In conversation with .. 8!

Your lyrics are very personal, with some being about
your mental health struggles. Did you always want to
use your music as a medium to give advice about such
personal things, or do you feel that you have a duty to
give people listen to something that they identify with
and understand?
Yeah, it’s a bit of both. When I write, I write about what
I’m feeling. I write down my thoughts, I’ll come back
to the words, and then I’ll pick out how I’m feeling that
day and then write a song that way. It’s a combination of
both. I can’t sit down and write a whole song in one go, I
need time to slowly reflect and come back to it.
I want to be a person that looks different, and sounds
not how you think I’m going to sound when you first
see me. I have this feeling when people see me they
think I’m going to have this really loud powerful voice,
which I do somewhat, but not really. My voice is really
soulful, but I feel it’s different when you hear the words,
something clicks. It’s something you’re not expecting
when you hear the words.
When I’m performing, I talk about the songs. I enjoy the
fact that I’m sharing about my mental health because
for so long, I never did with anybody. With music, I can
just sing the words and hear people say “Oh, I feel very
similar”, or “I’ve had these feelings as well”. It makes
me feel that this is something I should be sharing,
especially with black and brown queer people.
This is my experience and I want to be relatable. People
feel the words I’m saying and that’s the most important
thing to me, to be honest. After shows, people come up
to me and tell me that this was so good and they felt
every word that I was saying. It makes my heart so full,
to know that they listen to and enjoy my music and that
they can understand what I’m saying.
It’s almost a little bit like a personal therapy session
that everyone has while listening to your music.
Another thing that you’ve already briefly touched on,
I’ve read that you want to kind of break the strong
black woman narrative, can you tell me a little bit
about that?
I identify as non-binary. I’m a non-binary person,
which has been a recent “thing”. For so long in my life,
when people read me, they read me as a CIS black
woman. I never had the opportunity to think of myself
outside of that, because of everything that goes on in
the world, especially when it comes to black women.
I want to be vulnerable. I want people to see that I’m
not strong. I don’t want that word attached to me. I
want people to see me as something else, rather than
a strong black person that can take on the shit. No, I
cry a lot. I get depressed a lot. This is something that I
want people to see. That’s something I put across very
well, my struggles, different ways of learning. If I was
in love and friendships, relationships, relationship with
myself, which is important because I didn’t know a lot
about myself really. I didn’t question a lot of things.
Also, politically, I didn’t question a lot of things and I’m
undoing the work now.
11