By Lily O'Leary
In collaboration with One Earth Collective, the Austin Eats’ Verses & Vittles Lyrical Slam aimed to promote healthy eating and advance food justice in Chicago’s West Side neighborhoods. This year’s event featured a screening of They’re Trying to Kill Us, a documentary about the intentional inaccessibility to healthy food options in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods. The poetry slam was a chance for attendees to share their responses to themes in the film, as well as personal observations of food injustice and associated health crises in Chicago. Read more about the event here: https://www.oneearthfilmfest.org/earth-words-blog/2024/10/28/the-austin-community-explores-food-justice-with-joyful-amp-powerful-healthy-food-event.
Recording artist, songwriter, and activist Z Saj won this year’s Austin Eats Lyrical Slam. Born and raised in Chicago’s West Side, she is a creator who speaks from passion and personal experience. Z Saj’s winning poem explores the physical and mental tolls of poor diet and the links between food inaccessibility, disease, and death in black communities. You can read her poem here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14kRA6za7q_1_kIxIG-DucO6TzKiGEsci/view.
In this follow-up interview, Z Saj discusses her views on food injustice in Chicago’s West Side, her decision to be vegan, and her journey as an emerging rapper and artist.
Q: What inspired you to participate in this competition, particularly one on food justice and healthy eating?
“First and foremost, I’m a vegan, so I’m very mindful of what I consume and put into my body. I’m fortunate to afford healthier eating options. Vegan isn’t always healthier, but I can choose fresh fruits, vegetables, and other produce that align with my eating habits. I also pay attention to the neighborhood where I grew up, East Garfield Park. It's food deserts. There aren’t healthy options–just a bunch of corner stores and liquor stores. You have to take the bus to go to the grocery stores. Just thinking about the impacts of not being able to eat what you want to eat…my classmates were eating Flamin’ Hots for breakfast. It’s what their parents could afford. They weren’t eating an orange for breakfast; they were eating poison. I wanted to speak about it because I could speak about it.”
Q: Why did you decide to go vegan, and did you face any challenges along the way?
“When I first started transitioning to healthier eating habits, it was about my body and what I was consuming. First, I took out red meat, then went fully vegetarian. Then a partner inspired me to go vegan. I also started thinking about the environmental impacts: How much are we wasting? How many animals are slaughtered? The amount of energy and resources being wasted, yet never entering my community in the first place. They’re throwing all this food away, and I’m not going to continue to participate. It’s still very hard, but you have to remember your “whys,” especially with food being inaccessible. I could just eat what they eat. We have KFC, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, all on the same block—but no grocery store in sight.”
Q: How do you approach blending art and activism? What advice would you give others who want to use art to address systemic challenges like health disparities and food injustice?
“I talk about the things I can talk about, that I know about. My life is activism in itself, resistance to the system. So I start with telling my story. I’ve been brutalized by police and security—I can tell that story. I’m vegan and grew up in a neighborhood where we didn’t have food—I can tell that story. I can tell the story of growing up in poverty on the West Side of Chicago. I can tell the story of sexism. I can tell all of these stories because they happened to me. Sometimes, I change the perspective and tell the story from a third-person point of view because, now, I’m watching it. Seeing this system force my people to kill themselves with the food that they eat. Everything I talk about, I’ve seen it, I’ve done it.
My advice is to tell your truth. Now, some artists are raunchy and explicit—they say exactly what they mean—and oftentimes, nobody wants to hear it because it’s the hard truth. But if you tell people the truth in pretty paper, they’ll hear you. So put some literary devices in there. Don’t just tell them, ‘Stop eating this food because you’re gonna die.’ You have to almost trick people—like putting medicine in candy. You know what people are going through because you’ve been through it. My junior-year literature teacher once said, ‘The reason why we read is to know we’re not alone.’ And I’d say that’s the reason we consume art—the reason we listen to music and poetry. So just let people know they’re not alone. Tell your truth.”
Q: How do you see health disparities showing up in Austin and similar communities around Chicago?
“I grew up on the West Side, and I’ve seen the health problems—high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, asthma, pneumonia. All these things are closely connected to what we’re eating. That’s why there’s a thirty-year life expectancy gap [between North and South Side neighborhoods] (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/05/opinion/inequality-life-expectancy.html). It’s a big deal.”
Q: Do you feel the Austin Eats event helped foster meaningful connections or conversations among residents about these issues?
“When I got there, they had a macaroni and cheese contest, and there were like five vegan mac and cheeses. I was like, “Wait, I can participate in the contest?’ They introduced vegan food to the community, which I thought was really important. The movie they showed was another [important part]—engaging but hard to watch. There was a garden, and walking in that garden made me feel great. This was fresh fruit, and I even was able to eat some of the flowers, tomatoes, peppers—it was an event like no other. There was a panel where the community got to talk back. There were restaurant owners and a competition for the best vegan dish. I was also able to participate in a competition for my poetry—for my artwork—just by having attended.”
Special thanks to Z Saj for taking the time to share her poetry, insights, and experiences. You can stay updated on her latest projects by following her on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/artist/0aWNgZb0rI465zWpJm2Eff?si=qBu1vvgARE-QGx-ViuL9aQ)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/zsaj_?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==),
or her website (https://www.zsaj.org/).
Z Saj is also an editor and on-screen personality for True Star Media—check out their latest podcast on food insecurity here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXbOC7jmd0w.