Kalup Linzy, the Self-Made Soap Opera Star

For Kalup Linzy, life is a soap opera. It’s not that he’s known for being a television star; he’s never been nominated for a Daytime Emmy or won a coveted (now defunct) Soapy award. But through his work as a performance artist, he has created his own world of theatrics, each episode a lo-fi drama that is sure to make Susan Lucci proud.

The accent that has become a staple throughout his pieces is the same one I’m hearing now, including the famous southern trick where ers become ahs: daught-ah for daughter, air-ah for error, a piece of himself that exists as a homage to a childhood spent in rural Florida. While he kept the accent, Linzy’s work has moved him to faraway places like New York and Oklahoma, but this has never bothered him. Like all good soap operas, he knows that when the plot thickens, the characters must act accordingly.

We’re inside his studio in Tulsa — or actually, just Linzy is. Our conversation has been flowing so naturally that I almost forget we’re separated by entire state borders. An hour and a half into our Zoom call, he begins to meticulously map out the family tree of each character of his soaps as if they’re his own blood relatives — all of the gossip, and birthplaces, and subplots and fatalities included.

“Jada was the oldest sister that was away having a successful career and didn’t want to deal with family too much,” he says. “I don’t want to live in my hometown, so I’m sort of like Jada now.” In a video where he plays Jada, Linzy lip syncs to Erykah Badu’s “Didn’t Cha Know” sporting a towel head wrap, casting soulful expressions and fluttering eyelashes against a shower curtain backdrop in what is perhaps a perfect example of his ability to fully embody each character.

Linzy admits there was a time when he shied away from such nonconformity, when Kalup Linzy the Performance Artist was just Kalup Linzy the Stuckey Native.

“For a long time, I was uncomfortable with my sexuality,” he says, looking off into the distance. “But through art I opened up.”

In front of me Linzy is strikingly ordinary and laidback: his foot haphazardly propped up on the coffee table, sunk into the sofa where he’s currently perched, talking through yawns just like the rest of us. I catch a glimpse of banana yellow shorts, the same ones that he mentioned at the beginning of our call after stating he “likes fucking yellow.” Even the studio behind looks relatively bare-boned until he rotates the camera to face a wild selection of wigs, costumes and props that he incorporates into his videos.

“I go to the thrift store thinking of the character, like ‘Okay, let’s find your outfit,’” he states as he gestures towards the rack of whimsical garb hidden just out of frame. Some might view this as a metaphor: Linzy, the unassuming eccentric, brimming with creativity even when others can’t see it.

It all began in 1994, when Linzy’s first soap opera was born. In what looks like a rip from a VHS tape uploaded to YouTube, the opening scene has a teenaged Linzy lamenting about the ozone, and, “you know, how it’s being destroyed.” The quality itself is a relic of a bygone era in which dial-up internet was still something of an anomaly, when video cameras were used for making home movies, not vlogging. Boredom mixed with the inspiration of soap operas he watched growing up contributed to this becoming a regular format in his work.

“We were latchkey kids,” Linzy says, “so it was the TV babysitting us most of the time.”

Now 42, his pieces have become notably more polished as he’s grown older, which means shooting in HD, high-quality sound and a rotating mix of celebrity cameos from the likes of Natasha Lyonne and James Franco. It should be noted, however, that one thing has remained a constant through the years: his voice dubbed over each character, a southern dialect that acts as a way to spark a conversation.

“It was really to explore language, race, and culture, this idea that the way we talk or the way we speak is determined by the culture we are born in, not the color of our skin.” With the pre-recorded dialogue, everything is just a bit off, but Linzy wants to make it clear that this is the intention. With a regular script, it would be easy to dismiss what’s being said, but when there is an obvious disconnect between the character and their voice, it forces you to zoom in.

