Kyle Hagler and Emil Wilbekin on Native Son, Visibility, and the Business of Culture

• Beginnings that explain everything
  Emil reflects on being adopted at birth and raised by radically cultured, spiritually grounded Black parents, while Kyle traces the imprint of a brilliant young mother who negotiated her way through systems not built for her and brought him along for the ride.
  
  
• Strong women as original architecture
  Not a theme, a fact. Both credit women with shaping their confidence, ethics, ambition, and emotional literacy long before any career took form.
  
  
• The professional pivot, demystified
  Reinvention is not indulgence, it is survival. Emil maps his evolution across media, teaching, faith, and founding Native Son. Kyle frames adaptability as the only real form of security.
  
  
• Safety, redefined
  Kyle’s assertion lands quietly but firmly: safety does not live in institutions or titles, it lives in your ability to navigate turbulence and keep moving.
  
  
• Spirituality as infrastructure, not ornament
  Emil speaks to prayer and meditation as daily practice and social responsibility. Kyle shares a later awakening forged through loss, illness, and uncertainty, arriving at calm through surrender.
  
  
• A very New York origin story
  The Octagon in the 90s, Helmut Lang uniforms, early shade, and worlds colliding. Friendship eventually sealed not by proximity, but by shared obsession, precision, and care.
  
  
• Doing the work before knowing the impact
  Emil reflects on Vibe as cultural moment-making understood only in hindsight. Kyle recalls realizing his influence only once others named it, while he was simply doing the job.
  
  
• The birth of Native Son
  An India retreat, a voice, Baldwin on a bookshelf. A mission emerges to create space for Black gay, queer, and gender nonconforming lives beyond nightlife, crisis, or erasure.
  
  
• Progress and backlash, side by side
  Visibility expands while political resistance hardens. Both argue that representation without ownership is fragile, and that DEI without equity is noise.
  
  
• What feels contemporary now
  Fearless self-definition. Living in nuance. Building community that can hold contradiction, accountability, and becoming, without waiting for permission.

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Notable Quotes: 

Emil Wilbekin: “I was born at a moment of rupture and renaissance, and then given up for adoption. That combination shaped how I see the world and my responsibility to it.”

Kyle Hagler: “Safety isn’t in institutions or other people. Safety is knowing you can navigate turbulence, because turbulence is guaranteed.”

Emil Wilbekin: “The media world we grew up in doesn’t exist anymore, so you have to be innovative, adaptable, and nimble. Not as a strategy, but as a way of living.”

Kyle Hagler: “A lot of my success came from haphazard decision-making based on instinct, not some grand plan. I followed the moment and figured it out later.”

Emil Wilbekin: “Prayer and meditation are non-negotiable for me. They’re how I stay grounded in a world that constantly tries to make you feel invisible.”

Kyle Hagler: “I went through things that should have destroyed me. When they didn’t, I had to ask why. That’s when I understood there was something larger holding me.”

Emil Wilbekin: “We weren’t trying to create legacy at Vibe. We were just doing what felt right in the moment. Legacy only shows up in hindsight.”

Kyle Hagler: “Visibility without ownership is fragile. This can all slide backwards if people don’t have equity in the narrative.”

Emil Wilbekin: “Native Son was never about nightlife or crisis. It was about creating space where we could see ourselves reflected with dignity.”

Kyle Hagler: “Life is not pretty. It’s a fight. But it’s a beautiful fight, and pretending otherwise does people a disservice.”