#its just a matter of artistic talent now which im getting more confident in

[milktea-grn]

I'm a follower since you were a 14 year old who likes cereal lolll, and I'm so happy for ur growth and seeing people finally notice the TALENT!!💛 I've been running an art account since 2019 and I feel like we have the same skill level, but I'm not even at a thousand followers and it gets lower every day. Is there anything u did to help with the crappy algorithm? Was it bc u joined a popular fandom, or are you like idk how tf this happened? Do u have insecurity about like & follower count and how do u deal with it?

OHH MY GODDD NO WAY THATS AMAZING the 14 year old who loves cereal oh my god i didn’t think there was barely anyone who was still around from my supermega days let alone the sadkid.tm days 😭 you’ve seen me go through so many embarrassing moments…

this got SO long so i’ll put it all under this cut!

first of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! i really appreciate that. and second, i don’t really have much advice, im terrible at giving advice 😭 i know how you feel though bc because before i started growing a little more, i was in that exact position of either stagnating, staying the same, or just dropping followers for no reason. However i was okay with that. follow count really doesn’t effect me. it used to when i was just starting out bc obviously you want people to see your art and all that, but i realized that it doesn’t matter as long as i’m doing what i want to be doing.

it’s so freeing to stop focusing so much on that stuff because it will begin to weigh on you and you start placing your worth, confidence, motivation, etc. all on your following. it gets much more fun when you start doing whatever you wanna do, without worrying about how many people are following or unfollowing you. the people who unfollow, unfollow! and the people who stay around, stay around! people will come and go all the time. i know i sound really kinda. pretentious right now, but i’m just trying to convey how calming it is to let go of that 😭 because if i still worried about that Now then i think the pressure would get to much for me and i’d either peace out by now or my art would go way down in quality because i’d be so anxious about letting any of my followers down, you know? obviously i have them in mind, and i love and appreciate every single one (/parasocial i really am parasocial for u all) but i don’t put my value all on them. its important that i’m passionate and happy with what i’m doing too!

but, i know that’s not how everyone feels and it can be easier said than done. I’m just saying that you should also keep that in mind. don’t let the fun get sucked out of you, don’t let art feel like a chore or a job! you get the point, all that, i won’t lecture you.

if you want more attention to your art, when i was starting out on really any platform i just used a shit ton of hashtags. on instagram i borderline Over tagged. but especially on instagram, when you tag stuff it’ll get on peoples feeds, it’ll be in the hashtags, it’s easier to get peoples attention. that helps a lot, but tbh i think most of it i have to thank to being in a big fandom that interacts with artists a ton, which i love, because not a lot of fandoms are as respectful and loving about art as this one. besides that, idk how tf this happened. especially on twitter because in my experience i felt like twitter was a lot harder of a place with art, so i don’t know how that happened but i’m definitely placing a looooottt a lot of the credit to being in a bigger fandom 😭 and i love that because i like it here Most of the time

i’m sorry i just word vomited, idk what i’m talking about but i hope this could help even a little bit ;; thank you so much again thank you for sticking around so long <333 💞💕💗💝

#i hope i didn’t say anything like. bad here #i’m sorry i wish i could be more helpful im just doing whatever and then people like it 😭 #but oh my god i still cant believe you’ve been here like. since the BEGINNING beginning. i haven’t thought about the cereal bio i think #since i changed it #that’s so cool #asks #anonymous #long post

[franeridart]

I just found your profile and I love your style so much!

AHHHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!

Anon said:From kami's-hair-is-hard-to-doodle anon from a while back: I finally got it! Thank you so much for your advice - reading and rereading your tips kept me practicing! I'd also like to thank the Academy /orz

I’m glad it could help you at all!!!! :O Kami keeps on being a mystery to me (and Horikoshi himself ???) too so don’t get too down on yourself for it taking time haha

Anon said:Ive sent you a couple of asks before but Im just so in love with the content you produce. Like not only is your art style so cute and stuff, but the plot/story (Idk) of each post is just so original and adorable. Im just so blown away by everything you post. Thank you for sharing your art!!!! Have a good week!!

Anon said:Hi! I’m new to your blog but love your art, I think your very talented which is why I’d like to ask a question. Do you have any advice for posing? I noticed your very good at it and wondered if you have any tips. If you do answer this, Thank you!!

Firstly, thank you so much for the compliments!!! I don’t know how useful exactly any advice I could give you will be, since most of it comes from drawing a lot and watching drawings even more, but in general to pick a pose usually what I do is think of the scene as if in movement? As in, what the characters are doing, and how they’d move if I were looking at them while doing it - keeping in mind the characters personalities helps me with this a lot too. 

Take for example the confessions drawings I’ve posted a couple of days ago: it’s true that there’s no words nor movement anywhere in them, but as I drew them I had a pretty clear idea of what they were saying and how the characters would react in those situations - Jirou’s shy and easily flustered, so she’s averting her eyes, unable to keep eye contact, and closing in on herself a bit, hiding her face and so on; in the concept, Kaminari was the one who confessed, so he’s holding her hand, tentative, because he’s unsure about how she’s gonna answer (it’s all stuff that didn’t actually make it in the drawing, how he reached for her hand, how he’s gonna close his other hand around her knuckles, but in my head it was a complete scene and I just picked one frame of it all to draw). The same goes for Bakugou and Kirishima - they’re rowdier, louder, more assertive and inclined to take everything as a fight, so this time around I went for a scene in which Bakugou straight out yells his feelings at Kirishima and Kirishima answers me too (again, I had the before and after in my head too, I just picked the frame that best coveyed what I was trying to do)

As I said I’m usure about how much this might help you orz it’s just my way of doing things, and it mostly comes from the fact that I was originally a writer honestly, so thinking of a whole scene makes things easier for me #rip

Anon said:Can I say, I really like the colors for your confession pictures! :>

THANK YOU??????? H E C K ;O; 

Anon said:hi~ i just went through literally everything in your sketches tag and i just wanna say i love your art and your comics and stuff. also because i went through everything, i want to bring attention to how cool it is to see how much your style has changed! your lines seem more confident and your characters more dynamic in the last few years :D

HECK THANK YOU SO MUCH it’s always so damn nice to know people can see my stuff getting even just slightly better oh mannnnnnnnnnnnnn *sob*

Anon said:can we repost your art if we give like 100% credit

Nope, sorry, I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that

Anon said:those "confessions" must be the lewdest thing I've ever seen

why would you use that word tho

Anon said:I just wanted to tell you that I love your art and it always makes me a little happier when you post something! No matter if it's your comics or colored pics or "simple" doodles, I love all of them! (Though soft stuff is the best, hehe) I just hope you know that you're very appreciated, and I hope you only have wonderful days!

GODS THANK YOU SO MUCH I’m so so so happy I can make you a lil happier ;0; I hope you’ll have every possible wonderful day too, anon!!

Anon said:I just spent the last few hours of my Sunday going though your entire blog. It’s beautiful and I hope you know that you have ruined my life because of that beauty. God damn it.

That wasn’t the intention but I’m!!!!!!!!! glad you think so???????? sob oh my g od you all are too nice to me ;^;

Anon said:Tododeku?

It sure is a ship, isn’t it - I’ve drawn for it in the past, I most probably will again in the future! :D

Anon said:you're honestly one of my fav artists on here! i love your style it feels so unique and is so pleasing to look at (((:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M CRYING THANK YOU

Anon said:Your art has this unique quality about it... its really hard to describe but there’s something so dynamic and god damn pretty about your work. It’s fantastic and you inspire me to keep on creating! I hope your day is absolutely wonderful and thank you for blessing us with your art!

I’m!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so glad I can make you want to create stuff, anon!!!!!! that’s the best thing anyone can ever tell me, oh my god ;^; thank you so much !!!

Anon said:I love it when you draw cuddly bakugou!! Its wonderful!!

THAT’S!!!! super great to hear cause I could probably draw only that for the foreseeable future and not mind it one bit holy smoke

Anon said:THE HUG COMICS ARE THE BEST COMICS, I LOVE HUGS AND BAKUGOU BEING PHYSICALLY AFFECTIONATE IS SOMETHING I LOVE, A++++, WOULD RECOMMEND.

HONESTLY BAKUGOU NEEDS ALL THE HUGS AND IF I MUST BE THE ONE TO GIVE THEM ALL TO HIM THEN SO BE IT

Anon said:all ur comics are fucking delightful and make my day everytime. i ve read them all like too many times? i read each multiple times in a row and im still giddy? i love them i love u

I!!!!!!! LOVE YOU TOO???? HOLY SHIT THANK YOU

Anon said:*sigh* soft-phisical contact lover bakugou save my week. And kiri is the most wonderfull sunshine and no one cant discuss that *sit down in the floor and manly crying*

Kiri is the brightest sunshine isn’t he ;^; the sun to Bakugou’s moon, it makes me weak and I cry a lot

Anon said:I never knew I could be so weak for kiribaku omg fran what have you done to me, on that note what little things do you think theyd do to take care of each other? Like kinda lowkey stuff theyd quietly do? Ahh anyway thank you so much for all the wonderful drawings, hope everything is going well for you :)

Well, this is just the feeling I got, but I’d say they do plenty for each other quietly and softly in canon too, don’t they? Bakugou especially, pointing out to Kirishima his strength when he can’t see it for himself and always trying to find a way to cheer him up when he’s down and giving him space when he needs it, training together, studying together, worrying over one another, Kiri making sure to always know what’s up with Bakugou and following him to help him, just generally being there for each other so that if and when they need they’ll know they’ll have someone they can lean on - their relationship is really mutually supportive, isn’t it? I cry so much they make me so happy ;^; *sob*

Anon said:When season 3 comes out wouldnt it be fun if krbk fans filmed their ch.90 being animated reactions?? I think it'd be so cool/cute to see all the emotions! What do you think?

