9lives' Latest Single Pushes Sigilkore

April 19, 2024

The versatile artist, producer, and pioneer of the sigilkore genre, 9lives, has recently unveiled his latest single "CANADA" featuring jnhygs. In less than two years since his emergence onto the music scene, 9lives has carved out an impressive niche for himself as a prominent figure within the digitally-driven sigilkore movement. "CANADA" sees him teaming up once again with experimental dance artist jnhygs, following their successful collaboration on "XTAYALIVE".

With aspirations to establish himself within the mainstream arena of experimental music production and artistry, 9lives is blending his distinct dark production style with collaborations with a diverse array of influential artists who trust him to create innovative sonic landscapes. "CANADA" marks his second release of 2024, as 9lives continues to champion the burgeoning sigilkore movement, pushing the boundaries of genre, evolving into a multifaceted artist, and solidifying his status as a rising star with an expanding audience.

Image by Connor Pritchard

Reflecting on their latest project, 9lives shares, “In early 2023 jnhygs found my music and we started chatting through TikTok, releasing our first song together called "XTAYALIVE"." He adds, We’ve been friends since this song had a viral moment, and fans have been heavily requesting for us to work together again all over our videos.” Describing their creative process, he explains, “I sent a bunch of new ideas to jnhygs via Discord and she sent back vocals to “CANADA”, which I then used to create melodic layers and extra percussion to complete the song.

Music

A Woman Unscorched

September 27, 2019

Born into a lithe earthen body, Michaela Thomas, aka Slicc Mic, is determined to dimensionally shift. Like many other star children raised by the Internet, mononymous Mic achieved social media fame at an early age with the meteoric rise of Twitter and the inevitable fall of Tumblr. Keen realization of her power over the human race only made the alien singer lust for more until reaching an untimely eclipse. Alas, fortune prevailed: being an old soul occupying a young vessel blessed Mic with the ancient knowledge one needs to cope with third-dimensional burdens.

True to its fickle nature, the wheel of fate must always turn. When the chaos of public life violated her peaceful existence, Mic’s online fans, aka Trolldiers, rode into battle. They fought vigorously against dissenters who crucified her on the dark-sided message board, Reddit. But gnawing at her feet like starving babies rats in order to expedite her execution proved futile. By honoring the martyred sisters before her, newly anointed, Slicc Mic rose from the ashes of betrayal, as a woman unscorched.

Interview by Mar Chan
Photos by Francisco Serrano
Makeup by Tyra Booker

Reborn as an undying swan, Slicc Mic sings the prayers of her ancestors. When enemies tried to break her heart, the abundant universe unbound her third eye chakra. Now she is armed with an EP of incantations, secret vegan elixirs, and the Spirit of Life, itself. Sister to Sister; Witch to Witch, I—Mar—made the pilgrimage to an undisclosed location on the island of Manhattan to exchange rare teachings of the arcane with the artist formerly known as Mic. Not signed to a record label, Slicc Mic will raise the frequency of this planet, or die trying...

You are a self-proclaimed, practicing witch. How does the craft influence your artistry?

I think the word “witch” has been gentrified. I’ve been dabbling in a lot of different belief systems, each dealing with the concept of self-mastery for a long time, but I most identify as a healer and an occultist. Actually studying the occult gave me confidence. Once I really started to learn about what I truly am, how the universe works, all of my dreams became attainable. Magic has shown me the true world. Despite being a troll (by choice), I very much want to challenge the way people think and inspire them. There are no rules here [on Earth]. Anybody can do anything. Every single day the fabric of reality shreds a little more. People need to see that the only limitations are the ones they have placed upon themselves. My craft has given me purpose: change my own frequency, then ultimately, the frequency of this planet.

When did you first discover your gift—does it run in your family?

I’ve always been quite clever with my words, expressing them in forms that were relatable to other people. Though I never thought of it as a gift. Admittedly, amidst some difficult times, I used my talents with negative intent: saying things that don’t necessarily reflect my beliefs; and in a poor manner. But I am grateful for the lessons I have learned... even when it’s uncomfortable to see the way I have spoken about myself, about others. 2017: I experienced my first breakup; and it felt so heavy I began to write in a much more serious fashion. It was really the only method that could transmute all of the pain I went through. Of course, simultaneously, I was bestowed with my first tarot deck, which helped me to refine my instinct for analyzing the material world, communicating with spirit guides, and thus, strengthening my inner voice. This trifold combination triggered my awakening. I don't entirely know if it runs in my family. However, I believe that anyone being can have any gift if they choose to tap into it. Everything is possible.

