The Abridged version:
Out the Way on J, a 2-year-old local concert series, returns on Saturday, March 7.
Saturday’s event is the first at Out the Way on J’s new home, the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium.
Co-founders Camille Janae Watts and Andreas Tillman sought a new space for the event after hosting it at Mahogany & Rose until last summer.
This story was reported by a member of the . The Community Reporters program empowers local residents to report stories with guidance and support from the Abridged editorial staff.
Last August, Out the Way on J, an intimate, soulful concert series, celebrated two years of elevating the work of spoken word poetry, hip-hop and R&B artists in Sacramento.
It was at this anniversary show where co-founders Camille Janae Watts and Andreas Tillman, also known as Dre-T, announced that this would be the last show at Mahogany & Rose, Watts’ hair studio that specializes in textured hair and locs. The lease was ending the following month, and the business would be relocating to a smaller suite that would no longer be able to house the series that she and Dre-T cultivated together on J Street in Midtown.
Ron Starbuck and his wife had attended nearly every Out the Way on J during those two years. When he learned that Out the Way was looking for new spaces to call home, he shared how meaningful the series was to him with his friend, Megan Van Voorhis, director of the Convention and Cultural Services Department at the city of Sacramento. She then connected Out the Way organizers with the team that operates Sacramento Memorial Auditorium on 16th and J streets. They’ll begin performing at the historic event space on March 7.
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“We have been looking for ways to help incentivize promoters to do more things in our venues,” said Sid Garcia-Heberger, deputy general manager of the SAFE Credit Union Convention and Performing Arts District. “We understand what an economic engine the district is for the greater downtown, and we had been hearing from larger concert promoters that it’s a tough business. The risk is very high.
So we wrote the Promoter Incentive Program. We had just gotten approval on the Promoter Incentive Program from City Council when our department director heard that Out the Way on J was looking for a new space, and the first thing she thought was, the Memorial Auditorium is on J Street. This is meant to be.”
The Promoter Incentive Program encourages event bookings by offering promoters discounts on venue fees and rebates from ticket and some concession sales.
Making space for artists
Out the Way on J co-founder Camille Janae Watts. (Rudee Maillet)
When Watts began operating her studio in Midtown, she felt a responsibility to invigorate the space with creativity and community.
“It felt selfish to only use it for my business,” she said. “I knew that I wanted it to be activated in another way. And so being connected with Dre and his background in organizing events, especially around the arts, I knew that it would be great to collaborate with him.”
Whether as a poet mentor, using spoken word as a tool for investing in youth literacy with the UC Davis-affiliated organization Sacramento Area Youth Speaks or hosting an all ages open mic at Sol Collective for four consecutive years, Dre-T’s life is a resume illustrating his deep investment in community building. A rapper, poet, producer and audio engineer, Dre-T’s biggest satisfaction comes from creating spaces where Black people can grow and thrive.
In many ways, for Dre-T, being an artist and community organizer is hereditary. His grandfather both built instruments and played them. His grandmother drew, created clothes, and was skilled at organizing. Together, his grandparents produced a musical festival called “Jazz on the Hill” in San Mateo. Dre-T was even present at the festival in 1991, a budding artist himself, still in his mother’s womb.
In 2015, Dre-T lost one of his closest friends, the same friend who in high school noticed how hungry Dre-T was to make music and gave him the program to make beats.
“I started wanting to step back…feeling a little bit of survivor’s remorse,” he reflected. Grieving, navigating the loss of his friend, while also being a father, Dre-T was in a difficult season.
“I started to question how people saw me in terms of whether they love me for me, or whether they just love what (I) could do,” he said. “It’s my fault for putting on such an armor that folks didn’t know what I was going through.”
Andreas Tillman, known as Dre-T, is one of the co-founders of Out the Way on J. (Rudee Maillet)
Dre-T began distancing himself from Sacramento and community work. He started working in Oakland, doing warehouse jobs, seeking solitude. And yet, in stretching toward solitude in Oakland, he was touched by a vibrant, thriving creative community of Black artists dignified and still rooted in their city despite gentrification.
“They make sure that, even if you’re a newcomer in Oakland, you’re gonna respect the ones who have made it possible for you to be here. And I’m like looking at them like, I really wish that all my loved ones in Sac could see y’all as a possibility, a reminder, like, we can do this. We don’t have to leave Sacramento. We don’t have to leave our home. We can be artists.”
Dre-T returned to Sacramento with a renewed vigor. He began hosting underground recording sessions, called Out the Way Wednesdays, not for an audience but for creatives themselves, including Sacramento-based artists such as MmaMma Laura Cook, Jakhari Smith, French75, Rudy Kalma and more.
“I would just plug up the mics, play the beat, and just press record, and we just record for hours,” he said. Dre-T and his community began to realize, “all we need is each other.”
For Dre, it was clear: “It was not about being famous and rich. It’s really about being happy with yourself and in the community you made.”
When Watts told Dre-T that she had a space she wanted to bring to life with art — a salon on J Street — the name came to him immediately, “Out the Way on J,” and for two years, they hosted shows on a roughly monthly basis. In many ways, the move to the Memorial Auditorium marks a new season for both Out the Way and the performing arts district.
Back to the stage: Saturday lineup
Saturday’s lineup includes Alicia Hall, founder and lead vocalist of the band Hayez. There will also be spoken word by Charday Ife Adams, who has also started a new season in her life, as a mother. Navigating the grief and shame of past miscarriages and the demands of her professional life, Adams took a hiatus from performing, declining invitations until Dre-T asked her to perform.
“When I got the call from Dre-T, I said ‘I’m gonna just say yes.’ I’m gonna just say yes to being vulnerable for the sake of living and being alive,” she said.
This will be the first time that Adams publicly shares about the beginning of her motherhood journey and the losses associated with it.
“It was very difficult to bring that into my poetry” she said. “I’m really thankful to Dre-T for encouraging me to be vulnerable.”
Adams and Hayez will be accompanied by the LabRats, a band also watering Sacramento’s creative ecosystem, hosting the weekly Sunday Sessions at Torch Club.
“We’re family now,” Dre-T said of his co-founder. “With Camille and I working together, it’s better than doing anything I could have done on my own.”
Tickets for Out the Way are between $28.33 and $31.39 and are available at outtheway.live.
Natachi Mez is a member of the Abridged Community Reporters program.