You know, I’m pretty sure that IS gonna happen? People make reaction videos for so many things! It’s nice and fun, honestly, I love it~

Anon said:I really love the way you draw spiky hair! It looks so floofy and soft.

Boi thank you!!!! Spikes are super nice to draw, though admittedly I make them less spiky then they’re probably supposed to be haha

Anon said:As someone who adores Sero Hanta And is a die hard krbk fan can I just say how much I love you? Like I was having a rough-ish day and I can’t stop smiling now because of your latest comic. Seriously, I love you and your art is everything.

I’M SO GLAD YOU LIKED THAT ONE!!!!!!!! I adore Sero if I had any better clue how to draw him I’d draw him all the time always, true story, he’s such a fave ;^;

Anon said:OMG Fran!!! I want Bakugou's name tattooed on all their faces now!! Hahahaha!

You know, one of my first krbk fanarts was Bakugou writing his name on Kirishima’s forehead, actually....................

#fran answers #art tips #sorta?? #something similar to it #i tried but you know how it is #i got no actual clue what im doing #lmao #anonymous

[thelocalshooter]

The Local Shooter Vs. WizurdAbes

(LS) Hello thank you for being part of a great come up, first and foremost for the people that don’t know who are you what do you do and where are you from?

(WA) Wazzzzaaaap! thank you for having me man I’m glad to be apart of this. For anyone who doesn’t know me I go by WizurdAbes or Abel the name my beautiful creators gave me. I was born and raised in Anaheim, California moved to Az was also raised in Phoenix, Arizona.

(LS) How did start making music, what was your first actual moment when you decided that being a musician was for you?

(WA) I started making music when I was 16 years old in 2013 but I strictly made it for the love and joy of it. I first decided that being a musician was for me in 2017 when I was going to school to an automotive technician or mechanic whatever you’d like to call it but i realized i did not want to work on cars my whole life although I love working on cars, I really love working on music more than anything ever, so i thought if i could still make a living doing what i constantly think about and love doing i figured why not go for it all the way.

(LS) We see you’re apart of The Healthy Club and Dark Manor? What do those group consist of and who’s affiliated with them?

(WA) So The Healthy Club is a Clothing Brand that one of my brothers is finally getting to launch and its a collective of close homies who get together and come up with creative ideas and Dark Manor is a music group that consists of 2 Musicians being my brother Wilby and myself who make music but we also represent both Dark Manor and Healthy Club. You can expect some new merch from Healthy Club and new music as well as merch from Dark Manor.

(LS) You recently had your first show at trunk space? How did all that come about? How was your first actual show experience?

(WA) So that came about because ive been wanting to throw a show and been struggling to make ends meet so thankfully i was able to finally get the funds to make it happen, and of course i couldnt do it without the amazing artists and Dj that performed that night and the amazing people that pulled up. My First show experience was AWSM as fuck although it wasnt my first time performing generally speaking but it was my first time doing a real show so i was bit nervous but when i get in my zone none of that matters anymore because it just feels natural.

(LS) We see you made your first video “Numb” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tRLxz0i0ec) how did the whole concept for that come alive?

(WA) The concept for that song and video came about when i had just finished a beat i was producing at home and i finished writing to it right after. As much as i dont like to openly talk about my personal life much my music can be personal because i like for anyone thats listening to know they can possibly relate to me so the song is just about feeling numb and having no energy to do things or even react to anything due to the things that have happend over the past year but remaining grounded and one of my ways of staying grounded is going out for a walk in the woods sometimes.

(LS) We see you’re on many platforms (https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/wizurdabes/numb) and have couple things out. A full project, and two singles! What can we expect from you this year, are you working on anything right now?

(WA) This year you can expect more music videos and more new music from me! Right now i am currently working on some new music and some music videos to later on share with the world.

(LS) Have you seen any artists in Arizona that you’re looking to collab with? We see you have a few tracks with Wilby, anyone else that caught your attention?

(WA) Theres a couple of taleneted artists that caught my attenton like Definition of Tones and Eloy Gabriel that is def would and will work with in the future when the time comes. I do have more tracks coming with Wilby as we are currently working on our first collective project that we will be dropping around summer time. This project will consist of tracks produced by me and possibly a couple other talented producers and artist from Az and other states so stay tuned!

(LS) What do you think the Arizona music scene is missing? Do you think you have what it takes to fill that void in the city?

(WA) Honestly, I dont believe im in a position to speak on what the Arizona music scene is missing because i feel as if i've met other artists more involved with the Arizona music scene but i do feel i have what it takes to stand out from many artists in general.

(LS) Any tips for people that are starting up in the scene this year? How can they work on getting music out and getting shows done?

(WA) For any one starting up all i have to say is be yourself, be confident and humble even though you may come across many who aren't in it for the same intentions just continute to do you believe inyourself and don't limit yourself. Im no master at this but some tips to get your music out better is to promote it consistently and invest in promiting your music and making it available on all platforms to reach as much people as you can which will lead to possibly getting some shows as more people hear about you.

(LS) Well thank you for being apart of a great come up anything you want to tell your old fans and new fans now, anything we can expect from you in 2020? Also where can they reach you via social media?

(WA) Thank you guys for having me i feel honored as hell and I would just like to say to any old supporters, thank you so much for fucking with me since day one and for continuing to listen and bump the new stuff and for the new supporters joining me on this journey, I also want to say thank you as well for being open and fucking with me. I hope to inspire people to follow their dreams, take care of themselfves and and do what the fuck you want with your life. Stay tuned as i will be dropping more new music along with some new music videos and even some merch thats in the works thank you!

The Local Shooter Vs. WizurdAbes

[tired-aliensoul]

(1/2 - figure others might relate) i went down a rabbit hole lookin @ ariana pics & wishing i was tiny like her, and if i was i could be a cute andro w/ a hot skinny partner & it would be hot. but the reality is that, even now when i'm finally at a weight i only DREAMED of as a kid, (heathy- 114 at 5’1?) im still not ready to accepting fucks & stuff...

“(2/2) … like the date from the other night. we could have easily gotten down. i could have had a lot of different partners at this point, esp w/ how im actually utilizing dating apps AND attempting real life stuff (gave my number to the They) but im picky & terrified of intimacy! So, no matter how skinny i get, my weight won’t make a difference. its just ME. (as a side note: its so annoying how shes just presenting as a latina but shes white) ALSO I JUST REALIZED SHE DATED BIG SEAN???? UMM … SHE GOT TO TAP THAT???? now i defff haate herrrrrrrr *laugh cry emoji*”

My response is long and under the READ MORE :)

Lol, hate her all you want, I don’t really like her. For one, as a latina I find it super annoying that she’s trying to pass off as it and also she really isn’t that skinny. She does clothes placement very well. High-waisted clothing hides a lot, and plenty of people at healthy weights can still see their ribs if sucking in and whatnot. It’s a lot of tricks to her look. She’s got thin arms, but she also has dancer thighs, which are muscular and big and likely means she has no thigh gap. Cant think of a single picture I’ve seen her in where she wasn’t wearing baggy pants or even leggings with a cropped top. She’s thin, but she’s not skinny. She’s thin-thicc. Fit, because she stays in shape, but trust me, it’s just tricks of clothing and angles that give her that “skinny” look. Also, I really just don’t like her nor do I understand the hype behind her, she’s so basic and doesn’t have any sort of amazing talent. She sounds like plenty of other female artists out there already.

As for the not being ready for the intimate stuff, like sex and such, that’s totally okay! I used to be even more shy about my body around people and exs. But, I’ve also been a high-sex drive type of person and despite how I was feeling, would just go for it, but would like still keep my shirt on or whatever if I wanted. Don’t always have to get totally naked for sex lol. First, though, you need to focus on yourself and making yourself feel comfortable in your skin. All sorts of people will find you beautiful even when you don’t find yourself to be. But, also, you don’t have to be out there taking down people and adding them to your little black-book of fucks. I’ve always been selective with who I had sex with and less selective about who I did sexual things with. My list of actual sex partners is only 10 - Leo included-, but my list of sexual things is far longer.

If you wanna get down and dirty with someone, don’t think about your body. It’s hard to do, I know, but it is doable. Focus on the pleasure of it all. Focus on wanting to please and being pleased in the process. Fake some self-confidence if you have to. I know that sounds weird, but faking it till you make it does help. What you should do is take confidence in the fact that your body has changed to be healthy and healthy is fucking beautiful!

You have worked your body to be what you want and while the past might still linger in your head, you had the confidence to change and should feel confident in the changes you have made! It’s a great thing you have done for your body and rather than hide it away, don’t be afraid to show it off! Leo lost a ton of weight and he struggles with being confident in his body, and yes, he has stretchmarks that existed because he was overweight, it doesn’t diminish how fucking sexy he is. He’s god-damn gorgeous and I bet you anything, you are, too! I’m not sure I’m saying anything helpful at this point. I’m a ‘fuck it’ person and end up doing what I want no matter how I’m feeling. Like I was sick enough one time that I should have stayed home and slept and worked on getting my voice back, but some friends of mine were wanting to go out and party and get wrecked and I said ‘fuck it’ and went. I’ve felt bloated and definitely nowhere near sexy, but Leo wanted to do it and I said ‘fuck it’ because I wanted to do it, too! If all else fails in getting yourself to feel confident, the next best strategy is to just say ‘fuck it’ and do it because that’s the only way you’ll do what you want. Don’t let your mind trap you, because then you’ll just be stuck and wanting. Deep breaths and honestly, you’ll end up having a way better time than if you had said ‘nah’. Just gotta knock out that anxiety. Which is hard and what works for me doesn’t usually work for anyone else. But don’t get attached to your anxiety, learn to leave that bitch in the dust because they’re only there to keep you stuck and ‘safe’. And that’s not fun. Lol, god I’m probably not helpful in the slightest here. So I’m sorry if it’s not helpful. I’m just a ‘fuck it’ person and don’t always think things through before going for it lmao.

