2. do i have a “mother wound”? yes. but did the emotional unavailability of my caretakers allow me lots of freedom to construct a self-concept? yes. i was truly born in the shadow of no one

3. attribution theory and perception checks would save us a lot of trouble when conflicts arises

4. if someone hurts me (emotionally), it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the emotional tools they have and their capacity to empathize with my experience

5. i 1 mil % now know the difference between someone who loves me in practice & someone who loves me in theory. you can’t trick me

6. can confirm, it’s definitely the phones

7. movement is my medicine

8. can we get more hope-mongering going on in this bitch, please. i beg

9. don’t make a promise to yourself that you can’t keep. (DO WHAT YOU DEEM NECESSARY TO KEEP THE DAMN PROMISE)

10. i am feral and i will bite

1. i was more traumatized by my experience in the music industry than i thought.

2. i was too trusting and had given my power away to people who had no business in my business.

3. from those experiences resentment had compounded and distorted how i viewed my relationship to music, which has been nothing but good to me.

i’m coming to terms with the fact that it is my responsibility to heal my relationship with music. how have i started to do that? well, by making music. i’m trying new processes. i’m learning/playing guitar. i’m taking vocal lessons and really just allowing myself to play again. i had become extremely frustrated because my passion had become a job and i was creating out of survival and enjoyment was rarely ever in the room. fucking booo to all of that!

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i’ll be honest, i thought i was going back to school to potentially learn and study a different field but nope! a lot of things i’ve picked up from my undergrad classes have somehow ended up being a specific set of tools that i need for an updated iteration of my artistic entrepreneurial process.

i’m not an astrology expert but Mars and Saturn have been hanging out in my 5th house and all i hear in my ears is “you have to create a structure and system around your artistic endeavors that works for you. stick to it and have fun!”. now suddenly i remember how i got here. people are aware of me and what i do because i was having fun with my friends and that resonated. so i’m committed to getting back to that!

anyway, i say all of this to say that the path is just a damn spiral. even when i think i’m going a different way, i end up right back on the same path. just with more experience, wisdom and equipment.

i’m so over these algorithms and hate how they come between me and the folks that want to stay connected. to remove that barrier, i’ve made a private discord server for anyone who wants to chat and stay updated on all the things i’m working on.

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see you there! <3 (this invite link will only be active for 7 days)

what are you so afraid of?

I could find some poetic way to say this to make it less gut-wrenching for me to admit aloud but—fuck that. The truth is, is that I have been afraid of expanding. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the assumption that me tapping into more parts of my creativity seems like it should be a natural seamless progression. While that may be true, there is a certain level of alignment with self that I haven’t allowed myself to step into fully. I can be honest and say fear has deterred me and I can even let you in on what I’ve experienced—like clockwork—every time I decide I’m going to take up more space in my own life.

Above, is what I call “The Exhausting Circle of Self-Abandonment”. Here’s how it goes:

• I decide to expand.

  • This moment is usually brought on by me being completely sick of my own shit. So what do I do? I decide I’m going to make a change in and/or around myself. That can look like changing my routine and habits, what I’m spending my time and energy focusing on/engaging with, changing my hair and wardrobe or my favorite, moving to a new city. In short, it’s me deciding that I’m going to be a new—maybe even unrecognizable—version of myself to have the opportunity to learn more about myself.

• I lose people.

  • Soon after I’ve made the decision that I’m going to be living and existing in a new way, I brace for impact. Why? Because more times than not, I know that I am disrupting the expectations that are put on me. The expectations that aren’t always spoken but are reinforced through actions. I think when people have casted you for a certain role in the movie of their life, it’s hard for them to divorce the concept that your existence can serve as anything other than a supporting role to whatever flavor of grandiosity they subscribe to. I’ve had someone I considered a very close friend tell me that me expressing my need to take space for myself felt like “when a character on a show gets their own spin-off.” It was clear to me that that relationship had ran its course.

• Losing people triggers a feeling of abandonment.

  • In the past, I’ve been so hurt by the loss of a relationship that feelings of abandonment come up. I’m not going to get into the intricacies of my life but know that that pain is deep.

• I abandon myself to keep relationships intact.

  • When these feelings come up, I blame myself for wanting to be different. For wanting to be more in-tune with myself. For wanting to grow or be someone I’ve never seen before. I subconsciously decide that maybe I can hold off on my desire to expand so that I won’t feel “abandoned” or lonely.

• I get irritated because the relationships are never worth the self-abandonment.