Tell me about the song, "111". What does synchronicity mean to you?

"111" is a twin flame story—finding your missing piece, just to have them taken away from you. That physical separation and the time spent apart are only illusions. The song repeats, “I am the one” over, and over, again, because everything you experience, here, in the physical realm, are just aspects of yourself reflected back at you. The separation was never real. You are One (1). And you can revisit those experiences, at any time you choose, within your mind. There is a common misconception that you have to unify with your twin flame on Earth, but I don't believe in that. I think it’s more important to unify with yourself, and your mission here. That is how you can win [the game of] life. Understanding synchronicity is a really important part of this secret. Whenever you may feel lost, or if everything goes wrong, noticing small synchronicities, like repeated numbers, reoccurring emotions, and other patterns, or symbols, in your life, will remind you of your true path. I do not believe in coincidences.

In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the Duke Orsino purrs, “If music be the food of love, play on.” What’s cooking in your stew; and who will attend?

I’m eating with Jimi Hendrix, Aaliyah, Michael [Jackson], and Amy Winehouse. I will be serving rat stew: my top-secret vegan recipe (so don’t bother asking me for it); and for dessert, a big bowl of oatmeal… Mmm. Delightful.

When did you become vegan? Write a short song describing the relationship between a plant-based diet, and spirituality.

In February 2018, I went straight from eating meat to an alkaline diet; it was really intense, but after moving to NYC, there were so many options. Eventually, I downgraded to just regular vegan. Now I mainly eat a lot of soy—which is why my anime knockers are huge.

I bodied this diet / I body this body

I only consume / my own energy

Eating earth’s green / almost feels guilty

But eating a plant / is better than cruelty

Is there a difference between writing a song, and writing a spell?

There is no difference between writing a song, and writing a spell. Every teaching that has resonated with me points back to our thoughts, our words, controlling our reality. Desires carry weight on their own, but employing them with sound alchemy increases your personal power. Consumers should always be conscious of all they consume. Both songs and spells are mutable usage for any purpose the writer intends: manifesting, mind control, healing. It really depends on your agenda. So when you listen to music, remember: you are deciding whose spell you want to be under. There is no right, or wrong. The universe means one song. That is the true power of music.

So what can we expect from your new EP? Is there an album in the works?

The EP is an inward journey over healing tones. I try to paint portraits of places I’ve astral projected to, as well as, my physical experiences on Earth. You can expect some dimensional shifts — a planetary reset — but most of all……vibes. As for the album? I really want to take my time with it. It will finish when the simulation finally ends. I have to let it come when it is ready.

Name some other witches in the music industry. Any of them inspire you?

I currently do not have a publicist, but if I did... she would advise me not to comment.

Music

Rich Brian Gets Richer

Releasing The Sailor with 88rising, Imanuel demonstrates his metamorphosis as an artist through his diverse tracks and kitschy lyrics. In the album, he touches upon deeper facets of his identity, grazing topics like his heritage and his craft. office caught up with him after his latest album release.

It’s been almost two months since you’ve released The Sailor; how long did it take to bring this album to life?

There are songs on this album that I made a year and a half ago, but when I consciously decided to make an album? That was probably nine or ten months ago. It started with me being in my room messing around with beats and liking an individual song. We found Bēkon and The Donuts, who executively produced this album with us. When we met those guys, we started being at the studio everyday and actually getting together. That was probably about four to five months altogether.

With the release of The Sailor, you’ve come such a long way from “Dat $tick.” What’s one of the hardest things you’ve had to learn on your journey?

