Q&A: Social entrepreneur Suga-T talks new music, mindset ahead of Indy visit

Suga-T Stevens, PhD also known as the Legendary Suga-T, is coming back to Indianapolis this month — but not just for hip hop.

Rapper, CEO, motivational speaker and author Suga-T recently announced a new single and select tour dates which include Indianapolis. She’s also the featured guest speaker for Quiche and Conversations, a local event focused on wellness and community conversations hosted by Inspired on Purpose and Speak on It Radio on May 29.

Suga-T sat down with the Recorder ahead of the event to talk about her new music, having an entrepreneurial mindset and balancing different aspects of her career.

Responses were edited for clarity and brevity.

This marks your first time speaking at Quiche & Conversations in Indianapolis. What makes this particular event so special for you?

Suga-T: Just being able to come back and impact the community. Indianapolis, the region itself, sold a lot of seats in the beginning of my career (and) over the past 40 years, and just being able to bring something back, to give as we were given to as we built my music career — that’s  the most exciting part. And then, of course, that’s what I do in general, I’m an author and a speaker and a trainer, and I own a coaching school, and a learning academy, so that’s just a part of the work as well.

When you do these speaking events, are there specific topics you try to touch on to inspire people?

Suga-T: Yeah, the main thing is creating equitable opportunities for yourself and healing through creativity and arts. And, of course, women and girl empowerment always.

What was it like to transition into this phase of your career? How do you balance your music career with your education, humanitarian efforts and motivational speaking opportunities?

Suga-T: It wasn’t built all at once; it was through the years. At different times in my career, I needed different things. I was brought into the industry — I came into it mothering, parenting. Therefore, different times there’s been different things that came up in my personal life that allowed me to have to either pivot or put something in front of the other, whether it was temporary or whether it was permanent. Because I knew that was the type of environment that I was going to have to have in order to fulfill my full purpose and have the well-rounded experience as a woman, and not a regretful woman later saying, ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda, oh my god, my kids hate me because they never see me,’ or I left them with somebody else, so they’re saying I didn’t raise them.

I just always had intuitions in those ways. Not only that, but also so I can have that experience, because that’s what I had them for, to experience motherhood and womanhood, and then shortly after I experienced early grandmotherhood.

Different people, men, can leave their children with the mothers and the wives, and me as a woman, I just didn’t feel comfortable always having to leave my children. So, I wanted to establish something that was close to me, that I did not have to travel and still could make money, be a social entrepreneur. I chose social entrepreneur because I wanted to help people along the way. Some of the humps and bumps that I went through in my own life, I knew they could be beneficial to others as I continued to develop and get exposure, and deal with the triumphs, the challenges, the hurdles and overcomings, and into new spaces. All of those reasons made me be able to juggle into those different spaces for the years.

Can you tell me a little bit about your mindset when you realized you wanted to do more with your career and what that entailed — whether it was the people you surrounded yourself with or stepping outside the box within your own industry?

Suga-T: My specialty, my expertise, I learned it eventually, is helping people create equitable opportunities for yourself. In that, I had to create equitable opportunities for myself along the way. So, I was pretty much forced into it, to be honest with you.

The good part is, at the beginning of my career, I was put into the career as an executive producer. I came in helping run a label, so I understood that as a teenager in this music business that it had to be about business and I had to have an entrepreneurship mindset and I had to have a ‘do-it-yourself just in case somebody else don’t do it or won’t do it for you’ mentality.

Being a mother on welfare at 15-16, years old, establishing Section Eight at 17 years old, and realizing that in my 20s I had to let that go because I started venturing into actually creating, making money from music and noise. I knew that there was only so much I can do with the resources I was using at the time that helped me get on my feet. Because of all those places and spaces and layers that went on in my life early on, it made me understand that music was not going to be my only space.

READ MORE: NearSpace Education looking for educators to lead state-wide STEM programming

I said that I wanted to help someone else that was in that position to have a good experience. Being a social entrepreneur, I’ve experienced the community element of it, everywhere from social work to program development to program implementation to executive directorhood. In all those places and spaces where they’re helping a client or helping the staff or helping myself, those are places that it becomes a lifestyle.

