In Conversation With Malik Roberts At His New Camus Cognac Launch

I caught up with multimedia artist Malik Roberts at the launch of his new custom Camus Cognac bottle. Interview is edited lightly for clarity.

Jacques Morel: Malik, tell me what it felt like to see the bottle come out for the first time, the design you put so much work into?

Malik Roberts: It was incredible. I feel like just to be a black person coming from a certain demographic - to have a cognac bottle that I can share with my uncles, my cousins, my brothers and the people I love in my community. That represents my community. It feels amazing.

JM: We, black people, we love cognac. Do you have any memories growing up of the drink?

MR: Definitely. I remember the first time my father gave me a little sip of his hennessy. I was maybe like 7 - 8 years old just chillin after the Tyson fight...Couveorsier or any type of cognac or anything of that level was always in the household. 

JM: I saw the promo video where you were in Paris. You were in France. What was it like to be out there to actually touch the grapes, to feel the soil, to be where this cognac is made. 

MR: I got a different understanding from the whole situation. Just to be able to see where it comes from to see what we actually drink at the end of the day was a whole different experience. It’s like vegan[ism] when it comes to understanding what you eat everyday. Understanding the actual grapes, the vines, the aromatics, the different little things they actually put into the liquor it's really fantastic how much effort they put into the final product that we drink. 

JM: Can you tell me the importance of putting yourself in these places. The fact that we’re in Brooklyn right now, and normally you wouldn’t see someone that looks like us designing a bottle like this. Talk to me about the power that has. Talk to me about the significance.

MR: I think it’s important to have our faces in these places. It’s really important for us to show ourselves in these certain demographics. Because when I went to [Cognac] just to go into the house and to see a bunch of paintings of white people I had the [thought], “where am I going to sit amongst what they already created? Just to see all these portraits of the forefathers of Camus and the forefathers of Cognac and seeing the depiction of the people working on the grapes in the vineyard. Just to see my painting amongst all of that...it’s really incredible. It’s  spaces [like this] that I keep pushing to put us in. 

JM: Congratulations.

MR: Thank you, brother! You already know!