  • Every time I’ve gone through this cycle I realize that I can only do the self-abandonment thing for so long because I am fucking depleted. Not honoring my natural need for change and growth is so fucking frustrating and I can’t ever blame anyone else but myself. So, now that I have identified the cycle, I’m hellbent on breaking it.

    

    ---

what you gon’ do now?

I’m committed to my expansion. In every way. I’m being selfish with my time, energy and fucks. I can no longer pour from an empty glass and I can’t stand the thought of abandoning myself again. I need me more than anyone else right now. If I don’t honor my need to be big and brilliant, for myself, a part of me will die. The part of me that holds my childlike wonder and whimsy. I refuse to let my light be put out at the expense of what other people think of me—even the ones closest to me. I’m also exhausted from having to dim that light to make others feel comfortable being around me. What they say? “The sun don’t apologize for shining”, so why am I?

Last month, I did a rue head cleanse, dressed in all white and sat with myself—no phones, no social media—in solitude for almost 48 hours and it was the clearest I’ve not only heard myself but my Ancestors. They were very loud about this “abandonment nonsense”. They showed me all the times I thought I was alone, crying and begging God to relieve me of my loneliness. In hindsight, those were the times my art was the most effective for myself and others. They showed me all the times when I didn’t know how the rent was gone get paid but a random check showed up in the mail the day before it was due. At this point, I can’t do nothing but trust their track record cause my niggas don’t miss. Now, it’s about me building and holding that same trust with myself and using discernment to protect my light.

I’ll close by decreeing this:

I’m not lost because I trust where I am being guided. I’m not alone because God and my Ancestors walk with me daily. Amen.

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1. it’s better to start over than to stay stuck

*claps hands together* OK! so we have to start at the top of the year. where was i? i was coming up on my fourth year of calling Houston home. i loved it, on the surface. i had a fire ass apartment with floor to ceiling windows that gifted me with an incredible view of the sunset, a new car i was in love with and friends i considered family but something just felt off. no matter how much more stuff i accumulated or new career goals i could think to set for myself, i just didn’t seem to feel fulfilled. i only found myself running in the same circle feeling more and more depleted. then it hit me. i had hit a wall. again.

see, this feeling wasn’t new to me, at all. i had found myself in that same spot several times since 2020. extremely disenchanted and quite frankly bored with my career in music. the only thing that was different this time was that i was actually going to do something about it. so in true gemini fashion, i was dramatic. i decided to donate and sell all of my clothes (with the exception of some very special pieces, of course. i’m crazy but not that crazy) and starting wearing black and white only. i gave up my car, put the rest of my things in storage and moved to Toronto in the spring for four months. while i was there i shaved my head, took a course on film through the lens of decolonization and gave myself permission to wander around Toronto with no real purpose. every time someone was shocked to see me there the first question they would ask is, “what are you doing here?”. my natural response was always “nothing really. just livin’.” truthfully, it was difficult because i am a workaholic but those four months really shifted my brain chemistry. allowing myself to slow down was something i didn’t believe was possible but it was so necessary. some days i would just sit in the park or hang out at the Toronto Reference Library (which is incredible, btw. highly recommend.) i truly was not in a rush for the first time in a long time and honestly had nothing to prove. i was very very present in my life and it not only felt new but it felt really fucking good.

after spending that much time being present in my actual life (and not what social media tells what my life should look like) i started to realize that a lot of the things i once cared about were no longer important me. my values had shifted greatly and i was forcing myself to stay in relationships, a career path, and an identity that i had very apparently grown out of. i knew then that i couldn’t go back to what i had been doing for the last 10 years. our sublease in Toronto was coming to an end and we thought hard about where to go next. mexico city? london? accra? barcelona? a cool summer breeze whistled to me loud and clear. go home.

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2. gratitude is a spiritual practice

i came home to Little Rock in September with no expectations, let alone any plans. doing as i was directed to, my hope was that the reason for coming back home would be revealed to me—and quickly. home has always been a place of bitter sweetness. family hasn’t always given me a warm fuzzy feeling and from experience, i know that the people closest to you don’t want to see you as the person you’ve grown to be because that could mean they might have to change too. i soon realized that the sting of familial pain had blurred my vision leaving me to overlook a very important part about home—it’s history.

