Your calling is always going to make space for you! Never feel the limitations of the reality of things because things can combust and combine to be way bigger. 

Q1: Describe to us who you are.

Maud: I’m Maud Alcorn. I am a spoken word artist, author, event curator, community aunty. Primarily my work focuses on centering my own artistry and other people's artistry. As a spoken word artist I've worked with UC Berkeley, I've done workshops at The Wing, I've done workshops at Mills College, I’ve performed at Bandcamp, and I've been in Essence magazine. 

This past July I published my first book ‘Black Girl Flesh’ which was a quiet hit centering my experience as a Black woman.

Tayleur: And for me, my name is Tayleur Crenshaw. I was born in the suburbs of New York, Westchester county, right outside the city.. I am an alumna of Howard University - I rep that pretty hard, that is my team. Going there made me see what legacy looks like. I am a spoken word artist, but never really thought of myself as a writer. It wasn’t until I purged and had the confidence to share with people that it grew.

Q2: What impact has Gold Beams had on the community since its inception two years ago? What shift has it made in the city?

Maud: Astronomical, it’s been an astronomical shift. We don't really sit and kind of reflect about all the things Gold Beams does but Gold Beams rings bells around here. And it happened so authentically. Tayleur started Second Mondays in her house in 2018. And we met maybe a little bit after that, I went to the first one and I was like ‘wow that's so amazing’. Tayleur and I started hanging out and just like getting to know each other more. So when she was like, ‘I want to make this a bigger ticketed event’ because it was just a free pull-up to the house kind of potluck thing. She wanted me to help and I was thinking I’ll come put some chairs up, let down the tables. She's like, ‘No, I want you to like do this with me, cuz I want it to be more’. That was in May 2019 - our first ticketed event. Before then, it was just Second Monday’s. 

Tayelur: And for me, I think I can sum our impact in four ways. One, the creative network, right? But two, also the social network. For millennials being social is hard. Like there's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of depression, there's a lot of events where you feel like you have to show up as is as you know, prime, popular, popping - all the alliteration. Um, and for someone who isn’t confident or socially anxious how comfortable are they to make new friends and be like, ‘Hi, I’m this person’? 

We create these experiences where people feel like you leave with family, you’re here with family, you can be your ‘ol silly and goofy self. Also in terms of careers, the venues we book is Black-owned, the caterers is Black-owned, our videographer is Black, our photographer is Black. And again, pushing the fact that you can make a career from your art, and let us pay you. It’s hard to find support because a lot of people want you to do something more conventional, but we're paying you and we’re affirming your craft. Last thing is quality we strive for in every event because that's our business and people deserve it. 

Q3: How has it been for you during this pandemic and what does Gold Beams look like virtually?

Tayleur: So, at the beginning of 2020, we had endless strategies. In 2020, the goal was to be known for more than Second Mondays. So with that came our digital strategy because at the time, people were doing a lot of virtual zooms. And we tried Second Mondays on Zoom and it just didn't feel the same. And so we're like, okay, so people are kind of over being on Zoom. However, they're watching Netflix like crazy. And so let’s produce some shit. So with that, we created a docu-series called ‘In Real Life; A Conversation Between Black Men and Black Women’ where we get vulnerable. We also created our Tiny Desk music series, Fourth Mondays.

We even created a gallery in downtown Oakland. And it's still there. If you walk down to where the old Soul Space store is, a block off from the Fox Theater on Telegraph, it's a whole storefront now of 40 by 60 images of Second Mondays. So we've still been busy. We have something interesting coming up really soon.

Maud:  Yeah, we have a lot. It was good for us to kind of just take a moment and look at everything. In the beginning, I think that we were just so excited to be doing this thing. There was a period where I was like this is a lot and I want to be able to give my business, my organization the time and attention that it needs. So, it’s a lot of personal sacrifices that Tayleur and I make so that we can have the space and capacity to do so. But, we’ve been overly dedicated to the work because everything we put into it comes back tenfold. 

Q4: I’m curious to know, what changes have y’all seen in the Bay Area from when Gold Beams started up to now?

Maud: Over the past two years, I feel like the changes have not been as big, you know. But, I think a lot of the changes for me in Oakland and the Bay Area happened before that. People from San Francisco didn’t hang out in Oakland. Seeing the number of Black people in the city drop so dramatically. I think there's a lot of people who believe that the magic, the artistry, the power that they feel from Oakland is new, and that white people brought it here, which is a lie because Oakland has always been very diverse. I grew up with Cambodian people, Latin people, but the culture here in the Bay Area, culture has always been heavily super driven, created, pushed by Black people. The Oakland I grew up in and the Oakland that exists today are two totally different places. Growing up it was, ‘I'm from East Oakland’,’I’m from West Oakland’, ‘I’m from North Oakland’ like we didn’t really mingle. But, now I am just so happy to see anybody else in Oakland I don’t even care. One shift that I have seen over the past two years, through the lens of Gold Beams, is just seeing how many Black people are still moving here. And that even though a lot of the people from here have moved away, there is still this driving push for Black people all over the country to want to come here because of that. I think there has been more of a unity of Black people here. Not just people from here, but just people who come here, they're actively seeking Black spaces. 

Q5:  You both touched on the importance of shared knowledge. For both of you, what are three gems or life lessons you would share with folks? 

Maud: For me, a personal mantra that I live by is ‘If I do the work, things will work out’. Which sounds simple, but sometimes the work is  writing emails, and sometimes the work is inner.

#2, ‘Whatever you want to do, do it’. A lot of times when you think about the bigness of things, it's like oh my god, $1,000 how am I gonna get that, but if you swallow it bite by bite it makes it a lot more doable and it takes a lot of pressure off of yourself. 

And the last one would be ‘Seek out people’. You know, I think a lot of times, it's easy to be like, I'm gonna do this thing, but I don't want anybody to know about it. But to reference the old proverb, we go so much farther together than we do apart. Seek out the people who do what it is that you do from high, low, and lateral. Don’t ever limit the people around you or look at them as though they are small. There's no such thing as small. Because I'm sure it's people who thought Issa Rae was small time when she was just on her iPhone six recording in her cubicle. But look at her now. 

Tayleur: Me, myself, and I can only do so much. I can only have X amount of jobs and accomplish X amount of goals. But Maud and I together, the capacity grows.

 The second is intuition. I have been in front of many CEOs, and in some of my past jobs and have felt compelled to have said something that is probably controversial. Like, ‘y'all are not diverse’ and you need to get that on your website. If you follow your intuition and do the things that make you happy, you can’t really be resentful. 

The third thing is, understanding that things happen in cycles. It took me nine years to graduate for many reasons. But there was so much in those nine years at the jobs I was working at, the people that I met, and in the desires I had. Nine years is a long ass time to really see the cycle of things and how every high point, every low point, all these dots are all connected and happened on purpose for me to have this bigger dream I asked for. So, how can I be afraid if this week or this year didn’t go my way when I know that all of these connections make sense? 

Maud: What you’re doing is never going to leave you feeling lackluster or like you did that for nothing. Because when I think about how small our thoughts for projects were in comparison to the actuality - the actual event is always bigger. Last year we said we wanted to something with the Black Joy Parade, then a week later Black Joy Parade called us and said ‘We want to do this with you’.  Your calling is always going to make space for you! Never feel the limitations of the reality of things because things can combust and combine to be way bigger.