The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
Thursday, February 16, 2017 — 3B

Detroit’s historic Corktown, 

home to some of the city’s 
hottest restaurants and bars, 
can expect a new addition this 
spring: Chef Kate Williams’ 
Lady of the House. 

Corktown, 
the 
oldest 

surviving 
neighborhood 

in Detroit, and an area of 
Irish 
immigrant 
settlement 

in the early 1800s, is also 
Williams’s 
current 
home. 

She is a Northville native 
and granddaughter to Irish 
immigrants who met at the 
Detroit 
Gaelic 
League 
on 

Michigan Avenue.

“I 
wanted 
to 
have 
a 

restaurant in Corktown and 
in Detroit, and it’s because I 
have so many roots here,” said 
Williams.

Lady of the House will 

occupy the space that formerly 
constituted the neighborhood 
spot 
St. 
CeCe’s, 
often 

frequented by Williams. The 
space was perfect for what 
Williams envisioned as being 
an 
intimate, 
neighborhood 

watering hole. In addition to 
the warm and comfortable look 
and feel of the space, buying the 
location struck a sentimental 
chord with Williams.

“It felt important that we 

kept that location in the Detroit 
neighborhood, in the ‘family’,” 
Williams said on choosing 
the former Irish pub as the 
location for her new spot.

Though a rising stronghold 

for 
up-and-coming 
spots, 

drawing and influx of visitors 
from outside the city, Corktown 
remains home to generations of 
residents.

“It’s 
still 
a 
livable 

neighborhood and we wanted a 
neighborhood spot,” Williams 
said.

However, 
Corktown 

appealed to Chef Williams for 

more than her personal history 
there. In 2010, around the time 
she left Detroit to work on her 
dining series in New York, the 
city’s low rent began attracting 
artists and innovators.

“At the time Detroit wasn’t 

really on the map and there 
were artists and makers that 
were doing really cool things,” 
she added. “The people that 
were flocking to Detroit at the 
time were also kind of creative 
and interested in something 
different.”

This 
surge 
prompted 

Williams’ 
return 
to 
the 

city. To her, it was less of a 
business decision and more of a 

romantic notion of showcasing 
Detroit’s potential. Williams 
noted she was inspired by the 
success of businesses like Dave 
Kwiatkoski’s Sugar House and 
James Cadariu’s Great Lakes 
Coffee Roasting Company.

Though initially struck by 

the creative forces leading 
the surge in businesses in the 
city, Williams also heeded the 
low rent as an opportunity for 

artistic freedom and financial 
flexibility.

“We could do something 

cool and approachable and ... 
drive the food scene as opposed 
to diners driving the food 
scene,” she said. In higher-end 
markets, Williams contends 
that overhead drives the price 
point.

At Lady of the House, she 

aims to introduce patrons to 
great food and drinks that are 
affordable and accessible.

“We wanted to show what 

we think in our experience is 
the best of everything but that 
doesn’t have a price point,” 
Williams said.

To Williams, affordability 

equates 
to 
creativity. 

Her calling card — whole 
animal 
preservation 
and 

highlighting 
local 
produce 

from Detroit’s urban farms — 
will unequivocally shape the 
menu at Lady of the House. 
She calls her aim to minimize 
food waste on farms hastag 
#uglyfood, a concerted effort 
to take produce that local 
farmers would otherwise have 
to throw out due to appearance 
and transform them.

“As a chef it forces you to 

be more creative with the 
scraps,” Williams said, “Are 
you dehydrating them and 
making them into a dust? 
Are you breaking them down 
and making an oil? Are you 
flavoring your vodkas and gins 
and spirits with them?”

She 
approaches 
animals 

and produce from a wholistic 
perspective, not just a means 
of cutting costs. “I feel like 
my style is very Old World 
cooking,” 
Williams 
said, 

recalling the need of her 
ancestors to use the entire 
animal body to survive with 
limited means.

With restaurants and chefs 

increasingly 
driving 
food 

trends, 
Williams 
wants 
to 

contribute 
this 
method 
of 

utilizing the entire animal 
and limiting food waste to 
the broader landscape of food 
consumption.

Williams also found the 

proportion of urban farms 
relative to Detroit’s population 

and the symbiotic relationship 
among community farmers to 
be unique to the city. The city 
benefits from urban farming 
businesses which train and 
employ local Detroiters and 
work closely with local chefs to 
cater to their needs.

“Sarah Papitz from Fresh 

Cut and Ryan Anderson and 
Hannah Clark from Acre Farm 
have organized this biannual 
meeting where the farmers are 
like, ‘What do you want us to 
grow?’” Williams said when 
discussing the community of 
farmers she works with.

This 
exceptional 

agricultural 
and 
local 

community is part of what 
drew Chef Williams back to 
Detroit after highlighting the 
city’s offerings in her monthly 
dining series in New York.

“It was like celebrating all 

these cool things people were 
doing in Detroit in New York,” 
she said. “And then I was like, 
‘We’ve got to do it here, because 
there’s a place for this in 
Detroit too.’” Not only does she 
consider the city lucky to have 
great local farmers, but also 
recognizes 
the 
significance 

of sourcing food that helps 
revitalize neighborhoods by 
supporting local business.

