PULSE Xperience Highlights BIPOC Creatives at Blackbox Theater

Black, Indigenous and other non-white (BIPOC) creatives too often have to elbow their way to a seat at the table. Instead of being invited or even welcomed into predominantly white spaces, BIPOC creatives are constantly being told to create spaces for themselves. 

At some point, Khalif J. Guiden got tired of seeing BIPOC creatives treated as an afterthought, offered only “breadcrumbs” by the institutional organizers within Charlotte’s mainstream arts scene. That’s why Guiden, a rapper and producer also known by stage name RoyalCity LiF, joined forced with fellow creatives Shauna Respass, aka ReeCee Raps, and Kazar X to launch the PULSE Xperience, a two-day festival that aims to celebrate the diversity of the creative scene in Charlotte and surrounding cities and towns.

“There’s a dynamic in Charlotte at times where there’s so many amazing creatives and artists and designers and things like that, but everyone’s operating in their own silos and their own groups,” he told Queen City Nerve. 

“My team and I recognize the power of collaboration to elevate each other and our communities,” he continued. “The goal is to provide a space where emerging and established artists, brands, and creatives can connect and be celebrated. Through PULSE, we aim to create an immersive, annual event that builds interest, anticipation and excitement for the future of art, music and culture in Charlotte and surrounding areas.” 

He added that he didn’t like how artists are often treated as an “accessory” by many venues. The festival is a reminder to those venus of how important creatives are.

“Our motto is ‘Creators are the Pulse of the City’ because the creatives bring that culture, that identity to any city,” he said. 

Conceived in 2021, PULSE will finally come to fruition at Blackbox Theater on Saturday, Aug. 31 from 7 p.m.-2 a.m., then continue on Sept. 1 from 3 p.m.-midnight. 

The event will feature over 50 artists who represent the festival’s six pillars, which are music, visual art, fashion, film, dance and food. Charlotte-based rapper Deniro Farrar will headline the first night while Walterboro, South Carolina native Nick Grant bookends the festival on Sunday.

Guiden spoke with Queen City Nerve in the lead-up to the inaugural Pulse Xperience to discuss how planning the festival helped him grow and what he hopes to achieve with it.

Queen City Nerve: How would you describe the PULSE Xperience?

Khalif Guiden: Pulse is really like, “All right, let’s engage a bunch of different artists from different parts of the city who are doing really cool things in and around the Carolinas and bring them into one space to create an experience and an environment that’s inviting to the residents that are around here.” We have six pillars: music, visual art, fashion, film, dance and cuisine.

How did the trio of organizers split their duties in making the festival a reality? 

As an artist, I’ve thrown a lot of different events and concert shows. My business partner, ReeCee [Raps], she’s done a lot of things with her platform called DOAP Events. Our third partner, Kazar, he’s done a lot when it comes to the record labels. One of the things for me, personally, was that I would seek a lot of venues that would want to give creative control to the artist or just provide a blank canvas to really create an experience. 

There’s been a struggle with finding those types of venues that have been open to the vision of doing things that are much bigger. So we spent years and years just developing this idea of trying to figure out how we can bring something much larger, something pretty ambitious for everything that we all do, but put it together so it all works. 

How does it feel to finally have realized this vision, getting from where it was just an idea in 2021 to where you are now?

It feels exciting, but also, there’s been a lot of growing pains with this whole process, to be honest. But in the best way possible. It’s so surreal. Even with all the late nights and long days, for me, I’m excited to be in the space just to see how the space serves all the artists. We’re doing something that’s really big, and we didn’t necessarily realize how big it was until we started hearing people around us talk about it.

You said some local venues treat artists as an accessory, offering them only “breadcrumbs.” Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

I feel like there’s so many times where there may be these major events or large-scale events that come through Charlotte and it seems like they just give artists breadcrumbs. “Here’s $50 to come perform for an hour worth of time or $150 to perform.” But a lot of times, the artists are the main attraction at these events, or they’re the people that are providing the vibe or just the overall feeling of excitement that people get from these events. And so that’s one point where it’s very disheartening at times. 

I believe there are a lot of different institutions, different brands, different events that have been doing things for a while in Charlotte, but they haven’t, in my perspective, put their energy into saying, “You know what? Whatever artist we have involved with what we’re doing, we’re going to make sure that we’re uplifting them in a way so that they’re being celebrated. They’re not just an addition to what’s going on.”

What sort of experiences have you had specifically with venues mistreating artists?

