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Brigid Bergin: This is All Of It. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Alison Stewart. A new documentary shows a sobering view of the lives of Black trans sex workers. It's titled kokomo City. Shot entirely in black and white, the 73-minute film feels almost like a series of vignettes that are bold, poignant, and sometimes funny. Kokomo City follows the lives of four women, Liyah Mitchell, Koko Da Doll who both live in Atlanta, and Dominique Silver and Daniella Carter who live in New York. Each of the women spend moments reflecting on what they've done to survive. Some share stories of getting into sex work and the toll on their mental health, their daily beauty routines, and facing violence from sexual partners. A Washington Post review says, "At once a vivid group portrait and lucid social commentary, this fleet visually lively slice of life offers a sometimes startlingly candid glimpse of realities that are too often obscured, demonized, and relegated to the margins."

The film is titled Kokomo City. As I said, it is in theaters tomorrow, July 28th, and the filmmaker and Grammy-nominated music producer D. Smith, joins me today to discuss her directorial debut. D. Smith, welcome to All Of It.

D. Smith: What a wonderful intro. Thank you. I was like, "I'm sold. I want to watch that."

Brigid Bergin: It is such an amazing story. Before we talk about Kokomo City, let's talk for a minute. You have maintained a successful career in the music industry for years as a producer for artists like Lil Wayne, Fantasia, Ciara, Andre 3000, Keri Hilson, Monica, Mark Ronson, Katy Perry, Estelle. What inspired you to move into filmmaking?

D. Smith: Having not many options to make a living. Like you said, I did work with all of those artists. I don't know. Producing for a bit over 15 years in the music industry, and deciding to transition in 2014 really turned a lot of people off, and even more, inspired my colleagues and my connections to no longer associate themselves with me, which ultimately caused me to be homeless and not able to support myself after so long. It was a different time than it was today, even just 10 years ago. It's like here I am a black "male producer" that was thriving in the music industry and I decided to transition. People didn't know how to make of that. Particularly, black people. I was really inspired years later after being homeless, sleeping on all of my friends' couches and people I barely knew floors and bathroom floors. It really came to me just me being tired of being in such a dark place in my life. I really wanted to just turn it around and able to just truly a gift that I saw Kokomo City so vividly.

Brigid Bergin: In a video for the Sundance Institute, you said that you reached out to I think like five directors that you knew about making this film, and all of them just said no. How did you end up actually getting this film made?

D. Smith: I had asked someone I was staying with in the East Village. I was literally sleeping right next to his stove, and I showed him pictures that I was shooting around the city and I put them all in black and white with my cellphone. I just went through that black-and-white period for like two months in the city, and it just looks so good. No matter what you shoot in black and white, it just really makes it art. I thought to myself, I would love to see this in motion. I would love to continue to do this and take it further. I showed him the pictures, he loved it and I said, "I really, really, really want to do this documentary, and I will pay you back, and just look out for me, please." Without hesitation honestly, he agreed to buy me the camera and the lens and I just started to film this documentary.

Brigid Bergin: Wow. This is your first time as a director. How much did you learn about filmmaking while you were working on this project?

D. Smith: So much, so much. So much about respecting people's space and also respecting my bandwidth, which was very important because I wanted to do it all just because I saw this vision so clear. I was so excited to just accomplish and take it all on, and I did, I really did. It was a great experience. I also learned as a director how to prioritize what needed to be in the film, and how to do that, and how to respect people's space. Also, I've always learned to respect people's space, but also just keep that quality. My approach is always to be humble and try to be as relatable and as sensitive to people in their private space and their private stories. Also, to be honest, this was a very healing process for me. It's not so much as a transwoman, just healing as a creative person. I was so hurt, and drained, and I suffered so much after being ostracized by my peers, and my colleagues, and business partners.

It was just devastating for any creators that are listening out there wherever you are in the creative world, just imagine all of that being taken away simply just by trying to be you, who you really are. It really did a number on my self-esteem, my trust in humans. To have this second opportunity, this second chance at life, it really just healed me in so many ways.

Brigid Bergin: Your film explores trans identity, and that's something that has become so politicized in our nation in 2023. At least 15 transgender and gender non-conforming people have been killed in the US according to the Human Rights Campaign, that includes Atlanta-based rapper, Koko Da Doll who is featured in this documentary. When did you decide you wanted to document the lives of transwomen, specifically Black trans sex workers?

D. Smith: Yes. No, that was the top of the list. Again, this is my first film, but I also wanted something riveting. I wanted something that was significant, but how could I take these real serious stories and make them a moment for me to really express who I am as an artist? I think it was very important for me to create a film that I wanted to watch personally. It was important to have these particular women in the film because they're so often overlooked and just swept under the rug, or not heard, or not protected, or not seen. All of these feelings I felt. Even though I didn't have the experience of being a sex worker, I was still drawn to their story and really connected to them in such a deep way because we share those moments of feeling alone. I also wanted to show that we could tell the truth and the stories of transgender people without it being so serious.

