#i draw with music and write lil poems to cope

[smokbeast]

what is my life but a shakespearian tragedy

[iseulvld]

hey, it’s chey! i’m here to introduce you to pristine’s main vocal & main dancer, hyun “eden” iseul. you can find his public profile here, his private profile here, his plots here & his pinterest board here. below the cut, you’ll find a beginner’s guide to eden.

PERSONALITY.

infp-t   /   the turbulent mediator.   self-critical, imaginative, idealistic, intense, disconnected, awkward. much like a turtle, iseul is timid in social situations and while he can be open at times, he can retreat into his shell at any given moment. once he retreats, it’s as if he’s disconnected from reality; he becomes oblivious to the world around him, unaware of even the loudest attempts to bring him back. he has a rich world inside of his mind where he feels comfortable and sometimes, it can seep into reality. you could say that he views the world around him as a fantasy movie scene, often creating things that aren’t there. he romanticizes things that should be perceived as face value and can easily develop exaggerated views of objects, places, people and even feelings. it’s not uncommon for him to put others on a pedestal and tear himself down. will accept the blame for anything that goes wrong, even when he’s being treated unfairly. despite being withdrawn, he relies heavily on other peoples’ opinions to feel validated and worthy.

pisces   /   the fishes.   dreamy, playful, emotional, artistic, fickle, empathetic. fully aware of the pain that the world holds, he still has a habit of looking at things through rose-colored glasses. he has big dreams and can get a little carried away thinking about them. likes to have fun and laugh as well as make others laugh, even though it takes him a while to get to such a comfortable point with people. his mind changes like the weather, so he has trouble committing to long-term associations, whether it’s relating to his career or interpersonal relationships. his moods are dependent on those of whoever he’s around; highly malleable, tries to camouflage himself in social situations and mimic other people as to not draw excessive attention to himself.

HISTORY.

highkey an unwanted child and neither of his parents tried to hide it.

( TW PHYSICAL + VERBAL ABUSE / MANIPULATION )  i tried not to describe it much in his bio but his parents were...... very toxic. didn’t always treat him poorly --- they were actually pretty nice sometimes --- but when they were bad..... they were bad. endured a lot of abuse until he left for college and they also tried to tell him it was his fault and they only hurt him because they cared about him. ( TW END )

his coping method for everything was basically just pretending that things weren’t as bad as they were. any time someone said something hurtful, he was like :) that’s okay! i know you don’t mean it. tbh he still does this. he’ll put up with SO much bs just bc he’ll tell himself that it’s not personal

was kind of always drawn to more creative ventures such as writing and art; one of his first ever dreams (and still his dream) was/is to be an author. also picked up a hobby of origami when he was really young.

started showing interest in music after he got a MEGA crush on one of his classmates when he was like... 13. the classmate wanted to become an idol (side note... this is an open connection if anyone wants it fbjhvd) and he wanted to have something in common w them, so he was like omg no way??? me too???

started practicing w that friend and it was kind of obvious he didn’t know what he was doing, but he did end up getting better and started to really enjoy it!!!

so he started auditioning for companies when he was 14 behind his parents’ backs, never got accepted tho and eventually his parents found out and they were like.... bruh you are NOT the kim dongchul you think you are.... (oh, sweet irony).

started working part-time when he turned 15, mainly just passed out fliers but would help out at diners sometimes too if they’d let him. needed money to pay for actual lessons bc just practicing w his friend, as much as he did love it, was NOT cutting it and there was no way in hell he was going to pass an audition w his skills at the time.

kept auditioning for YEARS, lit rally didn’t stop until he graduated high school even though his parents mocked every single failure. ended up getting accepted into seoul institute of the arts, where he studied creative writing & dance for a lil while

ended up getting scouted by a summit media rep on campus, thought it was HILARIOUS!!!!! that they were from kim dongchul’s company. got so much enjoyment out of telling his parents. laughed about it for hours

he dropped out in his second year of school bc it was too hard to do everything his professors expected of him and train. nowadays, he really regrets dropping out (and kind of joining tbh), but :// what can ya do?

TRIVIA.

he has a lot of interest in languages, for someone who’s... so bad... at talking. he’s not fluent in anything other than korean (and barely that lmao), but he knows a LITTLE bit of japanese, english, french & italian. but when i say a little... i DO mean a little. for example, all he knows how to say in italian is “in bocca al lupo” which is jus like... an idiom that means good luck. that’s ALL he can retain of the italian language and he says it all the time. boy will never master a language

a big fan of origami. started doing it bc someone he had a crush on in grade school did it and he was like wow, can you teach me??? and for the past however many years, he has been leaving a trail of paper cranes in his wake.

he likes to decorate w the origami he makes --- the pristine dorm definitely has a vase with origami cherry blossoms in it. he likes to make all kinds of things (swans, boats, lotus flowers, hearts, frogs, birds, etc) though & he’s always trying to learn smth new!

also loves writing. the kind of guy who will describe you. will and probably has written poems about everyone he’s ever met. probably uses summit media idols/trainees/staff when he needs muse LMAOOOO. he sees them walking through the halls n he’s like “let me break out my notebook rq”

ALWAYS changing his hair...... wants to do whatever he wants with it while he has the freedom to. loves to dye and cut it. right now, his hair looks the same as in 8yuthe gif icon BUT his fc just cut his hair mad short so there will be a change very soon.

stage name is eden --- basically means that by listening to his voice & watching his performance, you’ll find a serene paradise..... make fun of him for it.

