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Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:05
Welcome to this week’s Story Update. My name is Nathan, and this week we’re going to be
00:10
speaking with Mila Jam, but before we do, let’s take a look at her story.
00:16
My name is Mila Jam and I’m from Columbus, Georgia.
00:21
So I created this drag persona, Britney Houston, who is the Pop Parody Princess of Music Videos.
00:30
I was having a moment of success and I got a call and I was asked to be on a big TV show
00:39
in London and after getting all these followers on YouTube and on my channel and doing these
00:46
parody videos and lip synching, I was like, “Oh my God this is such a cool opportunity,
00:51
I’m so excited to go to London and do something fun.”
00:55
I got to go to London for two days, all expenses paid, they had a driver for me waiting for
01:00
me, my own hotel, accommodations, a trip around London, going to the London Eye, I had back-up
01:07
dancers that I was not told I was going to have, and I was performing with Grammy Award-winning
01:16
producer Mark Ronson. And I’m on stage lip synching with Mark Ronson lip playing on the
01:24
guitar next to me. And I’m feeling it and I’m into it, we have choreography and dancers
01:30
and the crowd is just loving it. And as superficial as it kind of came off,
01:35
it just felt so half-fulfilling. It felt like, “This is great but it’s kind of not me,
01:43
it’s an act” and I was just kind of like, “I want to be myself.” And it kind of
01:48
ate me up so much that I had an epiphany. I was like, “This is the moment that I’m
01:57
able to see that I can achieve my dreams and I can be in front of people and successful
02:03
and amazing” and I just felt like there was something missing. And that was my transition.
02:10
I stopped performing Britney Houston material, I took down my channel, I had all of these
02:17
subscribers and followers and I literally went back to zero. I started completely over.
02:25
So I told all my friends, I told my family who was very supportive of Britney Houston
02:33
and I officially came out to them saying, “I’m a woman. I’ve always been a woman,
02:42
but that’s just not been the shell and it’s time to catch up with that, it’s time to
02:47
make sure the shell reflects who I really am on the inside.”
02:50
It was probably the most rewarding thing that I’ve ever done and the hardest thing I’ve
02:56
ever done. And the biggest feeling was the day I got a call from a producer who was starting
03:04
a record label and he was like, “I’m looking for musicians and artists to sing on my label
03:09
and make music” and I was like, “Me me me me, that’s me, that’s me!” And we
03:15
had a meeting and we cut a demo and we worked on some music and we came up with a song and
03:21
I created my first single. And it was just one small night at a small bar here in New
03:28
York City that we did a launch party. I remember getting ready for the event, I
03:32
had to take a subway to get there, I was really sort of broke, I didn’t have any money to
03:39
seem as fabulous as I wanted to come off, and I got there, there were maybe 30-50 people,
03:47
and I got on that stage and I sang my heart out, and there were my dancers from my music
03:54
and my friends there cheering me on. And it was just the beginning of the foundation of
04:02
starting my journey really as a woman, as a musician, as an artist, and not a mockery
04:12
of someone else. It was just the exact opposite of being in
04:17
London and being on stage with Mark Ronson and the dynamic was startling. And it didn’t
04:24
matter to me that there weren’t that many people in the audience, it didn’t matter
04:27
to me that I wasn’t on a hit TV show, I was just entering my truth and I was starting
04:35
the foundation for all the great things that are supposed to come for me later on.
04:40
Okay. Welcome Mila. How are you? How’s it going? How’s life?
04:45
Hi, Nathan. It’s good to see you. Life is eventful and adventurous and crazy and all
04:53
kinds of things, but it’s good. I’m here. I’m happy. I’m blessed. I’m healthy. I’m sustaining.
05:00
So there’s lots of crazy. Crazy good and crazy crazy.
05:04
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for taking the time out of all their crazy in the world to speak
05:10
with us. So in your…in your story, you had talked
05:15
about that time that you were on stage in London and you had all your backup dancers,
05:20
you were with Mark Ronson, you were living it up having this whole experience. And, but
05:26
also in your story, you talked about wanting to find something more fulfilling. Whenever
05:31
you watch that story now that you shared with us five years ago, what kind of… what goes
05:36
through your head? How do you feel? And have you found something more fulfilling?
05:41
Well, to start, I actually ran into my Ronson on the street yesterday and I’m not even joking.
05:50
And prior to that, I ran into Mark Ronson again at Janet Jackson’s release party for
05:57
her last single a few months ago. I think it was actually, it was in 20…, the end
06:04
of last year. And it was, oh, no, it wasn’t her release party. It was the Met Gala Afterparty.