It was very important that the girls got that, "Hey, I want you to be yourselves, I want you to be humorous, I want you to cry, I want you to do whatever it is. I'm going to film it, and edit it, and make you as dignified as possible."

Brigid Bergin: Let's hear a little bit from the film. This is a clip of Daniella Carter describing her lived experiences being a transwoman and standing out.

Daniella Carter: We be broken down, but we need to stand out. [laughs]. Broken the [blip] down and needed all of that attention. Maybe I'm lying to myself here, but it's funny because it's like with that moment of the car going by like being broken down but making it sound like it's a mother [blip] Mustang or a Porsche. That's what we give. We're good at being broken down, but before people see us, we have a great way of making ourselves stand out. Having that loud roar. It's like we got to be the bitch in the room with the 28 inches. You got to be the bitch with the biggest boobs, the biggest body. It's like, but meanwhile, whether you use materialistic things to cover it up or not, are you really at peace? Are you really at peace with yourself knowing that the best of you is only seen when you're a survivalist?

Brigid Bergin: Wow, there's a lot going on there. Talk about what you were trying to do, and you have both this real revelation of who Daniella is, but also some of your creative process. I hope everybody heard that little roar that was part of that clip which-- It's one of those things you experience in the film. It's a documentary, but it's got a little extra.

D. Smith: That was the joy of making this film. I didn't have CAA at the time, I didn't have my management company, I didn't have producers, I had no one. It was literally just me, my camera, and the girls. I had no rules, no one's making me second guess or doubt why I'm doing this film. You could hear the empowerment in Daniella's voice. You could hear the urgency, you could hear the pride. She literally sounds like Martin Luther King, the transgender version of that. It is that significant, she's that powerful, she's that profound. How amazing that she understands the genius and the balance of telling a story but also adding a bit of humor in there. I think it was a very important magical element that I had to have in the film.

Brigid Bergin: How did you find these four women as your characters?

D. Smith: I went online initially to Instagram and I went to celebrity trans women. I went through their comments, looking for your everyday trans women, and I was led to a couple of them that way. Daniella, for example, she had done three TED talks. I had never heard of her, but when I was introduced to her, I was obsessed. Finding girls, I was also looking for what we call stars as well. I wanted girls that I knew were going to deliver the much-needed story and the conversation and that weren't afraid to step out of the political world that we're so often pushed into. I think it took just a little due diligence. The process, again, was so fulfilling and joyous for me to find these girls, talk with them, and give them a platform to really speak on who they are.

Brigid Bergin: The film begins with Liyah describing what she refers to as one of the scariest moments of her life doing sex work when she meets a client and discovers he had a pistol on him and they wrestle over it, but after the altercation, he returns to the apartment to continue the encounter. How did you decide to open the film with this particular story?

D. Smith: When I was "done" with the film early on, I started tweaking things. My producer, Harris Doran, was teaching me so elegantly and eloquently how to just refine some of the things that I had. He loved everything, he thought it was brilliant from the moment he saw it, thank God, but he also gave me some wonderful notes. I said, "I have this thing I want to put in the film, but I don't know." He saw it and he was like, "Wow." He said, "You have to put this in the film but maybe you should put it closer somewhere in the beginning rather than the end, I think." I was like, "You know what? I'm going to just slap it right dead at the top of the film." It changed the entire feel of the film and even inspired the music and how it moved. Then I switched other parts. It just all just fell into place just by taking the chance and really going for it.

Brigid Bergin: The film centers on the lives of these Black trans women. However, there are several Black men featured throughout the documentary as well. Why did you feel it was necessary to include their perspectives alongside these four women?

D. Smith: This is not a transgender story, this is a Black people story. There are Black men that are engaged with trans women and that are also just friends that never have been with a trans woman intimately but just really support trans women, think trans women are cool or fun, or have things in common, and that's okay. This is not a normal thing to see. Normally, we see Black men running out of hotel rooms or defending themselves on social media, or claiming they didn't know. It's always this sort of disgraceful, shameful type of story when it comes to being a Black man dealing with a trans woman. This gave me and gave the men the opportunity to really just kill that narrative because the truth is trans women have boyfriends, trans women have husbands, trans women have Black men best friends, gay men best friends, Black women best friends. All those stigmas and expectations, I wanted to really just hit those head-on.

Brigid Bergin: I want to play another clip from the film. There's this gentleman, Lenox Love, a club promoter in Atlanta who launched a weekly Hush Night featuring sexy, beautiful, transsexual exotic dancers for men to meet trans women without stigma. Let's listen to that.

