We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Neesa a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Neesa, appreciate you joining us today. Some of the most interesting parts of our journey emerge from areas where we believe something that most people in our industry do not – do you have something like that?
Staying true to yourself in this music industry is a struggle because you have people who want to change and control you. When you want to be in control of you self and not have people have that power to control you, you become the enemy. When you’re naive, people love that. When you’re strong minded, people hate that and when they have the upper hand in the industry they will make sure it’s harder for you as you climb your way up. “Hate or love it the underdog’s on top.” In my 50 cent voice. Because the underdog makes people respect them. The underdog doesn’t get defeated, the underdog keeps going.
Neesa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Neesa, Pretty BrownSkin Poppin (PBSP), it’s the lifestyle, it’s being beautiful and black and embracing it. With my music I didn’t know I could reach people just from sharing my story. Sharing what it was for me always being told “you’re pretty for a darkskin girl”. I took that negative and turned it into a positive. Brown comes in many shades as beauty comes in different forms. With Pretty BrownSkin Poppin being my slogan and my “aka” I want to show others to embrace in their beauty no matter the shade, no matter the shape, embrace who you are. Embrace having class, embrace being ratchet, embrace having balance: BE YOU. And I preach that because that’s what I do. And the best thing to do is live in your truth when leading by example.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Contracts! Contracts are major when it comes to anything that you’re doing with a business. As an artist you treat yourself as a business, you are the business. So when it comes to studios, producers, directors, stylists, etc. anything that you’re investing in, have a contract. Contracts protect both parties in the long run. For the artist, it holds for them to stand on their part and have their accountability. And for the service provider, the same. So if it comes down to one part didn’t do as they were supposed to from what was signed off on, it’s on paper. It’s sucks when you feel someone ran off with your hard earned money and that service that you paid for wasn’t provided. Then it goes to where it doesn’t need to go as no one wants their time or money wasted and nothing to show for what was spent. A lesson learned for me was to make sure that contracts are always involved to prevent that. The goal is to handle risky business at a professional level. And keep it cute!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn being “friendly” and learn to stand on business. I stand strong on the “It’s business, nothing personal.” because it’s definitely not personal. I can love you to life and you can also be a cancer to the process of evolving so to prevent that we have to master discipline and learn that what’s not for us to grow, cannot be apart of the process. Mastering that I’ve learned to gain more instead of losing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @neesapbsp
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/100063618064616/
- Twitter: @neesapbsp
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@Neesapbsp
Image Credits
@ShotbyMeechh @goodyvision @hyerszn