Compost, Cotton & Cornrows

Dominique Drakeford

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is a podcast centering Black sustainability leaders across fashion, agriculture, wellbeing and beyond. Through storytelling, culture, and climate conversations, the show explores how ancestral wisdom and modern practices can cultivate regenerative futures. Hosted by Dominique Drakeford, each episode unearths powerful insights that shift the narrative of environmental justice.

  1. 3D AGO

    Episode 42 | Serge Attukwei Clottey is a Ghana-based global artist weaving plastic waste to unpack migration, expose global systems and build community while advancing environmental justice.

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in a powerful conversation with Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, the visionary behind Afrogallonism - a radical artistic practice transforming discarded yellow oil containers into monumental sculptures, performances, and communal rituals. Living and working in Accra, Ghana, Clottey unpacks how these everyday objects, once used to transport cooking oil from the West and later repurposed to store scarce drinking water, carry layered stories of migration, global trade, environmental degradation and survival. Through cutting, stitching, weaving, and performance, he reveals how materials dismissed as waste become cultural archives, documenting the afterlife of globalization on the African continent. But Clottey’s work extends far beyond the gallery. Rooted deeply in the community, his practice has evolved into a living ecosystem where elders stitch, youth source materials, and entire neighborhoods participate in transforming plastic waste into art, architecture, clothing, and storytelling. What began as an artist’s intervention has become a collective act of environmental education, economic participation, and cultural reclamation. Together, Dominique and Serge explore sustainability as responsibility, the politics of global waste economies, and how tradition—from weaving to ceremonial performance can inspire contemporary solutions for a planet struggling under the weight of its own consumption. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    41 min

  2. MAR 25

    Episode 41 | Meteorologist Alesha Ray is Making Climate Make Sense - From Data to Daily Life

    Episode 41 | In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with meteorologist and climate storyteller Alesha Ray, whose journey from journalism to national broadcast weather reframes environmentalism through a lens that is both scientifically rigorous and deeply human. Together, they unpack the power of meeting people where they are, redefining sustainability beyond perfection, and challenging the narratives that make climate action feel inaccessible to the very communities most impacted. As Alesha shares, “sustainability is meeting people where they are… being resourceful, knowing what you need, and utilizing what you have to make a difference.” From rising heat as a public health crisis to the emotional weight of climate anxiety, this conversation moves through the urgency of now while holding space for color, joy, creativity, cultural expression and of course thrifting. Dominique and Alesha explore sustainable fashion as a practice of ingenuity, the necessity of representation in science and media, and the role of storytelling in translating complex climate data into something people can actually feel, understand and act on. Also Alesha speaks about the evolution of her educational offerings merging science with accessible and stylish storytelling!  Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    47 min

  3. MAR 18

    Episode 40 | Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso: Sustainability Begins at Birth: A $45M Investment in Maternal Health, Environmental Racism & Brooklyn’s First Data-Driven Comprehensive Plan

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows podcast, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with Antonio Reynoso, Brooklyn’s 20th Borough President and the first Dominican to hold the office in New York City history. Raised in Williamsburg by Dominican immigrants who arrived seeking opportunity, Reynoso reflects on growing up in a neighborhood shaped by poverty, environmental injustice and public health disparities including asthma rates so severe that Woodhull Hospital built one of the city’s only emergency asthma units. From these early experiences, Reynoso developed a deeply human definition of sustainability that rooted in the everyday question: How do we manage the systems we cannot avoid: waste, infrastructure, industry, in ways that protect both people and planet? Together, Dominique and Reynoso explore sustainability through the lens of birthing justice, public health, and environmental equity. Reynoso shares how Brooklyn’s maternal health crisis, where Black women are up to twelve times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts, became a defining focus of his administration, leading him to invest $45 million into transformative maternal health units across Brooklyn’s public hospitals. The conversation also examines the structural forces shaping health outcomes across Central Brooklyn from food deserts and heat index disparities to underfunded parks and the erosion of the public healthcare system. Bridging data-driven governance with lived experience, Reynoso outlines his ambitious comprehensive planning framework for Brooklyn while calling on residents to participate in shaping their neighborhoods through civic engagement. At its core, this episode asks a powerful question: What does sustainability look like when we begin at birth and build systems that allow communities to thrive across generations? https://www.brooklynbp.nyc.gov/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    52 min

