To tell this story, I feel like I need to give a little more context without going back too far. The truth is, I’m a bit perplexed at having gotten to this point, so I can’t help but retrace my steps. The math adds up, but it’s some divine math.

Context

I work in a record store. It just so happens my coworkers are also really cool (check out the big head action there) and decided to throw these listening events called “Lo-Fi in Hi-Fi” this year. Once a month for 6 months, we featured a classic underground Memphis rap album and invited the public to listen to it with us at the Memphis Listening Lab.

Above: A few videos from our first listening session featuring the producer Blackout, highlighting one of the many albums he’s worked on called “Movin’ On” by Playa Fly. Checkout Blackout’s interview here.

Our goal was to get a guest speaker for each event, if possible, someone who helped bring the album to life or was at least knowledgable on it. The series took on a life of its own with the help of our second featured artist, Tommy Wright III. He helped us to book La Chat, Gangsta Blac, and Kingpin Skinny Pimp as speakers for their respective albums. I could tell stories about all of these events, and I should now that I think about it. But I wanna focus on La Chat’s session, because I’m trying to come to terms with something.

Why did a random (and really nice) lady come up to me and ask to take my picture?

I’m really trying to unpack this. You know, end of the year reflections and goal planning for next year and all that. I’m not sure what to make of this though.

The Story

So picture this: it’s announced that La Chat is coming to our event like the day before (thank Tommy for that last minute phone call), so we’re expecting a big turnout. It’s our biggest event yet, and we had to use the big room at the Listening Lab with extra seating and everything. So there’s jitters in the air and a quiet buzz of excitement. This isn’t new for me, but running an event is, so I’m just trying to make sure everything is straight. My task is simple: record the conversation with La Chat. So I’m setting up my camera (my iPhone 11) on my tripod (selfie stand without the ring light) and I’m running back and forth making sure everything is straight. Suddenly a lady comes out of nowhere, and very politely asks to take my picture. She had an accent which sounded British to me, so I was extra inclined to say yes to whatever she wanted. (I think the UK is so cool and I wanna move there one day.) She led me behind a big curtain concealing the rest of the Listening Lab, and introduced herself and her husband very quickly. Their names were Hayley and Sam. That was about all the info I got from them, and we proceeded to do a small photoshoot. I was wearing this dope oversized Nike tee that I found on Depop, with “Memphis” printed reeeall big across the front in a unique design. I know it’s a gem, and I always get compliments when I wear it, but I just walked out the house today not thinking much about it. And here it is scoring me an improv photoshoot with a professional photographer. Well she was in and out of that shoot in less than 5 minutes, got my email, and politely let me get back to work. I didn’t have time to embrace my perplexed state because shortly after, La Chat arrived, and we conducted the interview.

La Chat was all smiles, full of charisma, great storytelling, and love for her fans. She seemed really happy and comfortable, and she gave a great interview. I’m grateful to be apart of it coming together. I feel good about documenting our history. I did successfully record it by the way, and I’ll add a link here when it’s out on our YouTube Channel. I had a lot of fun editing it. I found another calling in shooting and editing videos.

The story continues

A few days later, Tommy Wright III & I are working on preparations for our trip to California for his upcoming show. There are some folks from a magazine in town and they’re more or less banging down his door to get a feature. We’re looking into them, and come to find out: the people who are trying to get him to do an interview are the same people who photographed me at Chat’s session. And I’m like huh???? So Tommy, by nature of being one of the nicest humans ever (true story), goes out of his way to type a whole lil paragraph about me to these magazine people, telling them I’m the one they took photos of and I’m an upcoming artist and they should consider featuring me. While they’re busy trying to highlight him. And that’s one of the reasons why Tommy is a legend, because he’s always thinking of others first.

The magazine

It’s called Brick the Mag and it started about 10 years ago. The nice lady who photographed me is the founder, and she shoots celebrities. Now you may be thinking, DESIRE, are you being a little bit starstruck? And the answer is YES, because I walked out the house to do my job, in Memphis of all places (where there is “no industry” and “few opportunities”) and the ONE week out of the year a cool hip hop magazine is in town, I f*** around and get my photos taken by the founder… so I’m a bit puzzled and shook.

I try not to be the opportunistic type. I try to do things because it feels right, and then good things happen. As soon as I get done being bewildered that someone who shot SZA and Kali Uchis casually found me by chance and took my photos, I will come to peaceful acceptance in knowing I set out to be a star anyway and people take pictures of stars. Witness my imposter syndrome in action.

Find out next time on…

Well the magazine is coming out in January of 2025, and I still don’t know what’s going to be done with those photos they took of me. I have this burning curiousity – am I gonna be in it!?!? A lot of the issue is featuring Memphis music creators, so it would be a touch of irony if my improv photos are in there, artist unnamed, because they didn’t know I’m an artist when we met, they just liked my shirt. And thought I was beautiful. That day, my mind was on running a successful event, not modeling, but that’s divine math for you.