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AE: A lot of the costumes and makeup and hair you wore in WYIN was very Afro-centric.
SB: Uh huh.

AE: Whether it was patterned after a Diana Ross and the Supremes look or…
SB: …or Nina Simone.

AE: It’s funny because at the time the film came out black culture wasn’t really that represented.
SB: Right.

AE: And now it is the culture. So that’s a big change that’s happening.
SB: Yeah, absolutely everything, well you know, we were on the tip and it all came to pass.

AE: If you did WYIN now you’d be out there with a gold tooth and a band-aid on your cheek.
SB: I don’t think I’d be doing it like that now. If I was doing a reprise of that show it would be something that would hopefully a projection of another 15 years from now.

AE: (Joking) It would be like Korean culture.
SB: I don’t think it would even be about that though, that wasn’t the intention. It was that the black culture heavily influenced me growing up in my work, so once again it was something I experienced. I would never do something that didn’t have a direct influence of me.

AE: In the film you had a black female alter ego.
SB: Right.

AE: She’s kind of a through line in the film.
SB: Exactly, she’s kind of like the one who’s easy, breezy, and beautiful. And she really is black, and here I am trying to be black and my life is all complicated and fucked up, so it’s kind of a funny statement.

AE: The connection for you to black culture is it mostly through music?
SB: (Yes) music--I grew up in Flint, Michigan where we were surrounded by Motown and kind of like the beginnings of the whole black cultural explosion.

AE: I noticed in your last show Everything Bad and Beautiful it was the first time I’ve ever heard you really talk in detail about a relationship.
SB: Right, right.

AE: You talked about your girlfriend.
SB: Yes, yes.

AE: What’s her name?
SB: Sara.

AE: It was something that really touched me in that show.
SB: And that’s the next logical evolution for me as an artist. To be able to be that personal without having it be like…

AE: …invasive?
SB: Yeah. You know, it’s like this is where it’s at, but I’m not saying shake anything up, it’s just real and the feelings are real, and I think they’re feelings that people can relate to.

AE: I know in the past you really didn’t want to talk about relationships. What switched over, is it just that your relationship is at a more solid point where you felt that "this is what I want"?
SB: I just really felt it and I wanted to talk about it now.

AE: She’s an editor or a writer or?
SB: Yes, she’s a writer.

AE: Whom does she write for?
SB: She writes scripts and she also works in p.r. but I don’t talk about that because she’s kind of in a public position and she doesn’t want people bothering her.

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