06:13
That’s what it was. I, sorry, I have to remember. I was with my best girlfriend, Laverne Cox,
06:18
going to all of the Met Gala afterparties. And we were there with. Janelle Monáe and
06:24
Mark Ronson. And I of course, had to remind him, “Do you remember me?”
06:29
And we had a moment. So a lot of great things have happened since we last spoke. I have
06:35
been so busy, my focus, which was, has been music and performing, singing, songwriting
06:43
has taken off in a way that I not only hoped, but it’s been a crazy wonderful ride of opportunity,
06:55
wonderful experiences. I got to perform for the glaad awards last
06:59
year. I’ve been touring, doing pride tours. I’ve been going to San Diego and Seattle,
07:06
and I went to Taiwan for a week to do a music camp. I’ve been releasing singles and music
07:14
all over Spotify and iTunes, and it’s been… honestly, it’s been wonderful to be a black
07:23
trans woman in music, to still have, you know, not a certain level of recognition, but to
07:30
be able to continue to focus on my dream and to thrive.
07:36
Wow. That sounds amazing. You’ve it sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of, you have
07:41
been fulfilled these past five years. I’ve been a busy gal.
07:44
That’s amazing. Well, congratulations on all that stuff. There was – I follow you on Facebook
07:51
and Instagram and, you know, we keep in touch sometimes. And I remember that it might’ve
07:56
been a year ago, maybe two years ago, you released a music video. Can you remind me
08:01
the title of the music video? I think you mentioned, “Like The Last Time.”
08:08
Yeah. “Like The Last Time.” I only read a little bit about it when you were posting
08:13
about it, about the, the male lead in it, and there was an experience that happened.
08:18
Can you kind of take us through what happened? Yeah. So this video was set to be an homage
08:25
to a video, a music video I really love by Britney Spears, which is called, “Don’t
08:32
Let mMe Be The Last To Know.” I wanted to just show the simplicity and the love and
08:38
the beauty of like a trans woman, you know, meeting this man, this lover, and kind of
08:47
just how effortlessly, you know, love kind of happens. You just fall into it.
08:53
And like, on set, everything just went according to plan. I mean, the guy that we use, we found
08:58
him, you know, we did like a light casting and we were saying, you know, that we were
09:02
doing a music video for a song and we paid him and everything and it was, he was so just,
09:09
he was all about it. And on set, we were cool. We were laughing,
09:13
we’re buddy-buddy. And he, it wasn’t, the focus was not to be like, Hey, I’m a trans
09:19
woman. It was supposed to be about chemistry. It was supposed to be about the moment and
09:25
the experience. And you know, it wasn’t until after we filmed it, we were having a dialogue
09:30
about the process of, you know, finishing a project, You will get to see the footage.
09:36
You will get to see the scenes. We edit what we were going to put, you know, we won’t be
09:40
too extreme. We want to have your opinion or, you know, we want to have your input and
09:45
make sure that you feel comfortable. But then, like I mentioned to him after we talked for
09:50
a little bit, I was like, you know, I’m trans and he was super shocked, but he… but he
09:57
didn’t show it. He kind of like made it seem like it wasn’t
10:02
a big deal. And I don’t know if this was just his way of bluffing, but he was like, “Oh,
10:06
I know people in the community,” or like, you know, “I have friends who are, you know,
10:10
in the gay community,” and it’s no big deal essentially.
10:14
And every single day after that first initial conversation, after we had filmed the video,
10:19
he was like, “Yeah, let me see. I don’t know if I would like to be seen in this scene
10:24
or I don’t know if I want this to happen to happen.” We were so compliant. No problem.
10:30
Make sure you feel comfortable. By the end of the week, he had literally been
10:35
like, “I don’t, I can’t, I don’t want to be in this. I don’t want to be seen, I don’t
10:39
want to be a part of this. Take me out of the video.” We had already paid him. You
10:44
know, it was just one of those things where we were kind of devastated. We were – we were
10:48
in a different location where I live, so it wasn’t something we could just, you know,
10:51
we shoot very quickly and I was like, what? Like we had negotiated with him how to make
10:59
this work for a week plus. And he just completely flipped his script.
11:05
And it was so disheartening because I was like, this was just supposed to be a simple
11:09
love story, essentially. So the best thing that happened to be honest with you is – I
11:15
thought we were going to scrap it. We were going to cut the video and just be like, no,
11:20
we won’t put it out and we’re not gonna do anything.
11:22
But thenI said, you know what? I want to make this a point to talk about what happens when
11:28
not only in productions, but in – in life, in dating, how often men consider us trans
11:35
women, you know, as partners as someone that they want to be with, but completely write
11:41
us out and change the whole narrative so quickly on us.
