Blossom by Sanford Biggers @ The Brooklyn Museum
it's time to return to the heart of the matter. what makes me tick, what makes all of this possible: the music.
in the last five months ive had eight performances in shows with some of the most talented artists in New York City. a huge amount of artistry was involved during this timeframe as evident by all of the posters lined up below. one of the highlights for me during this process was meeting and collaborating with visual artists. Kathy Lee, Jeremy Abel, and Abi Laurel are just a few of these artists who have inspired me visually and aesthetically. it's also clear that Smoothie Tunes has been a huge influencer in the music scene since their launch in July. crowds come out to see the stacked line-ups of heavy-hitters in packed venues and Smoothie Tunes has created a momentous presence of attention in bringing URL artists to an IRL platform. drawing attention to the huge amount of talent that is present online is something that more and more collectives, labels, venues, and blogs are doing which is well-deserved.
Smoothie Tunes Launch Party @ The Knitting Factory
this kind of performance frequency happening consecutively is new to me and damn it felt good! there were even two sets of shows that happened back to back - wonderful whirlwind weekends. the feeling of performing songs that you spent so many countless hours to create is cathartic. the preparation and rehearsals to make each show better than the last has made me a better artist and im hungry for continued growth.
in order to find this further growth and blossom into another evolution of myself, it's important for me to take a hiatus from performing to focus on exploration into different sounds and new music. im currently working on two eps with two different artists: the first, a side project with my girl Brooklyn White. i had her perform our track 'RUNNIN DEEP' with me for several of these shows and the energy we have together is too strong to ignore the idea of making more music. the second being a project ep produced by exyle. we made one song together randomly and the result of the collab was so good we decided to make a whole project out of it. (much more on both of these soon).
apart from those distinct collaborative projects i intend to work on as much new music as possible in the coming winter months and really take this time to reflect on what i want my next steps as an artist to be. next year im going to SXSW hell or high water and if the opportunity presents itself i want to give an entirely new performance that represents me wholly. i definitely feel that im at the beginning of a new chapter.
my best is yet to come.