[thelifedocumentor]

Reflecting on Solange’s artistic masterpiece, A Seat At The Table

When I was at the of age 17, in my final year of high school, I listened to a few albums that were pivotal to my evolution as a black woman. These albums set me on a trajectory of understanding myself and the world I live in. One of these albums was A Seat At The Table by Solange Knowles. The album helped me make sense of so many things that I wasn’t able to articulate into words at the time. When I listened to the lyrics, it became an unspoken synergy between the music and my mind. The purpose of this piece is to reflect on this artistic and cultural masterpiece. With strikingly appealing visuals, that may make you overlook the depth it weighs, I unpack how it paid homage to black people, black womanhood and what inspired Solange on her journey to creating it.

It’s been 4 years since Solange Knowles released A Seat At The Table and it is more relevant than ever. The album was welcomed well and achieved great success in the industry such as the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance for "Cranes in the Sky". However, it packs so much historical significance in an honest and relatable way. Solange paid homage to her roots and family’s history. She translates all of her life's experiences, frustrations, victories, views of the world into the art, and still gently encourages us to rise above it all. The way she was able to intersect the eras of her life and current social issues makes the album contemporary but still defies the limitations of time.

Through symbolism in her imagery and documentation of critical conversations in the interludes, she makes cultural references that urge us to go back and interrogate history. This is exactly why I love it when musicians revisit their origins because you have to decode the message and you can’t help but dig deeper which enlightens you.  Especially if you didn't have the opportunity to traditionally study African history, art, philosophy, literature, or social anthropology – subjects which are the foundation of understanding our existence. Some of these conversations are painful and resonate with most of us, but we are forced to tackle them because they are in our spaces and are constantly woven into our lives’ phases.

Solange sings in a very harmonious and spiritual nature. It can be felt that Raphael Saadiq was the executive producer because the album has soul. And then some of the songs have an uptown funk groove. Solange draws inspiration from spirituality and metaphysics as we have seen in her overall creative direction.  

The album has a lot of interludes in between the songs,  which thoughtfully provide background and paint the scene of what inspired the song. Solange sets the tone with Rise as the first song on the album - which I think is perfect that she began with that song because it’s about channelling your light. It almost serves as a  metaphor for how she began rising above it all by writing this music. Rise begins softly while her words dance on the beautiful percussion. The central theme is not crumbling under the heaviness of the world, she motivates us to rise and prosper. It then moves on to Weary whereby she admits she is tired.  She is tired of being strong and having to hold it all together. Even the way she pronounces her words, represents how weighed down she has been feeling, she expresses all these anxieties but in a way that sounds so heavenly.  Solange then continues to narrate all of these pains in great detail on Cranes In The Sky. She documents her process of coping. She sings in such an angelic way you might even think she is trying to romanticize her struggles, but through all of these methods, she was still aspiring to be free. The more she tried to escape, the heavier she would feel. When she says, “Sometimes I don’t want to feel those metal clouds” , she yearns for freedom. Although the song is sombre, it offers solace to artists who often have to romanticize their pain in the virtue of creating art because, in the process of creating, they also heal others who are seeking a sanctuary.

Don’t Touch My Hair and Mad address the way black women’s struggles are downplayed in society. Don't Touch My Hair is so relevant because we see our hair as our crown. People often feel so entitled to intrude and touch it mindlessly – sometimes without even permission. When Solange says “Don’t touch my hair”- it’s not just hair but it’s about so much more of our existence as black people. She and Sampha sing so softly, “Whatcha say to me? Whatcha say to me” and I love that part. She’s standing up and going “Hey, don't violate me, don't dehumanize me. Don't intrude my space.” When you have an encounter like that, you feel pulled in between the tensions of “Would my personality be perceived as overbearing, am I being too much if I reprimand people who make me feel uncomfortable. Or should I call it out?” Sometimes you summon the courage to call it out, and then sometimes you don’t call it out - just praying it doesn't happen to you again. So it's really powerful when she says that. She is taking control of her autonomy. She is communicating that it okay to set boundaries. The music videos for Don’t Touch My Hair and Cranes In The Sky have a dreamy and ethereal aesthetic.  

We move onto Mad which features Lil Wayne. In Mad, Solange is saying don’t gaslight me when I speak of my suffering as a black woman. “Why are you always so angry?” Solange says I have a right to be angry. And it is highly justified. Just because it might be outside of your reality, it is my reality. So my pain should also be treated with the same level of urgency and preciousness as any other person. I have a right to be soft and delicate. Throughout A Seat At The Table, Solange offers a sanctuary for black women while she uses it as an instrument to make her voice heard.