I think one of the biggest things I learned with this new album—it’s a lot more vivid lyrically. You can really understand everything that I’m saying. On the last album, I was a lot more focused on the sounds and the flow instead of the actual message that I was sending. I wasn’t really sure what kind of rapper I wanted to be and where my place was in hip-hop. Recently, I realized you can literally talk about anything. You don’t have to only talk about getting money, doings shows, or whatever. It’s all a matter of how you word things, and I realized that while I was going through a four-month period of writer’s block. And now, I feel like I’ve kind of found my writing style here. That was one of the biggest things I was really conscious about while making this new album.

Do you have any favorites on the album and if you do, then why?

Yeah, the big difference between this album and my last one is that I have a lot more favorites on this one. There’s so many different types of songs on this album. For example, you have “Drive Safe” which is the most emotional song I’ve ever made. I just sing over a guitar, and that’s my favorite song.

I didn’t know you could sing like that!

[Laughs] Yeah, thank you. I’ve always wanted to do melodic stuff, but I was too scared to do it. I thought, ‘Maybe this is too not me.’ But then like, what even is ‘me’? With this album, my mindset changed so much. Going into it, I felt like ‘This album is gonna be up forever. I want everybody to listen to it, not just people who listen to hip-hop.’ I want to be able to listen to it 20-30 years from now. The whole time, I made it a point to remember that I wasn’t only making my fans. I want new people to listen to this and also enjoy it.

You premiered your album with 88rising, a company whose mission is to give Asian artists a platform to grow and develop, which is really cutting edge and exciting to see. How did you get involved with 88rising?

When I was about 16, Dumbfounddead was like the first rapper to follow me on Twitter after my first music video came out. Then, I DM’d him saying, ‘Yo, whenever you have time, can you let me know what you think of it?’ And then he was like, ‘Yeah dude, I already checked it out. It’s really tight. What’s your number? Let me connect you with my manager.’ And then he did, and his manager at the time was Sean [Miyashiro], the CEO of 88rising who is now my manager. At the time, 88 wasn’t a thing. I got on a call with him, and Sean told me about his vision for 88rising. Being a fan of Dumbfounddead and kind of knowing what they’ve done together, I thought it was really cool, and I wanted to be a part of it. Being 16 at the time, I just signed the contract without telling my parents, and they wanted to fly me out to America. I was super psyched about it, and I ended up working with them for around a year and a half.

A lot of this album and in the video released by 88rising, it seems to delve into your roots. Can you speak a little more on incorporating your identity into your music?

On this album, I definitely went a lot more into my roots. “Yellow” was like one of the earliest songs we worked on. I went through a four-month writer’s block, and it was definitely a weird time in my life—I felt like I hit a wall. But the first time I heard “Yellow,” I felt really inspired to write about how vulnerable I felt at the time. So, the first verse is about me going through this struggle. It tended to be a very emotional and hopeful kind of feeling. That’s when I realized that this was a topic I had never touched on before and that this was the right time to do it. The Sailor refers to an explorer and not being afraid. I went to America as a 17-year-old without my parents. I know that I am not the only kid who went through that.

What was it like returning to Indonesia to film “Rich Brian Is The Sailor,” the short film released on 88rising? Was it surreal?

It was insane. It was my first time shooting a video in Indonesia. It was like a whole new thing. It was with Sing J. Lee who is such a talented director, and he captured it really well. It was amazing. My family was there as well for the first time to see me working with a music video, which was really cool. I had them in some parts of the video.

Do you feel a need to prove yourself in an industry where there isn’t necessarily a lot of Asian representation?

Absolutely. I want people to focus on the music and art, but at the same time, I realize that the pressure that I have is definitely a real thing. I want to do well. I love it when people come up to me and say, “Yo, I didn’t think my dreams were possible until I saw you doing it.” That stuff is basically what I live for. Being able to do this and represent these people means that I am inspiring a whole part of the world who might feel like their dreams are not really possible.

What do you want your listeners to take away when they listen to The Sailor?

I just want them to listen and be inspired. This album is a lot about Asian identity, but it’s for everybody. I also just want to make people happy, because that’s the whole point of making music for me. I used to watch YouTube videos with albums from start to finish for whole days at a time, and I really miss that. Now we’re in a generation where people just skip around songs, and I feel like artists reverse engineer their albums to how they think people would like it. On this album, I really made what I like. I am caring a lot less about the streams and a lot more about the outcome.

