On balancing the highs and lows of the creative process

Six years have passed since the release of your 2018 album, direct line to my Creator. How has your spiritual journey evolved in that time and did any of those changes make it into the process of creating your latest EP, the mind is a miracle?

I could always be closer to God. I could always pray more and live more intentionally. It’s part of who I am and it’s impossible to be an artist and not think about God and creation. God is the ultimate artist. Sometimes I’m in the sun, feeling so connected and I have so much gratitude. I’m praising God, feeling the sun on me and that’s my time of worship. It’s a little bit different from going to a church or being part of a community of people practicing something if that makes sense. I’m in conversation with God whether I want to be or not because I’m here on earth and I was created. I feel that in my soul, so everything I do relates to that in a way. [Through my art] I’m expressing myself and living this life.

I’m curious about the title of the EP. How did you settle on it?

I was getting in touch with [the dancer and choreographer] Yvonne Rainer’s work and they had a piece called The Mind is a Muscle. It came from riffing off of that and being grateful for the miracle of life.

I recently watched a YouTube video of the writer bell hooks talking about moving from pain to power and how so much of that process can be about rewriting your thoughts and internal narratives. The final song on the EP being “born with power” falls in line with this because it’s a reminder that we have everything that we need within us, even though oppressive forces often make us feel otherwise. Getting to that song at the end of the project felt like finding something that’s just been beneath the rubble, but was always there.When you’re in a rut or transitional chapter of your creative life, what helps you remember your power?

You ate [laughs]. I always reflect on this because I’m in the studio right now and this is my safe space. I’m in a place where I come to the studio and I get work done, but I reflect on times when that wasn’t the case and all I could do was watch Scandal and lay down. I was booking studio time and paying for it, but all I had in me was to watch Hulu. Now that I’m on the other side, I’m grateful that that version of me existed and I let her be. I’m always going to be that way when I’m in a rut or when I’m not able to flow within my practice. Recognizing that those low parts are almost essential to the process [helps me move through it].

Do you feel afraid to re-enter those phases or do you feel armed with the knowledge and acceptance that you have what you need to get through it?

I think it’s a mix of both. If I don’t work hard to take care of myself, I can end up unable to function and I think a lot of people are like that on earth. I’m a little afraid of the depths I can go to, but I also know that there’s another side, hopefully.

You’ve split your time living between New York City and Berlin, and sometimes have had to fit your studio in a backpack when traveling or on the go. What are the benefits of having a more portable recording practice versus exclusively working out of a traditional commercial studio?

I’m recalling a nice memory of traveling to Oregon with my friends. We [each] had our separate rooms and in my room, I had all my gear set up that I brought from New York. Being able to record in obscure places, I think is the benefit of having a portable setup. I have a studio that I visit here in New York. I’m here now and I feel connected to this place, but I do feel [even] more connected to my Zoom recorder and being able to make music wherever I want. I want to explore that more. I was [recently] thinking about how fun it would be to make music on Governor’s Island because I love it there, so I was like, I should just bring my Zoom recorder and a drum and make music here.

You’ve used audio recordings in past work to hint at geographical context for your listeners. Could you speak about the soundscapes that have been integrated into the mind is a miracle, or generally the value of sound as a form of memory keeping?

“multi” and the introduction track are special because I was hiking in the Redwood Forest and a lot of those sounds came from that trip, hiking and bringing my microphone up these crazy hills because I wanted to make a recording. I’m laughing because when you’re out there, it feels funny. You’re being super intentional and wanting to record something that might last beyond you and this lifetime. I always think of that when I’m recording: no one else can capture this but me at this moment. It’s a responsibility thing and I like that.

Throughout the album, there are a bunch of different samples of me and my friends watching the moon or making breakfast. Having audio recordings can be so sweet. I love the medium and I try to make more of a practice of it, especially with the iPhone. The iPhone mic is so powerful. On tour, I didn’t touch Ableton at all. I used voice memo and it was really powerful listening back.

You’ve talked a bit about your Zoom recorder and the iPhone mic. Is there a specific piece of gear or equipment that significantly changed your practice?

Right now in my life, it’s the DigiTakt by Elektron. It is so powerful and I make crazy beats on it all the time. I want all my friends to know how to use it. Anyone who visits me in the studio, you’re going to learn how to use it, so I’m really into that. My friends who paint, or my friends whose main medium is illustration, I’m like, “Yo, you’re going to learn this.” It’s so much fun. I want everyone to come to my studio, hang out with me, and make beats. I love making music with my friends and they don’t even have to be musicians. I [tell] my friends, “You need to write a song for your health.”

I love this emphasis on sharing knowledge with your community. On the topic of collaboration, the EP opens with birds chirping, which I enjoyed, and it made me think of murmurations, or big groups, of starling birds flying in unison. They create these magnificent patterns or formations in the sky, which I bring up because collaboration is at the heart of duendita. Can you walk me through your process of finding synchronicity in the creative flock? What helps you nurture your creative community?

When you say nurture, what do you mean?