It ain’t just about music; it’s a bigger world out here than just music, and I just liked to be there, I like to be in all different types of places.

Unfortunately, the music space in hip hop became stagnated to where the messaging was not healthy for me all the time. It kind of stayed the same through the years … I’m like, ‘oh my god, they’re saying the same thing. It’s not going nowhere.’ I’ve been a person that liked to evolve, and I probably outgrew everybody around me, all the men, all the people that were still in that ‘Let’s have fun, let’s turn up, let’s get it, let’s get high, let’s hang out, let’s go party.’

I kind of always had to go back to my kids. I always had to go back to a husband. … I had to always get back to my business, or I had to figure out how I could do these things on my own if I didn’t want to do it anymore, or if someone didn’t like me anymore, or somebody slipped the rug from underneath me for me.

June is coming up, and it’s Black Music Month. Can we talk about your new song and upcoming album?

Suga-T: Yes, I love my new album. It’s gonna be different, and I’m gonna surprise you. The album that’s coming out now, there’s a time where people try to — ageism. People are afraid to grow up and it seems as if they’re afraid to grow up in hip hop. I’m not afraid to grow up, I’m happy to live as long as I have, to be here for over five decades, and there’s so much that could happen.

I think age is a blessing. I made this album to show women that they don’t have to take their clothes off to make it. That’s number one. They could still be sassy, they could still be risky, but they could have a little class and a little sass without the things that they’re already getting from the other women that are dominating right now. … This album is going to represent that for people who want to break from twerking from risky behavior, but yet still want to stay in the trend, and still have the level of coolness and what we’ve offered in the past as a group, and me as a solo artist. I think they’ll really enjoy it.

It’s a safe album to play in front of your children. It’s no parental guidance, but it is definitely friendly to the family, older, and it’s not hard on the ear to the younger generation of underage.

How would you say your music has changed over the years? Do you find yourself looking toward different areas of your life for inspiration, or has that always been pretty consistent?

Suga-T: I know who I am, I know how I want to live — because what you put out there is going to affect your life, it’s going to reflect somewhere — and I like being just one person. I like being me. I don’t like to have to switch up and change and be this person and that person, and I like to give a show.

Now, I talk like I got a lot of sense, but when I’m on stage, I rock it. I know how to intervene, get us moving. I know how to turn into that performer. But with the music that I make, I don’t want to be split between (like) I have to be this person over here and that person over there. I’m just straight shooting, and it definitely comes from a space of knowing who I am.

What does it mean to you to be able to do so much within your own community? I imagine you stay quite busy, so where do you find joy in all of it?

Suga-T: I think it’s a place of always feeling like I’m needed. I think that’s what keeps me healthy, that I’m needed, and that I can help someone else that may not have been exposed to what I’ve been exposed to and might need that push — because I was one of them.

I’ve been one of them as a younger person, I’ve been one as an older person, I’ve been one recently, I could be one in any given moment, even now. I enjoy seeing someone else get through it, and I understand that sometimes people just might need a resource. Sometimes they might just need a kind word. Sometimes they might just need to be around somebody positive. Sometimes they might just need somebody to hear them.

So, being that I’m a transformation coach, that’s what I do. I help people turn their pain into peace, passion, prosperity, and purpose, and I help them develop multiple streams of income, and through that by positioning them to understand how to create equitable opportunities for themselves.

The Working Well Project is a sustainability hub, we call it Save Ourselves. Teaching people how to save themselves is everything, and that’s the joy in it, is being that person, even today. Sometimes I need help, even today. Someone either helps or someone doesn’t. When someone helps, it makes a world of difference, and when someone don’t, it also makes a world of difference. So, I like to be that other just somebody in somebody’s life that can make their life easier, because life is hard enough.

Quiche and Conversations will feature food, vendor booths, Sprinkle Me networking and a panel discussion with Suga-T from 5-7 p.m. on May 29 at Nexus Impact Center. For more information about Quiche and Conversations, visit daspeakabox.com.

Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.