I’ll give you a real example. There was a venue here, I won’t say their name, that I had actually performed at quite a few times. I wanted to reach out to them with this whole PULSE idea initially and sent them a super amazing proposal. Mind you, none of our events have had any incidents. Everyone comes to our events, has a great time. In fact, there are a couple of smaller venues that allow myself and my partners to do our own thing for free without charging us. So we have a great relationship in the community. 

But this venue responded within 10 minutes and they said, “Oh, well, we don’t want any more unorganized, chaotic events at our venue.” It’s like you didn’t even look at the proposal. I guess you may have looked at the people that were on the proposal, maybe, because that’s the only thing I could have thought of. So I’m never going to even patronize what you have going on moving forward.

You said that there were a lot of growing pains when trying to get this together. What do you mean by that?

When it comes to the partners and myself, we’ve done a lot of really cool things on our own and built our own outside machines, metaphorically, with what we have going on, and we do a lot of things individually at times. Having to work together collectively has been different and not realizing how much it takes to pull something like this off has been, too. There’s a lot of correspondence, a lot of planning, a lot of details, a lot of back and forth. 

And then also not knowing what we don’t know within this process. That’s been one of my focuses during this is to do the work to build a system so that we could replicate this year after year after year, and it’s easier as we continue to grow it.

You’ve got experience planning events like this, but it sounds like this experience has taught you a lot about being an organizer.

I think it’s been a practice of faith and belief. This whole process has forced me to be extremely organized and to be detailed and to know every part of my process. As an artist, as a business owner, everything. As someone just putting events together, it’s forced me to sit and study every little facet of what’s going on. It’s forced me to get out of my comfort zone when it comes to asking for help. There was also a practice of surrendering a bit and delegating certain parts of this whole experience to people that we knew were doing things in the community. 

I do want to say that this process has been amazing. It’s been three of us really mainly doing this, but it really would not be possible without the collaboration, the buy-in from the artist from the different organizations, and our community partners. This whole thing has really been a true example of people just buying in and really being excited about a vision and the power of relationships. 

Why was it important for you all to put a spotlight on BIPOC artists, specifically?

When it comes to our culture, the things that we bring to the table, they haven’t always been readily received or they have been received with a ceiling to it. Like, “Hey, you could do this, but only up to this point. You want to do X, Y, Z, you can only do X, and that’s it, and be cool with that.” We just wanted to create a space for us to shine and really celebrate each other, really be in our excellence with each other, have excitement, and really provide a stage and experience where production value is high. 

There’s a lot of things going on so that it’s a space for connectivity. It’s a space for celebration as well as for the artist to feel respected and celebrated at the end of the day. When it comes to the culture that we bring, we have country artists on our lineup, we have singers, we have R&B artists, we have rappers, we have visual artists, dancers, fashion. We have all different facets of creatives that’ll be on the bill, and that’ll be part of this whole experience throughout the weekend. 

At the end of the day, let’s create a space for us to celebrate us — a space where people could come and enjoy and understand that there isn’t anything to be afraid of when it’s a bunch of Black people together.

What would you say to naysayers who continue to shut out BIPOC creatives from their venues or events and don’t think it’s necessary to feature that perspective? 

I would say that they’re lying to themselves, to be honest. As far as the trends, the styles, everything. When it comes to the fashion, when it comes to the music, when it comes to how we walk, talk, all that stuff. We make an impact in general. And I think instead of being leery about that, it’s really more beneficial to partner with these artists. It’s way more beneficial for the experience because we can provide different types of perspectives. It offers us the ability to be resourceful because we don’t have all the same opportunities or resources. 

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So what I would say to the naysayer is just celebrate it and understand what it is and understand the power that is behind the BIPOC creative, because we just bring a whole different type of flavor to everything that we do. It’s beautiful to see. If there’s differences, celebrate those differences, but also to understand the power and the insight that comes with it — the new ideas that just come from BIPOC creatives when they’re given the type resources or stages that they deserve at the end of the day. 

I’ve seen us transform non-traditional and traditional spaces into things that are high-energy, great vibes, good people. And we do what we can do with what we have. I think it would break a lot more barriers. It would unite, I think not just creatives, but this whole gap we have between the underground scene and just a normal resident of Charlotte. So that’s the goal. I would say to the naysayers just don’t get in the way of that. It would be much easier to assist in that whole effort because at the end of the day, it would benefit everybody in the long run.