Have you read or heard of Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown?

Heard of it, yeah.

There’s a part in the book where Sierra Pickett is quoted talking about how in these flocks of birds, each bird pays attention to the seven closest birds. That’s all they focus on, and this sense of deep trust and consistent communication ripples out. Jumping off that metaphor, I’m always interested in the different ways a group of people get in a room and figure out how to work together in harmony. What has that process looked like for you?

I feel like collaboration is essential to making. I’m just trying to get my friends to be together because we’re on earth and there’s nothing else to do. I’m seeing so many images of different sessions [that I’ve had]. My friend is coming to play some saxophone on something later today, and I’m grateful to have worked with so many different people and to keep returning to so many great collaborators. Growing together is my favorite part.

Acquiring skills, sharing them and [being] like, “Oh wow, now we sound like this,” because we’ve grown as individuals and we bring it to our collective energy. I’ve played in so many formations with my live set-up, and right now I’m singing with two vocalists, my sister [Vanessa Camacho] and my friend [Emily Akpan]. It’s the most fulfilling experience that I could have as an artist because we’re interpreting these songs that I wrote really from the heart and beautifully expressing them, all at once. We’re on earth singing songs together and it’s my favorite part of being alive.

I’m grateful for all my collaborators. I feel like it can be challenging though, and I’m experiencing that, so this question is hard. I have had times where I’ve fallen out of sync with artists or friends that I admire and want to be close to, but we’re just not close right now. I’m dealing with that, so it’s a hard question.

Thank you for being honest about that. It touches on the ups and downs of the creative process that go beyond the individual, sometimes, it affects collaboration and I know the feeling. I also love the moments of you onstage, layering, distorting, and looping your vocals, sometimes entirely on your own. Can you pinpoint a teacher, a singer, or any point of reference that contributed to how you sing or perform because you have such a powerful stage presence, especially in how you use your voice as an instrument?

I’m going to shout out my public school teachers and the New York City public school system before it lost money for the arts because I had the best experience. I was in a choir. It didn’t exist the years after I did it, but I was in a Queensborough choir that met at my middle school. In my last year of middle school, I started going [to the All City High School Chorus] and I had an amazing teacher, Ms. Eaton, Patricia Eaton. She’s someone I still look up to and think about all the time because she was such an incredible instructor, and those times were the best. [Another teacher] Ms. Brand, Barbara Brand, let me conduct the choir. I conducted the choir at graduation and Shea Stadium, and she passed down an arrangement to me if I ever wanted to become a music teacher.

[In high school choir] we were singing [Giovanni Pierluigi da] Palestrina. That was my favorite shit and it still informs my work today. I love choral music. No one wants to listen to it with me, but I listen to it alone. I would say a big shout-out to the New York City public school system for having money for the arts. I went to a whole middle school just so I could sing in the choir. It was in a different neighborhood than mine, but my parents always put the arts first. I was really lucky as a kid and studying great music.

What draws you to choral music?

I love the experience of harmonizing with other humans. That’s the best feeling in the world. [We sang in an all women’s choir] and mixed voices as well, which was so special. It was challenging and fun to hold down your part [while] six other parts [are] happening at once. Me and my two friends, who sing in my band, also went to that same school in high school, so we did have some of the same teachers and experiences learning Italian, German, and French singing in different languages for fun. It was class, but it was fun.

We’re still having fun. We bring that to the choir, we bring that to the duendita set all the time. It’s funny because they be making fun of me when it pops out. There’s this one part in “soupie” that when we sing it live, we sing. I want it to be mad operatic and they make fun of me during the rehearsal. Yeah, it pops out in our work today. Collective singing is so powerful.

I know you’re back at Cafe Erzulie later this month with those singers for a couple of shows. I was researching its significance to Brooklyn’s Black queer scene as well as your personal history–

Have you been there before?

Not yet! How are you feeling leading up to these performances? What do you hope to bring?

I’m super excited because Cafe Erzulie has always been a space to experiment and explore sound. I feel very welcome there and have been playing there since 2019 or earlier. I love that place and to be able to collaborate with [harpist] Samantha [Feliciano], Emily, and Vanessa is the most precious gift to me. It makes my art worth making for me and worth doing. It’s the ultimate setup. It’s the ultimate expression of what I want to share, so it just feels really special and I’m grateful for the opportunity. I hope people come and enjoy what we have to offer. I’m excited because my sister made some vocal arrangements of my songs. I wrote the song and she wrote where the harmonies come in. She’s very gifted and to collaborate with her is such a blessing.

How do you protect your desire to experiment as an artist?

I hope to change. I hope to evolve. I think that’s what life is about, or at least my experience on earth has been, wanting to be better in ways and wanting to take with me all my experiences and learn and grow from them, and try to be fearless while doing that.

When do you feel fearless in the creative process? Or, when do you come close?

I think experimentation requires a degree of fearlessness that is very uncomfortable. I experience that discomfort often [throughout the whole process], but I also know that the result is going to be worth it.