2022: The Year of Firsts

          So being on that team, my teammates were pretty much my friends and brothers so, of course, we all followed each other on Instagram and things of that nature. One of my teammates always reposted a local artist that had a bit of a following so I followed him too to try and reach out and maybe collab or something. One day this local artist reposted a flyer from a photography studio called “Dandy Photography” located right next to the McDonald’s on West Tennessee St next to campus (they’re not there anymore :( ). They were hosting an open mic event for $20. I signed up immediately because I was just begging for any opportunity to perform at the time and this was my first chance.

          The day was March 5th, 2022. I was wearing a white T-Shirt with jeans and Air Forces with a puffer on. To be honest, I had/ have never been more nervous about anything in my life. I was literally shaking because this is the first time anyone outside of the internet and a couple friends would be listening to my music and I wanted to make a good first impression. I knew the music was good, I was just hoping they thought so too. The performance couldn’t have started any worse because the mic was at a low volume and I didn’t even know how to hold it so the audience could barely hear me and I was singing in a lower register than the actual songs cause I was scared to mess up and… it was a lot. But the audience liked the music so I started hearing “woo” and “oh shitt” scattered around and that started building up my confidence so I started getting more comfortable up on stage. I should mention that I was sitting on a stool for nearly the entire performance so I wasn’t giving them much to look at but I didn’t realize it at the time, I was just trying not to have a panic attack on stage. Anyways it’s all kind of a blur to me until the last song, Antigone. The song has a good rap verse and literally nothing vocally in the second half until the outro so I don’t know how I pulled it off but I got up from the stool, rapped the verse, and just started dancing and moving my shoulder like Uzi but the audience loved it. I was glad to have that sort of feedback for my first performance cause it meant I was doing something right. And that felt nice after years of not doing anything right.

          At that show I met a lovely woman named Jordan Roberts (she makes amazing music man fr yall can check her out here). She gave me an opportunity that kind of led to the momentum I have now. She offered me a part in an upcoming show called “Suburbia”, helmed by Gabriel Curtis. I was ecstatic at the offer and accepted immediately, having very little acting experience prior, but I didn’t care. The time between the offer and shooting was time well-spent on my end. I started searching for any other shows I could perform at while also performing at Dandy weekly to try and get my stage presence up and also perform different songs every time to try and see what worked and what didn’t. This worked wonders for the setlists from my future shows. Speaking of, I had booked myself a spot in a Battle of the Bands at Lincoln High School. Now, I don’t even know how this was possible, considering I neither attended Lincoln nor was a band. I went to Leon and I’m a one-man show. The odds were literally stacked against me. I thought about wearing one of my Leon hoodies to the show just for shits and gigs but when I realized that the winner would be decided by a panel of judges, I switched my mind up real quick. I just went with plain black. Honestly, walking into the event I was insanely nervous because I knew it would be a challenge. As the event progressed, I only got more and more nervous