11:47
And it just reflects exactly what I experienced in dating. So I just decided to blur him out
11:51
and keep him in the video to prove the point that love can’t be blurred. Like you can’t.
11:55
You know, the people that we learn to love and grow with, you have to learn how to, like
12:00
incorporate them into your life and you have to incorporate yourself into their life if
12:03
they mean something to you. And obviously we were not dating and we’re
12:07
not together for real. I do think that there were some real feelings that had developed
12:12
and that probably scared him even more so, but it drove home the point. And I think it
12:18
made the video that much more relevant by all of this happening.
12:24
Yeah. So y’all literally went back and blurred his face throughout the whole video, right?
12:29
Yeah. We were like, you know, we don’t, we’re not trying to like start… you know, I have
12:35
a level of respect for people and I understand that, you know, even in this industry, there
12:40
are things that we should and shouldn’t do. However, I was like, We paid you, we filmed
12:45
this. You know, you literally just sabotaged the whole project. And it was for a reason
12:54
that you even like, sort of expressed you were okay with. But that’s kind of what happens
12:59
in dating as a trans woman as well. Guys will often say, It’s cool with me. I’m okay with
13:05
you. You know, you’re beautiful. I’ve been interested in and attracted to you. I have
13:11
experience. And just as quickly as they say that they
13:13
will do the exact opposite, they will ghost you. They will delete you. They will run away
13:17
and they get scared and skiddish, and I just – that’s exactly what happened. And I was
13:22
like, I’m blurring him and keeping him in the video and this will drive home the point.
13:26
Wow. Well, that’s, I’m sorry that happened to you, but I think that’s incredible how
13:34
you leveraged that and you decided to, you know, go forward with that, with that and
13:39
make a point. And, you know, I think that’s really powerful.
13:42
I think I got a little overwhelmed, not overwhelmed, but I think I got a little, you know, excited
13:49
that – to quote Lauren Hill, “It could all be so simple, but we would rather make it
13:56
hard.” It could have just been so simple and I think it was one of the things, those
14:01
things that it wouldn’t have been that hurtful if he had just agreed to be in the video.
14:06
We also need to see ourselves represented with partners in a positive light.
14:11
I’m wondering how, and I don’t want to make this all about him, but I’m wondering, did
14:14
he tell you why? Or did he just keep making it about the project or did it ever come forward
14:19
that he didn’t want to be seen in a trans-inclusive video? Was there any blatant reason?
14:28
Pretty much. It just, it was about, ou know, his likeness and what people would say and
14:37
how people would feel about, you know, seeing him, a straight identified man, who you know,
14:43
is in this video with this trans woman. And we see this all the time in film and television,
14:51
where, you know, people are acting. And it’s a job at the same time. I understand
14:57
that we have our own lives that reflect who we really are, but in the sake of art, we’re
15:02
not always a hundred percent who we’re portraying on the screen. And so I felt like it would
15:07
have been very simple for him to say, you know, I was hired to play a role and there…
15:13
but I think the mixture got in it got mixed up because I think there were some actual
15:17
feelings there, or some attraction to me that made it more confusing for him. And I’m not
15:22
going to get too deep about that, but that made him go, I need to shut down and I need
15:26
to shut this down and I don’t want to be a part of it.
15:29
Wow. Well, again, I’m sorry to happen to you. UBut I’m grateful that you made it into it
15:35
a statement and a powerful message. piece of art.
15:37
Into a piece of work. Into a piece of art. Into a piece of art. Yeah. So we’re also right
15:42
now seeing a lot of, you know, movement for the black trans community. And about a week
15:50
ago, the whole rally at the Brooklyn Museum was… did you happen to go to that or see
15:54
it? I was front and center right in the middle
16:02
of the rally. They had the speakers on the overhead standing, you know, looking down,
16:11
it was, I was in the photos. You can see if you find some of the photos that the publications
16:16
have put out, there’s the front line that they asked all of the trans people there to
16:21
come and stand on. And I was in the center of that line. There
16:25
were so many people there. I didn’t even, I couldn’t comprehend how many until after
16:29
the day was over and I saw the drone shot. That it was thousands, like 15,000 people.
16:35
I thought that maybe there were a thousand, but it was monumental.
16:41
So how do you feel, I mean, you, you identify as an artist, right? Activist, artist, musician,
16:46
you know, all sorts of things. How – this is a very open ended question. How are you
16:52
feeling these days with so much happening with, you know, so much activism just being
16:58
all over the place? And you know, it’s strange because sometimes I almost feel guilty for
17:03
being hopeful during these times. And it’s just as strange feeling, but it’s… you know,
17:10
how are you feeling? It’s another day in America for a black trans
17:17
woman that has not been killed yet. And I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. However,
17:22
you know, this is something that we face often. This is just an exacerbated situation where
17:28
people are talking about it and fighting for it. And the killings of black people, black
17:34
trans people, black women, senselessly is happening so often all the times. And it just
17:39
rarely gets reported the way that it should get reported. And we’re finally in a version
17:44
of all the uprisings that have happened over the decades.
