SURREALISM

Soooooooooooooo, that shit was lit. A vibe from start to finish, but ima tell you how it went from the very beginning. I got there early (thank god because parking was CRAZY). All I had with me were a bulb of ginger, the passes to get in, and my phone. We (My sister/stylist urthstylingco. & I) were walking for like two minutes and then stopped at the “entrance”. I put quotation marks cus them ppl ain put NO type signs illustrating where anything was or where to walk lmao. Anyway, I had to stop and take a pic by almost what looked like a dinosaur fossil. I literally was like “take my picture” soon as I looked up and saw it. Pics came out crazy.

Ian lie right? Right. The one in the middle was my fav one lmao. I was gassed. You can’t really see my face in them too clearly but idk I just love how they came out. So after walking the wrong way and ending up back at the entrance, we finally make it to to the gate. We breeze through and start walking around. It was vendors out the ass! First stop we made was by the coconut man cause thats just a must. Them bi*ches was $10 a pop but it was worth it! If you don't know coconut water is extremely hydrating so that + the ginger had me feeling good den a mf! Don’t say you don’t like it unless you’ve had it from an actual coconut, that bottled sh*t don’t be the real thing! While waiting around for my pops to get there we bought these lil squiggly, copper rings. Them shits looked cool but it turned my sister finger green LMAO. Support black business tho. He got there and we start walking towards the stage when we’re interrupted by the stage manager’s assistant. This lady goes “Do you have the flash drive for your performance? You can’t perform without it” I’m looking at her like???? Flashdrive? In 2023? I was really confused because when I sent in my submission to perform I had to send a song. I sent Solfège (which is out now btw on all platforms) and was thinking that was all I was gonna perform. LMAO welllll, apparently I was supposed to bring my own DJ AND I was set to perform for 10 minutes.. When I looked at the itinerary sheet my time slot said 10 mins but Ian think I had be to up there for that long because I only submitted ONE song. Are you following?? Good. So I’m shocked by this information and squinting hard asf at the lady tryna figure out why nobody mentioned any of this to me. So now I have two tasks at hand. The first one being figuring out what other songs I was gonna perform and the second being getting with the event’s DJ to send over my shit to his laptop. This shit burned me out. I deadass wanted to run away like that brandy meme lol. I ended up choosing Couscous and Mansa. Which are both unreleased and UNMIXED tracks from Revision. Phew. All these new developments had a nigga hungry so I spun the block and got a bake + shark. “Bake” is a Caribbean dish thats really just flour. You can fry it which is the way I had it, or you can bake it. The performances started and I was the third or fourth person to go up. The guy before me did good so the energy was set. Couscous ain really hit like I expected it to. It has a Nicki Minaj sample so we thought it would be best if I performed that first so they could hear something familiar to catch ears. I love the song tho so honestly, I told myself “just perform the rap parts and let them hear how the melodic parts sound by itself” lol. I tried to hit that first note and my voice said “not today baby'“. One thing about them speakers? THEY WORKED. So you could hear me clearly, which I loved. Next was Solfège. This shit cranked. It sounded so big and full. You could hear all the ad libs, and harmonies. I didn’t say the verses with as much passion as I wanted to but I could tell I impressed some people which boosted my confidence a bit— so then I got comfortable. Instead of letting the end chorus rock out the DJ cut Solfège early and transitioned to Mansa. I was kind of annoyed because I love the way the beat fades on Solfège at the end and you just hear the vocals. It gives the song a mantric feel to it. I couldn’t be too mad tho cause the way he did it was smooth ngl. Surprisingly, I performed this song the best. Mansa doesn’t have a hook and it’s three minutes long. I was nervous about getting it all out but I did. I only didn’t say about four lines, the bars are kinda crafty on that song so I wanted to make sure I was putting emphasis on the ones I felt were the easiest to understand like “I don’t like niggas in my business like Asians.” I was most excited about the reaction I got to this song. It was this young boy in the crowd that I made eye contact with and he was bopping his head and we hit a lil shimmy at the same time lol. I felt like a true performer in that moment. By then I had let go of all fear and was focused on having a good closing. Thats what my sister kept saying before I went on “Start good and End good. And keep your head up towards the crowd.” I did all three and from what I could tell, ppl liked what they heard. I did two interviews, one with 94.5 and I can’t remember the name of the other one but I loved the interviewer. I could tell she actually watched me perform by the questions and the feedback she gave. It all felt so natural to me. I loved it. I made sure and promoted Solfège dropping since I forgot to on stage, and told them about my mixtape coming out. The day was perfect. I wouldn't change anything about it. This was my second performance ever and I can definitely say it was better than my first. Way better. I made a lil reel with all the footage from the day and got lots of support. I appreciate it greatly. I had an inkling before, but now I know that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m in alignment with my purpose FASHO!