I came into the world with a fiery little heart, being the loner who didn't fit in anywhere helped me explore the affinity I have for music & poetry. I found so much comfort, warmth and excitement in it growing up. My journey began straight after completing school, I felt like this big fish in a small pond there in our small town. I had all these grand ideas and visions that sounded like absolute madness to the people around me, I knew I wanted to venture into the arts, but needed to be in a metropolitan area to make it work and that thought used to scare me silly. I was afraid of scorn, failure and even meeting another me somewhere else and just feeling like I'm nothing special, there was just too much doubt to get past.
So I decided to head to KZN for studying Politics & Language, in order to land a safe job in editorial or something. Two years into the degree I was just losing my mind I started battling manic depression, I was so unhappy that even my results were showing it. I lost funding that year and got cut off from study so I went home, chilled for 6 months talking to strangers who had fallen in love with my ideas over the web.
One time a close friend of mine suggested that I take a shot at music, after finding my secret book of rhymes in hiding. I ignored him thought he was being crazy. I remember how Pux used to say " What have you got to lose, must you be this stubborn? you are wasting your life here chilling under the sun at your Grans house with me."
A month later, I packed my bags and decided to take on this mammoth adventure of exploring the creative industries and finding my place in it all. The only dream I'd ever had my entire life was to become a full time creative so I was ready to find out just how.
I packed my bags, moved to Joburg and ventured into the unknown.
Soon as I landed, worked on getting myself a sales assistant job in retail and what a shit decision that was but hey, a job is a job. It afforded me the luxury of doing my thing in the digital space so I was happy just blogging, recording n posting stuff. I was meeting interesting people, discovering amazing spaces, discovering all types of alcohol & learning new foods and cultures but this new world I was in wouldn't be so kosher for long. After a while, I'd find myself drowning in the sea of saturation seeing thousands of kids trying to get famous in strange ways, and not even being about this craft to begin with... it broke my heart. It got to a point where I just couldn't stand the thought of music all together. I stopped writing.
It started feeling like the challenges were just building up, from personal life to work and then losing my grandfather and wondering if being so far away from family was really worth the sacrifice, I started slipping in and out depression not knowing what I was doing and just feeling stuck and that made me so sick.
Until one morning I just decided " f** all this, why live so rough when I have a home in the Freestate just waiting for me? working long hours just to pay rent and buy groceries further isolating myself from the world and never finding time to do any of the stuff that gives me life" so there I was, giving up on this crazy adventure I was on, I'd gone on for 2 whole years just working, not wanting to disappoint my Gran, who was just glad I was finding my feet and navigating this life thing without any help. I was proud of myself for being that autonomous, even while earning "unskilled labour" wage, it still made me feel unbreakable in the face of challenges just being in a new environment and not needing to call home for help, but on that one day I was just fed up, packed my bags and was ready to head home.
She disappeared into the fire in this dream and I remember how I started burning and I thought I was about to die just as the dream ended. I woke up coughing and blocked in the nose the next morning and I still don't know what that was about.
The dream was certainly a sign and it freaked me out on so many levels because losing the spiritual support I still had after losing so much, would just kill me. The entire day at work that day I had the words " soldier on like a rasta, brave all the storms you're a master" just playing over and over again in my mind. I came back to my place after knocking off and started writing.
After a writers block that spanned months n months it was amazing to have ideas just flowing on their own again, it was as if I'd downloaded a wealth of information from that dream I had the previous night. I had so much to say, so much to write about it was unbelievable and I didn't know where any of it was coming from. I felt like a new being, a new body like I'd just swallowed NZT from limitless the movie.
After I was done writing, I felt energised; revived; renewed; recharged and uplifted in the most euphoric of ways.
It was in that moment that I knew..........
that I had come to life in that fire, I had not died in it.
All the doubts and fears I'd ever had before had just burnt in that fire.
It was just me
I was a new person
The stronger version of who I was before
I woke up from that dream a Phoenix from the ashes
I was overcoming challenges & obstacles in my life and I finally knew what my purpose was.
The Phoenix in my dream was the isanusi I become when I work through my art, she had come to life to meet me.
Words were my weapon and the healing elixir I brought myself to life with was right in front of me.
My life and my poison were these cocktails of ill flows n rhymes that I make.
The stuff that gives life to me, the stuff that energises; revives; renews & uplifts the human spirit.
I was a Phoenix cos I'd risen from the ashes stronger then I was before, I was feminine grace, truth & fire!! I was transformed -
I'd found the elixir of life in my cocktail of ill flows n rhymes, stuff that energised; revived; renewed & uplifted the spirits of all those who came in contact with it
I had found Nirvana :)
Click to play the DeityTape freestyle scratched by Dj Akio
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