17:47
Here we are in 2020 experiencing, you know, civil rights movements and I’m empowered.
17:56
I feel that it’s part of my experience too. You know, I quote a lot like someone like,
18:04
like a Nina Simone to reflect what’s going on and what’s happening. And so I just feel
18:10
like I’m such a part of that. And I would be remiss if I just sat at home and I didn’t
18:14
do anything about it. And I don’t really feel like I have time to
18:17
be scared because I can’t be scared as a trans woman. That’s like I have to live my life
18:21
and I have to, you know, make the best of what I have and what I’ve been given. So it
18:26
just, it makes me feel like I need to be as proactive as possible. Obviously my wellbeing
18:32
and my self-care needs to come first. You know, it sort of started with me… I
18:36
didn’t really have many intentions of protesting physically and going out because we’re still
18:40
in the middle of the pandemic, but I was asked to go to Stonewall on June 1st to read names
18:50
of trans people we’ve lost. And that day, I hesitated and I almost didn’t go. I almost
18:59
had a moment of not going. But I went, I showed up, I stood in solidarity with the community
19:06
and then I got up and I just spoke from the heart and that – it turned into words that
19:12
have been resonating with people since then. It’s been sort of like my manifesto in my
19:18
mantra, because it was just a time for me to like, have a moment with our community.
19:23
So I’ve been out there protesting and it’s important to me that we put down our…, we
19:33
just put down our ego and we just, we just go out and do what’s right.
19:38
Wow. That’s amazing. Well, again, thank you for all the work that you’re doing. Is there…
19:43
what else is going on in your life? Is there any other updates or anything else you want
19:47
to share with the viewers about what you’re doing or what’s going on?
19:51
Yes, of course. So I did start a campaign that kicked off about a year ago. Well, not
19:58
a year, exactly. Almost a year ago. I shot a music video for a song of mine called masquerade,
20:04
and I painted the words “Stop Killing Us” all over my body. It was the first incarnation
20:09
of this. And then later in the fall, I was asked to perform on Monét Exchange’s talk
20:15
show on the BUILD Series as her first musical guest. And I just decided to like take it
20:21
to the next level. So this visual artist, a friend of mine, you
20:27
know, he does body painting. We painted my body again in the word, “Stop Killing Us.”
20:33
And it was part of my reveal on the talk show. And I took a photo of that in the middle of
20:37
the street, down in Soho near NYU. And it had gone viral. So I’ve been promoting this
20:45
campaign of how, you know, visual art and activism go hand in hand and how it’s just
20:53
a… to create an effect change, why not write these words all over my naked body and make
20:59
it a statement? So people have been sharing that photo and
21:03
I’ve been working on some t-shirts for that. It’s obviously pPride month and so I’ve been
21:10
working on some pride events that are coming out this week. I’m going to be doing and performing
21:15
for the New York City pride rally. They’re doing their rally virtually this year, which
21:20
is on Friday, June 26. And, I’m also going to be featured in the ABC pride broadcast
21:29
on Sunday, June 28th in a protest-style music video that I just filmed and co-directed – sorry
21:38
– co-produced with Monét Exchange. And I released a single not too long ago, titled
21:45
Number One, which is out on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and I just have some
21:51
new music I’ve been working on. Wow. So you haven’t slowed down at all, basically,
21:56
is what you’re saying. No slowing down. No,
21:59
That’s great. So how can people follow you and, you know, where can they find you?
22:05
Yes. Please follow me on social media everywhere. It’s TheMilaJam. I’m the only one. @TheMilajam
22:13
on Instagram. My website is TheMilaJam.com. You can… the biggest and best thing you
22:20
can do for a musician is to go and stream our music. So please go to Spotify and look
22:28
up Mila jam. Add me to your playlist. Tell your friends and family. Rotate the songs
22:34
on while you’re cleaning and cooking. And let’s show the world that black trans women
22:40
are important in music, just like all of the other female icons.
22:46
Great. Well, Mila, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. And if anyone has
22:53
any comments or questions, leave them in the comments and you know, Mila, maybe you can
22:57
check back every now and then, and respond to them if you want. And check back next week
23:03
for our next story update. Thanks again, Mila.
23:06
Love you. Thank you so much, Nathan.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video