Photo by Jibri Victorian, @victorianprime
Siena Liggins first emerged from the Detroit music scene in 2017 with her single “Like Me,” the support of Assemble Sound, and her first tour opening for Jax Anderson. Since then, she’s had her single “Flowerbomb” called “the song of the summer for girls who like girls” by Wussy magazine, and continues to land on Billboard’s Pride Playlist.
We recently caught up with the now Atlanta-based singer right before she was heading into the studio, and she talked about the influence of boss women, social media influencers as protestors, and working to be more centered and community-focused for this installment of That’s 5.
The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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What influences you?
Siena Liggins
Everything. Life in general. Women influence me, mostly like strong women. That’s been the constant in my life. I draw a lot of influence from boss ladies. I also draw a lot of influence from nature. And I think that there’s nothing more natural than the comfort and nurturing spirit that women bring to the world. We hold shit together. My dad was a really big James Brown fan, and “This is a Man’s World” was one of the songs he would play a lot. The lyric in the song, “it wouldn’t mean nothing without a woman or a girl” is something I really feel. That lyric epitomizes how I navigate the world.
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Would you name some of the boss women who’ve influenced you?
Siena Liggins
I’m a huge Beyoncé fan, like my whole life. I often joke that she raised me. My mom and I definitely had our troubles, and Beyoncé taught me a lot about being proud of who I am. More recently, I’m super inspired by AOC [Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. I’m inspired by other women artists who are using their voices and platforms. Specifically, this week, I’m inspired by Noname for doing her thing and educating people. She’s been doing that: I went to one of her Book Club events, and she’s been about educating people. I just love women that are about that life: they don’t just say it, they’ve lived it.
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What’s the most overrated?
Siena Liggins
The answer I want to give you for the most overrated thing right now is the fucking police. That’s it, on period. But I guess my more lighthearted overrated thing is social media.
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What’s the most underrated?
Siena Liggins
Social media is also super underrated. It’s such a fucking weird-ass world. I was talking to my dad, and he was asking me how I felt about random influencers going to protests and doing weird-ass photoshoots or collecting content for their social media. And I’m like, “Yuck, disgusting, vomit.” But my dad’s like, “Yeah, but we kind of need them.” That’s such gross culture; it’s all so gross. But he’s not wrong about needing them, and my next thought was how the fuck did we get to a place where this is true? Why do we glorify a lot of people who aren’t doing anything for the betterment of all of us, who don’t move us all forward?
Social media is underrated because we do need people with a lot of followers and influence to have a higher chance of getting the message out. But the danger of that is putting the message in the hands of someone who is only acting for themself, they’re not doing things in the service of communities. That’s the difference between an organizer and an influencer. And it sucks because in today’s world the two are easily confused. You can be an influential organizer or you can be an influencer who’s a part of the organization and really fucking holding us back.
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At this moment, do you see anything that has the potential to achieve a lasting good, something to be guardedly excited about?
Siena Liggins
Awareness is a big, big deal. It’s the sort of thing where like the idea “ignorance is bliss” is no longer an excuse moving forward on the issues of systemic racism, police brutality, and long life of white supremacy. There’s an opportunity to educate even further, but the baseline of all of this is that this is the biggest movement for Black people in history. It touched damn near every continent. We saw protests from people and groups all over the world. This is something that I don’t even know if Malcolm and Martin could have dreamt of, you know? All of these people are now participating in this fight that’s lasted more than 400 years. The awareness is incredible because now it’s the sort of thing where if you see me and you don’t acknowledge me, then I know where you stand.
So, there’s excitement for me in that if you show me who you are then I know how I can act moving forward, whatever that looks like. It’s going to be exciting for black people because we have this opportunity and this power now to say, “you’re either for me or you’re against me.” And if you’re against me then I know now that I have the tools in my arsenal and also the support of my community to build something beyond what you’ve created and beyond the constructs and barriers that you put up for me. Or, I can work with you and we can move forward together. But the most exciting thing for me coming out of this is like the world that we’ll live in there will really be no excuse. I’m also excited for it to stop trending. And not because I don’t want it to be a popular topic of conversation, but I want to find a way for all of this to become lived in, everyday dialogue, the way that it is for so many black people.
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So what’s next for you?
Siena Liggins
Right now, it’s been so interesting. In the last few weeks, I’ve struggled with myself about figuring out where I fit in in all of this. How do I contribute? How have I contributed? I’ve been asking myself if a lot of the work I do is important. And by important I mean am I positively impacting the community? Am I positively impacting the community where I live, that I profit from, and that I want to move forward with? I struggle with all of this in how I live my day-to-day life. I support women; I support Black women. I try to keep that in the fabric of everything I do, from the creatives I work with, to the people I hire, and the people I collaborate with. I try to put an emphasis on buying from black-owned businesses. I try to put an emphasis on using the resources that I have to support the communities that I think need that support. Could I be more vocal? That’s a question I have asked myself a lot and thought about for this next step, this next phase of my career and life. So, honestly, what’s next for me is a lot of reflection and a lot of creating. There’s a lot of creativity ahead of me because I think that is something, being creative, we’ll all see moving forward. And I want to see Black people win. I want to see my friends win. I want to see the people I care about and love win. I want other people to want to see them win. And in order for all of this to happen, I’ve been working on ways to do all of this and support all of these things in a way that’s very honest. I feel exhausted and drained, and that’s not who I’m going to be moving forward. As this movement evolves, I’m going to figure out how to get back to center. And when I get back to center, keeping the spirit of all this, the short answer is an album [laughs].
