By Queenie-Michelle Asare-Gyan
Blair--an up-and-coming artist rising from the birthplace of Motown: Detroit-- is a force to be reckoned with. Detroit was the perfect place for Motown to have hailed from: it was ambitious, full of talent, and had prominent Black influence. We can see these very same characteristics in both Blair and her music.
“ Being from Detroit, my mother smothered us in Motown...I actually grew up right next to the Berry Gordy house, Berry Gordy started Motown, and I lived right next door to it. And my grandfather, he was a session musician for Motown, so I grew up [with] music always here.”
She isn’t a household name just yet, but I assure you that a woman with this much ambition, uniqueness in personality and artistic capabilities is quickly on her way to becoming one. Having grown up with the musical community and influence she did and attending an HBCU for her bachelor’s degree, her music is a reflection of her love and heartbreak, self worth, progress, and growth. Her music and her art are attractive, new sounds and her newest work, Out of Spite is a perfect embodiment of all that she is as an individual, artist, and musical visionary. To learn more about her, her influences, goals, intentions, and her upcoming projects, Blair and I sat down with each other and chatted for a few hours.
I met up with Blair at a dimly lit restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, to speak about her and her craft. I was about ten minutes late, but she was more than welcoming when I finally arrived. From the beginning she was a presence of pure happiness dressed in the cutest black dress, which upon seeing, I declared I was underdressed; she assured me that what I was wearing was perfectly fine and that her outfit was for a photo shoot she would attend after our dinner. During our time together, our conversations spanned from colleges I was looking at to boy trouble to my inability to crack crab legs on my own. We started off with small talk-- which wine she would drink, why she was staying in the Long Island City area with her cousin-- and eventually the conversation moved onto one about rings. She had said that she bought her rings from Amazon and I had introduced her to Black Child, a brand owned by and made for black girls-- and the brand that made two of my rings. This was the catalyst for our discussion about Black owned businesses, of which she applauded black people supporting black owned businesses saying that prior to her attending the infamous Howard University, she had only attended predominantly white, private institutions, and that going to Howard changed her perspective on many things..
“As we should.” She said, “We have to, I mean if we don’t support each other...I have that conversation so much and Howard made me really… not woke woke… but when I got to Howard I was like, oh it’s blackity-black up in here, and I loved it.”
Afterwards, she and I took some time to look at the menu, and during this time we strayed from the original plot of our conversation, which was about her day. But immediately after we ordered, she resumed the conversation right where she left off, a skill she said she acquired from participation in theater since high school, saying she was always taught to go back to the point or theme. Her involvement in theater began after she was casted for the role of Little Inez in her school’s production of Hairspray, exacerbating her love for music, performance, and portraying artistic visuals (such as those in her Out of Spite music video, which debuted on June 18). Theater was an extracurricular that she picked up on a whim after she saw advertisements to audition for the school play while playing basketball. After performing live on stage and seeing her parent’s reactions she just knew then that performing was something that just ‘felt right’ to her, and after auditioning for Howard’s musical performance major-- she became a full blown theater kid (and still is). She opened up about how theater helped her find herself and learn how to come to terms with her feelings, an ability that she later on learned to transition into her music.
“I’m a theater girl. I love my voice. I like to be sultry and sexy and fierce but I’m also very comfortable being vulnerable with my emotions. Like, I’m emotional as hell. I will cry at the drop of a dime. I think there’s power in that, especially for women, especially for Black women, because we’re always supposed to be so strong and ‘strong black woman this..’ all the time. No, I’m hurting. No, I’m crying. I’m not afraid, and it doesn’t make me weak, it makes me stronger, actually, that I can admit it.”
The conversation progressed, as we spoke about love, heartbreak, and boys. She spoke about aspiring to venture into acting and performing on broadway, wanting to raise her kids in New York City, how she had fallen in love with NYC-- a place I (a New Jersey native) am not as impressed with-- and being in a relationship with a guy she went to Howard with that lived in the Bronx, a detail we both had a laugh about. THE BRONX?!?, I had asked. And she responded with a smile on her face: ‘Yeah, girl, I was in love’. She mentioned soul searching and finding her sound as preparation for her to acquire the position of Roxie from Chicago on Broadway, a part that she’s basically manifesting.
