonderful. I think we're done. Thank you, and thanks for everything that you do with BeautyBoiz. We love working with you.

Jaiden Grayson: I love BeautyBoiz. Y'all got me. Whatever you need, I'm going to do it.

Artist Spotlight: Jaiden Grayson

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