What’s one thing you want your audience to know about you that they might not already know?

I am very interested in acting and really want to get into it. So if in a couple of years, you see me in a movie, don’t be surprised.

If you could collaborate with any artist dead or alive, who would it be and why?

I would love to collaborate with Childish Gambino and do like a back-to-back style rap with him.

Music

Deb Never Puts on a Front

Fans and journalists alike might be wondering, “What is her intention with the project? What do these songs mean?” For Deb, there isn’t always an answer. She even becomes self-inquisitive on tracks like “Ugly,” venting about relationships, “Am I desperate to feel the way that we used to?” and “Same,” where she repeatedly asks herself, “Will I always feel the same?” Instead of putting a heavy focus on lyrical denotation, though, this project is more about the process of feeling. As many music projects are, this EP is an emotional response to the artist’s collective life experiences, both past and present. What makes Deb unique is her ability to transform her feelings into a sonic landscape that reflects the essence of her own personality: someone who has seen darkness, but chooses light; someone who has reasons to cry, but chooses to fucking mosh.

The EP’s title rings true to the life of a touring artist: constantly being on the go, a struggle to find stability or knowing what’s to come in the future. But leading this life as an artist is the only option for someone like Deb–her desire for self-expression transformed into something tangible outweighs choosing a plan B. This is about the immediacy of creating: having access to an outlet, in Deb’s case, her guitar, that allows one to articulate their emotions without insecurity and pressure to define what they mean in the moment. The visceral release of performing, even if its only for yourself at first, can be an extremely cleansing thing. The melodies and beats that Deb creates are representative of her consciousness: the dissonant guitar drowns out the sound of reality… tunneling the listener into her world, a private jam session motivated by loneliness, love, frustration, uncertainty and the combination of them all. And then the 808s kick in.

Though Deb’s art isn’t overtly about identity politics and representation, these are two things that unavoidably lie at the heart of day-to-day human experience, even when it seems easier to escape or avoid them. But instead of letting prescribed identity makers confine her, she makes them her own simply by being herself: when she feels something, she says it, and when she wants something, she does it, Deb doesn’t have to do much for you to fall in love with her–her transparency of self is a quality sought after by many, especially in an age when individuality is the new “fitting in.” Her genuity has allowed her to carve a path for herself in the music industry, where all signs point to her career and fanbase growing in a real, organic way.

With early influences ranging from Nirvana and Radiohead to Three-Six Mafia, Deb’s genre-meshing grunge-meets-emo rap music unfolds as if the listener has access to her stream of consciousness. With the vulnerability of a personal diary, she wants you to hear what she’s saying and feel how she’s singing it. That being said, House on Wheels EP is music for many moods: car rides, parties, lonely nights, break ups, mosh pits, smoke sessions, hanging out with friends. But most importantly, it’s Deb Never’s way of proving herself; after growing up with a sense that no one out there was really listening, she has now become a person that others are listening to. On “Swimming,” her latest single off of the EP, Deb unforgivingly sings, “Treat me like you give a fuck about me now.” Coming from a past reality of small-town isolation and discouragement in the Pacific Northwest and landing success in Los Angeles, she’s reminding us that, deep down, she’s always been the person that people are finally acknowledging her as today.

How, if at all, did your hometown influence your sound?

The only thing about my hometown that influenced my sound was my environment growing up. I was always trying to keep my head up in a sad situation.

Where does the title House on Wheels come from?

House on Wheels comes from the way I feel about this EP and my life [laughs]. I feel like each song takes you to another place even though they all live in the same world.

You've talked about music being a release for you, is it a cathartic experience seeing the EP as a finished product versus the process of putting it all together?

Yes, seeing it finished and listening to it altogether is crazy cause it all started with me making songs in my closet [laughs] literally. It’s like seeing my music baby grow.

What has the power of collaboration brought to your work?

Collaboration has only made me better and inspired me.

Do you feel like you're defining your own identity in music rather than letting others define you?

Absolutely yes. I think music is such an honest way of representing yourself and saying things you would probably never say in real life. You can say I’m this or that but I’ll tell you exactly how I’m feeling and show you who I am through my art.

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