When she was a child, Karena Evans loved fairy tales. Her parents would tell her bedtime stories that expanded her imagination about what the world could be. “I wasn't being told what a leading lady looked like or what a main character was supposed to look like,” the award-winning director says. “It was just all in my mind. And that's where I could see people like me in storytelling, was in my mind and in these stories.”
It’s that imagination that allowed Evans, who was raised in a time when women were largely kept from behind the camera, to see herself not as the object of desire in front of the camera, but as the person in charge of shaping how women are seen. “I was fascinated by the images I was seeing, but also uncomfortable,” says the New Hollywood 2022 inductee of the music videos she grew up watching that portrayed women through the gaze of male directors. “I grew up on [acclaimed music video director] Director X's videos. I grew up on [Grammy-nominated director] Hype's videos, and I'm in awe of the art that I saw in those videos and the storytelling of that time. But there was also, I felt like, misrepresentation of women that I wanted to interrogate.”
Evans reflects on music videos of the past while comfortably seated in her place in Los Angeles, fresh-faced with a sweater pulled to one side and her signature dark spiral curls tossed to the other. She’s coming off of a massively successful year having directed four projects including Chlöe Bailey’s “Have Mercy” music video and Gossip Girl’s highly anticipated return to HBO.
Before she shot for television, Evans burst into the spotlight from her work with Drake (“Nice for What,” “God’s Plan”), SZA (“Garden (Say It Like Dat)”) SiR (“D’EVILS”), and Coldplay (“Everyday Life”). Now, the 26-year-old has naturally evolved as artists do — like the trajectory of music video direction. It’s now a diverse sport where good videos are made by the most creatively adventurous people, regardless of gender.
“I'm so grateful to X for giving me the space to not only interrogate that within myself, within my own work, but in conversation with him and edit sessions with him,” she says. “It was a space where I can understand what that discomfort was and understand how I want to change the narrative for myself.”
Evans was born and raised in Toronto. As one of four kids in a lively, music-filled, Jamaican home, she was always the unofficial videographer, curiously documenting family members. “I would make these really shitty videos of my family anytime a significant event happened, whether it was a birthday, or if I got into an argument with my mother, or if my older brother had an amazing accomplishment,” she says. “I’d put together these videos to say either, I'm sorry, I love you, or look what you did. Look how far you've come. How did that happen?”
By the time she landed an internship at Popp Rok after a couple of stints in film school, she was determined to be the next great music video director. And, incidentally, Evans would be mentored by a legend in the industry. “I was texting a family friend, Boy Wonda, who's an amazing music producer. I was just talking about feeling stuck. I was feeling impatient. I was feeling hungry. I was feeling like I wasn't getting the kind of learning that I needed [in film school]. And he gave me X's personal phone number.” Evans reached out and got an in-person meeting where she showed X a music video she’d done for a friend. “While I look back at that piece of work and feel like it’s not great … I think what X saw was a storyteller.”
She spent years watching and learning the art of interpretation, visually executing ideas that live inside musicians’ minds. By the time she was storyboarding “Nice for What,” Evans was clear on how best to elevate a vision, particularly one that centers on the beauty and agency of women.
As a woman raised in the Bling Bling, audacious, hip-hop video era, talking about the hypersexualization of and colorism against the women in these videos is unavoidable. When Lanisha Cole was cast as the dark-skinned Black girl who was Pharrell Williams’s love interest in “Frontin,’” it marked a shift for me personally. Showing a dark-skinned Black woman as worthy of desire sent the message to Black girls that they, too, were desirable.
After bringing this up to Evans, she begins typing feverishly. She apologizes and says she’s trying to figure out who directed that video. “Who?” Pause. “Who?” Pause. “Oh, Hype,” she laughs. “That's why I thought it was X. That's why.”
And that speaks to Evans’s magic. She hears you. Like actively listens and cares and keeps your thoughts in consideration. It's something that’s so subtle and pulls you into her orbit.
But this representation in music videos, she says, also came with roadblocks — ones many Black women can, unfortunately, relate to, and ones that Evans is committed to dismantling. “I grew up adoring Tanisha Scott and she was the token Black dark-skinned girl in these videos, but she was always wearing a hat,” Evans says. “I've had really in-depth conversations with T about where that came from. And for her, it was that she was always the last in the makeup chair. The makeup artist didn't have her shade. And so she put on a hat and she went out there and she still shined. But she should not have had to experience that. And she is not unique in that experience. And whether in front of the camera or behind, I'm constantly thinking about how I can foster a better space for Black women.”
And that takes us to a major turning point in Evans's career: the Starz drama P-Valley.