Lenox Love: How I started Hush Night is, ultimately, I am trans-attracted. I do like trans women, as well as-- I like all women, all women. Back in 2003, I was fresh out of high school, but I wanted to try to meet trans women, and the only place in Atlanta to meet trans women was on the stroll, as they say. I've always thought that was degrading, at least for the guy, and I'm pretty sure for the trans woman herself. I never really mesh well with just an all-out LGBT club, so I thought it would be a great atmosphere to have it in a stripper atmosphere instead of a drag show and stuff like that, because, like I said, it's a little bit different. The drag show is different than an actual stripper--

Brigid Bergin: D., how do these spaces benefit trans women who are sex workers?

D. Smith: I think what's important about this film is that it shows the humanness of these women. It draws you in and you become somehow emotionally connected, attached with these women and the men. They, all of a sudden, become real people that you feel like you should know or maybe that you've known, and you don't want anything to happen to them. You want them to be protected, you want them to thrive, and you want to support them. This movie, again, it does not villainize Black men. It doesn't villainize Black women. There's no pointing the fingers, it's just getting to some of the root of our issues as a Black community. It gives these women the chance also to be represented.

Brigid Bergin: You are with these women in some really intimate settings. You're in their home, you're in their bedroom, they're in the bath. How did you develop the trust as a filmmaker to allow them to speak so freely, so candidly with you on camera for this film?

D. Smith: I think just being transparent myself. They didn't know that I was homeless while I was shooting this or sleeping on couches, but I did let them know that, "Hey, I am with you, I am here by myself. I can't afford makeup, we can't afford hair, we can't afford special lighting. It's just me here to tell your story in the most safest dignified way that I can." I think, in a lot of ways, they read between the lines. I think even if I was interviewing KKK members-- On the record, I'm open to that, but even if I did that, my approach would be very similar. I have to respect the upbringing of people and where they come from and who they are. The main thing, you have to be confident, you have to let them know, "Hey, I got you. I'm the leader of this, don't worry. I got you." You also have to prove it. Every now and then when I shoot them, I'll show them really quick clips of what I shot.

They see how it's going, and then they go, "Oh, okay. I like that. Let me change my position here, or let me fix this. Oh, my God, this is so exciting." I really kept them engaged a lot of the process. I didn't show them every clip I did, that would have been really annoying, but just to say, "Hey look, look how great you look here."

Brigid Bergin: The title of this project, Kokomo City, was inspired by a blues singer and a left-handed slide guitar player, Kokomo Arnold. What aspects of his life and career resonated with you the most?

D. Smith: Kokomo Arnold was this singer from the 1930s, and he was Black. Here you are in the 1930s, as a Black man, he wrote a song called "Sissy Man Blues." In the song, it says, "Lord, if you can't bring me a woman, please bring me some sissy man." In the time where Black men and Black people were being lynched, dragged through the mud, murder, being mistreated, definitely no equality, that he was able to so freely and boldly and confidently write a song. What's so incredibly fascinating about that is it just wasn't a one-off. There may be three or four other covers of that song by Black men. It's fascinating to me that sometimes people like to say there's this LGBT agenda or transgender agenda or that this is something new.

Queer people have been around a long, long time. I'm so optimistic of how we're going to be around much longer in the future. I think somehow it's very inspiring to a Black man who may be on the fence about really pursuing what it is that he wants in his personal life, his sexual life. It's a great testament of how we've always represented ourselves.

Brigid Bergin: We actually have that song Sissy Man Blues from your documentary queued up. Let's play a little piece of it now and we'll come back for a little bit more.

[MUSIC- Kokomo Arnold: Sissy Man Blues]

[unintelligible 00:21:15]

And I woke up this mornin' with my pork grindin' business in my hand

And I woke up this mornin' with my pork grindin' business in my hand

Lord if you can't send me no woman, please send me some sissy man

Brigid Bergin: That is the song by Kokomo Arnold Sissy Man Blues. I am speaking with the director, filmmaker, music producer, D. Smith, about her new documentary, Kokomo City. It's in theaters July 28th. Kokomo, just as we wrap up, what conversations do you hope people will have after watching this documentary?

D. Smith: How much work we have to go, but in the most optimistic way, I want people to be inspired by this organically. I want people to feel represented in this. I want people to be inspired to really figure out safe, intelligent spaces for us to talk about who we are as Black people. There are so many things that keeps Black people at ends. I think that this is just something I could offer to bring to the table to help the needle along and to everyone that's supporting all over the world, it's been absolutely tremendously healing and emotional for all of us. On behalf of Kokomo City team and family and my team, we're so grateful for anyone that's supporting this film, including your radio show. Thank you so much for having us.

Brigid Bergin: We are so so grateful that you could join us. Again, my guest has been D. Smith. She's a filmmaker, a music producer. Her first new documentary, Kokomo City is in theaters July 28th. Check it out. Thanks so much for joining me in All Of It.

D. Smith: Thank you so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Coming up, yesterday marked the beginning of the Asian American International Film Festival. Now in its 46th year, the festival showcases 120 independent films from filmmakers from the Asian diaspora, ranging from music videos to horror movies to documentaries. Festival director Kayla Wong and programming manager, Kris Montello give us a preview of the festival. That's up next on All Of It.

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