i started spending a bunch of time with my 96-year-old granny. she pulled out photos that were over a hundred years old and told me stories about all of the people in them. how her grandfather stole a mule and carriage and fled to Arkansas from Mississippi with his family to avoid being killed by the white man he was sharecropping for. how my grandpa’s grandma was a midwife who saw the importance of education and would go talk to the kids about doing good in school. i come from a line of farmers, midwives, preachers and entrepreneurs. i not only felt a deeper sense of pride for the folks that made a way for me to be here but i felt a larger sense of gratitude for not only the life i’ve been gifted to live but their lives and their relationship to this land. this land fed them. housed them. healed them. kept them. in some of the craziest of conditions. here i was spending all of my energy trying to run away from Arkansas but i can’t. it’s in me and what i do know is that i can’t run from myself. no matter how far i go, that Delta clay soil runs through my veins.

this year, my gratitude has become a constant prayer. for me, gratitude has to be built into the foundation of all that i do in this life moving forward. that foundation is my home. that foundation isn’t just geographical place, it’s the foundation of all that i am. i wake up most days and let gratitude wash over me. thankfulness moves me and keeps me. even the times where i have to look despair dead in the eye. what will i do? i’ll buck at it, with gratitude, because my people always made a way and so will i.

3. grief can also be a gift

through a series of what could seem random but clearly (to me) destined events, i found myself enrolled in college. initially, i was nervous as hell. i haven’t been in school in 15 years and the thought of having to write papers still has me shook. i can’t even front, i’m excited to learn about subjects i’m interested in, in a classroom setting. i want to be challenged, having my mind and way of thinking stretched. the urge to go back to school has been strong for a few years now but i didn’t truly believe i had the time as a self managed independent music artist. i told myself that the music industry doesn’t wait for anyone and if i take some real time off, it could be detrimental to my career. (and actually, fuck that lie.)

i took the Accuplacer test, scared that i wouldn’t do well, and to my surprise i scored high across all three sections of the test: reading, writing and math (i was geeked because yes, bitch, i’m smart and can read at a collegiate level). i was ecstatic about being accepted into college and all the new experiences i am going to have and then BOOM. i was knocked upside the head, again. this time it was my familiar friend, grief.

once the dust settled from all of the excitement about starting school, the realization of what the year had been and what i was doing, suddenly fell on me in a new way. everything i thought i knew and identified with was now flipped on its head. i was coming to terms with the fact that the dreams that i subscribed to—that may not have even been all mine wholeheartedly—could become null and void. i was at a crossroads and had chosen a new path and started to walk it but suddenly got freaked out when i looked back and saw the road behind me had disappeared. there just simply is no going back. i’m not saying that i’ll never make music again (because everyone loves to remind me of that) but i know for a fact that i won’t be going back to existing in that part of my artistry the way i was before. that’s what i’m grieving.

i’m still grieving even as i write this and i don’t know when i’ll not be grieving (because let’s be fo’real, look at the damn world) but i’m going to let grief do it’s thing like it has time and time before. when grief shows up, i’m learning to hang out with it, letting it show me the depth of my emotions and practice having compassion for myself—which further extends to others. honestly, grief has been my greatest teacher on how to be present with all the feels that keep my connected to my humanness.

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if you made it here to the end, i love you and thank you.

i pray your new year be full of love, favor and unexpected blessings. <3

What it dooo! Welcome to Lowkey Superstar Studio—a digital art studio/sanctuary for all things imagined + created by yours truly, Kari Faux. Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter/journal.

If you’re a Free Sub Shawty, you can expect to receive monthly studio dispatches, recapping my month with a visual diary of the things I made, the places I went, the things I thunk, and my favorites from the month. There will also be an additional free personal essay or visual diary sprinkled here and there. If you’d like to get access to all posts and an more in depth look at the projects I’m working on, along with my life + travels as a nomadic artist, please consider becoming a Paid Sub Shawty.

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Anywaaaays… now that we’ve got the housekeeping out the way. I feel like I need to catch you up to speed on what brought on this major career pivot. This pivot has led me to quit my “job” as a commercial music artist and expand my art practice into film + visual arts while intentionally starting my nomadic journey.

journal.

How did I get here? Well first, we got to go back to 2019. I had—what I would consider—the most incredible run of my career that year. From going on my first nationwide tour supporting Mick Jenkins, to releasing CRY 4 HELP and headlining my own cross-country tour with a freaking bed on stage. I spent a month in London working with Danio on what would become Lowkey Superstar, then joined Steve Lacy’s first headlining tour as the opening DJ. 2019 was one for the books! All of these highlights combined made me plan how I was going to keep the momentum going for the following year—but clearly God had other plans.