In a 2020 Deadline interview, playwright Katori Hall described her show, P-Valley, as “Delta Noire.” Distinct from every other depiction of strippers seen on screen, Hall’s interpretation challenges preconceived notions about sex workers, their craft, and ambitions. “There’s no slut-shaming that’s going on. There’s just empathy and understanding. There’s just love,” Hall said. “I wanted to provide people who have been historically marginalized with a space for them to honestly and authentically talk about their own stories. Having a story about these women told by a woman and helmed by female directors, for me, was the way that we were really going to honor the fact that these women should be respected.”
Evans was called upon for the show’s pilot episode. “P-Valley is one of the most life-changing situations for me,” she says. “I received this script at a time in my life and my career where I was calling for an opportunity to tell a story like that, to be able to specifically represent, authentically, a community that has been misrepresented forever.” What Evans created were sequences of blue, purple, and pink holographic fantasies; camera angles delicately framing the dancers' bodies; dreamlike filters illuminating rich Black skin.
It was Evans’s first television job and it happened to be a pilot, which meant it was Hall’s only opportunity as showrunner to receive the green light from a network. It had to be good.
“[For me] it wasn't about shying away from the nudity,” Evans says about approaching the script. “Despite dealing with the complexity of the hypersexualization of Black women, it was about empowering them in the process of showing this honestly. And it was so damn challenging, but I learned so much about myself, about storytelling, about filmmaking, about these characters, about Mississippi, about this world, about ... I don't even have the words, all of the words, to describe that experience. There were so many growing pains. I'm so grateful for Katori and so grateful for that experience.” In July 2021, the show was renewed for a second season.
Evans’s part in the debut of P-Valley is a testament to her ingenuity. For years, she was extra sensitive about her age, extremely coy about being so young and accomplished. Now, she’s flipped her perspective. “I feel like a common misconception that I face at work is a limited perception of my ability. And I don't know if that's attributed to my being a young woman, a Black woman, a Canadian Black woman working in an American space, or a combination of all of these things. But I used to feel embarrassed by my age and felt as though my collaborators would not trust me and would not respect me,” she explains. “What I came to understand is it's a big part of my perspective. And I cannot be honest in my storytelling without being accepting of my own self and my own voice.”
It’s no coincidence that being raised by a British mother and a Jamaican father in Canada’s most diverse city, Karena Evans would become sensitive to different lived experiences. It’s a guiding principle behind Fela, the production company where she serves as creative executive producer. Founded by Director X and Taj Critchlow, Fela boasts a team of 53% BIPOC and 38% female-identifying filmmakers.
“I feel so, so proud to be a part of Fela because we can honestly and actively live and represent and operate inclusively and shape culture at the same time,” Evans says. “I think when you're putting people of color in the position to tell their own stories and you're then also giving them the means to tell their own stories, that shifts culture. That is culture.”
With a year of projects lined up and a team of young creatives excited to work with her, Evans’s plate is full. In the past, she spoke in an interview with Issa Rae about having an issue with control. No shocker for someone whose entire job is dependent upon commanding a set. How is she managing that control now that she’s extremely busy?
“I attribute that to feeling like I wasn't listened to earlier on, like I wasn't being heard,” she confesses. “I felt the need to be very precious about my vision and very precious about my voice and my opinion. And sometimes that actually doesn't breed great collaboration and it doesn't allow me to hear others. So I'm perpetuating what I feel fearful of.”
She takes a breath. “How I've been managing it is trusting the vision that I hold in my heart and trusting what I see in my mind, but knowing that that vision cannot actualize without hearing everybody, without collaborating with everybody. There is actually a really necessary amount of letting go that needs to happen in order to, I think, reach the magic that is filmmaking, that is collaborating. That is storytelling. Does that make sense?” Absolutely.
CREDITS
Editor in Chief: Versha Sharma
Photographer/Director: Amy Harrity
Photo Assistant: Gal Harpaz
Director of Photography: Erynn Patrick
1st AC: Bobby Lamont
Video Editor: Arjun Srivatsa
Stylist: Savannah White
Stylist Assistant: Mauricio Gonzalez
Tailor: Irina Tyan
Hairstylist: Oscar Pallares Gomez
Hair Assistant: Kelly Duong
Makeup Artist: Shideh Kafei
Makeup Assistant: Laura Dudley
Manicurist: Kimberly Zuniga
Prop Stylist: Jessie Cundiff
Prop Assistant: Tessa Trozzolillo
Production: Hyperion LA
Art Director: Emily Zirimis
Senior Fashion Editor: Tchesmeni Leonard
Visual Editor: Louisiana Gelpi
Designer: Liz Coulbourn
Executive Editor: Dani Kwateng
Features Director: Brittney Mcnamara
Senior Entertainment Editor: Eugene Shevertalov
Senior Culture Editor: P. Claire Dodson
Senior Director of Creative Development: Mi-Anne Chan
Senior Social Media Manager: Honestine Fraser
Social Media Manager: Ysenia Valdez
Associate Manager, Audience Development: Ashley Wolfgang
