Poppin’ Patty

Classification: Senior

Hometown: Washington, DC

Major: Professional English

Favorite, movie/book/song?

Movie: Forrest Gump

Song: Free Issa Fat Trel. Don’t/Say It

Book: Toni Morrison, Sula

What is 100 Collegiate Women?

100 Collegiate Women is a women’s empowerment and education organization. We provide organic, non-conforming support services to the women on A&T’s campus. We do community service as well as life support. 

How do you balance your life, jobs, organizations and everything else?

The good Lord. There’s very rarely a day that I can get through it without having prayed, meditated, or read my Bible. I really need that time to think and to talk to God and let him talk to me and allow us to bond and for me to be comforted. That’s the only time that I have silence in my brain, since my brain talks a lot. 

Advice for staying motivated and inspired. 

Someone told me yesterday at the panel [The Evolution of Miss A&T], “take a break.” If you do not allow yourself a break you will crash and burn. Every year during Aggie Fest I crash and burn and I’m hoping that this year I won’t and end up crying in my bed.

Piece of advice for ladies trying to become queens?

Do you, do you, do you. If anyone tries to tell you not to do you, screw them. Let them know immediately. When you’re really on your own no one can tell you what to do. Also be your own person. Realize where you are supposed to go and realize where your purpose is and go there and stick with it. I thought I wanted to be a teacher, I really did, but how many times am I gonna change my post-grad plans? I only have a couple of weeks, I wanna go to law school but of course it’s way to late to apply so now I have to wait a whole other year for the process, but I have to turn it around and be grateful for having this experience with teaching because I don’t want to do it. I don’t know what I’m going to do after graduation but my purpose is to be myself. That’s my task. I’m going to be my own girl. I do what I want to do. 

“If I’m too much then you need to recognize when other people are being too little.” If me existing and being in my natural space is too much for you, no boo, that’s not my problem anymore. I wanted to change, but no I wasn’t made for that. I was made to be loud and proud and knowledgable and naturally inquisitive. It took a lot, it took me being isolated and being alone to realize I don’t have to change for people. If someone says you’re too much then that’s not the space you need to be in. 

Tell me about your blogging. 

Wig Snatches is a new section, it’s gonna feature some outfits of the day because I snatch wigs. Everyone else is snatching edges, I want your wig, all of it, give it to me. That’s a way that I’m beginning to do visual texts. I’m going to tell more of my story with what I wear. because I know my aesthetic is super important to my brand.

Favorite article:

I think it was Trap Patty: Hip- Hop and I. It’s an article I wrote from an assignment I had in my hip-hop class and the assignment was about: what is your relationship to hip-hop and how did it developed? In the article I talk about how my relationship with hip-hop was a substitute for my relationship with my dad. My dad didn’t really know how to express himself, because he was going through his own thing, so one thing we always did together was listen to music. There’s artists that I know about like Jean Grae, Ninth Wonder, Ghost Face Killer, Nas, and those type of artists, that I know about because of my dad and because he shared. When he shares music he allows me to share too. My grandad would even make cd’s for me from his collection. The men in my house didn’t know how to express themselves so they did it through music so that’s why that’s my favorite article.