Multidisciplinary Practices with Nielly

Exploring music, literature, art, and mysticism with one of my favorite playlist curators

To know Nielly is to be captivated by her gentle spirit and inquisitive nature. She’s a longtime supporter of The Music Directory and I’ve equally admired her dedication to music and creative exploration.¹ I’ve also been very intrigued by the concept of her newsletter Music as Literature with Nielly; the phrasing is simple, yet the possibilities are endless when you really sit with what it means to think of music as literary work. So I sought to learn more about the person behind the publication.

At the time of our conversation, Nielly was preparing to co-host her first live listening experience called Crate Digest with fellow directory member Miki Hellerbach. She recently shared a summary of the event, which took place in Los Angeles and evaluated the theme of masculinity in music with an exploration of the five senses.

“We took a deep dive into masculinity and vulnerability in music. In the process we learned that [Miki] and I really provide a balance and depth that not only makes facilitation meaningful for the attendees, but personally fulfilling. We both got to shine and share our gifts in a really fun way.”

let's all go in a circle and share what we're grateful for

“Personally fulfilling” also describes the conversation that she and I had back in early October, in the midst of spooky season. Our chat began with us pulling tarot cards for each other, which loosely informed the flow of questions I asked during the interview. Throughout the call, we also reviewed our compatibility on Last.fm (spoiler alert: it was super), talked about the origins of Nielly’s newsletter, and recapped some of her favorite concerts she’s attended (she’s seen The 1975 perform 8 or 9 times across continents).

Now Playing: redrum

After a brief survey of the decks we owned, I shuffled and pulled cards from the Black Power Tarot deck by musician King Khan and artist Michael Eaton. It’s a reimagined version of the Major Arcana and a tribute to Black history. Majority of the featured individuals are significant to Black American music. The first card that appeared was The Tower, which features Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. On the surface, I thought the card signified things being shaken up (in a good way) and us exploring new paradigms of relationality through our conversation and Nielly’s event with Miki. But with the aforementioned musicians being instrumental to the origins of rock and roll, this got us thinking about our personal music DNA.

I define music DNA as essential artists and genres that inform one’s taste and listening habits. Considering Nielly’s newsletter name, I also asked her to come prepared with texts that helped inform her understanding of music as literature.² “I think that part of the reason Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry came out is a lot of the music I do listen to is rock-based. So one of the books that I pulled to share with you is A Brief History of Rock, Off The Record by Wayne Robins,” Nielly said.

Read on for the full interview, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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I’m getting chills because Wayne is featured in the directory.

That’s incredible. This particular book was introduced to me in a music history class in college. Just an elective because my undergrad is actually in psychology. The thing is, I’ve always loved music. I love doing music the way that I’m doing it now as an adult, but I just never spent actual time and money doing it as a career until now.

So the book was assigned for the semester and I specifically remember—the semester was over, grades had come in, and I emailed the professor. I was like ‘I really thank you for teaching this class—assigning this book—because I didn’t know until sitting in this classroom with you that so much of the the music that I love actually originated in Black music and Black history. So I learned a lot about myself and music in this class. And I just really appreciate that.’

When I think of this book, that was probably a moment where I realized, ‘Oh, it’s not weird for me to like the music that I like because it is my music!’

It absolutely is! To that point, what are some essential genres and artists that influence how you listen to music?

Everything is coming to mind, but in different snippets. When I think of the music that my uncle shared with me, a lot of his taste is based in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Like Radiohead, The Cure, The Clash. I think what I learned from that exposure of his taste is lyricism and emotionality—you can also say emo—but I’m using it very deliberately; the emotionality of musical male expression and then it does segue into emo as a subgenre. He took me to a record shop for the first time and he was like ‘I know you keep listening to a lot of this emo crap.’ At the time, it was probably Panic! at the Disco and Taking Back Sunday or whatever. And he’s just like, ‘this is some real emo’ and he passes me The Promise Ring. Then I’m listening to that like ‘oh perfect, I’m actually already depressed and this album fits right in line with that.’ (laughs)

