We recently connected with Enesi M. and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Enesi, thanks for joining us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I really hope to be remembered as someone who made it ok to want to twerk and headbang at the same time. I hope I can be remembered as someone who paired guttural vocals with reggaeton and made that work very well. I hope all my little black and brown girlies, trans*, queer and cis can look at someone like me and feel like its ok to exist and be yourself.

Enesi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a musician. I write lyrics, compose melodies and partially produce my own music. Having an eclectic mind translates into my art. I grew up around caribbean rhythms like reggaeton, bachata, salsa, around black american hip hop and brazilian baile funk, as well as bossa nova, mpb and samba from home, where my parents would play a lot of CD’s and live show DVD’s.
I also got in touch with grunge rock and later heavy metal and hardcore punk. All these musical influences informed my sense of sonic expression as well as my aesthetics and taste around fashion. Electronic music like EDM and trance techno was also always around, as many of my favourite artists in all different genres have electronic elements in their music.
I have always expressed myself in dramatic ways and have always felt drawn to more than just one genre and style. I think I want to invite my audience to discover something new. Maybe to discover something they’d previously not had embraced music wise.
I think one of many proud moments is when someone comes to me and says “Ive actually never been into metal, but the way you paired baile funk and jersey club with metal vocals is sick!” or the other way around. it just makes me happy to introduce and fuse genres together that traditionally are said to have to be strictly separate. Its a dichotomy that does not make any sense to me, like so many other dichotomies we encounter in this world and society.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I have people pleaser tendencies, like so many others also do. I think often these tendencies come from trauma and insecurities around abandonment and oneself.
Being a musician has forced me to rethink those tendencies. While I thought that I was merely keeping myself safe and in company by trying to be liked by everyone else and doing whatever everyone thought I should do, I was repressing myself.

In second grade elementary school a teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said “a singer and musician”. His answer was “well, that’s not a very promising pick” and a schoolmate standing nearby started laughing at me and saying “that’s never gonna work!”. I never spoke about it again, but on that very day I had given up and decided that it was no longer an option.
I started trying out different jobs, anxious to feel fulfilled, to finally be able to build a career. I went from being a babysitter, to artistic curatorial worker, to poet and ghostwriter, to social media manager, to sales assistant, translator and even house painter.
It took 20 years for me to actually start doing what I always felt I needed to do in life.
And granted it is indeed not easy, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Granted I still have to work other part time jobs to pay bills and invest in my art, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
The sheer fact that I am able to have resources to create music, connect with other amazing artists is a huge privilege and I am very thankful for that.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I think the most rewarding part about being a musician, writer and vocalist is conceiving an idea in my brain and materialising it. Sharing ideas used to frighten me but now I know there is power in bringing a vision to life that resonates with what I want to feel, see and hear. And if others resonate with it too, that is like the cherry on top.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/enesi_m._/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnesiM
• Other: https://enesim.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits

1. Ifeatu Nnaobi
2. Angele Marignac-Serra
3. Duranite
4. Lindiividual