[callonb]

GYBurst of Inspiration/Motivation

Where does inspiration come from? - Snacks I recorded a song with Samuel Hawkins recently and that was the first line of his verse. Lately thats been on my mind more and more. Where does my inspiration come from and why cant I always bask in its motivational energies? Seems that my drive comes and goes with the moon phases or as planets enter and leave our orbit. Could be the skys dictating my moods and movements (which i think it does have an effect) or it could be the mass amount of coffee and tea i drink a day. Definitely important factors but not quite the source. My mom definitely motivates me, she believes in everything Im doing and helps every way that she can. Its not financially but sometimes emotional support is more important. Shouts out to Momma B you the realist. Same for my homies and not homies as in people i force myself to be around, cuz having friends is what you do. Actual family that i grew up with and have developed a relationship with, the GYB family. The ones who sat me down years ago and was like dude...... you need to take this rap shit seriously. The ones who are now getting more and more involved with the movement every day, pushing everything to the side and riding along with my dream and making them their own. Everyday the homies are pushing to help me create this vision for you guys as they've adopted it as their own. Like minds on the prize, Shouts out the Layer homies. That only seems to be half of it tho, and Ive never felt this type of fire burning inside me before so what is it? Magazine drama and BS doesn't motivate me, Music doesn't seem to hit me the same way anymore. I used to listen to music constantly, new rap definitely doesn't do it for me.....makes me feel lower. New tv shows dont do it for me im bored with most of the popular shows out. Same for games or just typical activities that people partake in. Partys, drugs, random hook ups...It all seems so blah to me and im completely uninterested. I learned I have to stop feeding my lower self and focus on my higher self and what that part of my being truly wants and thats to CREATE!!! Whenever im around an environment that drives me to create and push myself i perform better. So i guess i just realized what really inspires me, and thats a creative environment. Who is responsible for this? Well I saw the Rotunda Project last weekend at Maiden Alley, a collaborative piece by Fairseas. The Fairseas are a group of musicians named Jeran Simmons, Bobby Dowell, Codie Franklin and Shanden Simmons. I watched them plant this seed years ago and now its a giant tree that you can sit back and marvel in its greatness. The main theme of the film was collaborating with your community. I cant lie ive had many many thoughts of leaving my community to collaborate elsewhere but ive came to a realization recently that it isnt necessary. To my surprise and probably a lot of people around here, there is a bubbling hip hop scene around here that is about to explode. Ive started to invest my time and efforts into this scene now and received nothing but results. Shanden has been a major influence in my artistry because he is always honest, encouraging and persistent....three very important characteristics to have in a creative environment and on top of that has become one of what i would consider my best friends. I look at him as one of my GYBrothers. On to the hip hop scene around here tho..... mysterious person named "A" aka the Hollow Man and he is one of the most promising producers/writers around. His solo stuff is outstanding and the collaboration effort we are working on "A & B: The Empire" is next level. Its been well over a year in the making and will shock most people when they hear the new styles i bring to the tape compared to my previous work. A always challenges me to be very intelligent when I piece together my verses and I like that. He makes me want to grab a dictionary and start reading so I can match his extensive vocabulary.....and maybe I have done that lol. Im the ONLY artist that the mystery man works with at the moment and that hits me now in a way it never has before. Like why me, do I really have something in my music that would make this beyond talented artist spend his time and efforts to make beats for us to collab on and want to include me in everything he does? His beats are above any producer Ive ever heard even in the big leagues of the rap game its crazy but he will prolly have his own GYBlog entry about him eventually. I have to move on before i make this to long lol. Next is JSkrilla, I have met the Skrilla a few times in passing but i dont think we realized what each other really could offer the other. Until i ran into him at the damn ROTUNDA PROJECT.....back around full circle. After that we decided to get together. We showed each other some of our music. I didnt know he made dope beats as well as spit hot fucking fire but he does. We shared our philosophies for our craft and talked hip hop and all sorts of other randomness. Then we picked a beat and wrote a song on the spot. Bar for bar back and forth. J stressed to me it had been a LONG time since he had been able to just sit down and write with another emcee that wasnt intimidated by his ability to write on the spot, or to match his caliber of wordplay and rhyme schemes. To both mine and his delight I delivered. Skrilla really challenged me tho, most artist get so caught up in the main stream BS or conforming to certain concepts and topics in their verses that it had been a while since I had felt pressure when writing to make sure my bars are up to par. Felt good to feel that energy again i had been missing the want to become better and that leads me to the main cause of my motivation and my improvments or just overall attitude change whatever you want to call it. the TRYBE!!!! Snacks, B. James, and Waun D. are the Cerberus of this rap shit. I have a lot to owe to them. GYB and Trybe share the same values as far as what we hope to contribute to the culture of arts and musics and how we hope to impact the hip hop community as well as the communities we all live in. I have done one show with them and have multiple other ones lined up with them. As a matter a fact i cant see myself doing a show with anyone but them from here on out. Once again them as well as JSkrilla could have their own full length blog entry but i digress for the sake of your attention lol. The Trybe challenges me to be a better emcee by making me freestyle. Which if you have been around me doing music ive never been a good freestyler.....UNTIL NOW!!! They have cracked that shell and brought me out of it. Making me partake in their cyphers everytime we get together. Soon Ill be as smooth off the top as i am with the writtens then its over for everyone! Sharpening my skills is not something that other rappers really push you to do. Rap is very competitive and braggadocios so pushing someone to improve and possible be better than you is unheard of. The Trybe doesnt see it that way though, they want us all to grow together. With a shared love for hip hop and me and Snacks shared love for Anime we can talk for hours and hours before we realize we havent done any music lol. Everytime I hear a new Trybe song i feel my artistry being challenged. The message in their music makes me want to really focus on the concepts i present in my music and start challenging my self to pretty much step my game up. Between Skrilla, "A", and TrYbe, everything new I hear makes me question my latest bars which is exactly what I need. Hip Hop is my life and my love and above any amount of money i can potentially make off this art is the desire to be the best emcee to ever grab a mic and thats the same mindset i had when i originally picked up the pen and decided i would be a rapper. Before i saw 8 mile and realized that being a white rapper wasnt necessarily accepted, before all the laughs, all the hate and just general shade i received for my dreams. Being white in this game is a roadblock but for the first time these guys made me realize that i have overcame that hurdle 100 times over. I had a long talk with the Trybe last night and they gave me a boost of confidence that finally fully ignited that fire i had lit but tried to conceal. Im no longer worried about what is cool or what people want. I just want to create and you will more than likely like it because I do have skills that i myself had been sleeping on. I hear these artist like A, Skrilla, and Trybe and i felt underneath them but now i see my self as an equal. We all have different things we bring to the table that compliment each other and its time to put it all together and make it happen. Plus we all just fucking dope and there is no denying. This is my new goal. No more time wasted on what i "think" is the right move. Im going to follow what i KNOW to be the right path and follow my heart. Thats challenging myself with these artist and like minded individuals to always be better. Also as Snacks has said before "move at LIGHT SPEED" thats just what Ill do with my light brothers here. We like some damn warriors of this rap shit waging war against a evil corrupt entity but thats also for a whole separate entry lol But no war of this caliber is complete without a general so shoutout to SirDuke. Ive also recently became friends with this crazy dude and he has shown me in just the short time ive known him more love and support than some people ive known my whole life. He also inspires me because he has dedicated his life to serve and protect (literally) and most importantly LEAD. He has an army of pretty much every hood and every rapper in each of them just waiting for his call. and he is not leading them astray, Shoutout the Kollektiv. Duke is also a talented singer and emcee. He has a show with me tomorrow at the Hangover in Murray MAKE SURE YOU COME TO THAT AND SEE MY NEW ALBUM CONSCIOUS TRAP PERFORMED LIVE starting at 9pm. but yeah Duke is dope and I can appreciate his leadership skills and what he hopes to accomplish in his community by cleaning it up through music. He is rubbing off on my and motivating me to hold that same position with my Layer army of GYB homies ive assembled. Most of them are clueless about the industry and music so its up to me to guide and lead them so they can be their own selves and make it in this world without the middle man down your neck. Im going to wrap this up because it ended up being way longer than i intended but i wanted to also say to my fellow collaborators and friends above all. Wolf, Golden Wrist Banks, Trevell, Dope, Simple, Benji and Angel Mascato. You guys have MAD SKILLS. You guys inspire me too because I hear something different in your music than i hear from most. I want you all to continue to grow and expand your creativity to new levels. Tell YOUR story. The same story is constantly told but how will you tell YOURS in the true challenge. So i encourage you guys like i have been recently, step outside of the norm and do what you truly feel in your heart that you need to, fuck what everyone else wants from you just create the way you feel appropriate. A lot of you are working with Duke regularly and I think he will tell you the same thing I am now. Even if its certain people in your lives holding you back, they gotta go. Surround yourself with positive people that want to grow with you instead of out grow you and you will see the same results. Probably why you guys were all on my latest album, except Trevell im sorry and you should have been but you know the deal homie its all love. Frank.....dammit man just rap lol but anyways ill end it on this note. Getting in touch with that child like mind state and that pureness of love in my heart again. Losing all my intentions to want to be better and out do someone but rather COLLABORATE with like minds in my community has already in return pushed me forward in a lot of ways. Seems almost as if they had been waiting on me this whole time. Its certain that my actions are now speaking louder than my words and everyone is starting to catch on. including myself finally. If you read this far thank you and I love you. Youre more than likely part of the reason why i typed this or why i even continue to do what i do. I trust you guys just as much as you trust ill deliver. Have a great day, maybe you can draw inspiration from this or some of the same people or things that i do! So put down that magazine full of empty content and read something meaningful that you are interested in, turn off the news and watch some anime, stop playing shooter games and play final fantasy, stop eating out and prepare your own meals, dont listen to music just play instrumentals and freestlye every day or just make your own, quit scrolling on facebook and take a stroll around the block, only spend time with those that help you grow rather than keep you low. So much inspiration out there sometimes we just have to break away from what we are used to in order to pull from the experience. Now im really done. and excuse my poor grammer and probably a shit load of spelling errors. That wont ever change, these blog post are run on sentences of my thoughts that pass through my head every day. Sometimes i just take the time to jot them out as they pass. PEACE LOVE AND GYB!!

