Tenpé,Tenpé Perspective on GLASS RIM SUGAR

Absolutely music, first and foremost. Music has always been a powerful medium throughout history. It serves as a great platform for messaging and conveying emotion, and there's essentially no limit to an artist's creativity in every soundscape. I always appreciate artists that go beyond normal expectations and use non-standardized scales or rhythms or sounds that you wouldn't find in most commercialized pop sounds. Jazz and neo-soul artists are probably amongst the most underrated when it comes to genres that are at least somewhat mainstream. I love a complex chord progression or odd time signatures in a song. Solange comes to mind as someone who is notable in this department, especially in her album When I Get Home. I also greatly appreciate when artists blend genres, as Solange does in this album. Genre isn't meant to have boundaries, and artists aren't meant to be confined to a singular sound or range of sounds. Beyoncé is also particularly masterful in this department. Visual mediums are proabably the next biggest of which I identify. Paintings, drawings, and sculptures are a huge part of cultural history, but I think the art of the music video is also important. I love when an artist can tell a story with their music videos, when they can create a whole cinemtatic universe with their imagination. Any music video that can convey a song's emotional content or messaging well is the mark of a great visual artist, I think. There's a lot that go into music videos as well: cinematography, sound design, choreography, costume design, lighting, etc. A music video can often times be the blending of other art mediums and, when done well, is another mark of a good visual artist.

I have a few that come to mind but the biggest one for me as of recent is probably the song "I'm That Girl" from Beyoncé's 2022 album Renaissance. A running theme throughout that album is self-love and it serves as a majorconfidence-boosting source for me. "I'm That Girl" in particular is a really good track opener; Bey comes out the gate absolutely swinging as she talks her shit and asserts that it's not the wealth or her husband that made her so successful, it's because she is who she is. The proof is in the pudding too, because her longevity as an artist is so remarkable. She's so innovative, hardworking, an intense performer, a visionary, and always reinvents herself. Her influence is so powerful that she's still at the top despite being in the industry for over 25 years now! "Im That Girl" is her way of saying there's absolutely nothing stopping her from being at the top of her game. That's what I aspire to have!

My goal as an artist is to leave a meaningful legacy behind. My earlier works will be meant to gravitate towards a sound that is more commerically popular and digestible, but down the road, I want to be more experimental with my sound, incorporating heavier and more authentic themes into my lyricism. I want to leave behind a discography that makes you cry and shake your ass, leaving you with something deeper to think. I can be fun and get political. As an artist and a human being, of course I'm multifaceted, and I want my works to reflect that. If I were to really take off in my career and even reach mainstream status, I'd want to give back and be philanthropic, escpecially towards the black community and LGBTQ+ community, both of which I'm part of. I want to acknowledge the artists that paved the way for people like me, give them their flowers, and let their names be remembered in addition to my own.