Yet if Glover has worked from the inside out – pursuing a disruptive agenda from within – Coel has been employing a different set of tactics: refusing to accept the industry’s prejudice as business as normal. If Glover’s agent of change was a Trojan horse, then Coel’s has been a grenade. To excel (and to be seen) she has stood up, rather than stay quiet. She refuses to do the thing many black working-class creatives are told to do if they want to get ahead in a predominately white industry such as television: to politely keep her head down and graft. Oh, she’s grafted all right, and then some, but silence in the face of systemic oppression isn’t an option. For her, it’s all part of the work.
Of course, like all great creators, neither Glover nor Coel want any sort of pat on the back for the work they have pioneered, nor for the new ground and standards they are redefining for future generations. And although they aren’t after any statues – a commitment to interpret their material is enough – that doesn’t stop us, the viewers, the critics, the fans, from holding up their talents in wonder and awe. To see, clearly, and to listen, via Zoom – Coel in London, Glover in California – as they both talk about a new future, their own futures, maybe even your future, being forged out of the embers of the past.
Donald Glover: Hi, Michaela,
Michaela Coel: Hey, Donald. So we’re actually doing this!
DG: Yeah, I know, we’re doing it. How’s it going?
MC: It’s going well. I just got back from the photo shoot, which is why I have this plait in; it’s about as long as I am…
DG: It looks good. I thought you were just doing it for fun. I thought you were like, “The ‘WAP’ video came out. I wanna do something…”
MC: I haven’t seen the “WAP” video. Is the hair like this?
DG: I’ve only seen it twice. I’m sure it is like that. Maybe I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how they switched their shit up because they saw the video.
MC: What shit? I don’t know anything about it. I just know it’s got something to do with lubrication. Could that possibly be true?
DG: The female excretion of natural lubrication. It’s not actually like, “I went to Target and bought, you know, lubrication.”
MC: Yes. Yes!
DG: It’s about how wet a vagina can get, which is, I guess, a new concept to a lot of people. What was really weird about it was, at first, I saw a lot of men talking shit about it, which I didn’t understand. I was like, “This isn’t even the dirtiest song I’ve ever heard!” But I also hadn’t seen it. I just saw a slew of men saying, “This is bad for children!” I’m like, “What the hell are you talking about?” It’s just kind of funny to me.
MC: Let me google the lyrics. Let me just call them up, because…
DG: One thing about your show that I really liked – I mean, it’s a little thing – was you got being young, with the music and the retro Nokia [mobile] and all that kind of stuff, really down. I was like, “Oh, I used to play Snake like a motherfucker too!” When I was really young I used to listen to Kilo Ali, which was really dirty at the time.
MC: I don’t know that song.
DG: Kilo Ali, in Atlanta, he had a song called “My Ding A Ling”. That was when I was really young. It was really ratchet. It’s just him saying there’s nothing like his penis.