But this wasn’t the only reason for the overdubbing. It also stems back to a time spent in theater, when Linzy had trouble learning different dialects. In an attempt to find validation and appreciation in the language he grew up around, he began implementing his own voice into his work. Shakespeare, he points out, “used language of the everyday people” and turned it into a form of high art. Linzy also occupies various roles throughout each soap, sometimes featuring phone call scenes in which he speaks to — well, himself. In perhaps his magnum opus, the series Conversations wit de Churen has Linzy taking on the roles of Nora Lee, Jada, Tyrone, Taiwan, amongst a myriad of other characters that he either plays, voices or creates. While his work includes emotional undertones, Linzy isn’t interested in focusing on trauma.

“Some of my work has gone that way, but can we ever just get out of that place?” he says. “When I first started out, I wrote the idea of making a video so bad that it’s funny. Saying fuck all the rules. Now my work is cleaner, but it’s still breaking rules.”

It’s true that the almost outlandish narratives and unique format have set him apart from other artists, although not everyone is fond of Linzy’s work. He recalls an incident during an open studio at Sharpe-Walentas with a complete stranger. After making herself at home by taking a seat and beginning to knit, she made the flippant comment that his work “stuck out like a sore thumb.” Linzy wondered if she thought he was occupying a space that she was meant to have; in other words, one that he didn’t deserve.

He’s right to wonder: a 2019 study published by the Public Library of Science found that white artists make up 85% of U.S. museum collections. In a New York Times review of the MOMA PS1 exhibit, “Now Dig This! Art & Black Los Angeles 1960–1980,” art critic Ken Johnson openly stated that an exhibit promoting solidarity would only divide viewers. The review was so controversial that a petition was made, demanding that The Times take responsibility for Johnson’s actions. How, then, do you navigate a world that has been designed to fail you? What about when your work centers around themes of not only Blackness, but queerness? There aren’t always clear answers, but Linzy knew at the very beginning what he had to do.

“My work has always been my form of resistance,” he says. “I could have gone with middle-of-the-road material, but I was like no, I want to do something different. I want to speak to these issues. I want to speak to how I’m feeling and I don’t have to be like everybody else. I’m going to follow this vision, these images that are coming to me. I feel like my very existence and how I live my life is a form of protest saying, this is who I am, call me whatever, I don’t have to fit into everybody else’s little boxes.”

A legacy is difficult to build, but Linzy is working hard to make sure that he leaves a good one. Towards the end of our call, we discuss future plans in the midst of COVID-19 like two shipwrecked sailors — when will we ever be rescued from the island that is coronavirus? Linzy swivels his laptop around so that I have a clear view of the outside world through his garage door, which, despite the heat, he has kept open to help him feel less isolated. The sun is setting, a vibrant wash of pink and orange, and I realize that we’ve been talking for over two hours. Linzy has a way of pulling you into the conversation, one of his many talents. Even still, he plans to do more.

He begins with the art house, a project that will offer a space for one artist to live and create work for four weeks; at the end of their stay, a performance or show of that artist’s work will take place. The first one will be based in Tulsa, but Linzy eventually hopes to plant seeds for more in Florida and New York. Having lived and worked in all three locations, he wants to keep his connections, whom he says have helped him build his life. As for the art house itself, it will serve as a way for Linzy to stay engaged and active in the art community.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever have a partner,” he says, pausing. Then he breaks into a smile, beginning to laugh. “If a partner shows up, they show up. I always say I never want to be that old man in the bar checking out the new fresh meat.”

Linzy speculates that the art house could be turned into a museum after he passes, and that he hopes that his work will continue to resonate with people. While exaggerated, the characters and themes of a majority of his projects are incredibly personal to him, playing off of real life experiences and people. Contemporary art has a tendency to follow trends, which can be alarming for people like Linzy, whose career has been catapulted into the mainstream. In the past, he worried that his work would be forgotten about, left behind, or that he would see himself “disappear from the canvas” like artists before him. Having now grappled with these anxieties, he has a lot of advice for his younger self.

“You can’t run away from yourself and who you are,” Linzy says. “Just accept yourself. Love yourself. Embrace yourself, move through life, and be okay. You don’t have to worry that it’s all going to be taken away all of a sudden. I would tell my younger self, ‘it’ll be alright. I got you.’”