Can I Introduce you to a friend? 👀

Meet Marvin James who is focused on intuition, community, and being true to self at the moment

Oct 06, 2020

Before we get into this, let me take a deep breath. Actually, can we both inhale? Now exhale and take a moment to recognize that we’ve made it into October. *Pops champagne bottle*. 🍾🎉🍾🎉 I really do feel like we can celebrate making it this far into a pandemic. I’m adding Pandemic Survivalist Strategist to my resume now. brb. 💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿

While you and I know that the year has been trying to say the least, I’m grateful for my family and friends that have kept me grounded through it all. I hope during these times you’ve found the same support. If not, I’m here to be that for you. ❤️✨

Speaking of support, I feel like now is the time for me to introduce you to those I consider my tribe in this new series Friend Of A Friend. Here I’ll be introducing you to friends that inspire me everyday. I hope you’ll get to know them and that they will also do the same for you. 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

With that said, can I introduce you to Marvin James? Marvin is one of my good friends who really inspires me to show up authentically in any given space. Get to know him in the Q&A below and peep the new playlist featuring new music from IAMDDB, Giveon, Nate Woodz, and Eric Ryan. 🎶✨🎶✨🎶

Listen Now

How do you describe yourself?

Yooo I’m a human being, born and raised in Pomona, CA (I.E. in the building), who’s decolonizing the need to identify as an occupation. I do a lot of things. [I’m'] mostly focused on intuition, community, and being true to self at the moment — designing clothes, spaces, services, curriculums, and business models for us.

What is Meet The Youngs?

Meet The Youngs is an ecosystem for artists, organizers, and neighbors to experience self-expression and community organizing within our global neighborhood. I co-founded the platform with Will & Sonia in Jan 2017. We’ve organized 17 ‘Young Meetings’ between LA, NY, and Amsterdam allowing us to collaborate with over 100 artists and bring together 1000 more. We’ve been focused on building our digital infrastructure and holding conversation with members of our community of late. That’s been fire cause tbh I actually don’t like planning events.

How have you stayed grounded during these past few months and been able to stay creative?

Maaan intuition been the saving grace for real. Just trusting that and doing what I can to erase self-imposed limitations on what’s possible. It’s a lot of shit going on so just releasing what’s beyond me and trusting what’s in me has been a daily practice for staying grounded and protecting my peace of mind.

Can you explain what BLACK Summer was?

Yeah I mean BLACK summer was just a perfect encapsulation of what these past few months have felt like. The homegirl Amanda came up with the name (s/o SWANK). She reached out and wanted to collab on a digital community/art program. That name just perfectly captured how I was feeling and what I was seeing in June, July, and August. We took that concept and built it out into a week-long artistic portal. A virtual environment where artists could present new work and homies could purchase it. We curated and hosted conversations and different interactive experiences [and you] came through for a virtual ‘DJ study’. It was a whole vibe. Just a real experimental approach to reconnecting community in these strange times. A way to collectively reflect on what’s going on and hold space for healing and empathizing with each other.

meet_theyoungs

A post shared by Meet The Youngs (@meet_theyoungs)

What has been your favorite moment from 2020?

Maaan so my best friend has been fighting cancer for the past 3 years. With the pandemic I couldn’t see them, but then in July they were finally cancer-free and we were able to go to the park and just eat and talk. I cried so much lol. It was such a bittersweet moment. Since then her tumor’s have come back which sucks and serves as another reminder of how impermanent shit be and why it’s so important to be present in joy & gratitude for what we’re given in any given moment.