[fystarlust]

1-100 ❤

1. What’s your middle name, and do you like it?Rachel, its okay HAHA2. are you artistic?depends what kind cos i cant draw for shit but i can do makeup??3. Have you had your first kiss?yes4. What is your life goal?be happy5. Do you have any experiences with a famous person?i mean ive seen 5sos 1d and mcbusted in person if that counts6. Do you play any sports?horse riding, i want to play more though i actually really like sports7. What’s your worst fear?demons8. Who’s your biggest inspiration?jacksepticeye9. Do you have any cool talents?my makeup looks great sometimes10. are you a morning person?yes11. How do you feel about pet names?theyre cute to a point, im not about that 'cupcake sprinkle sugar bean' life12. Do you like to read?if the book is good yes13. Name a list of shows that have changed your life.none have changed my life thats a bit far14. Do you care about your follower count?i used to but not anymore15. What’s the best dream you’ve had?i recently dreamt my gf was back home again16. Have you ever kissed someone of your same gender?yes17. Do you have any pets?yes, 3 dogs, 4 cats, 1 horse and soon to be 1 hamster18. Are you religious?no lol19. Are you a people person?noooo20. Are you considered popular?considered by who HAHAH bc my gf thinks im pretty cool 💁🏼21. What is one of your bad habits?biting my nails22. What’s something that makes you feel vulnerable?during and after ive had a mental breakdown23. What would you name your children?Lily, Ava24. Who’s your celebrity crush?taeeeee25. What’s your best subject?nothing academic rip26. Dogs or cats?dogs27. most used social media besides tumblr?youtube28. best friends name?ellie29. who does your main family consist of?idk what main family consists of but i see all my family a lot so my mum, brother, dad, grandparents, aunty, uncle, cousins30. Chocolate or sugar?both31. have you ever been on a date?yes32. Do you like roller coasters?some types of them33. Can you swim?ye boi34. What would you do in the event of an apocalypse?i would be a badass mf and protect my loved ones and animals35. Have you struggled with any kind of mental disorder?yes, am currently struggling with a few and likely always will be36. Are your parents together?no37. What’s your favorite color?baby blue38. What country are you from/do you live in?England to both39. Favorite singer?bts40. Do you see yourself being famous some day?nope41. Do you like dresses?yes but i need to work on my confidence when wearing them42. Favorite song right now?deeessspaaacito43. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?yes, very44. How old were you when you first got your period?1245. Have you ever shot a gun?nope46. Have you ever done yoga?yes47. Are you a horror girl?if this means horror film then yes48. Are you good at giving advice?kind of? with some things im not though49. Tell us a story about your childhood.near my house me and my friends had this den that was like a cave in the ground and it was sooo cool we spent hours in there everyday and its still there50. How are you doing today?im okay51. Were you a cute kid?not to be up my own ass but yes52. Can you dance?secretly yes53. Is there anything you do that you can’t remember ever not doing?looking after animals54. Have you ever dyed your hair?nope too scared55. What color are your eyes?blue56. What’s your favorite animal?ooooo i cant pick one i have so many57. Have you ever made a huge fool of yourself?lots of times, ellie n jess know this best58. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?its complicated but kind of59. Do you have good friends?wonderful ones60. Are you close with anyone of the lgbtq+ group?yes61. What’s your favorite class?in college it was Zoo Management62. List all the tv shows you are watching.RuPauls Drag Race, The Walking Dead, Your Lie in April63. Are you organized?yes64. What was the last movie you saw? Opinion?i cant remember65. Which tv character do you relate to most?not a tv character but Ryan from BuzzFeed Unsolved is literally me as an asian male68. What are some things that stand between you and complete happiness?my hell brain69. If you received enough money to never need to work again, what would you spend your time doing?travelling with my gf70. What would you change about your life if you knew you would never die?god idk71. What would you do differently if you knew that no one was judging you?iDk72. If you could start over, what would you do differently?i dont like these deep questions73. Would you break the law to save a loved one?yes74. When was the last time you traveled somewhere new?the other week when i went to Wadswick 75. When you think of your home, what immediately comes to mind?my dogs76. What have you done to pursue your dreams lately? How about today?i applied for a hnc77. What did you want to be when you were a kid?a vet78. If you dropped everything to pursue your dreams, what would you be risking?everything?? i dont knOW79. When did you not speak up, when you know you really should have?when i was being bullied, shouldve beat that bitch into the dirt80. Describe the next five years of your life, and your plans, in a single sentence.travel and be happy and be with jess and around animals81. What would happen if you never wasted another minute of your life, what would that look like?well id get a lot more done82. If you could live forever, how would you spend eternity?id spend it with jess then when she died id kill myself HAHAHAH that sounds so dark83. How would you spend a billion dollars?travelling, on a house, animals84. If you could time travel, would you go to the past or the future?the past, i dont wanna see the shithole of a future until i have to85. What motivates you to succeed?literally nothing86. What dream that you’ve had has resonated with you the most?a lot of them cos theyre v realistic, i dont like it87. Would you rather live in the city or the woods? Why?woods BUT not a creepy woods where id get killed, just a nice forest, and because i hate how busy cities are88. Do you believe in life after death?im not sure89. What teacher inspired you the most? How did they?none they can all suck my ass90. What’s your fondest childhood memory?the one about the cave den91. If you could have dinner with any one person, living or dead, who would they be and why?jacksepticeye bc i luv him sm92. What would you have to see to cry tears of joy?when people come home from fighting abroad to their kids or dogs93. What is the hardest lesson you had to learn in life?idk how to sum it up94. What do you think happens after we die?i have no idea95. What would you do if you would be invisible?pretend to be a ghost and scare people96. What’s something you can’t do no matter how hard you try?DRAW97. Would you want to choose the sex and appearance of your offspring?no i like surprises98. How did your first crush develop?i cant remember99. Is there a feeling you are trying to ignore? What is it?yes always lmao, paranoia, anxiety, worry100. Do you live or do you just exist?so deep oooOoOoooO i dont care

[gigsoupmusic]

Take 5: Neave Zaria

At just 18 years old Neave Zaria is an emerging star: a bright up and coming artist from just outside London. She's been singing from a very young age and has been creating quite a buzz to industry ears- so much so that she was invited to attend X Factor bootcamp aged just 14. Despite the producers attempts to change her mind, Neave turned it down and instead went on her planned school trip to Mongolia, which was one of the best experiences of her life. Since then Neave has been fine tuning her sound and recording her own music, getting ready to bring it to the world entirely on her own terms. If I See You is her debut single - out now. So young and so talented- we decided to find out more with a Take 5... When did you realise that you wanted to be a music artist? What or who has inspired you ? I've always wanted to be involved in music, going through instrument lessons and teaching myself different things I realised that this was something I was good at  - and that was a nice feeling! When I was approached by my now producer Chas to write some music together and we came up with this first song, I started to believe that this was something that could really develop. When someone recognises you for who you really are, its a nice feeling! People believe in me and it's given me confidence and determination. My instinct is that I was made to sing and that is what Im going to do. Who, living or dead, would you dream of collaborating with? I would love to collaborate with Maverick Sabre. His tone is outstanding; his voice is so silky I've always loved it. His recent collab with Jorja Smith is something else and I remember knowing his music when he was unknown. I thought it was amazing and then BAM he got big. His persistence and love for music is what got him there and being passionate is something I can really relate to. Tell us about your single –'If I See You '- what is the song about? It's about relationships, and how time can be a great healer and change the way you feel, but never who you are deep down. https://youtu.be/sRsrBL-AewQ Tell us five things you love about the city/town you live in, and why…… 1. It's so diverse. There are so many different people with different personalities. You can chat to anyone and end up being with them for hours on end talking about absolutely anything. 2. It's quite small. So no matter where you go you are always seeing familiar faces - never a down day. 3. Entertainment. From quiet pool bars and retro coffee shops to busy, bustling clubs - it has everything to suit your mood. 4. The nature. There are so many local nature reserves and beautiful places to walk and run. Sometimes it's just nice to walk all the way to the top of the park you can see for miles, not hear a single car engine, see a single building. Just yourself, singing away into the wind. It's peaceful. 5. Family. My family and I all live really close and they are the most important people in my life. It's comforting to have them nearby and support me so much with everything Im doing. What are you most looking forward to this year? I'm just looking forward to everyone being well and happy again! I was going to say summer as I have Lovebox, Paris, SW4 and Barbados planned but now this major pandemic is happening, most of my plans will be cancelled. Its a shame but I just hope everyone will be safe and well enough to enjoy a gin and tonic when the pub gardens reopen! I can't wait to get back into the studio, carry on recording new material, releasing music and continuing to develop my style. Getting some nice summer outfits for trips to the beach and singing around a barbecue would be great too! Read the full article

#NeaveZaria #Take5

[allofbeercom]

The brave new world of the xx, pop’s brooding perfectionists

Solo success, confronting grief, sobering up the feted London trio talk frankly about how the events of the past four years informed their new album, I See You

The three members of the xx cross from Poland into Lithuania overnight, trying to sleep inside a bus that judders and lurches along an uneven border road. It is December, an unforgiving time to be touring eastern Europe, and snow that was coming in committedly when they left Warsaw still falls when they arrive in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Its cold here, beer-jacket weather, hot-toddy weather, get-messed-up-after-the-gig-to-distract-from-the-bite weather. But the band Oliver Sim, Romy Madley Croft, Jamie Smith travel in good, sober order. They toured their first album, in 2010, blinkingly, greenly, through a fog of personal tragedy. Two years later they got through a second-album tour mostly by partying wherever they went. (Moving from encore to after-show chasing the night, as the band phrase it in a new song, Replica.) When we meet, the release of album number three, I See You, is looming. For various reasons they expect to take this one around the world in steadier, less emotionally hectic fashion.