Then my dad, having grown up in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, showed me a lot of the origins of hip-hop and soul and music that his mom shared, like Al Green. So what I’m learning from that is also lyricism. There’s times where I listened to OG Fresh Prince and Rakim and everything. My dad would actually sit in the car with me like, ‘listen to what this man is saying.’ Or when it’s Fresh Prince, it’s “Summertime” and it’s like ‘oh yeah, I love this song because we would actually do that as a teenager. We’d be rolling down the block trying to pick up some shorties if the weather was great.’

So I felt like I could actually connect with him that way because I’m reminiscing with him. Saying all of that out loud, maybe it’s less about genre or specific artists, but like the memories that are attached to certain exposure of things and what it means to who shared that with me.

An image from Nielly’s video “Post-Punk Bros, Their Art, and Their Obsession with Violence”

I’m getting chills again because I said music DNA and you actually went to people in your bloodline, so that’s a very beautiful answer. Thank you for that. I’m always curious how people with diverse taste arrive at that place. The next cards are Justice featuring Eartha Kitt; the Hanged Man with Tupac on it; The Star card with Alice Coltrane; and the Lovers card featuring James Brown, Irma Thomas, and Etta James.

I’m gonna need this deck.

You definitely should check it out—it’s one of my favorites because it’s just the Major Arcana. With the Hanged Man, I’m thinking about a flipped perspective, similar to The Tower card. I’ll have to sit with the Star card and The Justice card will come from the conversation. But with the Lovers card, I’m thinking about the relationship between things—which also makes sense because we talked about our Last.fm compatibility. For the next question, let’s pair one of your favorite books with an album and explain why.

One of my favorite books is Dracula and I recently—as in the last year or two—had read it. It’s the vampire lore—the stuff that we know as vampires probably originated from this book. One specific part of the lore is vampires not having a reflection. So the non-Dracula dude, he’s only been in the house for a couple of days, and he’s in the bathroom trying to shave and he’s like ‘Oh, there’s no mirrors in here. So let me use the reflection’ of something in his duffel or whatever. And the way this is just all written word—I literally got a jump scare from this book, because he’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m trying to shave. And all of a sudden I just felt this presence,’ and he turned around and there [Dracula] f*cking was. I had never experienced a jump scare from literature like that before. That’s why it stands out. So I’m chasing that high or something trying to pair that with an album.

I’m thinking it’s less about the spooky; it’s more depth and surprise. This artist ivri, I discovered them as an opener for Dreamer Isioma, [who] I featured on one of my Show & Tells. ivri just came out with an album this past August. The whole show of ivri and Dreamer Isioma was surprising because I had basically listened to Dreamer’s album and I was like ‘oh hell yeah’ and then I just go to the show—I had no other parasocial relationship with this artist. I had only heard this one album, like maybe a couple singles from other stuff. I show up completely shocked by the people that show up to the show, mostly because they’re 15 years younger than me on the high end and the fashion is different. It kind of brought me back to me being a teenager watching shows, where it’s like 30 of us and the venue was way too big for how many people actually showed up. But it didn’t change their vibe at all. They were just going at it.

Lyrically and sonically with ivri, she really stood out to me because she kind of has this girlypop, paper doll speaking voice and style, but she can wail. It’s not wailing like Mariah. She’s a vocalist, but she’s like straight up hollering something from the depths of her spirit. And the music is kind of like raucous and loud, but when you sit back and actually listen to the lyrics, there’s lots of contemplation and stuff going on. Then I paired her performance style with stuff that was like happening outside the walls and this whole generation. Her music feels like a representation of today’s youth—it’s kind of all over the place, but they have something to say. They just don’t say it in a way that maybe I understand. I would recommend her latest album, the theory of you.

Show & Tell: Dreamer Isioma

As someone who reviews live shows, what are some of your favorite concerts you’ve attended?