As for our conversation about boys and teenage shenanigans, it was very lighthearted and comedic. Blair most definitely exuded ‘older sister energy’ and was very wise with the advice she offered me, seeing that I was much younger than her. Her words were very quotable, making statements like: “Men are stupid and men are trash, but some men are less trash”, “Men don’t know what they’re doing at 17 [and] men don’t know what they’re doing at 25, trust me.”. She referenced her own prom night and how it went as a way to tell me to enjoy being young. She said she had gone to prom with a ‘fast’ guy who ended up leaving her that night to go be with other girls; she later cried that night. But the moral of her story? “Do things on your own accord. Be young...do what you wanna do and enjoy being young. Don’t rush it.”
Blair cites music as her medium through which she can vocalize her emotions, especially songs about her romantic conquests and fallouts. She stated not wanting all her music to solely be about her experiences with love, a phenomenon that she noticed was famous in 90’s and 00’s R&B music, but still wanted to speak her truth and voice how she feels.
“I’m a musician now, and now I’m finding my sound, but it definitely is my outlet.” she said. “The thing about music is-- its just expression, and it’s a healing process for me. Everything you’ll hear when you listen to it [her music] is everything I go through.”
Simultaneously, her music is supposed to be relatable to anybody, not just people with similar experiences as Blair. In an effort for her to achieve this, she writes her songs in innuendos, saying that her goal is to just ‘spark something’ in her listeners. If she can cause something to resonate with you, regardless of whether you’ve been in a relationship or not, then she has ‘done her job as an artist’. Her storyline, insinatory writing prose is projected in many of her new projects. She spoke of one that has a ‘start and a finish’, beginning with a song called Sweet Spot, which speaks of how at the beginning of a relationship everything is perfect and ‘blissful’. The honeymoon phase, as she referred to it, the phase of ignoring all the red flags and wanting nothing more than just to be loved and embraced by that person. It then transitions to the breaking point, where things pivot and all the red flags that were previously ignored are starting to catch up to you in Out of Spite. And then the last song of the project, Return to Sender, is the product of the healing process: the point in the story where you grow from the heartbreak or as she would say the point after a breakup where ‘you become a new woman’. I would somewhat compare her story writing abilities in music to that of Jazmine Sullivan, who uses her music to reveal the absolute heartbreak and dissatisfaction she would feel in relationships, such as in songs like Bust Your Windows, Pick Your Feelings, her Bryson Tiller collaboration Insecure, and Girl Like Me-- a collaboration with H.E.R. Despite this, there are many other artists that Blair adores and seeks influence from, especially when it comes to her craft.
“ I’m a huugggee Beyonce fan, who isn’t? I really love Amy Winehouse. I’m a huge Gaga fan, I’m a little monster ‘til I die. Love Lady Gaga, love Amy Winehouse. I love Beyonce’s era with Lemonade, and I love how she got different elements [in her music]. And I think it’s important for Black women to not be boxed in. Billie Eilish can make this amazing alternative music, and then like, Black women--they try to keep us in boxes-- and you can only be like Summer Walker and Jhene Aiko. And they’re amazing artists, but for me specifically, I’m edging in my own lane and want to have my own sound. You know, I just want to incorporate a lot of different things in my sound and in who I am as an artist.”
We spoke of some extra artists that Blair appreciated, especially those she would want to collaborate with in the future. Her list is brief but includes major musical powerhouses: Beyonce Giselle Knowles Carter-- The Queen (as Blair referred to her), Billie Eilish, Rihanna, Bjorns, and Coldplay. She wishes to open for Billie Eilish or The Weeknd eventually and to work with someone like Drake, citing Drake’s versatility.