March 2020, it was like the whole world had stopped. I returned to my parent’s house in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas—after living sublet-to-sublet in Los Angeles for five years—feeling absolutely crushed. I remember crying facedown on my mama’s bed saying, “I don’t have a house, spouse, car or a kid. I have nothing to show for all this work I’ve done.” To me, at that time, those things signified “stability” and signaled to others that I was “successful”. To not have those things during a time of great uncertainty unnerved to me no end. My mama responded in her very matter of factly kind of way, “The experiences you have are priceless. The things you named, anyone can have ‘em. If you want those things, just go get ‘em.”

2021 rolled around and I did just that. After being away from Los Angeles for over a year, I knew I didn’t want to go back to paying high ass rent and no work/life balance. So, I got my dream car and I moved to a high-rise apartment in Houston. In those moments, I couldn’t have been more satisfied. I had a place to finally call my own. No parents. No roommates. Just me and my sweet, sweet solitude. The solitude I had in Houston was something I desperately needed after running myself ragged trying to keep up with creative “scenes” of Los Angeles and New York. In this solitude, I returned to all the things *I* like, love and enjoy. Things that may not be mainstream but mean a great deal to me. The solitude really centered me within myself. The solitude made me value my peace. The solitude made me realize how much I had been performing day in and day out. The solitude made me realize that maybe this music thing as a job just wasn’t for me anymore.

In 2022, I met a man. We had been one degree of separation away from each other through several mutual relationships. We instantly clicked. He felt familiar and he had a similar story. He had recently left Los Angeles and went back to his hometown, a suburb outside of Chicago, called Aurora, Illinois. Like me, he was realizing there had to be more to life than just climbing the industry ladder. We bonded over that shared sentiment. Starting out as collaborators working on the album that would become REAL B*TCHES DON’T DIE!, we quickly became friends talking on the phone for 3+ hours about everything under the sun. We were both unreserved with our feelings and made the decision to commit to each other in a matter of months. Before we knew it, he had moved into my Houston high-rise and we had a 6 month old Shih Tzu puppy. I was happier than I had ever been. Even my joy for making music had returned from making RBDD with friends and a few of my musical influences.

The following year, that feeling I re-established around making music was squashed when it came time to roll the album out. Here’s one of the many scenarios that killed shit for me:

The label I was signed to passive aggressively avoided having any productive conversations with me because I didn’t have a manager1. So just to move things along, I let them pair me with some questionable white lady who always wore sunglasses like she had a hangover from partying the night before. BIG mistake and honestly I knew better but I wanted to get my goddamn album out2. She started taking calls with the label without letting me know which resulted in her not relaying very important information to me. I aired out my frustrations to the label about not having the information and what did they do? Blame her. After they recommended her… riiiiight. There’s much more to unpack from that entire situation but by the time the album came out in May of that year, I was emotionally spent. Then to turn around and tour from August to November? I was emotionally AND physically done. Half-past tired as fuck. I had grown bored with my routine in Houston and the isolation didn’t feel like a much needed hug anymore. It felt like a cage. I had to honor how I was feeling in every area of my life. I needed something new. A change in scenery. A challenge to what I’m capable of. I just needed to go.

Fast forward to 2025, I decided I wanted to cure my feelings of stagnation with movement. Luckily, my lover is also a Gemini/Sag rising like me so he was feeling the same. We sold, donated and gave away most of our stuff then packed up what we wanted to keep and put it in storage. We moved to Toronto for four months and it has become one of my favorite cities. Being in Toronto was the reset I truly needed. If you’re into astrocartography, you get me when I say I was living near my Mars line. I was supercharged in best way but also restless in the worst way. I couldn’t rest at all so it was the opposite energy of Houston for me (which was crossing my Moon/Saturn). Toronto was the best place to start my nomadic journey and will always be a city I want to return to.

in the studio.

I released “rebound” back in April. I made this song in 2019 with Danio on that month long London trip. It had just been collecting dust in the vault so I decided to let her get some sunshine and air. If you haven’t watched the video yet, check it out!

While in Toronto, I got back into drawing and painting with oil pastels. I’ve felt called to pick back up the things that I really enjoyed in my childhood. I call these drawings “prayers” because of the meditative state I find myself in whenever I draw or paint.

I made this arrangement at an art event called Sometimes I Think Too Much (@sometimesithinktoomuch_) organized by @bunsized. Toronto has one of my favorite artistic communities I’ve had the privilege of experiencing. The event had a flower arranging station, screened short films and spoken word performances all in one night. It was truly inspiring.