Arriving in central Vilnius at 10am, the trio alight from the tour bus and teeter over icy pavement, straight to their hotel rooms for some extra sleep. Im in the lobby waiting for them when they emerge, one by one, at midday. Sim (27 years old, bassist and co-vocalist) appears in a splendid fur-lapelled coat. His enormous green eyes lend him at once a striking handsomeness as well as the perpetual suggestion of worry. More so than Sim, Madley Croft (27, lead guitar and vocals) is dressed for her terrain: leather boots, hoodie, black-camo raincoat, a hat over her dark shoulder-length hair. A stitched image on the hat is faded and hard to distinguish and when I ask her what it is she answers in a soft, whistling voice: Three babies dancing. She says she found the hat in a skate shop somewhere. Smith (28, percussion and production) might have found his entire outfit in a Sports Direct somewhere. He comes down in Nike T-shirt, Adidas trackies, his copper curls sprouting over the strap of a backwards-turned cap.

Theres something drastic and strange about Smiths appearance that takes a moment for me to identify. Hes smiling. I find this hard to reconcile with our last encounter.

In the hotel lobby, the band and I reminisce about meeting last time, more than four years ago, when I shadowed them for a couple of days as they toured through Los Angeles. They were about to debut Coexist, their second album, high in the British and American charts. Their first album, xx, had won the Mercury prize in the UK and gone gold in the US. Its sound sexily gnomic lyrics sung huskily over precise and chilly synths was exerting a blatant influence on the music industry, imitators of the xx springing up all over the place. Now Baz Luhrmann was courting them for one of his soundtracks, and he showed up one night in Hollywood to buy rounds of drinks. The band went to after-parties backstage at the Ford theatre, by the pool at the Chateau Marmont, on the roof of a downtown hotel.

Watch the video for the xxs single On Hold.

I remember the experience for the hilarious difficulty of interviewing Smith, who was then emerging as the silent genius of the group, an unfeasibly talented engine-room operator who was responsible for so much of their musics distinctive and influential texture. At the time he betrayed none of the weight or assurance of someone with great and growing industry clout. Instead he seemed to trust that if he stayed quiet enough during our encounters I might forget he was there.

These days Smith tells stories, tells jokes. While he speaks he taps his fingers in time to some imagined and apparently buoyant interior music. If theres a reticence to him, still, it transmits as a cooler and more grown-up nonchalance. Life, is his deadpan explanation for the transformation. I went from being 23 to 28. It happens to everyone. Perhaps theres a little more to say. Under his solo stage name, Jamie xx has long tended a fertile sideline as a DJ and a producer of other artists work. In summer 2015 he released an album of his own, In Colour, that was enough of a hit to fuel a substantial world tour. He was nominated for the Mercury and Grammy awards. Its easy to see how much Jamies changed, says Madley Croft. Its obvious, because of his personal career hes more confident.

Sim and Madley Croft made guest appearances on their friends solo record. But this was very much Smiths project, one that had been building up for quite a while, and its gestation contributed directly to the years-long wait between the xxs second and third albums. The band started writing material for I See You as long ago as 2014. But the finish line, as Sim describes it, kept getting pushed further away into the future. He is diplomatic about the difficulty of Jamie just not being available. Even though he was really pushing himself, and not giving himself time off, getting face-time with him was tricky. Smith is apologetic. I was busy doing my thing. It was going well. I was happy in that way. But I was also anxious about finishing our [group] record. I definitely felt bad, coming and going. And I did understand that Romy and Oliver were really anxious to finish it. Because they didnt have They obviously had things going on. But they didnt have a creative outlet.

The band get ready to leave the hotel for an afternoon of rehearsals. Before we spill out into taxis I take Sim out of earshot of the other two, and ask: What about jealousy? We cant always rely on ourselves, as humans, to be perfectly delighted by our friends achievements. What did you and Romy really feel while Jamie was flying solo?

There were moments when I felt jealous of his time, Sim says.

And of his success?

Sim speaks carefully. I think of jealousy as: I dont want you to have this. And I felt proud of Jamie. I felt pleased for him that he had all of this going on. But, at the same time, I wanted this. Me and Romy wanted this. We wanted to be back up there, on stage, with a fire lit underneath us.

The trio strongly believe the hiatus has been beneficial to their music. I agree. After his secondment in a more dancefloor-orientated world, Smith has brought back with him to the xx a sense of pace and playfulness, obvious from the very first hands-in-the-air bars of the new record. Across its length the album has a brewed, stewy, experience-enriched quality, subtly but importantly different from the older stuff, which always had terrific clarity but which could lack human warmth.

From a bald commercial perspective the bands absence does not seem to have unduly alienated the fanbase. All tickets for seven nights at Londons Brixton Academy in March recently sold out. Still, there have been some surreal moments for Sim and Madley Croft during their semi-enforced sabbatical. They describe to me how bizarre it felt, trotting along to watch Smith play alone at Brixton, a spiritual home of sorts for the xx and a place they had played many times together. Only now two-thirds of the band were stood among the audience craning like everyone else to see over the next head.

Rehearsals are taking place at the venue for tonights show, a mid-sized arena on the outskirts of Vilnius. I ride there in a cab with Madley Croft, who has a digital camera and takes occasional pictures of the bleak winter landscape. Touring, she says, means seeing countries through the windows of cars. Tomorrow the band will fly to Japan. After that Australia, then Scandinavia, and eventually back for those Brixton dates and four other UK shows. They were on a killer tour the last time we met too. Then, they spoke to me about how strange an existence it was, their every need taken care of while they moseyed from encore to after-party. They made it sound cloying but also comforting, cocoon-ing, in Madley Crofts phrase. At the time I wondered what the effects might be, of the long tour finishing and all the machinery of the band falling away, leaving them to their own devices again.

It took an adjustment, Madley Croft says, of varying degrees for the three of them. She thinks Sim probably found it the hardest. Oliver, to me, is the natural performer of the band. I know he gets a lot of confidence from performing. And I sensed he might not be quite sure what his place was, for a while, when we were off stage. For herself, Madley Croft used the time away to address private matters shed ignored for some time. Stuff from the past. Losses Ive had. It all kind of hit me.

Smith, AKA Jamie xx, playing Londons Hyde Park last summer. Because of his personal career, hes more confident, says bandmate Photograph: RMV/Rex/Shutterstock

Wed touched lightly on this in Los Angeles her difficult backstory, intimately and pretty cruelly interwoven with the backstory of her band. She was only 11, in 2001, when her mother died. (This was a few years before she started writing music with Sim a friend from school in Putney, London as a form of escapism.) Her father died in early 2010 when she was 20. (By now, with Smith, another schoolfriend, the three were established as the xx. They were performing an early show in Paris when the news about Madley Crofts father reached them.) Towards the end of 2010 a close friend of hers, a cousin, died too. (The band had just won the Mercury and were becoming quite famous.) By the time I met them all in Los Angeles, Madley Croft was 22. Shed barely stopped touring or recording since her double bereavement in 2010, and I got the sense of a young woman putting a lot on hold.

The last few years have been, for me, about facing all of it, she explains. At the time I just went for it. Encore, after-party, encore, after-party. Its only on reflection I think how intense everything must have been, and how I just pushed it down. But everything comes up. Ive learned that everything comes up.

When we met before she was in the first months of a relationship with a designer, Hannah Marshall, who was then travelling with the band. They were sweet together, newly and sorely inked with matching tattoos patently in deep, even though Madley Croft seemed a little awkward in a public setting, as if she was getting used to her band-life and love-life intermingling. When we first got together Hannah was always so much better in social situations than me. I felt so shy. But through being with her I feel so much more at ease. Ive noticed thats happened in a different way with me than it has with the boys. And I know its because Ive been with someone.

The couple recently got engaged. It was the stability of the relationship, Madley Croft says, that gave her the grounding she needed to look squarely at her past. She went from pushing down thoughts about her parents to actually kind of craving going to therapy and dealing with it… Its an ongoing thing, she says. I feel like Ive dealt with a chunk. With a hell of a lot more than I ever did before. And the self-examination has borne creative fruit. Right in the middle of the xxs new album comes its tenderest and most nakedly spiritual track, Brave for You, a song that Madley Croft wrote about drawing strength from the memory of her parents.

