We’re back with another episode of the Another Possible World! A Black Girl Watching paid subscriber exclusive podcast where we explore revolutionary new ways of creating art and spotlight the radical creatives behind it.
This month’s guest is Oakland filmmaker and musician Boots Riley, the creative mind behind the ground-breaking surrealist and anti-capitalist films and series Sorry to Bother You, I’m a Virgo and his latest I Love Boosters.
Boots is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers due to his bold creative vision and unapologetic insistence on being overtly and radically political in his work. When I was creating my dream guest list for the Another Possible World podcast, Boots was at the top of the list and in the next hour, as we talk about art and revolution, you’ll see exactly why.
In this episode we talk about the twenty-year-old roots of Boots’s new film. In 2006, he and his Oakland hip-hop band The Coup released their fifth studio album Pick a Bigger Weapon. The 13th track of the revolution-minded production is a little song called “I Love Boosters.” The song is Riley’s ode to the (usually) Black women in the Bay who steal clothes from department stores and “And sells it in the hood for dirt-cheap resale”:
“For some of y’all folks, this stuff might phase ya / This ain’t the way the society raised ya / But most of it was made by children in Asia / The stores make money off of very low wages /
“The next time you see two women running out The Gap / With arms full of clothes still strapped to the rack / Once they jump in the car, hit the gas and scat / If you have to say something, just stand and clap.”
Now, Riley has turned the song and its central thesis of corporate exploitation of labor as the real thief and burden on society into the genius new film of the same name, I Love Boosters.
Keke Palmer stars as Corvette, the head of an all-Black women booster crew called the Velvet Gang. The opening of the film mirrors the first verse of Riley’s song, where a man goes into what he thinks is a woman’s apartment looking for a hook-up, but it turns out, the place is full of boosted clothes and shoes in all sizes that she’s selling on the low. Naomi Ackie and Taylour Paige round out the gang who have become a thorn in fashion mogul Christie Smith’s side, whose department stores they’ve been robbing blind.
My new favorite, God’s Strongest Soldier and a frequent Boots Riley collaborator Kara Young also makes an appearance in a memorable role as “Crying Black Mother,” a supposed Concerned Community Member and in our podcast episode, Boots talks about the wild origin story of this character.
We also talk about his definition of surrealism as an exaggeration of contradictions, and how the bright bold colors of I Love Boosters conceals the seedy underbelly of the fashion world and the ways these corporations build their wealth on the backs of a desperate labor force, risking their workers’ health and livelihood for profit.
Played by Demi Moore in her kookiest role yet, Christie Smith is as crooked as they come, building an empire off of Chinese enslaved labor, and living at the top of a literal leaning tower that most people have to hilariously struggle to navigate. In a clever bit of production design by Christopher Glass, this slanted building that she lives in both externalizes Christie’s twisted morals and character and also, in that Boots Riley, anti-nihilistic way, shows that the empire she’s built isn’t as solid as it appears and can be toppled with one big push.
Surrealism merges with science fiction when one of those Chinese laborers, played by Poppy Liu, steals a teleportation device meant for corporate evil and uses it to get to Oakland and help get the word out about the conditions of people in the factories that make Christie’s clothes. People are getting cancer and dying from the chemicals they use to make the clothes as cheaply and quickly as possible. But Corvette can’t see beyond the abandoned Chicken Shack that she’s squatting in. With bills due and overdue, Corvette is literally chased around town by a giant ball of her anxiety. This, Riley argues through the film, is how our corporate overlords keep us from being able to effectively organize for all of our basic rights and needs to be met. When we can barely see above water ourselves, it’s hard to see the people drowning right next to us.
Lakeith Stanfield plays a charming man with a deadly secret whom Corvette can’t help but be mesmerized by. He pops up throughout the story to tempt her off of her mission, an easy out through love and romance than the dangerous life of a squatter and a booster with the law already on her tail. But of course, every choice has a consequence, and there’s no such thing as a free ride.
Whereas evil tech billionaires are destroying our land, air and water to build A.I. data centers to better surveil and replace us, Riley uses technology as a form of liberation, literally connecting our struggles to those across the world whom we may never see and know. In Riley’s world, the Afro-Future is communist, and not even a handsome, charming literal soul-sucking demon should be able to tempt us to try and “change things from the inside.” (That’s a little bit of a spoiler but you still will not be prepared for how that actually manifests on screen!) A general labor strike is our only path forward to end capitalism.
I don’t want to spoil the many surprises coming your way in I Love Boosters (yes, out of nowhere, there is claymation). But if you’ve seen a Boots Riley production—Sorry to Bother You features enslaved half-man, half-horse laborers; I’m a Virgo features a 13-foot-tall teenager in a world where superheroes are real—you already know to expect the wildest ride you’ve ever been on. If you haven’t, think of the man in the opening scene: go in for a hook-up, leave with the fliest pair of shoes in your size for the low price of a movie ticket instead. The laugh-out-loud I Love Boosters will literally go off the rails. Think B.A.P.S. with the girl-gang comedy, plus Blade Runner and the collage art of Mickalene Thomas. And claymation! If you’re up for a vicious tear-down of the world of high-fashion, the billionaire class and capitalism, just hang on and enjoy the riotous, liberating ride.
Thanks to all of the Watchers who submitted their questions for this episode! Boots answers quite a few of them, sharing updates on I’m a Virgo season two, when another The Coup album might be coming, and also his favorite rom-com—only the most cinephile of cinephiles will be able to guess it!
Catch all of the behind the scenes stories, his process for writing music versus screenplays, how to build a communist revolution through art, only on the Black Girl Watching podcast Another Possible World.
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