For Williams, Lady of the 

House represents what her 
career has been building up 

to. After her past experiences 
opening restaurants, including 
Republic and Parks and Rec 
where she headed the menu, 
she found herself ready to take 
the leap to pursuing her own 
venture.

“I figured out I wanted to be 

cooking everyday. I wanted to 
create something I was proud 
of. I wanted to cook food that 
I loved cooking and was happy 
to serve to people,” Williams 
said.

Though she has yet to plan 

the menu in detail — a task 
she’s eager to set her mind to 
once construction on Lady of 
the House begins — she intends 
to feature local purveyors like 
Joseph Wesley Tea Importers 
(named one of the top 25 tea 
companies in the world).

One 
of 
Eater 
Detroit’s 

most anticipated restaurant 
openings this year, Lady of 
the House will reflect the 
culmination of not only Chef 
Williams’ work but also the 
storied legacy of Corktown. 
As with her dining series, 
she’s sure to bring the spirit 
of Detroit and creative flare to 
the highly awaited Lady of the 
House.

ARTIST
PROFILE

IN

Chef Kate William talks 
Lady of the House roots

Chef’s Corktown restaurant is among nation’s up and coming

COURTESY OF KATE WILLIAMS

SHIR AVINADAV

Daily Arts Writer

Corktown 

remains home 
to generations of 

residents

She approaches 

animals and 
produce from 

a wholistic 
perspective

Lady of the House 
represents what 
her career has 

been building up 

to

Translucence & Video7’s 
developing Detroit sound

VIDEO7

Detroit music collective captures essence of city’s art scene

Last year in March I found 

myself stumbling out of a car 
on the corner of a street in 
Detroit. It was about 11 p.m. and 
I was standing in front of The 
Baltimore Gallery, a building 
hidden away from the tall 
buildings that decorate the city, 
but just as barren — that is, until 
I went inside. Having been led 
there by my sister and her friends, 
I paid my $5 upon entrance and 
continued toward where the 
music was. In an open room 
with walls decorated in strange, 
eccentric art, individuals were 
scattered across the room, some 
dancing and some standing, but 
all listening to the music.

It was a send-off party for the 

multi-art collective Video7. They 
had earned a spot in the Austin-
based music festival South by 
Southwest and needed to pay for 
expenses, whether that be for 
gas or whatever else. It would 
end up being the first official gig 
they played as the Detroit-based 
Video7. But the name and the 
people had been collaborating 
and creating long before this 
send-off party. The 18-member 
group that made its way to SXSW 
was four college students at the 
University of Michigan only two 
years before.

“It was the furthest channel 

from the main cable station on 
my old TV in Michigan,” said 
Brendan Asante, a founding 
member of the collective, in 
a phone interview with The 
Michigan Daily. “I had a big-ass 
60-inch flat screen, but it was an 
old one so it had the big booty 
in the back. I would connect 
an aux cord to the back … and 
whenever we were working on 
music I would be able to plug 
that aux cord into my phone or 
my laptop. But in order to do that 
the channel would have to be 
Video7.”

A graduate of the School 

of Music, Theatre & Dance 
having majored in jazz vocal 
performance, 
Asante, 
along 

with Ian Finkelstein, Spencer 
Cristobal and Atu began making 
music while at the University. 
But it wasn’t until January of 
2014 when the four were asked to 
play the EnspiRED fashion show 
that they needed a name for what 
they were doing. And so, Video7 
was born, and they quickly went 
from fashion shows to doing sets 
at Study Lounge to opening for 
2 Chainz and Vic Mensa at Hill 
Auditorium a couple months 
later. It was Music Matters’s first 
ever Springfest, and they showed 
up with the 60-inch TV in hand.

“When we got the gig to open 

for 2 Chainz, I brought the TV 
to the Hill Auditorium because 
I wanted to bring it on stage 
with us and put images on it,” 
Asante said. “But because we 
were openers, the sound dudes 
wouldn’t bother. It just sat in the 
back and then we had to bring it 
home.”

Despite having sold off the 

TV months ago, the mentality 
— what that TV and its channel 
came to represent — remains 
in 
Video7’s 
essence. 
Asante 

graduated in 2014 and his move 
to Detroit meant Video7’s move 
as well. The four-piece group 
slowly grew to be a collective 
as they met more artists willing 
to collaborate, and as more 
artists stuck around to do more. 

For a year and a half, Asante 
and Finkelstein lived together 
in Ferndale, and each Sunday 
would play with artists across 
Detroit. From there, from those 
Sunday sessions, a collective was 
born.

“We had Sunday Sessions 

when we were living at the 
Ferndale place,” Assante said. 
“Every Sunday people would 
come back and jive. Over time it 
was the same people who would 
come back looking forward to it 
and eventually, those were the 
people that ended up staying in 
the group.”

Much of the finding and 

locating artists to collaborate 
with 
was 
done 
secondhand 

through referrals. There were 
no auditions or try-outs; simply 
linking 
with 
other 
Detroit 

artists, hearing their music and 
what they could do. As they met 
a couple more artists through 
the Detroit producer Sterling 
Toles, Video7 transformed.

