Cover story
Floacist: I am wonderful—blessed. Thank you. And
thank you for having me; it’s a pleasure to speak with
you this evening.
LG: Thank you. I love the title of the new album ‘Rise
of The Phoenix Mermaid’. Can you tell me how that
title came about?
Floacist: Thank you. The title actually came to me
before I even started constructing the album. There are
songs on this project that I’ve had for seven years, that
I wanted to finally breathe and be shared. Additionally,
there are updated spoken word pieces that I’ve had that
I always wanted to manifest into actual songs. So, it’s
quite a collaboration of the past linked with the present, in
order to manifest my future. This album is really sankofa
in that its touching some things that were created sometime ago, as well as things that are being created now.
And for the journey of my spirit, its about bringing together two aspects of myself; the fire and the water—and
having the two elements existing in harmony, so that you
have the ‘phoenix mermaid.’
LG: How interesting! I love the concept and that you
put real thought into coming up with a title that represent
the songs on the new project. So...it’s fair to say that the
title is about an evolution of sorts, yes?
Floacist: Yes, that’s correct. This is the first album that
I have ever made in acceptance of the fact that I am a
recording artist. It was not something that I tried to be,
but it’s something that I now understand with all of my
studies and journeys have made manifest, so this album
is created in submission and acceptance of that.
LG:
Well, I feel that you are not only a recording artist, but a very successful one at that! And so
I commend you for accepting that part of your creative
expression because if not for it, many of us—certainly
here in the United States—may never have experienced
your brilliance as a poet and music artist.
Floacist: Thank you so much for that. You know,
my original Floetic concept is, and has always been,
`poetic delivery with musical intent’—I have always
been a poet, it’s just that now I have learned to embrace
the ‘musical’ part of myself as well.
LG: And you have done so beautifully with your last
two projects, ‘Floetic Soul’ and ‘Floetry: Rebirth’,
and I have no doubt that your new album, ‘Rise of The
Phoenix Mermaid’ will be great as well. Tell me, how
would you describe your new project?
Floacist: There are 13 tracks on the album, and each
song is tracked on the album in the order that it was
completed. The entire project was completed in two
weeks! I am connected to each of the songs on this
project, particularly the track, “Woman” because it’s a
collection from pieces of poetry that I had written that I
first performed at jam session. And by the end of jam
session, I was being asked where could people get this
song. What’s amazing is the song didn’t even have a title
when I performed it—it started out a poem that told me
that it was a song. Chris Davis (Big Dog) who produced
the whole project, came in and immediately seemed to