We’re looking forward to introducing you to Ajah Muhammad-Hays . Check out our conversation below.
Ajah, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What makes you lose track of time—and find yourself again?
Painting is what carries me away from time. I began painting as a way to give myself something to do during a time of pause and reset for a lot of people. It became very therapeutic for me. Once I got into the groove of it day to day, I started to notice that hours would go by and I would miss meals in the creative process. Sometimes I would have just crackers and matcha tea and other times I would eat late dinners. Sometimes I had nothing the whole day and would finish artworks in a day. Time for me disappeared when I created something on a canvas.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Ajah “BintaShabazz” Muhammad-Hays and I am a dancer, afro brasilian drummer, model and Painter. I’ve been dancing since I was 8 years old and painting for 4 years. I’m trained in ballet, modern, jazz, tap and African diaspora dances and I own an Etsy Shop where I sell art prints of my original art peices.
I’ve been engaged in a lot of these practices separately for the past 10 years, and right now I am working on a way to blend all of the disciplines together into one big artistic experience.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
Bonds can be broken when people lack communication and don’t wish to communicate in order to get closer to one another. A lot of times not openly confronting people about our issues with one another can create a lack of trust and soon can create distance. What commonly happens in this phase is that assumptions are made about people and lots of times its negative. And the desire to understand one another is no longer present.
What can restore or strengthen bonds is fully communicating and fully understanding people so that assumptions do not have to be made about one another. I believe that if we all took the time to know each other, our bonds would form better quality relationships.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me that the desire for creativity and invention is at its peak because crawling out of the darkness becomes the main motivation in your life. A lot of time when we are in a dark place, depression, etc., finding our way out becomes a creative journey and turns into a beautiful project. An example of this is witnessing all the different groups of people who have suffered some form of oppression, slavery, racism, and other inequalities yet have been able to come up with different ways of preserving their cultures and surviving, such as dancing or music and have shown resilience and courage throughout history.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes! As someone who values genuine personalities, I strive to always present myself to the public as such. With all the trend setting and imitation, it can be very common to develop a false personality in order to feel accepted. As a result, I present myself as raw as possible so that people can begin to understand that they do not have to conform to certain personality types for societal acceptance.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If immortality were real, what would you build?
I would spend my life opening portals to different parts of the universe and also prepare people physically to transcend to different spaces, through prayer meditation and cleansing the heart.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ajahm.weebly.com
- Instagram: @ajahbintashabazz, @bintashabazzpaints
- Facebook: https://Www.facebook.com/ajahbintashabazz
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@ajahbintashabazz 8669
Image Credits
Katie Levine
Gia Trovela