We pull into the car park of the venue, sure weve got the right place because we can see the steaming figure of Sim, shivering in his coat, smoking a cigarette. Together he and Madley Croft clomp inside, shed their layers, and walk to the stage. She takes up her Les Paul guitar, he his Fender, and behind them on an elevated platform Smith finds his place among an array of mixers and synthesisers. Performing for an empty arena, they play a few old songs and a couple of newer ones, including Brave for You. Smith taps out a high rhythmic pulse. Sim waits for his moment to apply some bass. Madley Croft closes her eyes and sings: When Im scared/ I imagine you there/ Telling me to be brave

Madley Croft with her fiancee, designer Hannah Marshall. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images for Equipment

The rehearsal lasts a long time: hours. I perch with Smith in his mixing station and watch over his shoulder as the trio pick through 20-odd songs. Sometimes the noise, ringing off the exposed concrete of the arena, is tremendous. During uptempo songs Smith starts dancing, big-stepping in time like a cowboy at a line dance, thrashing his head like a metalhead in a mosh pit. Impossible to imagine, Madley Croft says, the old Jamie doing this.

Sim, frowning, the least at ease on stage today, unsticks a printed set list from the floor. He thinks back to the previous gig in Poland and says: Oh. I spoke in the wrong place last night. After a lifetime trying to maintain belief in the spontaneity of artist-to-audience banter, its a little shattering for me to learn that the xx arrange their chatty interludes in advance. But these guys are precision workers, broody perfectionists; and theyre rusty in their stagecraft after so long apart. When they rehearse a mid-gig spectacular of mashed-up songs, the music builds and builds, smoke machines gushing, some glorious climax imminent until at the clinching moment Smith slaps a button on his mixer and a deafening error-sound hums around the arena.

Everyone flinches. Argggh, shouts Smith. The mixer is unplugged and hauled away in machine-disgrace. The band take a break. Smith consults a roadie about a replacement. Sim drifts off stage. Madley Croft picks up her phone and taps out a message to someone.

Im starting to see that these three took very different paths away from their last album. Madley Croft into domestic stability and a worked-for interior peace. Smith into self-affirming solo work. Sims route took him where? He has always been the xxs most elliptical member, a charming if skittish, ambiguous interviewee. Unlike Madley Croft he has resisted overt statements about his sexuality. And the particulars of his family background, apparently as troubled as hers, remain much more opaque. When the New Yorker published a deep-digging profile of the band in 2014, the reporter was obliged to include a vague line about Sims early life, which was scarred by family dysfunction that he declines to discuss. Madley Croft has grown over time into openness, Smith into sureness. Sim seems still on his way somewhere.

Maybe theres a clue in the new music. I See You has a couple of tracks that come over as more direct and less cryptic than anything else in the bands back catalogue. A Violent Noise, for example, seems to be about partying too much, overdoing it (Youve been staying out late/ Trying your best to escape). In a subsequent track, Replica, chiefly written and sung by Sim, it sounds as if an unnamed parent is being addressed: Ive turned out just like you They all say I will become a replica/ [That] your mistakes were only chemical 25 and youre just like me Is it in my nature to be stuck on repeat?

Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer

Away from the rehearsal I sit down with Sim and tell him the lyrics to Replica register, to me at least, as a kind of confession. A child of addiction, growing up to worry he has become an addict himself, wondering if the problem is unavoidable and hereditary or whether he can go down a different path. Does that sound accurate?

Sim, his large eyes open to their fullest extent, stares over my head for a while. Then he clears his throat and says: Um. Well. Thats kind of bang on, your reading.

He takes a breath. Yeah. Just kind of That was a big thing to deal with, over the past couple of years. Just kind of dealing with my relationship with using [drugs]. With drinking. And, um. And also my parents. Yeah. He says its a shock to realise that the private matters underlying this song have come over so plainly. This conversation is a bit of an eye-opener.

He started writing Replica, he says, a couple of years ago. Before I was taking any action. Or saying anything out loud. The bands 2012 tour had finished. The pace we were moving at stopped, suddenly. It was a pretty flaky existence Yknow, I left school thinking I wanted to live my life like a nomad, free-floating. Turns out I absolutely need some kind of structure. Living back in London again, structure-less, he thought of his drinking and drug-taking as blowing off steam. Later, I started to wonder if it was still charming to be the drunkest person in a room.

His decision to seek help took a while. A long, drawn-out decision. Smith was away gigging. Madley Croft was travelling the US with her girlfriend. I felt a bit lost. The schoolfriends all describe this period end of 2014, start of 2015 as the farthest apart theyd been from one another, geographically but emotionally too. As Madley Croft puts it: We werent in tune. Jamie was on tour. Oliver wasnt being entirely truthful with me about what he was going through. Walls were up.

When they did regather, Sim brought them the lyrics to Replica. Madley Croft recalls the moment. I thought: This is very real. Even though everything we do is real, this felt more transparent? It felt brave. And I loved that he let me in, to discuss it.

Sim makes it sound inevitable it should be writing, rather than talking, that helped bring down the walls between the band. Im a lot better and braver in songwriting than I am in conversation.

He says he has noticed, of course, how much his two friends have evolved in recent years. Theyve come on in leaps and bounds. He says he feels more sluggish in his own progress, a bit stunted People are like, So Jamies done his record and toured the world. What have you done? To be honest, Ive just been at home, figuring stuff out. He doesnt seem to realise that hes made the most progress of everyone. I ask him how long hes been sober.

Watch the video for the xxs Say Something Loving.

Eleven months, he says.

And?

And lifes been transitional, he says, smiling shyly. Quite a shift. Tonights show in Vilnius, for instance, the fifth of the current tour, will be the fifth show hes done in his career without drink. Its why I dont maybe feel so confident here. I dont have that support. I dont have my booze blanket. Everything feels more raw.

Are you happier?

Im. He stops and considers. Im Yes, I am happy. Im sort of adjusting to a different pace of life. But yeah, Im good. I feel anxious. About the next year [of touring], and being away from home. I wonder how its going to play out. But Im excited too. He might be about to experience the beginnings of a music career for a second time. I realise I was never entirely present before. Booze took away the nerves. But it also, like, definitely capped the highs. If hes sacrificed some self-confidence, he says, at least hes gained some self-understanding. Madley Croft agrees. I think hes getting to know himself. Who he is, as a 27-year-old, not as a performer on stage, but in life. Im really proud of him.

Soon enough their rehearsal resumes. Theres not long to go until the show now, and fans are beginning to appear in the snow outside. The band practise what will be the nights final run of songs. They try Intro, one of the first things they ever wrote together, as well as a new track, a happy-sad doozy called On Hold, which explores the ways in which life can seem to move at different speeds for different people. Transitioning from the old song to the new, Smith turns a dial on his mixer. Madley Croft steps forward and sings her half of the shared lyrics, Sim his. Then they sway, gently, by their mic stands.

At the end of the song the two guitarists lay down their instruments. Smith tidies his things. Madley Croft walks around taking a few photographs of the arena before it fills with people. Sim, before he leaves the stage, attaches a small light to his microphone stand. So that hell be able to find his way back to it, later, in the dark.

I See You is out now on Young Turks. The xx play UK shows from 4-17 March

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-brave-new-world-of-the-xx-pops-brooding-perfectionists/

[snap-spark-blog]

taeyong meta (w citations) cuz im losing my mind

originally on twitter

UMM I started furiously typing without ANY organization but im here to summarize that this is a shitty essay about taeyong's change of character over the years and how it's driving me NUTS