The reason I love going to The 1975 shows is—I think at this point they might be my Taylor Swift if I’m being honest. There might come a point where they do something and it’s just like, ‘I can’t.’ I think because I listen to so much music, I can listen to an album of theirs—like their latest album, garbage, I hate it—but I will still go to the show and sing my heart out or whatever. But I like going to the shows because at this point, I’ve been a fan of theirs for over a decade. I understand part of the lore of them. Like, I get why if somebody’s coming in fresh to them, they’re like, ‘Who is this misogynistic a-hole that does blah, blah, blah.’ I’m not saying he’s not, but he’s also trying to push you on purpose, like he’s an antagonist. I kind of understand that showmanship style of his performances.

One reason I just like the band generally is because they’re actually a pretty good sonic representation of everything I like to listen to. They put in deep house and jazz and 90s R&B and just straight up pop music—they’ll go balls to the wall rock on an album and then they’ll get political and put Greta Thunberg on there. It’s perfect because I can listen to all the genres I love in one album. Straight up: if I cannot decide what to listen to? 1975 shuffle, and it hits all the little fuzzy spots and we’re good to go.

How did you come up with the name Music as Literature?

Honestly, I feel like I’m kind of in a bad marriage with Music as Literature. When I first started Substack, it was after hours, maybe very short days of researching where I would put my stuff. I was like, ‘I don’t even know what to call this thing. The closest description is Music as Literature. That’s what I’m doing.’ But I when I first started it, I feel like I knew at the time that it wasn’t what I actually wanted to end with. So I tried my best to actually label my stuff. That’s why I started latching on more to the Nielly moniker—seeing if I could stick with that, knowing that the Music as Literature part might leave one day. But I don’t know. I just don’t have a good attachment to it. I just know that it’s descriptive and it helps right now. And I haven’t had that zing of what is actually this thing? Because right now—to explain the three key parts of my blog—I primarily started it to write the longform essays. I noticed I wasn’t holding myself accountable to creating content. I’d have an idea, but then it would take me a month to write, and then it would take me two months to write the next thing or whatever.

So eventually I was like, ‘Okay, in order for me to get in the habit of just creating more frequently, what else can I do? Well, I go to shows a lot. Let me write about that.’ That’s where Show & Tell was born. I’m constantly discovering new music. Might as well share that. That’s where Now Playing was born. So now it’s actually at a pretty decent cadence where Now Playing will come every week, Show & Tell will come whenever I go to a show, and then I still try to do the longform essays once a month. But I’m still not great at that. Because I get so hyperfixated on my thing where I’m researching. And it’s fun—I learned that that part’s actually the fun part. I get to learn about a thing that I chose to learn about instead of being forced to learn about it. But it almost seems like the Music as Literature is too narrow for everything that I create. So that’s just where I’m at with that right now.

I think that’s a beautiful part of the discovery, especially when you are putting yourself out there creatively. Knowing that when you choose a name and it’s so specific, you are choosing the branding and people are going to identify you with it. It makes sense that on your blog, you’re using Nielly as the wordmark versus Music as Literature because it’ll give you the opportunity to shift from that. I think it’s a dope name, but I totally understand if you don’t want to be tied to that forever.

Yeah, I feel like there’s so much more available to me. I think you saw the note where I was like, ‘Yo, I’m just listening to the radio and not to diss radio DJs’—it’s actually the opposite. It was just like, ‘Oh, I’m actually talking about music at the same level these people that are getting paid to talk about music. I could do that sh*t.’ I did record “Apocalypse Now or Never”—the longform piece—as a radio piece. And this feels way better than YouTube because the labor is lower. I can be a little bit more cartoonish with my narration. And first and foremost, I can play the whole song versus having to clip 10 second clips to avoid copyright and then get demonetized and do all this crap. Maybe this whole path was for this part. So we’ll see.

Apocalypse Now or Never

I’m curious to see what you come up with the future, but I know it’s gonna be very dope! Who are you currently listening to?

