Hey y’all! We’re back and this week we have our third
featured guest/artist here at the Artistry Corner. I am so blessed and so
honored to introduce you to my homie, dearest friend, and magazine editor, Ms.
Evangeline Elder! A while ago, around the time she first started her trendy
online editorial, REHAB Online Mag, I had a chance to sit down with Vang and
discuss how she got her start. The result was this dope interview revealing the
ups, downs, behind the scenes details, and eventual success of the innovative
online publication with an urban edge. If you want to hear the whole story
behind REHAB’s birth, check out more about her and the publication below…
This Week's Featured Artist...
~Writer/Editor~
Evangeline ‘Vang’ Elder
Small
Bio:
An Oakland Native and UC Riverside graduate, Evangeline is
an ambitious and goal oriented young woman with an eye for style, an ear for
good music, and a voice for the urban community. During summer 2013, she began
working on a new editorial project to put her dope trendsetting skills on
display for the world to see. The end result was REHAB Online Magazine, a trendy,
edgy, and fashionable publication to draw attention the style, music tastes,
and art within urban communities of color. Stylish and dynamic in her own
right, Vang has worked tirelessly to launch this editorial and each month
ceases to amazes its readers with the latest news, fashion, music and now,
food! Now a little more than a year in the game, REHAB has more than dozen
issues under its belt and recently celebrated the 1-Year Anniversary of its
launch this past November. I’m so honored to have been able to conduct the
first of many interviews that I KNOW she’ll be doing in the future. Please join
me in welcoming, Ms. Evangeline Elder…
Q&A
1. When did you first start writing?
“I started writing when I was 6 or 7 years old
probably. My mom has this funny story that I used write 11-12 page stories when
I was like 9 or 10 about animals and they’d be going through these deep
scenarios and situations. So I’ve always been writing as long as I’ve could and
I’ve also done things like the Oratorical Fest in Oakland, a lot of Black
History Poems and reciting and stuff, so like whenever it’s been *pause*, when
it came to articulating myself, it’s always been a part of my childhood.”
2. What inspires you?
“I think what inspires me is anything that’s
passionate, and I know it sounds cliché but, *pause* and I hate to be cliché
with this, *laughs* but I’m a Cancer and I feed off a lot of energy and
emotions and sensitivities, so passion usually recognizes passion and I’ve
always been a passionate person. So for me if it interests me and if it’s
visually appealing, you know that’s why we have the website stuff, because
anything that’s visually appealing, anything that looks interesting or
intriguing even if it’s conceptually just really grabs my interest, you know?
So in general I’m really interested in people who have stories behind them, you
know? What they’re portraying like a lot of the features we choose, a lot of
them have actually cool and interesting stories. And you might not think that
but, if you go back to a lot of the things they’ve said in the interviews, a
lot of things come from their pasts and their childhoods. I’m inspired by a lot
though. I love music, I’ll say that I really love music and I really love
fashion, those are probably two of the biggest things that attract me and those
probably resonate throughout the website obviously. *Laughs* I try to mix it up
and I’m getting better at being more diverse when it comes to the different
aspects, but music and fashion probably trump everything.”
3. So what makes you write?
“I would say what makes me write is just this feeling
I get where I need to purge my emotions. It’s kind of just… writing at this
point is almost like a ritual, you know? When I go through something or when
I’m mad, sad, angry, or it could even be when I was writing an essay back in
undergrad it’s really just a matter of this process that writers have I would
say. Whether you’re a trained writer or not it’s just that you consider yourself
someone who can articulate themselves on paper, you get what I’m saying? It
just happens. You know, like, I can’t explain it.”
4. What is REHAB?
“I love this question. *Laughs* REHAB is a place
where you can go and take in this huge urban eco-system, it’s just this place
where you can absorb so much stuff, you know? And it’s like typically,
traditional obviously what ‘rehab’ is, it’s like a therapy for people, it’s
where they go after they’ve overdosed or where your family sends you when they
think you have a problem *laughs*, it’s a lot of things. So I wanted to build
this site for personal reasons, but in terms of a broader perspective, I built
REHAB based off of the fact that I felt urban people needed REHAB, I felt like
we needed quality content whether it’s trap music, whether it’s Balenciaga,
whether its Prada, whether it’s a recipe for a new smoothie that helps your
skins, whether it’s Men’s fashion, style, sneakers, whatever it is I wanted to
create like I said just this sort of urban eco system that you can expose urban
people to our own culture. I think culture for especially, primarily African
Americans, and Latinos, and you know, Filipinos whoever, like minorities in
general, I think that they leave a lot of things out like beauty, you know?
