We were lucky to catch up with Evo The EX-I recently and have shared our conversation below.

Evo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

If I had to pinpoint a specific time in my life where I knew I wanted to turn this passion into a career was when I performed as a finalist in this poetry competition called “Piano Slam” at the Adrienne Arsht Center back in April of 2016. Around that time I was in my sophomore year of high school and I was only writing poetry for about a year maybe less than that and my high school English teacher Ms. Prentiss was the one who convinced or better yet forced me to enter the competition. A little bit of backstory about Piano Slam for those who aren’t familiar, it’s an annual poetry competition in Miami founded by the Dranoff Foundation which the concept is fusing classical music with Hip-Hop & Poetry. The poetry competition is open to middle and high school students in Miami Dade County and to enter the competition students would have submit their poems via the Piano Slam website until the assigned deadline. Once the deadline is up, the Piano Slam and Dranoff Foundation committee would go through all the poetry submission and picked 16 finalists, eight middle school students and eight high school students to represent their respective schools in Piano Slam. Initially I didn’t want to submit a poem for the competition but after thinking about it I was like “You know what? I’ll write a poem for the heck of it and submit it. If I get chosen then cool, If I don’t get picked it’s cool either way because all that matters is I capitalized on the opportunity rather than neglected it and potentially live with the regret. Long and behold about a month after submitting my poem I was chosen as one of the 16 finalists. Fast forward to the night of the competition, when I stepped on stage and performed my poem in front of about 1,000 people in attendance, the reaction and ovation I got from the audience after performing my piece felt amazing and it felt like I was on Cloud Nine. Although I didn’t win the competition, being on stage especially in a venue like the Adrienne Arsht Center was the one of the best experience. From that point I wanted to experience that feeling again and again and used poetry and rap to tell my story and connect with the people.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Eveul Exil Jr, I go by the artist name of Evo The EX-I and I’m a Hip-Hop & Spoken Word artist from Miami, FL. My passion for music started off simply being a fan admiring Hip Hop artists such as Eminem, Lil Wayne, Kanye West and 50 Cent and eventually expanding my music taste through genres such as Rock and Roll, Dubstep, and Haitian Konpa. I didn’t start making music until I was 13 which I was I drummer for my church. Every Friday evening as well as Sunday morning and evening I would go church with my grandmother and for those services I would be on the drums during the praise and worship and that’s where I would hone my skills as drummer.

A year later I was entering my freshman year of high school and around that time I would be introduced to poetry and spoken word through my English class. One of our assignments for the class was that we had to write a poem about a social issue and present it in front of the class. I was one of those students who cared about their grades and was a Honor Roll student in high school so my intention for this assignment was simply to write a poem and perform it good enough to get me a good grade. I went ahead and performed my poem in front of my classmates and the reaction I received after my performance threw me off guard. My classmates were so touched by poem and were telling me afterwards how much they loved it and my performance, and I thought at first they were just saying those things just to say it and boost my ego.

During the process of writing the poem I found that it was very therapeutic for me and discovered a sense of relief in writing. I then continued to write and started performing at open mics and poetry slams and found that I was getting the same reaction every time. From there on I wanted to pursue this full time and that’s when I started taking my craft more seriously, started turning my poetry into rap lyrics and from there on the rest was history.

My music can be described as a meditative, nostalgic rendition of 90’s hip hop with a Lo-Fi feel with musical influences from artists such as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, MF Doom, and Nas. As an introvert and a person of Haitian descent I want to represent for the voiceless, the outcasts, the overlooked and underutilized and show people through my music that everyone has a voice and a story, it’s up to you how you want to use your voice and tell your story. In addition, one thing I want the listeners to take away if they don’t take anything else through my poetry and my rhymes is self-love. Embrace your individuality because there’s only one you and being you is what makes you unique, you don’t have to fit into the norm to feel accepted.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

As an artist, what I find most rewarding is how much of an impact my music has had on people lives. Sometimes as artists you get so tunnel visioned on trying to accomplish that big milestone whether that’s getting a Grammy, gaining a million followers, etc that we forget all the other milestones we’ve achieved along our journey and I’m guilty of that. Every once in a while I’ll meet a person whether via in person or on social media that’ll tell me how much they’ve enjoyed my music or poetry and the impact it had on them. Those moments there are what keeps me humble and brings me back to reality on why I do what I do.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I feel non-creatives fail to understand that the journey of a creative is a long and difficult journey that requires hard work and confidence within yourself and your art. As an outsider looking in we look at celebrities and get blinded by their fame and fortune that we overlook the grind and what got them to the finish line. I even believe when you get to that point of financial success and social status there’s still more work to be put in to obtain that because all of that could be gone in an instant. Throughout this journey you’re going to encounter a lot of mistakes, self-doubt, rejection, criticism, as well as triumphs but as long you obtain a high work ethic and self-esteem in your work you’ll preserve.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evocity_305/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/evocity_305
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@evocity_305
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@evocity_305

Image Credits
Leonce Luma Impact Meɘdia