Can you introduce yourself?
I am Cyan Peppah (pronounced Cayenne Peppah). I consider myself an artist. I was born in Cape Town, and I’ve lived across the country, but Cape Town is my home and where I’m operating from, working from, doing my art from and learning from, and experiencing from. I am 33 years old even though I don’t look it [laughs], and yeah I am an artist; it took me a very long time to say those words, but I’m an artist. I’m an artist because I took something that was natural to me, that I enjoy doing, and I did it regularly, and other people saw it and enjoyed it and other people hated it and and other people didn’t understand it and some people asked to do more. And people actually asked me to do it for them, and some people offered me money to do it. And it is my voice.
What is becoming to you?
I think a big part of becoming for me, especially in the context of where society wants to hates you, is to be the most exaggerated version of yourself but also the most beautiful version of yourself and not reserving that for special occasions, but making sure that it's part of your day to day life. So, that process for me started about four years ago and it started with my name, Cyan Peppah. So Cyan Peppah the name is a funny story. I was getting ready for a music festival and I was wearing a neckpiece with black and cyan feathers. I took a selfie, and thought, “Okay this looks cool, I’m going to post this to social media” but I’m really bad at captioning images, normally I just post as is. So, I was thinking, “Should I put cyan because of the feathers?” At the same time, I was watching Paris is Burning and Pepper Labeija was doing a monologue at that very moment. And I was just thinking “Cyan or Cayenne Peppah” And then when I said Cyan (cayenne) Peppah, it took it back to a line from Jill Scott, from her first album, a track called Love Rain, where she makes reference to cayenne pepper in a very sexual way. And I was like “Cyan Peppah, yes!” And so I put that as the caption. One of my friends Ina Propriette, one of the more known drag queens in Cape Town, she commented saying, “Oh is this your new drag name?” And I was like, “Yeah! That has a nice ring to it”. So from that point, whenever I did a look, I would always do the look as Cyan Peppah. But I think over time, the looks that I did, going to the club, going to events, just started merging with my day to day life. And when I’m talking about being very intentional or being very exaggerated, it's not putting on a show, it's like being very intentional with how you identify and what’s comfortable for you and what’s important for you. What’s important for me is queer visibility. What’s important for me is creativity; being able to colour outside of the lines; playing with all the toys at the same time. So for me, becoming is that process you do every single day when you wake up, when you kind of have to amp yourself up to go out in the street and wear the crop top or wear the pants that are a feminine cut and wear it because you love wearing it and you feel good in it. But also knowing you might get a comment or there might be a physical reaction, but you just need to do it because you keep on hiding and you can’t keep hiding forever.
How does art help you become?
Art is a bit of a buffer; sometimes it's easier to say something in a video, put it on social media and you physically don’t have to deal with the consequences, because sometimes the consequences aren’t so easy to deal with - doesn’t matter how bad of a bitch you think you are. Art is a bit of protection or shield, or armour that you wear. And I don’t necessarily see it as a negative because amour can be dope, it can be pretty [laughs], it can be sparkly and shiny you know? While I’m still coming into my own, which may sound funny for a 33 year old, but I will continue to find ways of doing what I need to do and saying what I need to say, and art has consistently been that vehicle for me.
Why is it important to be yourself?
Survival.
You need to be who you are for survival. Survival is passing on. The reason we pass on stories and experiences is so that the next generation can grow. I also feel like people from my old community are stagnant because all they know how to do is survive. There’s no tradition. For me growing up, there was no tradition, tradition was going to church for Christmas and Easter, basically Christian traditions due to colonialism. But if you took away the religion, what did we actually have? We didn’t have that. And there is a movement now where people are trying to reconnect to where we actually came from outside of a colonial context. But yeah, that’s why it's important to be yourself. It's not about me and “oh I’m going to do me, this is my voice, this is my life”, it’s partly that, and that’s valid, but it's also literally for the survival for people like you - people that look like you, that do like you, that sound like you, that feel like you, that’s why need to be ourselves, we need to be seen as ourselves. And as much as we show ourselves to other people, we also need to be comfortable looking in the mirror, and a lot of the time, that’s very difficult. Sometimes it's not about the clothes you wear, but hating the body you’re in or not identifying with the body that you’re in, and not feeling like you can do anything about it. For example, if you’re a trans person, if you’re not identifying with your body, but the opposite body, but because of the house you’re living in, the community you live in, you can’t do anything about it because that is going to threaten your safety. So, you’re just trapped in this world, in this body you can’t do shit about, and you hate it every single day and you wish you weren’t you, and the only way to get out of that is to try for self love. So, that’s why I choose myself, so people like me can be remembered.
Read Cyan’s full interview here