Naming something, putting it on record, in a lyric, feels like affirming people. Ideally, that's what politicians should want to do: to put laws or policies in place that speak to people's experiences, to make them feel heard.
With lyrics, being a poet gave me a different approach than other people.
My art gets called political, as opposed to my intending it to be political. I think that's something that happens with black artists or marginalized voices trying to speak truth. Because there are things in the status quo to speak out against, speaking out against them will inherently be political.
My artistic manifesto exists in the world as poetry. So even though most of the things that I've done have been on other people's projects or could be pigeonholed in certain ways, that's not how I perceive myself.
I really liked 'Blk Girl Art.' It's like a manifesto saying why I create, whether it's poetry or music.
It's important to me that there's not just one story told about our city. 'LSD' is an ode to Chicago, a song for the complicated love I have for my city.
I read 'Song of Solomon' by Toni Morrison in college, and it just blew my mind.
In some ways, I value specificity. I think that there's power in, once you know who your fan base is, being able to speak to them. I hope to cultivate a fan base of black girls and black people and people of color, women of color, queer people, people who are are marginalized in general.
I wish that more people, especially young people, were taught about self-love at a younger age.