I also really appreciate how For Us By Us is a song for black affirmation. This art was made by us, for us. This is important because I believe nobody can tell your story better than yourself. She describes so many different microaggressions that black people face in society. She breaks them down in detail. Solange sings, “When you driving in your tinted car and you're criminal, just who you are, but you know you're gonna make it far.”  That was incredibly significant because it’s saying no matter how much you have been disrespected and you’re angry about it, you have a story to tell, you’re a child of the stars.  You are going to make it far because your vision is larger than life, it’s larger than everything that tries to suppress your voice. Solange says you’ve taken so much from us – but why don’t you value us? And then The Dream sings, “Don't clip my wings before I learn to fly. I didn't come back down to Earth to die.” The message is don’t suppress my voice when I am trying to rise. However,  we can even delve deeper into that because if someone clips your wings before you’ve learned to fly – they’ve taken away your power before you were even able to recognize it. So that you aren’t aware of your brilliance.  And then lastly, the song I will discuss is Where Do We Go which is towards the end. Where Do We Go is a plea to repair our society. In the songs and interludes, she describes these issues and tensions but now she begs us to move forward by taking action to improve these issues. It is a crucial inquiry because ultimately we have to make conscious efforts to progress in the present and mold a better future. Nobody has all the answers, we are all trying to figure it out as a collective, but we can try every day. Her storytelling encourages us to rise above it all and accept that it’s okay to not have all the answers.

In a 2016 interview with Tom Breihan for STEREOGUM, Solange shared her inspirations for her album which I will now be unpacking in depth.

The killings of innocent black people in America under law enforcement served as catalysts for change. Solange made references to these events and draws in knowledge from her parents’ experiences as well. Solange revisited Lousiana and Creole for her healing and desire to connect to something bigger, and she ultimately was inspired by this pilgrimage.

Artistically, Solange was inspired by Mark Rothko’s collection at the Menil Museum in Houston, Citizen – An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine which is a book-length poem about everyday racial struggles in America. When I discovered this, I went back to read some of Rankine’s poems and she is incredible. She combines visual art, quotations from artists, and scripts. One quote by Claudia Rankine that stood out for me was "I love language because when it succeeds, for me, it doesn't just tell me something. It enacts something." When you read that doesn’t it just embody Solange’s vision with her album? She was also inspired by Robert Pruitt, Lynette Yiadom Boakim, and Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles Blow. Musically, Solange was inspired by Syreeta Wright’s Black Maybe, D’ Angelo’s Africa, Kanye West’s “We Major.” That influenced the sound of her horns and piano in the album. Vocally she was inspired by Master P and No Limit Records, Minnie Riperton, Tweet’s Southern Hummingbird and Lauryn Hill’s I Get Out. Many songs on the album encapsulate her soul-funk sound that characterized her music style from her early career.

Spiritually, Solange was inspired by Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane to channel a higher frequency in the album. Let me tell you something super crazy about these two Jazz composers. Their music is spiritual right, however, I didn’t know about Sun Ra. When I researched Sun Ra I discovered that his themes were afro-futurism, cosmic philosophy, and spirituality. The only Jazz composers I was exposed to whose music was spiritually influenced were Alice and John Coltrane. And in terms of poets, in South Africa, I was exposed to Credo Muthwa. So to come across Sun Ra was crazy to me because not only was he pioneering the Afro-futuristic school of thought, he also inspired Petite Noir and Rharha  Nembhard – the Noirwave on their Afro-futuristic creative executions. Also what is super crazy is that Sun Ra was also born on the 22nd of May – which is my birthday! I mean – can this get more supernatural?

Afro-futurism is an entirely different ideology, and it could be a topic on its own but the fact that Solange can rope in these diverse teachings into her music is truly admirable. Overall, sonically the album is therapeutic – the way she arranged the songs and the harmonies -  she pieces together all of the musical influences she loved growing up. I am sure she made every single person who contributed to it proud because she elevated to a different plane.  

We don't fully understand ourselves - I don't think any artist does because by creating, you are trying to understand your world and heal from your pain. And it just so happens that others find healing in it too. Your journey is constantly unravelling. You read books, engage with art, have enriching conversations. You are forced to stretch outside of your comfort zone and spiral into new layers of awareness - all of these things shape you. And sometimes the only way you can move forward is by creating art.

Fundamentally, A Seat At The Table is an ode to black women. As younger black girls are growing up, we need to expose them to iconic works of this nature. So that they are empowered in ways that some of us weren’t growing up. It is one to be studied for generations to come because the themes are just that momentous.

A Seat At The Table is one of those albums that you have to revisit now and then. You know get some books that are classic masterpieces, you read them once. And then you engage with them again when you're a little bit older. When you read them again, it feels so new as if you have never read it before -  and that’s simply because you are revisiting it with a richer understanding. You have gained new experiences and your horizons have expanded.

I hope I have inspired you today to revisit this album. If you haven’t listened to it before, I hope that you enjoy it and that you bask fully in that magical experience.

Images from the A Seat At The Table Digital photobook, courtesy of solange music. References: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22482-a-seat-at-the-table/

https://www.stereogum.com/featured/solange-shares-her-inspirations-for-a-seat-at-the-table/

https://www.solangemusic.com/