Dreams are tangible once we are brave enough to take the steps that are necessary to achieve them. Ohio native Brittany Nacole, 23, is pursuing her dreams full throttle. She is an artist in every sense of the word and her spirit is revolutionary yet calm. It speaks through her music and her paintings. We spoke with Nacole about her latest release, Daydream, how she feels about being creative and her upcoming show at the A3C festival in Atlanta.
Tell us who you are.
I’m Brittany, I create, I sing, I paint, I draw.
Tell us about your childhood, where are you from?
I’m from Lima, Ohio, they call it the bean-town. I moved to Columbus when I was like 12 or 13. My mom was a young parent so I grew up a lot around my grandparents. My love for art comes from my granddad. My mom is such a beautiful person; my dad was kind of in and out. My grandparents were ministers, so they always instilled God and faith in my life. This helps me to realize that everything in the world connects spiritually somehow and I want to help people in my age group realize this. My motivation to be a better person comes from my grandparent s and my mom. Seeing all the things my mom has gone through and how strong she is makes me stronger.
What do you like about creating?
I love that it comes from me and its something that no one can ever take away from you. I like the feeling that something came from me. Nobody can ever say that they did that.
You are a total, all-around artist, but you have been focusing a lot on your music lately and you just released an EP earlier this year. Tell us about it.
The EP is Daydream. I released some of the tracks last summer and I released the full EP in January of this year.
What was the inspiration behind Daydream?
Half of the EP is about my ex boyfriend. I went through a really bad heart-break and trying to get over it. A few songs are just about being you and not loosing yourself in this world. The Jig is up is probably one of my favorite songs because it’s very Jazzy, it’s a Miles Davis sample and I love Jazz and Miles Davis. It basically just talks about being a young woman or just a young person generally in this country, where Im dealing with my personal life problems, but I’m still trying to keep in touch with what’s going on in the world and trying to keep a roof over my head trying to pay bills. I’m just saying I’m tired of it the jig is up.
If you listen to the whole EP I have a bonus track called black caskets that I wrote around the Mike Brown incident.
What are you feelings about this time in history and all the protests going on?
This is just terrible. It hurts my spirit to see my people like this. We need to educate people. Music and any art is such a great tool to tap into that. It draws people in.
What do you have coming up?
I have a performance slot at the A3C festival performing in from of the biggest audience I have ever performed in front of. It will be October 10 on a Saturday and I am super excited about this. My mom is going with me and I’m happy about that.
How would you describe yourself as an artist?
I’m a perfectionist, but I’m chill. I like to let things go with the flow.
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by things I see when I’m out or stuff that may happen to my friends and their experiences. Erykah Badu inspires me too. I met her at the Shrine this year after waiting outside for 4 hours. When I walked up to the car I just broke down crying. She hugged me and then I showed her my tattoo of her lyrics on my arm “Remembering is good if you don’t let it be the fear in you wrap your head in this material” She covered her mouth and she said “That’s commitment!” she took a picture of it and I told her what those lyrics mean to me. You have to remember to let go of the past and keep growing. She gave me a huge hug and was like “Thanks for the commitment sis” She made an impact on me that night. One day when I make it I know she will remember that.
You can hear Daydream by clicking the link https://soundcloud.com/brittanynacole/sets/daydream-ep-1
Twitter: @Brittany_Nacole