  4. MAR 11

    Episode 39 | Sustaining Us: Diamond Spratling, Detroit Roots & the Rise of Climate Sisterhood

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with Diamond Spratling, MPH, award-winning Climate DisruptHER, two-time TEDx speaker and founder of Girl Plus Environment, a nonprofit mobilizing Black and Brown women at the forefront of climate solutions. Raised in Detroit, Diamond traces how her childhood—playing in neighborhood green spaces while her family navigated the realities of industrial pollution tied to the auto industry shaped her understanding of sustainability as something far deeper than environmentalism. For Diamond, sustainability means sustaining culture, sustaining community, and carrying ancestral practices forward a living commitment to protecting both people and planet across generations. Together, Dominique and Diamond unpack the intersection of public health, environmental racism, and economic opportunity from the legacy of pollution in Detroit to the rising threats of data centers, energy burden, and water insecurity across the South. Diamond shares how she built Girl Plus Environment into a powerful sisterhood of over 700 members, proving that Black and Brown women have always cared for the environment even if traditional environmental spaces failed to see them. The conversation also explores the importance of joy, rest, and storytelling in sustaining movements, including Diamond’s children’s book series Sage Sails the World, which inspires young readers to approach climate action with curiosity, hope, and cultural pride. Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    52 min

  5. MAR 4

    Episode 38 | Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: Haitian Moringa & Castor Oil Built a School, a Farm & a Vertical Beauty Blueprint in Brooklyn

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in rich conversation with Fredeline “Freddie” Amedee-Benjamin, co-owner of Papa Rozier Farms, a vertically integrated farm-to-store ecosystem rooted in Haiti What began as a mission to sustain Bati School evolved into a 50-acre regenerative farm producing cold-pressed castor and moringa oils that are grown, harvested, pressed, bottled and sold without a middleman in Brooklyn. “We are essentially the farmer and the producer,” Freddie shares. “I can tell you where it came from and how it came to be in your bottle.” Together, they unpack sustainability as the ability to self-sustain and to build something that protects and provides for itself no matter what the world is doing while also challenging the global narrative that reduces Haiti to crisis instead of creativity, ingenuity and legacy. This conversation is about memory, power and refusing to follow trends that simply circle us back to what our ancestors already knew. From Haiti’s revolutionary roots in 1804 to uplifting women through education and employment (Bati School is 85% women-led), Freddie reminds us that sustainability is cultural. Castor and moringa are not new, but instead  are ancestral technologies, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and anti-trend. This is a story about building institutions that outlive headlines, raising daughters who show up unapologetically and proving that when you put enough energy into something, it becomes unavoidable. CAN’T STOP! WON’T STOP!  https://paparozierfarms.com/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    41 min

  6. FEB 25

    Episode 37 | From Civil Rights to Climate Justice: OG Environmentalist Catherine Coleman Flowers on America’s Planned Obsolescence, the Disaster Economy & Why We’re All Environmental Stewards

