V I E W O N D E S K / L A P T O P F O R F U L L Y I M M E R S I V E E X P E R I E N C E
“I’m artistically infatuated with the human experience of healing through heartbreak and death.”
We met at Whole Foods. Feeling you without seeing you. Apples. Salmon. Flowers. Head to toe, but first, ojos. Blanca, blanca, blanca. Headwraps, like “Where he from?” Out le bleu, le bleu, le bleu. Vast desert sands, baby, vast desert sands. I’m not tryna run game, I know you feel it - it’s divine.
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i don’t want to come back here. again. so i ask myself — how can i rectify, change, evolve, ascend, “moksha in the flesh”, and get it right this time? how can i get it right this time? and not come back here? again. what do i need to do differently? what do i need to say differently? show me how to move in the most aligned way. most aligned with my highest destiny, here, this time. again. what is it that i’m meant to learn? what is that you’re trying to teach me? what do i need to teach myself? i stand up and surrender. i stand up, kneel, bow, stand up. i prostrate to you. shepsu, my highly elevated and benevolent egúngún, my Òrìshà, my guides, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala — i give thanks. it is me. i am here. all of me. i am walking towards the door — please, light the way. i am going through the door — please, open it. as i continue to give thanks in the highest, may my heart weigh as light as a feather. i forgive. now, i remember to remember. then, i forget. can i forget? or is it peace? “peace.” she said i was hotep. i said, “hetepu.” àshe.
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do we really die or do we just transition to another life as another creature on another planet? do we just transition onto a different space-time continuum, in an alternate reality, as the same person — still alive? is this death, right now? do we truly come to life when we die in this existence? are they even separate - à mourir et à vivre? and if not, what does it even mean to transition in any way, shape or form?
contemplative horns.
rings of saturn.
lines folding in sharp curves.
symmetry of divinity.
we’ll only know when we come to be.
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two days? no. it’s about a year and a half, yet i’m still not over you. healing. grieving. licking my wounds. contemplating. monsoons wept from my head and avalanches broke through my chest. in two days. but no. i hear hums and it makes my skin crawl. i run. cause it reminds me of you. reminds me of how good your ancestral melodies feel in my bones. efun. prayers. gin. be easy. listen to your heart. it’s valid. but is fate fully dependent upon me? or do i just play a part in it? it’s not about u, i’m in utero. this is a work in progress and process. a working through like “a hot ass comb on nappy ass hair.” a reworking. cold ass clippers. i’m relearning myself and trying to let you go, but i could try harder. so, this is me trying. i put commas where they’re supposed to go and i think of you. but am i not my thoughts? or should i have put a comma there?
Intertwining technology and metaphysics through the natural world, I played with music, dance, film / photography, clothing, and ancestral / spiritual items, in order to illustrate this story of rebirth and connectivity. I’m artistically infatuated with the human experience of healing through heartbreak and death. I know that I’m here to bring deep-rooted ritual to the forefront by finding correlations between modern and indigenous, emotion and logic, pain and peace — in order to create or design something abstractly new. I did that with END., visually and musically, yet the whole process was catharsis for me, more than anything else. And it was more of a throughline than an end. That’s hella on brand with how most, if not all, of my work unfolds.
S W I P E
visually —
Hype Williams’ 1998 film Belly | The album cover art (by Vlad Sepetov) and overall art direction (by the little homies) of Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. album | Kendrick Lamar’s U song and the visualisation of it through his short film God Is Gangsta (directed by the little homies, Jack Begert, and PANAMÆRA with photography direction by David Bolen) | Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar’s family ties music video, directed by Dave Free with pgLang executive production, cinematography by Bruce Cole and Mikey Rossiter / The Mill as Colourist (note of release: I filmed the END. visual 26 August 2021 — when END., the song, was released — which was the day before family ties was released alongside its visual, so it was a transcendentally aligned muse to my editing of END. — a short film about REBIRTH, released 1 September 2021) | Common’s Come Close music video, directed by Sanaa Hamri and Questlove | @moodzanzan (Instagram) visual edit of a Frank Ocean Homer debut photo | Photos of XXXTentacion (the indigo-haired version) by Jack McKain
metaphysically —
The Five Levels of Attachment: Toltec Wisdom for the Modern World by don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
musically —
Before creating END., the song, I heard the melody for it in my head, on a ride back home one night. In the car, there was a deafening silence between my lover and I. That silence was the beat I produced for END.
Damned. Dark. Grand Piano chords like Tales from the Crypt meets Dr. Dre. Deeply relentless sub bass, denoting ensuing horror. Suspenseful, yet definitely something depressing. Something being severed.
When we got home, she went inside of the house, and I stayed outside in the car. That night, I produced and recorded my heart out, right there, in the car, on my iPhone, with Garageband.
That was the first time ever, that I heard a beat in my head and was able to produce it exactly as I heard it. The words just flowed in that same way. I didn’t write a thing. I just listened.
theatrically —
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just about everywhere else that there’s music for digital streaming and buying.