Honestly, a great question because I don’t know if you struggle with this problem as a playlister—I feel pressure to find new music sometimes, so that I have something fresh to offer that I haven’t been able to actually, sit with stuff like, ‘Oh, I really vibe with that. Let me go back and just listen for my own pleasure.’ I think that after I post the October stuff, it might be a winter silence of just letting me actually enjoy things. Some albums that I have come back to though: probably because of his great marketing, Leon Bridges has been top-played in my house this year. Not only is [Leon] a no-skip beautiful album, but he and his tour partner Charley Crockett, they’ve just really got stuff to say this year, so they’re really keeping my attention.

I LOVE Leon Bridges! Who are you always listening to?

When I just need something familiar—and that could just mean I’m going for a drive, I don’t need to think about what I’m listening to, I just want to sing along or whatever—low stakes, low energy, low mental expenditure on trying to find something, I always go back to definitely The 1975, Kings of Leon always just hits, Coldplay’s best hits. I’m just looking at my Apple Music favorite songs—“I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music soundtrack. This one’s funny: “Int’l Players Anthem” by UGK—every time it comes on, I can’t skip it. It’s so good. Then, obviously the sample that it’s from “I Choose You” by Willie Hutch. Sometimes, I go from “Int’l Players Anthem” and straight to that one. I wish I did know more about music theory because I could describe it you explicitly. It just has the right tempo to relax and feel joyous.

Speaking of music theory, I recall you mentioning that you would be learning piano again. Are you wanting to learn music theory as an interest or to play music professionally?

Not quite there. So as a kid, I actually played piano. I just didn’t keep it up. As if I needed more hobbies, that’s why I’m kind of pursuing that: I just want to learn how to play an instrument again. I think you and I are both students of life. I just love learning, asking questions, deep diving into stuff. As I’m writing my pieces, a lot of the questions I wish I could answer on my own like, ‘I am hearing this sequence of sounds—what is the word for that?’ It could be that simple.

I know that there’s some people, like the Charlie Puths, the Jacob Colliers of the world—the music students who make that kind of music—there’s songs from each of them that I can enjoy. But in their bodies of work, it’s clear that they’re way overthinking about their stuff, right? So I hope I don’t fall into that slippery slope. But for me right now, my intention is to be able to define—because I’m writing about it—what is the thing that I’m hearing? So I can feel more confident in my own written work. As far as performing or playing music, we’ll just see what happens. There’s something that’s kind of shifted in the last couple of months where it’s like ‘I’m just gonna make the art.’

When we were talking about me hearing the radio, and I’m just like, ‘I could do that.’ Okay, then go do it. Or the fact that I even have videos on YouTube. Whether or not my goal is to be a YouTuber—it’s not—I developed a skill and I had fun doing it. I’m gonna learn how to play piano, and if I learn how to write a song, hell yeah, somebody’s gonna hear it. That’s just kind of where I’m at. Hopefully, my life is long and full of things I create.

Yes, doing things for the plot! What are some other hobbies/interests that inform your worldview and taste?

One of my other side quests was learning how to be a certified yoga instructor. When I tell you, I just collect adventures. As far as it informing my music taste—interesting enough, the school that I went to taught us to teach without music. So I actually am used to practicing in complete silence. So me going to a yoga studio where they’re blasting any kinds of music or even music in śavāsana is one way to piss me off. But a lot of these yoga studios will play music, so I have to just close my eyes and go completely inward to try to ignore what’s happening, especially for songs that have lyrics.

Part of the reason I hold that feeling is something I was taught in the school, but also experienced for myself. A lot of the time when you go to places, you’re being shared music, and a lot of it has lyrics or there’s timbre or a feeling that it evokes. In a practice like yoga, the yoga asana is the actual physical movement of it. If you read the first couple verses of the yoga sutra, the point of the yoga asana is to prepare your body for meditation. That’s the purpose of that movement. So tying it to the music, it’s like you don’t want to be playing “Back That Azz Up” during down dog, because what is your subconscious trying to teach you about that moment? If it’s ultimately trying to get you to this place of meditation, which in the yogic and Buddhist-related philosophies, it’s trying to get you to enlightenment.