--- the thing is i never bought into the whole "taeyong used to be a bad boy" narrative and the reason i started stanning him to begin with was finding out he's actually a gentle boy from NCT life and other interviews and realities shows and like......generally my thoughts on the scandal (which changes all the time and i dont know the whole story) is that first of all it's a stupid ass fucking issue to have a scandal around and that second it seems overboard to the point where SM rolled with it and made him apologize demurely and appear guilty rather than defend him in order to push his soft boy image even more? because they were creating a "cold and unapproachable" image FOR him during debut and actively having him and other members demonstrate that he's "actually really gentle" like, this was SM's own doing, which means as time went on especially when CB rolled around you can start to see that the "soft boy" who cooks and cleans and takes care of members like a good leader image is to some extent a construction as well because taeyong is not rly a natural leader, there are members who begin to stand out as having that role instead and taeyong can comfortably retreat a little into the regular person that he is WHICH, at that point, i loved even more because hey he's happy and that makes me happy, i know enough about the person at the core of "taeyong" to bias him no matter what kind of a person he is cuz its always within the bars of standard deviation. to me his image progressed smth along the lines of this starting from rookies era till about...like limitless even they really wanted to push his image as being a dancer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wEdZKC0orM), and when i first saw this i was in luv but the more i got to know him the more i realized this is something they would've choreographed for kai, it's a style of sharp snaps and smooth curves and hitting the points that kai loves doing, kai taemin etc like knowing SM's history of dancers this feels more like them than taeyong, and ofc being a rookie ty must learn to be ABLE to technically execute things like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvniaVnTKQI), cool sharp and hard hitting, which falls in line with the "seems cool but is sweet" dichotomy they had for him around NCT U/FT era (like grey hair era) and i ALWAYS think about this interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZMb7t_cH10) where they asked the team dance or music aND LIKE BESIDES WINWIN WHO OBV CHOSE DANCE TY CHOSE DANCE BUT I NEVER UNDERSTOOD IT BECAUSE its so different from how im used to when i watch dancers like i dont think taeyong necessarily worships dancing because he seems to LOVE music as much as dance because theyre both means to express himself thru (and i personally think he answered dance cuz he's "dancer" but fk do i know) and like from the moment limitless hit and he was put in a SOFT SWEATER and there were suddenly 9 people and johnny existed and carried them thru variety taeyong has significantly retreated more into the background and limitless is where he starts to FEEL his identity a little more and so he WRITES things like BDLI, he SAYS things like "i loved this line so much", because they're starting to move from their cool-but-not-quite-relatable, not quite touchable, exclusive and distant kind of music towards something more "true and free" which is at the core of the whole band's image (bUT LITERALLY!! WARM SWEATERS) and i cant say for sure it wouldve been this era when he relaxed his image a little more but this would be when i realized like "Ah this is just a regular kid who's good at some things" from the way members act around him and things they say and the things he does ofc its still genuine and he loves his members but its no longer "i go out of my way all the time to make sure everyone is ok" (like, like taeil johnny say he leads more by charisma and energy than by emotional care, more on this later) like he's just another person in the dorm, he's sensitive but also over sensitive he gets offended, he has disagreements w them, hes 20 something not a mother, hes just a kid who's talented and skilled and loves art and ofc i LOVED that and i wish i was fkcng around for this era but only in hindsight when CB era rolled around can i assume this is what linked the kid he was at debut with the MONSTER WE SEE NOW AND LIKE HERE COEMS CHERRY BOMB ERA WHICH IS MY FUCKING FAVE WHICH IS WHERE HE SAYS THINGS LIKE "I have an introverted personality but i think it makes me powerful; it helps me know myself better; it's like going through a "late-puberty"" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1LiUAqO1BA) AND THIS VIDEO KILLS ME EVERY FUCKING TIME BECAUSE YOU SEE IT............THE MOMENT HE GOT HIS PINK HAIR, THE MOMET HE GOT THOSE COLOR LENSES AND THE HEAVY EYE MAKEUP HE LITERALLY FINALLY WENT FROM NOT BEING ABLE TO LOOK AT HIMSELF IN THE MIRROR (https://www.instagram.com/p/BWzjNIEBj16/) TO LOOKING LIKE HE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW HOT HE IS LEADING THEIR TEAM AT THE CENTER OF THE FUCKING STAGE TO THE POINT WHERE HE TURNS HIMSELF ON (THAT CONFIDENCE!!!!!!!) TO WRITING THINGS LIKE WHIPLASH WHERE HE KNOWS HOW HOT IT IS THAT HE'S COME SO FAR AND BECOME SO CAPABLE (THE BEST OF THE BEST) AND HOW MUCH HOTTER IT IS THAT HE WANTS TO BE DOMMED, TO DOING WHAT ENDED MY LIFE TODAY IF THE MULTITUDE OF HALF-BONERS AND SEX FACES ON STAGE I NTHE PAST MONTH HASNT WHICH IS FLIRT ON NATIONAL TV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAyYCV1CnYc) AND CHECKING OUT A GIRL WITHOUT GIVING A SINGLE FUCK (https://twitter.com/moontaeyong95/status/921462333532200960/video/1) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LIKE ???? where did we come from ???? and where are we now???? 1. "cool looking good leader dancer soft boy" 2. more ambiguous, more real, stays true to his own multifaceted personality and style 3. an absolute beast coming to realize his power for the first time going back to dance: from recent solo stages and the way he's been dancing the choreo (more expressive, less perfect and rigid) i get the feeling like he's always been less about motional perfection than just feeling the music so much that he goes crazy with it, and that's more or less what i fucking love about NCT as a whole, is that nobody really has clearly defined roles, no one ever introduces themselve as "hello I'm NCT's rapper xxx", "I'm NCT's dancer xxx", because theyre all just "artists" without these arbitrary limits, and they can indulge in this in whatever form they like, as whatever aspect of their identities they feel like being today: "hello, i'm mark in a pink sweater." (http://www.vlive.tv/video/19700?channelCode=DEE409) it's not that he loves dance more than anything, its not that he loves rap more than anything, he just....he just fucking lvoes life? he loves his life? taeyong's artistry comes from whatever it is he's feeling within and in whatever form he's feeling it and that's what ive come to rly love about him, it's about appreciating what HE's feeling and how he's showing it to us and lately he's been so, SO into the music. he's so into it that i couldnt believe it at first and thought it meant he was tired (https://youtu.be/sQO3TJfOf7M) but he's actually and i quote egg, "probably just really turned on". and chuseok passed and i thought he'd go home and take care of his ~needs~ and come back after learning how to CHILL but I GUESS APPARENYL FUCKING NOT BECAUSE HE'S GOD DAMN WALKING DOWN THE STAIRS TO SEOUL FASHION WEEK LIKE HE KNOWS HES THE HOTTEST FUCKIG N THING IN THE WORLD AND CHECKING OUT THAT GIRL WITH SO MUCH CONFIDENCE AND THIS IS THE ULTIMATE POINT OF THIS POST IS THAT IM SO FUCKING GLAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT HE LOOKS SO CONFIDENT LIKE HES FINALLY GROWN INTO HIMSELF AND ACCEPTED THE REALITY OF HIS POTENTIAL AND ALL THAT HE CAN BE AND IS FINALLY TAKING CHARGE OF IT AND SHAPING IT INTO SOMETHING OF HIS OWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LITERALLY CANT ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND ITS MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN ANYTHING HES DONE OS FAR AND IM LOSING MY G*D DAMN MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HES ON A RAMPAGE SM ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HOPE NOT CUZ I HOPE HE NEVER GETS STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that's it this whole thing has no other purpose i just wanted to say i love him right now like this thank you for reading

#nct #nct 127 #taeyong #lee taeyong

[quietengineersurvivor]

11.4.17

I havent been feeling myself for the last few days. So I am back here and writing. I don’t know exactly when it started, I have been a bit harder on myself of late, but I thought that was helping and giving me direction, and the feeling of accomplishment of goal completeing/pursuing. But that is more and overall scope. My current goals are to save my money so I can look to purchase somewhere so I can stop paying rent. I can’t go back and live with my parents, that I know. But I’ve agreed to go back there on weekends, what is that about. I know i need to show gratitude, they are letting me stay there, but do i want to? I did start looking for jobs in that area even, I’m not sure, I think i would prefer to be on my own all the same.

My grandfather passed away a few weeks ago, just before my mothers birthday, and that was a sad ocassion, but I thought I had got through that. I am gratefeul for how Gab rescued me from it at one stage. 

I thought i ad got through that OK, i had reminded myself I wasnt to see him again, and thats what death is, an inability to someone ever again no matter how much you may want to. Similar is choosing not to see someone ever again, which also is a thing. 

So that was all through, and i was working on saving my money, I think at that time I may have been a bit busier, I was doing guitar straight away after work, and that was giving me some release, and i was getting head space at work which was nice, of late i have been rushing a bit, and it can be difficult coming down from that doing doing doing. So i would play guitar for a bit and that was good, becaus ei have decided i would like to play guitar, and thats one of my goals. Nothing but that. And I am branching into blue which suits me fine, as many of my favoiurite artists hang out in that genre, and i can still spill back out into rock if that is what i choose. 

Ok so saving money, and guitar. And I;ve also been training my running so i can look to compete in a half marathon. I was going to go away to the hunter valley with a guy from work, but there is little talk in that front, and i am hesitant to bring it up, so i wont. But i am still training for it. Well I was, but then i got injured at soccer around 9 days ago and have injured my groin, which i am working at repairing, but it means no training in running, which i was taking to quite well. I’m not sure where i will compete for the half marathon, but i will keep training for it, well at least get a 5km base 2-3 times a week. But it would be good to get it done this year. I would say Hunter Valley is unlikely to happen, but there is one in the city coming up, which i can lookin into, well i have looked into it, but i still havent decided if i will enter. That is something i need to decide upon. Which apparently i have designated for the end of this week. 

Other than that I cam training my brain for some reason using a nintendo ds game, i have noticed when i feel good i perform pretty well in this game, so this would be a good way to test my mental health. I feel foggy by the way. And lethargic and unmotivated, and i am worried i will lose my mind and memory, i feel like a husk. and i still feel, but all i want to do is be alone, which is a dangerous thing. 

On Thursday night past, I went to get my glasses, and i was getting eyes from one of the girls, but wouldnt do anything to secure her advances. 

At that time, my only thought was to get my glasses, obviously i didnt want to go, but i might as weel go because there is a time. I guess i have been doing that at work the last few days, and it has started to take a toll. Anyway there was this girl giving me eyes and i was aware of here, she was making it easy for me, but i wouldnt talk to here, i didnt know what to say, and i didnt want everyone to see me talking to her, so i proceeded to blank her, finding oblivious ignoring the easier thing for me to do. But still at this stage i was still mentally working, i was still there, and now i feel like im not. At this very moment i feel okay, but over the course of the last few days i have not. 

SO that was Thursday, Friday was a little different I worked, and I was usng this computer program to generate diagrams, i am still learning it, as it is a good skill to have. So i worked hard on Thursday so i would be able to work on this program. And there i am told by Dave that Mitch has asked hm not to let me use the program. So that’s not very good thing to hear, when i am desparate to get better at this program, so i can become better and more confident with designing, so i can look for a future possible in designing. This is my current aim for at work beyond doing enough not to get fired, and do a good job. I also have the aim to relarn a bit of the chemical engineering things in Perrys when i find time. My current plan is to only use that program once a week for a few hours. and then otherwise when i finish my work to get into that book. I just seem to be fucking around on a whole bunch of half arsed stuff that i can’t really get my teeth stuck into, or a whole plan to get done. Im more working at the rate things spill onto me, from other people, and i have been finding it a bit overwhelming. Nothing is being communicated to me about changes. I’m just working on my feet, and doing a bit of other peoples work. Now that was today, yesterday i can barely remember, i was very tired is all i know in the morning, and i slowly got to work, but i remember feeling a little off, and having many teas. I was like its a Monday, and i normally feel a little off Mondays. Again it was a bit of a weird one, but when i spoke with Ryan yesterday I think i was still a little on, as i tried to help him find this contract for this flow meter i am looking to get supplied. And i spoke with Scott while we had to check on the glue that wasn’t filling quickly enough, but i think theres a permanent fix on that now, but all that was holding me up. I managed to get some physicals cut, so i will have time hopefully Thursday to do some work on Solidworks. I guess that means it was only today when i felt a lot off. 

