Andy's Newsletter ✌️ The Uncanny Authenticity of Shanin Blake

YR WEEKEND STARTS NOW

It’s Wednesday night in Brooklyn, NY and I got into the show right as Shanin Blake took the stage… I braced myself for what was surely going to be a sweaty, steaming crowd of creeps and lecherous goons ogling our young performer, a curvaceous blonde dreadlocked singer wearing a septum piercing with matching leather gauntlets and warrior princess crown.

But instead of gross, salacious vibes, the room was brimming with a peak level of inclusivity like you’d expect to find at an art school dorm room party: A pair of sexy biker babes in leather corsets, groomed bears in tie dyes with dilated eyes, some Supreme gays, a few of those creepy voyeurs sure, but mostly a crowd of hyped and expressive youth, plus one sad middle-aged man taking mental notes for his silly newsletter.

But it wasn’t so much my trad bro appearance in this crowd of hip, gender-fluid youngsters that made me feel separate or out of place. Really, what felt like the big difference between me and everyone else there was that all of them, every. single. person. was dancing and singing along like rabid Swifties (or rather “Shroomies” as Blake calls her fans). I was blown away, shocked really.

I had expected a hoard of horny cynics

But there wasn’t a drop of ironic appreciation in the room. These were not simply witnesses to a spectacle. No wallflowers here. The night after a heartbreaking Presidential election, this room was full of unabashed love and joy without fear or judgement… Everyone’s natural light was shining real fucking big and bright.

It was uncomfortable, a bit uncanny. Like seeing a unicorn in the wild and trying to pull the horn off because it must be a horse with a prosthetic, but, no, it’s not — unicorns are real. And the world is a beautiful place.

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A post shared by @shaninblake

When I first came across Shanin Blake on Instagram, I watched a video of her sitting on a rock in the woods sing-rapping a song that felt like a nursery rhyme except that the lyrics were “Took a little bit of acid, a little bit of shrooms / Did that tree just talk, or was it you?” and I thought: this must be a joke, some bizarre meme-maker poking fun of burnt out hippies. She even looked like she was maybe AI-generated.

But turns out that she’s real, very real. Shanin Blake has 1,200,000 followers on Instagram and just last month dropped her new album Divine Dopamine, which is 30 songs across 2 hours of music. Like, what? I double dog dare you to make a 30-song album. If Blake released this album on vinyl it would span half a dozen records.

Blake calls her art “affirmation music,” which has a strange multi-level marketing ring to it, but I think that’s just my initial distrust or discomfort with the whole thing? It wasn’t easy, but once I was able to drop my biases or perhaps more specifically my defenses against being duped or bamboozled by some kind of tripped out charade, well, then I was able to enjoy and appreciate Blake for who she is: a 30-year-old single mother making art and pursuing her dreams.

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A post shared by @shaninblake

In September, Rolling Stone published an interview with Shanin Blake by EJ Dickson where they discussed her rise to fame — beginning back in 2011 when she raised $10,000 on Kickstarter to fund her first album, Soul Child — and more recent Internet backlash of hate comments and false rumors about her upbringing and family:

Though Blake takes issue with the allegations that she is a “trust fund baby” in light of her traumatic childhood and her background as a struggling teen mom, she’s tickled by some of the false rumors circulating about her. “The funniest one was when everyone said I died at Burning Man,” she says, giggling. “There were all these articles saying that I was deceased. But I was super alive, actually.”

And while her music my not be for everyone, I think we can all agree that music made for everyone almost always sucks. And for someone to speak their truth on stage and online and ultimately persevere and succeed as an artist, I mean, what’s better than that?

Haliey Welch she is not

Shanin Blake isn’t some stupid human trick gone viral now trying to cash in on her views. This is a woman who’s spent 10+ years making music, raising a child, talking about living in a van and working as a trimmer on weed farms to support herself and her family.

Maybe the music doesn’t match your vibe. It doesn’t really match my vibe either. But on Wednesday night that didn’t matter. For a brief moment there was a break in the clouds and this intensely gilded creature came down and sang praise songs to a crowd of people who genuinely loved it and perhaps really needed to hear it.

Don’t look away, darling

Shanin Blake’s abundance of authenticity can feel a bit brash, but that’s the real magic of it. She pulls you in like a glinting gemstone. Her devoted audience of followers at Baby’s All Right fully embraced her not for her sexuality (or at least not exclusively) as I expected, but rather for her message of self love and daily affirmations, of finding your true self and being brave enough to embrace it no matter what the haters say.

And I didn’t realize I needed to be reminded of that? The level of radical authenticity was humbling. Once I could let go of my judgement (and self-judgement?) and release some preconceived notions or biases about her fans — rather, realize and accept that indeed she has real and true fans, not just OnlyFans — I had a very fulfilling experience that has I think now broadened my tastes and appreciation for artists, individuals, “creators” like Blake.

I mean, goddamn, she moved me from a place of criticism and detached curiosity to one of exploration and acceptance… If only more people could do that, huh?

Dare I say it? Vote Shanin Blake in 2028.

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✌️ Today’s curated playlist: SAULT is love

Something that’s helped me cope this week is the band SAULT, an (initially) anonymous group of Black, British singers and musicians whose first two albums dropped in May and September of 2019, followed by two more albums in 2020, another in 2021, and five more albums in 2022. And that’s not even counting their two instrumental albums.

SAULT is protest music. SAULT is gospel. SAULT is disco. Pick an album at random and listen top to bottom, each is a journey in and of itself. Start with their most recent 2024 album Acts of Faith or start at the beginning with 5… or start right here with my curated playlist of seven songs that I’ve had on repeat this week.

It’s ok to cry on the dance floor.

How do you fight for love
When the world has broken you?
I know that times are rough
When you're down, keep looking up

— SAULT, “Fight for Love”