Name & Location
Dáe Lee from Los Angeles representing both the Jefferson Park district and Inglewood.
How do you heal people?
My healing for people often comes in my writing, where I share my experiences and perceptions based on them.
What type of benefits does your method of healing provide?
As a writer, or an artist in general, I believe I help people connect with themselves a bit deeper. To reflect more on what they've gone through, are going through and will go through so that they can realize the tools to heal already reside within them. And I also believe a big part of reaching that point with ourselves is to allow vulnerability to lead the charge. And I believe I display that often with being open about my depression, my past heartbreaks and a bit of my pain that I go through physically and emotionally. I also believe that because I'm willing to express myself as freely as I can, it can Inspire others to do the same. And with my writing, my mission is always to break the trend of just stating positivity for positivity's sake, we should allow ourselves to be flawed so that we may learn. So in short: reflection, emotional vulnerability, openness, and peace.
When did you realize that you wanted to heal people/why did you start?
I started to realize that I wanted to heal people when they began coming to me for advice, whether it be friends or acquaintances, to release much of their thoughts and feelings. I started writing to heal myself.
Why is what you do so important?
Healing each other is such an important component to our existence, as Mick Jenkins would say about water, it is absolutely necessary to have people like me, like us, to help create a safe space for those who can't fight their demons by themselves, because we've all been there in some form or another. Not many possess the patience and frequency to do this. This is far from easy, but it literally saves lives. It's saved mine countless times.
What is your inspiration to continue doing what you are doing? What is the fuel that keeps you going?
What inspires me to keep going is knowing that even if it's just one person that is positively affected by my actions and it can mean the world to them and perhaps it can help them pay it forward. Refuse me as life itself. There are so many nuances both good and bad to this existence of ours. I'm always intrigued to uncover them.
How does it make you feel when you are healing people?
It gives me such joy to know that I have some type of ability that allows me to listen to people and help them break down their problems and oftentimes I don't even have to know them that well. That's something that always astounds me because it shows you that despite much of our differences there are a lot of things that people go through that are the same. And in particular people of color, we share the same struggles, the same plight this world has burdened us with.
What are your visions &/or goals?
My vision is to use my art to help me travel and build bonds with people. I love that we have an opportunity to connect with each other and being able to make that a multidimensional bond deepens that adoration of each other. I hope I'm able to inspire someone whose felt like their voice, their plight, their worries, their joys didn't matter, to release themselves from the chains we often feel shackled to. My goal is to release my books, and work on a series/short film soon. I plan to help create talks with people of color, especially youth that go through depression and physical ailments so that we can help them. Mental Health is taboo in our communities, much of it due to the conditions of our environment and having to be perfect in a society that seems to only demand such from POC. I want to remind them of their power, and help them use their voice. and for young black men to allow themselves to be more fluid, more emotional, and that it's okay to be.
Tell us a fun fact about what it is that you do, or something people may not know.
I'm an avid beatboxer/beatmaker. I plan on having an EP out next Winter. I'm actually a goofball most of the time, I love to make people laugh because that also helps heal. so despite me hardly smiling in pictures, I'm smiling so much in-person you couldn't tell.
In one sentence, what is your message to the world?
Our imperfections, our differences are the fabric of our existence and that must be appreciated and respected through love and working with each other, healing each other and ourselves; for us to truly move forward.
Is there anything else that you would like to share about yourself or what it is that you do?
I'm hoping that, as compassionate as I'm more than capable of being, that I am always viewed as human. Before anything, before being an artist, I am human. I can stop doing all of this, I can never stop, and that's the beauty of being human. I break down, I build up, just as we all have done since our inception. I say that because I know we often place others who have inspired us or that we may admire on pedestals. We all change and feel differently on so many things, please remember that artists are humans, blessed with the honor to be scribes of human expression. Support and love these artists, as they need to know the same things we may come to them for.