So last night i got in and had to ice my thighs, and i read a bit through this time, then i ate some dinner, and started to complete my guitar practice and lesson. And it all went pretty well. I did comple coitus inturptus. and at the end of which i was still annoyed at myself for not completing re-evaluating life goals, which i wanted to look at, after being challenged first by myself for skipping out of plans that didnt line up with my current goals, but also challenged by my sister, who made me feel the way in which i avoid social interactions is bad, while i do it becasuse i value my own time more. I dont know, so i havent reevaluated. So post coitus interputus i thought about it, and came up with make up early and no coitus inteutus for a month, which was a long standing one from when i got back from NZ. i have already failed on the second one, as i dont know why i have it, and i understad i have it to increase desire, but withough a resource to relocate that energy i though it not the best option in my current mind, which is at a somewaht battle over it, not its first battle but a battle all the same. 

So last nigh i listened to Stevy Ray Vaughan play his guitar, and he is quite talented on the old guitar, different from B.B. King though, whose guitaring i could follow, which left me feel a bit overwheled and underwheling as a player. But its somewhere to aim for. And im unsure if i want to learn blues, as it isn’t my favouite variant of music, but as i said before i can use it as a stepping stone for rock. And i am getting better. 

So i woke up early this monring, and felt a little foggy, got to work a bit early because i was hungry, and thats where food is located, got to eating, and got to meeting, and it all went quite well. But it was around this time i started to feel a bit weird, and im still unsure exactly what created it, but maybe i am a bit overwhelmed by everything and i need to take a step back for a little bit, so i can get back to normal. Because i have also been slowly neglecting texting my friends, putting it off until all my stuff is done, which i cant get all done and yeah. 

Now after all this i still feel a little overwhelemed. and a bit off. and i still am unsure what to do. Other than wait, and hope to feel better. Without recognizig the true cause, but i suspect it is overwhelming. 

Until later, 

Which i think will be soon

Upon rereading this, i fiure i am being anxious and putting too much pressure on myself to be someone i am not, yes i can work well, but i need to do it my own way, and then when i notice i am not feeling flash i scracth at the wound and make it all worse. Its when i stare at my thiughts trying to see fi they are normal, where i need to step back and just let me be. Its this odd balance of goals and not scrutinizing myself. 

Okay anxious reducing time. 

[searchwithin]

Memories Remain..

 Incidents that bring back long drawn memories of yesteryears.

Just like anyone else my life has seen a series of ups and downs , event after event, chapter after another, yet I sense there’s meaning to that life because I see the outline of accomplishments in little victories, little marks I made every now and then, however thin that silver line might be, well, I think it exists and that makes it worth while , worth a thought that more can be achieved which would overshadow the primes of failure(s) and decay , that has flawed the spirit just a little bit. I believe I can try….some more. And with that thought I drive out my sword and go back to the formative years when all this high end fundamental didn’t matter… and small things made massive difference.

I was a special child. Not for any medical reason but because I was born a GIRL perhaps. My first notching point as I arrived into the big bad world. My daddy couldn’t stop doting on me from the day I popped out . My mother loved me minus the fussing ( purely as it was not her character to do so ) but Dada ( my elder brother ) was the apple of her eye. Oh! How that nudged me and got my competitive spirits high as I progressed into growing years.But my struggle was NOT limited to getting Ma’s attention. I was a complicated child. Sometimes with complexes too. After all I was called the *Ugly Duckling* by my Uncle and that made me run and hide in my closet. (Why, I didn’t even like Barbara Streisand and this awful movie called Ugly Duckling ). I wasn’t a fair and beautiful Rapunzel, but a Black Beauty as my dad called me. I hated it.

Nevertheless I had my strengths , and they came out when I was with ones less fortunate or ones I could dominate into submission… my followers who loved me as a friend, and looked upto me as their Leader. I declared myself superior who could dance , sing , talk , Lead and most of all Lie most convincingly. A tool that would be most useful during growing years and later, I thought.

Superiority “ MUSIC “ 

Music had always been a vital part of my family. Infact it was the only center of agreement and gratification, although our preference varied from Rabindra Sangeet , to Pure Hindustani classical and the superior western music that my Dada liked. I remember the hundreds of vinyls he would buy from various parts of Delhi, Kolkata and where not. I displayed more pride showing them off to friends who understood nothing of Blues , Jazz , Rock and Roll, but nevertheless , it made me feel ostentatious and elite for I could boost of having a varied choice in music in front of my friends  , who were probably listening to Like a Virgin on repeat , or so I liked to believe. So , Ma always loved Rabindra Sangeet and worshiped singers who to my mind were super dull. There were times I tried my ears at ‘that kind of music’ but it soon got the better of me and I felt exhausted at its pace and sing song variation as my Dad would call it in German ,Shnulzen ( Tearjerker ). Ma tried hard that I absorb a song or two in Bangla but come on , it wasn’t western music . It wasn’t some foot tapping Abba or revolutionary John Lennon. I would sing for friends and immediately graduate to a person of another class and creed… Or So I Thought! But there was this other side of me that would enjoy shaking a leg to songs from the Hindi films. That affair with cinema and music although had to be clandestine or I would be thrown down from the pedestal I was basking in the glory of. Unpredictably, all this elevation and demotion was a wonderful imagination that I kept safeguarded in the depths of my own right. I had no clue what reality was, and how I was perceived by friends or those few I was out to impress at all times. But never mind that , I had to like what Dada likes.Period! Oh wait… Also because it was English Music.

I was fairly talented as I already have boasted of. My life’s turmoil started when I was merely 6 years old. My parents turned out to be my greatest enemies as they enrolled me for lessons in Hindustani classical and kathak ( Indian classical dance form ) besides sending me to School. Unmindful of my mothers dedication to take me for class, be it rain, thunderstrom or illness, I cribbed and cried and started learning Music and dance from the best of the Gurus the world has produced…shamelessly blaming them for spoiling my life. Growing up was getting tougher. I had this whole lot of studies which I was completely average at , and which didn’t earn me any browny points with my relatives or Uncle who doted on my Dada ( as he was such a nice obedient boy and great at academics too ) I would like to believe I was average in studies but my report card often told another story and so did my teachers. Complains and more of it. This however never injured my parents and it almost never ricochet back on me. For this I thanked them then and don’t now.One way or the other it has always got to be the parents folly. I was a mere child and if I was not doing extensively well in studies like Dada , it had to be due to all these singing and dancing lessons. I cried nights cursing god and my parents again ….that I was born a girl and that too a dark girl who looked utterly miserable in Pink and Organe and Yellow .Those were the colours of frocks my Uncle would get me from foreign countries and I could not bring myself to wear a colour that would contrast so miserably with my dark brown skin. So I cursed some more and mostly stuck to Blacks,Greys,Dark Blues… for those were the colours of my various moods too. Most often!

 It was one of the summer vacations when my dance exams were over and I awaited my results that I felt the first gleam of success. A feeling of achievement.  Late in the night while we were holidaying in Kolkata Ma received a trunk call. Dad asked to speak with me first. What had I done now ? But what I heard from the other side brought a huge grin on my otherwise glum face. I had not only passed the examination but had been awarded scholarship of Rs100 by the Institute. I excelled and then on , expected to be taken more seriously by everyone , including my parents. I always displayed confidence except during public speaking which still brings me horrors. That day was a hallmark. I conceded much without anyone’s botheration that I was no ordinary girl. I was a hidden gem , a talent as my dad always professed and assured and I started seeing some truth in the fact.

The next incident ensued adjacently as we came back from a rather dull vaction in Kolkata. I failed in Mathematics while taking a basic test for admission in one of the best schools of Delhi. I feared Math more than ghosts and spirits. This was yet another display of my confidence when I walked out and straight ahead told Ma that I would not be considered for admission here as I have flunked this dreadful subject. My mom marvelled at my accuracy. However , The following incident changed a lot of my perspective towards life and the choices I was so proud of. I was asked to wait till later and called into the Principal’s office. I thought to myself “ great! Now they want to humiliate me in public for failing “. As I entered the king sized office , I saw a king sized table and innumerable files on it and there was a beautiful vase and a bunch of scattered Rajanigandha flowers in it. As I took tiny steps forward , an Old man asked me swiftly, “ Tell me child , Why should I admit you in my school when you have failed in a crucial subject like Math?”. I was always loaded with confidence except when it concerned my skin colour and perhaps my frizzy hair and maybe that I wore spectacles and that I was just too thin. Hence I dashed a steadfast response without any deliberation , I said “ I can sing and I can dance and I write poetry, and my dad says Im a born leader and none of that requires Mathematics ”. I knew I had spoken too much too soon and it would have its repercussion. I looked on blankly at the old man…The next few moments stay with me even today and I reminisce that almost miraculous time and how it made me feel , and I have gone over it innumerable times, since it was such a big milestone in my life. It made me Value myself and think ‘ I was definitely a gifted person irrespective of that dark colour ‘. I got a small shade of character attached to me that day which perhaps enhanced to slightly advanced layer, as time passed…

I was given admission to the school with a promise to lead the choir during assembly each day. And another promise was made to the Old man ( our Principal , a great visionary who shaped that institution which churned out various prodigious artists for India ). The promise to enhance my skills further and share with my fellow students the various artistic blessing I was bestowed with. I studied there for 5 years and the day I left there , something had changed in me, something that made me wiser,  calmer, stronger, kinder and a believer in miracles. But most of all it made me take notice of that lady who had sacrificed enormously for my achievements. Yes! The lady was my Mother, and no words could outline the efforts she made to have a difficult child like me come on to the right track.

Sohi Jan 2016

#short memoir #childhood moments #nostalgia #memories remain