“When Video7 started doing 

the Detroit aspect we did it as 
a band, but then as it evolved 
the people in the group started 
creating their own songs,” he 
continued. “Now everyone’s in 
this solo/EP work still working 
with 
the 
same 
people 
but 

developing their own products 
to get out. And it’s all on the 
strength of it being created with 
people in Video7.”

But 
“multi-art 
collective” 

is still a little too vague and 
bureaucratic 
to 
accurately 

describe what Video7 is. “Oh, 
you should listen to this new 
multi-art 
collective” 
doesn’t 

roll off the tongue as nicely as 
“singer” or “band.” But when 
confronted with their music 
and their set-up, it seems to be 
one of the few words capable of 
describing it. Who cares if it’s 
vague? For Asante, that’s a part 
of the brand.

“It’s a band; it’s a collective; it’s 

a unit; it’s an enigma at the end of 
the day because the components 
that make it what it is are things 
that me and my homies didn’t 
foresee at all,” Asante said. 
“We didn’t realize that once we 
started planting our feet in the 
Detroit area that there were 
going to be these people that we 
would naturally gravitate to and 
share ideals or ideas with and 
this outlook towards music and 
creation.”

Over the past two years, Video7 

has developed and changed. The 
Webslinger, Spencer Cristobal, 
currently resides in L.A. and 
Stefon Dorsey, another founding 
member and graphic designer, 
set up in Seattle. They’ve played 
SXSW and opened for Common 
and Antwaun Stanley, while 
simultaneously playing across 
Detroit.

“It’s a force, and kind of a 

hidden force,” he continued. 
And the hidden aspect of the 
collective is what enables them, 
in Asante’s opinion, to remain 
freeform and do the unexpected. 
“As a personal artist and solo 
artist that’s what I’m in favor 
of instead of giving them what 
they’re expecting. That way 
when they come back for more 
they’ll be blown away each time 
by something that they haven’t 
experienced.”

It is the malleability and 

amorphous nature of the group 
that enables creation. Listening 
to their Soundcloud, there are 
three playlists: LOOPLANDS 
VOL. 1, LOOPLANDS VOL 2 

and their most recent channel 7: 
seasons. And the variety between 
these collections demonstrates 
the multifarious talent they have 
as a collective in terms of singers 
and rappers and especially in 
production.

“Looplands are our way of 

putting EPs together of little 
snippets, and the mixes, like 
channel 7, are to showcase the 
producers. Looplands showcase 
vocalists, singers and a couple 
rappers. Mixes show off the 
different production we do,” he 
said.

A playlist of four songs, each 

25 minutes, channel 7 is oriented 
toward showcasing production 
techniques. It is innovative in 
concept, and in its entirety, the 
perfect display of the collective’s 
enduring mind-set: “forward.”

“The whole thing of the 

channel Video7 being the farthest 
away from cable, the mainstream 
or what you expect — that kind 
of ideology really stayed put in 
everything that we did,” Asante 
continued. “You hear the mixes 
we have online like the channel 
7 seasonal mixes. All these kind 
of conceptual things are birthed 
from the mindset of trying to 
pave your own path and pave 
your own sonic path.”

Their sound and their music 

— it’s not derivative in any 
way. Take Yes’s “Tales from 
Topographic Oceans” and put 
it on Soundcloud. Keep the 
psychedelic but remove the 
rock and the Squire. Add funk, 
R&B, house and trap. Throw in 
some radio static and beautifully 
constructed, soulful choruses 
and you almost, almost have 
what Video7 has managed to 
create.

Because when I asked Asante 

what music has inspired their 
sound, he didn’t look to artists 
of olden days but rather to the 
people with whom he currently 
creates. And that, if anything, 
says more about their collective 
and their sound than anything 
else.

“I think the more tangible 

inspiration is seeing the people 
just like you and in the same 
places as you out here really 
grinding to make something 
happen,” he said. “I would say 
that’s the biggest inspiration. To 
see how all of us are balancing 
all these things and still coming 
back to the music because we 
love it so much.”

“It’s like if you’re travelling as 

a unit and someone’s straggling 
there’s always someone to pick 
them up and drag them along so 
everyone keeps going at the same 
pace — that’s a really inspiring 
thing for me,” he continued.

In its essence, Video7 is 

innovative and sonically new 
because they don’t look to the 
past but the present. Genre-wise, 
yes, there are always artists to 
look back on and admire and 
attribute to some degree. But to 
look to those you create with on 
a daily basis and think, “They’re 
the reason I keep creating and 
testing and experimenting” — 
that’s some heavy stuff.

Thursday night, Video7 is 

launching the first of their 
Cable 
Nites 
at 
the 
Marble 

Bar in Detroit. If you’re still 
confused about what “multi-
arts collective” means, now’s the 
time to find out. It will feature 
good times, good music, Asante 
himself, members Rella, CJay 
Hill, Asya Izme and many, many 
more.

NATALIE ZAK

Managing Arts Editor

SECONDARY