Did You Know?: Behind the Scenes of “The ‘Black Card’ Project”

This month we would like to introduce you to Leilani Barrett. He was the voice behind the The Principal character of “The ‘Black Card’ Project.” Get to know Leilani below and check out his commercial demo!

“I was very proud and had a lot of fun voicing The Principal at the Booker T. Malcom Luther Parks Academy of Absolute Blackness and also helped with the recording/directing of the VO (voice over) of Artie’s mother from my studio. As a founding member of Inlet Dance Theatre, I was very happy to collaborate with my Inlet fam to help facilitate Dominic’s and Bill’s vision using my skill set as a professional voice actor on this project. I understand and agree with Dominic’s perspective not only from an artistic viewpoint but personally as black man who had to navigate his own nonconformity growing up in East Cleveland. In many ways growing up in the Black experience is not much different from the average experience of growing up with American culture with one particular exception of learning how to code switch early on in a society that is bent on conforming you based heavily on the color of ones skin and what that is supposedly representing. Interracial disputes about “who is black enough” or “what defines blackness” and who is the arbiter of those definitions unbelievably still occur to this day and I admire a work of art like “The ‘Black Card’ Project” that challenges that narrative.”