I teamed up with the good people at @itsok.world to put on an incredible show for the 5 year anniversary of Lowkey Superstar. I got the opportunity to perform with some amazing musicians and a beautiful Black couple even came all the way from Washington, D.C. to catch the show. I hadn’t performed in Toronto since 2019 and a few attendees reminded me that I said I was gonna move to Toronto the last time I was there. Funny how manifestations work because Toronto definitely has my heart and this was a night I’ll never forget.

favorites.

I recently found out that the first Black woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer and have her compositions played by a major orchestra was from my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. Her name was Florence Price and learning about her life was the highlight of my month and I’m excited to do more research on her and her works. This improvised piano piece titled “Fantasie Negre” is my favorite so far.

This was one of my favorite moments of the month. I highly recommend a Theo Parrish set if you have the opportunity to experience one. The venue was sick—it was very James Turrell inspired and the drinks at the bar were hittinggg.

closing transmission.

The month of July was energizing and so was my time in Toronto. August, I will be spending quite a bit of time in Little Rock as I’m starting research for my first short film. Can’t wait to share the process with you. Let me know what parts of the process or anything else you would like to see for next month’s dispatch.

Talk soon.

For as long as I can remember, music has been a passion of mine. From being put in a synesthetic trance by the Live: P-Funk Earth Tour album, to sobbing with Britney while she sang “Lucky” with conviction. Music was one of the few ways I understood emotions as a child growing up in a Black Southern Baptist household—where there was no room for real feelings, only avoidance through prayer. Music held me. It stirred something deep inside my bones. When I started writing and recording songs at 15, music became a hobby. It was something else for me to do in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas (besides tussle with whoever was talking shit on Facebook at the time). Honestly, I was a delinquent and there wasn’t much that could hold my attention. With music, it was different. I could focus my attention and creative energy for long enough to leave one of the homies’ makeshift closet studios with something that we materialized out of thin air. That was a major dopamine release that made my foggy teenage brain light up. I kept feeding the joy that I got from creating songs, using my life as the main point of reference. I did what my spirit felt led to do. Then one day, I looked up, and I was in my mid-twenties and paying taxes. What once felt sacred—and downright divine—had become a full-time job.

I have to be truthful and admit that the balloon I filled to the brim with the joy and optimism that came from creating and sharing music has been deflated for quite some time. Looking back now, I get a little embarrassed for the twenty-two year old ingénue that was I. Just as green as can be. Here I was, naively believing that my profound love for music was the prerequisite for success as a music artist. I quickly learned that those two things are not mutually exclusive in this business. Hell, from my own observation the folks that have the most success (by the industry’s standard) are barely casual music fans but are passionate about “business”. The music industry is very much an industry. You turn that music into whatever system you use, a label or distro and now the music is a product. Your essence as an artist is on display and up for purchase. For me, the practice of making music has always been spiritual whether I knew it at the time or not. That’s why it’s hard for me to treat music like it’s something frivolous. I have had to remind myself that this industry shit is about production and consumption at the end of the day. Rinse and repeat.

Oh, you just put out a fifteen track album yesterday, that took you years to make? While living through some of the most tumultuous times in your life? Congratulations! What are you working on now?

I’m being facetious but I’ve had these type of exchanges with label execs, managers, booking agents and publishers more times than I can count. It feels like you’re only as good as the next thing you’re about to produce and your value is directly tied to how visible you are.

I’m coming to accept that this is how the system is setup but that doesn’t mean I need to change my values to align myself with a system I don’t agree with or believe in. I’ve always been on the outskirts of the industry so this desire to step away is not new but it has grown more urgent. I’m now fully realizing that I have to keep building this sanctuary—Lowkey Superstar Studio—for my music, along with all of my other forms of expression, to live inside of. Where I can keep them protected but they can also be viewed, celebrated, cared for and loved on by those who want to experience them—not because they were told to by subliminal advertising.

After a decade of running tirelessly—constantly falling into the trap of vanity metrics equating to real cultural impact—I’m ready to step off the hamster wheel. I’m ready to make music my passion again. I’m ready to actually enjoy creating and sharing again. I’m ready to not let the greedy careless hands of industry weirdos near my work ever again, because these songs are my spirit. My energetic frequency captured and amplified by a microphone. These songs hold my memories. My grievances, along with my celebrations. These songs hold my sense of humor and my pain. These songs are reminders, affirmations, and prayers. Of who I’ve been and who I’m going to be. These songs are a part of long musical lineage of storytellers and innovators. Sometimes, all I have in this world are these songs so I must protect them like my life depends on it—because IT DOES.

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