New Yorker makes music, opening doors
“Hello, my name is Lachi. Like Versace,” says the woman in the fabulous dress and the beaming smile. Then the New York-based singer-songwriter takes more time to describe herself than most people.
She offers a visual self-description for blind people in her audience, saying she is a Black woman whose hair is in cornrows. She describes her outfit, her jewelry, her nails, her shoes. She tells them she identifies as blind. (Her book, “I Identify As Blind,” is due in 2025.) She tells them she’s a community builder, co-founder and president of RAMPD, Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities.
Lachi is a living, breathing reality check, making a name for herself by making music and by pushing the recording industry to open doors to the disabled.
She has a vision for the future, but the artist – who goes by a single name, adapted from the language of her parents’ Nigerian homeland – will never see better than she does today. A condition called coloboma is progressively sapping her sight.
No Lachi description is complete, though, until she talks about the musthave accessory she refused to use for years, the one that sets her apart from sighted members of her audience and whose bling sets it apart from ones used by other blind folks. She describes her “glam cane” – and it typically gets an ovation.
The glam cane has become her calling card, arriving just ahead of her and dovetailing with the way she lives her life: taking something that some might see as a negative and making it her own.
Lachi is USA TODAY’s Woman of the Year for New York. She took some time recently to talk about her life, her advocacy and one euphemism that makes her howl.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Question: You have talked about how people describe the disabled as “brave” or “courageous,” or how inspiring they are. Please explain?
Answer: It’s ‘inspiration porn.’ Most of the time they’re doing it with good intentions. They think they’re doing the right thing when actually they’re doing something very harmful to the community. And honestly, the community itself has to also recognize what is harmful to itself to be able to honestly combat it.
You’re no fan of the expression “differently abled.”
(She shrieks.) That term is the hill I will die on. Using ‘differently abled’ to single out folks with disabilities is very much that: a single out. You think that you’re helping by changing the word a little bit to take the ‘dis’ away. Secondly, it’s just patronizing. It is an offshoot of inspiration porn, a way to say, ‘I am afraid to speak about disability head on, so I want to kind of mask the issue by putting icing over the cake so that we don’t actually have to talk about the hard discussion.’ To me, it’s not a hard discussion. So when you walk up to me and say, ‘You’re not disabled, you’re differently abled.’ I’m like ‘But, Boo, I am disabled. So let’s be adults.’
Who paved the way for you?
First and foremost, my mother. She was and is such a light. She showed me what feminine strength really is, how to be able to come to America and raise seven children with poise, grace and humility while also being a badass. People talk about generational traumas. She gave me so many generational gifts.
Who are you paving the way for?
One of the reasons that I glam out my canes and really am loud and proud about it is because I should have been using a cane since I was a kid, and I didn’t want to because I didn’t want the stigma. I didn’t have any role models.
I decided, if I want to be that role model, I want to be the full package. I want to use my cane. I want to use it proudly. But, you know, not all canes match all glorious dresses on red carpets. I’ve gotta have a cane that’s part of my personality.