They [Society] don’t think that black women or Mexican women can care about
beauty products, they don’t think that black men can be into fashion and style,
they don’t think that we can be into Balenciaga or this and that, I hate to
name drop, but you get what I’m saying? They don’t think we can be into those
things, unless you’re like June Ambrose or something. *laughs* So for me it’s
like REHAB meant this place where you could go and get all the things that
society tells you, you normally shouldn’t be interested in, you know, so of
course we include staples of urban culture like hip-hop, R&B, rap, and all
that, but at the end of the day we try to obviously use the website, we mix it
up a lot because we want to expose urban people to other culture verses them
being told this is the only thing you can like.”
5. How did you come up with the concept for
REHAB and why?
“It’s funny because I got in this really bad car
accident and it was really by the grace of God that I made it out of the car
accident. My car was totaled on the 10 E freeway getting off Crenshaw and I had
also gone through some serious heart break and those two together made me just
feel something or feel type of way, you get what I’m saying? I want to sing the
song for that by the way, but I won’t *laughs*
Those two
things, events together made me feel some type of way in terms of what was I
doing creatively, I wasn’t exercising my mind.
I’d always heard from people ‘oh you’re so smart, you’re so creative,’
but I hadn’t done anything with it, you know? So it was just kind of like, I
was sitting on my bed one day after the car accident and after all the heart
break crap and I was chillin’ with Leah, who is our graphic designer (and she went
to UCR, so you probably know her), and I was like I need to start something.
And 3 or 4 days before the car accident I was like I should start a magazine
called Rehab, something, I need to start something, I was just bored and then
after the car accident I was like, you know, F this I need to start something.
So then I went to use my home girl’s computer, her Mac, Leah’s Mac and just
opened up a program and started editing and just playing around and stuff, next
thing you know, three hours later she gave me a logo and I was like I think we
should do REHAB and then make syringes for the ‘A’ and she was like oh that’s
cool then she created it, next thing you know I got a logo. And then the next
thing you know, 10 days later I buy the domain and buy the website and give me
REHAB and then next thing you know I’m in Watkins at UC Riverside on campus
building a website for a month *laughs* henceforth we birthed REHAB. All
because I was mad at a, you know, certain person.”
6. Are you still a poet?
“Umm yeah... I actually wrote a very, I actually
wrote one of my deepest poems probably 2 and a half weeks ago. And this was one
of those poems where sometimes being in poetry clubs and being in English and
stuff, you’re creative you take advantage of the fact that you can write and
you kind of abuse it. But this time the emotions were flowing and I literally
just wrote a poem that was really special to me.”
7. 5 facts about you?
1. I used to
golf, five or six years and it’s very rare for a black woman from Oakland *
laughing* to be a golfer, you feel me?
2. I love
Scandal. You cannot, Scandal cannot be replaced *laughs* If Scandal’s on I’m
not talking to you, I don’t talk to you if Scandal is on. If I were married to
you, I wouldn't talk to you if Scandal was on.
3. Sometimes I
listen to really harsh gangsta music. It’s not really a secret *laughing*it’s
just something, a different side of me where it’s just like I feel like a guy
sometimes. It’s like certain artists bring it out of me.
4. I really wish
I could paint and sing. Those are two things that I’m extremely jealous of,
like I’m actually really jealous of singers and painters. I would love to be
able to, like, serenade someone, but it doesn’t quite come out like that when I
sing *laughing* I’m just really jealous, I think I want to take vocal lessons
when I get more money, you know? Just something like that.
5. Despite some
of the content that I’m interested in I’m probably a really religious person.
And I think a lot of people that I went to college with and people in general
don’t know that I grew up in the church and that my parents grew up in the
church and my whole family grew up in the church. And really didn’t stop going
to church until I came to college, so I’ve always been a baby in the choir,
playing my instruments at church and stuff. So that’s just something that
people don’t see that side of me often. I’m not really the biggest poster child
about God or Jesus. I just feel like I’m kinda young and don’t want to come off
as a hypocrite in anything that I do, but I know personally that I carry my
faith with me, you know, when I go to sleep at night.
8. Ways to
connect with you?
-IG: _vang
-REHAB IG:
rehabonlinemag
-YT:
REHABonlinemagazine
Now go
head and head over to REHABonlinemag.com and for all your latest fashion, music,
and art needs in urban culture, and tell ALL yo friends! You won’t be
disappointed :)
Hope you’ve
enjoyed this week's feature, stay tuned for our next artist spot, until next
time beautiful people...
Peace
& Positivity,
Dij :)