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in powerful conversation with Catherine Coleman Flowers - MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice and one of the foremost architects of modern environmental justice. From her upbringing in Lowndes County, Alabama where rows of cotton met front doors and families engineered their own sanitation systems  to advising the White House on federal environmental policy, Catherine reframes sustainability as “building something that’s lasting” in a nation designed for planned obsolescence. She unpacks how civil rights organizing shaped her advocacy, why environmental injustice is not a “Black issue” but a systems issue, and how storytelling, data, and local political power shape who gets protected. Together, they confront the rising tensions of our time: water-hungry data centers and what Catherine calls America’s “disaster economy” a system that profits from neglect and rebuilds only after harm. Yet this is not a conversation rooted in despair. It is grounded in stewardship, spirituality and the radical belief that if we “do the work again,” change is not only possible, it is inevitable. This episode is a masterclass in resilience, policy literacy and the sacred responsibility we all carry as environmental stewards. https://www.catherinecolemanflowers.com/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    47 min

  7. FEB 18

    Episode 36 | “I’m Done Being Poor & Popular” - Christa Barfield (FarmerJawn), Founder of the Largest Black Woman-Owned Regenerative Farm in the U.S., on Agricultural Profitability, Wealth Strategy & Creating a Family Office Using a Trust

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits with Christa Barfield, aka FarmerJawn - regenerative agriculture powerhouse, James Beard Award winner, and founder of the largest Black woman-owned regenerative farm in the United States. From managing 128 acres across Pennsylvania to building markets for heritage crops like Nigerian spinach, Christa breaks down what sustainability actually means when you remove the romance and face the reality: profitability. She unpacks why true longevity in farming requires economic power, why undercapitalization is one of the biggest threats to land stewardship and how her company’s decision-making is rooted in a three-pillar framework of environmental, social and physical health. This is a masterclass in building systems that nourishes financial legacy and wellbeing.  Together, they explore regeneration as a lifestyle ethic from letting soil rest to letting ourselves rest. We unpack how “Food is Medicine” is an overused slogan in mainstream agricultural spaces, but for Christa, it’s a real strategy for public health transformation. Christa shares hard-won wisdom on funding pathways, building a protective business trinity (lawyer, accountant, insurance), navigating spaces where you’re the only one and why she’s done being “poor and popular.” The conversation stretches into lineage, land inheritance, family wealth models and her bold new pay-what-you-wish corner store designed to restore dignity and nutrition access in one of Philadelphia’s most underserved neighborhoods. This episode is a financial sustainability blueprint!  https://www.farmerjawn.co/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    55 min

  8. FEB 11

    Episode 35 | Heather McTeer Toney on the Pervasiveness of Plastics, Storytelling as Renewable Energy and Deconstructing Mainstream Sustainability

    In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, host Dominique Drakeford sits with Heather McTeer Toney, executive director of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, 2025 Forbes Sustainability Leader, former mayor of Greenville Mississippi and former Regional Administrator for EPA Region 4. Together they explore what sustainability looks like when it begins with Black life, cultural memory and lived experience rather than policy jargon or extractive frameworks. Drawing from Heather’s leadership in cultural organizing, this conversation reframes environmentalism as something deeply familiar and rooted in the stewardship and wisdom of people who have always lived closest to the land. From petrochemicals and plastics to fast fashion, beauty culture and agriculture, Dominique and Heather unpack how industries built on extraction continue to harm Black and brown communities while selling convenience as progress. Heather traces the lineage from plantations to petrochemical corridors, challenges loud definitions of wealth and calls for a quieter, more intentional vision of luxury grounded in health, longevity and collective care. This episode is both a reckoning and a love letter, reminding us that storytelling is our most underutilized renewable energy source. This is a joyous call to action to listen differently, consume intentionally and claim our role as architects of the futures we deserve. https://www.beyondpetrochemicals.org/ Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling! @Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

    54 min
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About

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows is a podcast centering Black sustainability leaders across fashion, agriculture, wellbeing and beyond. Through storytelling, culture, and climate conversations, the show explores how ancestral wisdom and modern practices can cultivate regenerative futures. Hosted by Dominique Drakeford, each episode unearths powerful insights that shift the narrative of environmental justice.

Information

  • Creator
    Dominique Drakeford
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Compost, Cotton & Cornrows
  • Show Website
    Compost, Cotton & Cornrows

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