Being an artist is not Blair’s only goal in the future. In a conversation about ‘realistic’ or ‘achievable’ jobs in comparison to ‘dream’ jobs, she spoke of wanting to get involved in politics later on in life, seeing that her father and her grandfather had been politicians in Detroit. She feels inclined to give back to the community and says she doesn’t only have one calling as an artist. She spoke of all jobs being realistic, saying that as long as it’s in your heart, you should go for it.
“The thing about us Black women [is] we’re so resilient, we can be multifaceted and have a hundred different jobs. I feel like I have a bigger duty than just being a musician, I feel like I want to do more. So, yeah girl, imma be right on CNN, in a fur coat and heels, but like actually making sense and making change for girls like me. Like for us [black women], black people-- we got a long way to go-- and we need to stick together and help each other as much as we possibly can.”
If you visit Blair’s website, you will read up on her including feminism in her work and also being an avid reader of feminist books. I inquired about what inspired her to include aspects of the movement in her art, to which she said she was going to change it to womanism as she felt feminism was a good embodiment of ideas she truly believed in, since original feminism did not include Black women or even encompass the problems we faced. She proceeded to speak on the double standards established against women, such as ‘body counts’ which seem to negatively impact women versus men.
“Okay, I’ll say this, with dating: I have gone through phases where I wanted to date many people at once and I’ve gone through phases where I wanted to date one person at once-- and I don’t judge anybody, you do want you want… as long as you’re not harming other people, taking nobody’s husband or man, [and] you’re not being trifling or stealing-- I don’t play that sh*t. But like, whatever you need to do for yourself, go ahead. I’m not God, I can’t judge you, I have to work on myself.”
So for her, the inclusion of womanism in her music is to combat the controlling behavior of society towards women, and advocate for women’s freedom of their bodies and their actions. In Out of Spite, there’s a lyric that speaks of the songs main character laying in bed with the best friend of her ex, not because she specifically is encouraging that women sleep with their exes friends (in fact, she said she discouraged it) but because sometimes people act out of hurt-- something Blair says doesn’t necessarily make you evil, but makes you human. This lyric also led us to touch upon the controversy surrounding the Cardi B and Megan thee Stallion collaboration WAP and the ‘puzzling’ lack of controversy surrounding songs of similar sexual structure created by men, like Back That Azz Up by Juvenile, citing that even within the creative departments of the music industry, lyrics of womens’ songs are still trying to be confined. .
Blair stated that she was obsessed with women, and how women are so badass. Her inclination to make narrative music for women, especially for women like her, shows that she truly admires Beyonce and Rihanna’s presence in, not only music, but society as well. She is able to emulate their pro-black/pro-black womenness, but still has her own unique sound, and I’d recommend her music to any musical audience on any given day. I think her creative diversity would appeal to all listeners, and that’s a skill that some big name artists right now are still working to acquire, putting her ahead of the pack. That’s a statement even she acknowledged saying that nobody was doing what she was doing both visually and sonically.
Blair’s message to Black girls: “Keep going, that’s it. When you’re going through a journey or the journey of life, and you’re trying to accomplish something difficult, you’ll have good days and you’ll have bad days, you’ll have your moments”. The most important thing is to just keep going...you’ll stumble and you might fall, but as long as you never stay down, you’re gonna be fine. That’s my word. That’s my message. That’s my message, girl.”
One of her most impressive qualities, I would say I noticed from our meeting, is how humble and appreciative she is. Shortly after I started this article, she texted me and wanted me to include people that she could not have made it where she is now without. She accredits her current status to her team, Go Take media, and Brian Crawford as they help bring her visual and sonic dreams to life-- such as the beautiful imagery and cinema references, including some from the blockbuster film Scarface--in the Out of Spite music video (out now!). She also thanks her father and hometown for supporting her so far as well as God, citing that she could do nothing without them and her faith. This sweetheart personality of her’s reminded me of the sweetness that young Britney Spears had when she was first up-and-coming, and because of this-- as long as she continues to express her talent-- it is safe to say that I see Blair as a future star, and I can not wait to see what the future has in store for Blair.
Out of Spite is available now on streaming services and the music video is available too!! Visit Blair’s website at https://blairchristinablackwell.onuniverse.com or on her instagram @blairchristinablackwell