So they kind of seem disjointed; some schools of thought might straight up just tell you it’s disrespectful. So I try to hold space just for my personal practice of giving myself the time to meditate through movement. With that same kind of thought—leading to the blog and stuff—one of the values I hold for the work that I create is to do all of this in service of creating a better and more kind world. Through all of this, I hope that people receive my work and learn something about themselves, learn something about their communities, learn something about the person sitting next to them, so that we can all just be generally better and not live whatever we’re living right now. Through music, I do pay a lot of attention to lyricism and how music feels.

I don’t want to put out into the world something that also has terrible vibration. So that’s kind of where the yoga comes in—I learned that sort of respect and what that feels like to move in the world and try to implement that in my writing.

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exquisite corpse vol. 1

When I approached Nielly to be a part of my interview series, we agreed to collaborate on a playlist. I had previously developed an “exquisite corpse” playlist with a friend on my personal newsletter, and it’s an engaging exercise that offers a moment to think differently about our music libraries. Since Nielly and I both share playlists that span the genre gamut, this seemed like a great opportunity to revisit that format.

What is an exquisite corpse? It’s an intuitive artistic practice stemming from the Surrealist movement of the 20th century, in which artists add their own contributions to one artwork without knowing what another person previously contributed (the concept can also be done with writing). For instance, if I draw a lion’s head, I would pass the folded paper to the next participant and they might draw a women’s torso. The following person might add on a whale tail and so on until the image is complete. Ultimately, you’re left with a bizarre and abstract creation representing a medley of styles and influence.

With the playlist, it’s something akin to word association and the goal is to build a poem from the song titles. Here’s what we came up with!

Something’s Going On
Do You Realize?? I Feel Different Every Day
Angels All Around Me…Heaven’s Only Wishful Like A Prayer
All the Words We Don’t Say Speaking in Tongues
Can’t Believe the Way We Flow—waves

The decision to do an exquisite corpse playlist proved to be very serendipitous to our card pulls as Nielly used a tarot deck with imagery from Salvador Dali’s oeuvre. With Dali being one of the most prominent figures of the Surrealist movement, the stars really aligned here (maybe that’s why The Star card popped out early on). That being said, I’ll do a brief breakdown of our song choices. I was mainly going off of the song titles, whereas Nielly leaned more into each song’s subject matter. Ultimately, it became a hopeful tale of someone seeking guidance & relief and another person offering that point of refuge.

I started off with “Something’s Going On” by Kokoroko. I wanted to stir up some suspense with this vague song title from one of my favorite albums, Could We Be More. Nielly followed up with a psych-rock classic, The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” Next up, I picked “I Feel Different Every Day” by chlothegod (an angsty choice on my part), and Nielly chose “Angels All Around Me…” by Kali Uchis. On my next turn, I stayed on the heavenly theme and went with MorMor’s “Heaven Only Wishful.” This theme persisted with Nielly’s following choice: “Like A Prayer” by Madonna.

I was thinking of silent prayers, so I opted for “All the Words We Don’t Say” by Hiatus Kaiyote. Meanwhile, the slightly religious connotations continued with Nielly’s pick: “Speaking in Tongues” by Black Eyes. To conclude the playlist, I used a song that I nearly included earlier in the sequence: “Can’t Believe The Way We Flow” by James Blake. The final song had us walking on water: “waves” by Miguel, but Nielly chose the remix featuring Kacey Musgraves. This was a specific nod to her heritage (like Miguel, Nielly is Black and Mexican) as well as her affinity for country music.

Thanks Nielly for such a wonderful, enlightening chat and the collaborative playlist. Check out her work below!

Headshot and YouTube still image courtesy of Nielly

Tarot card scans provided by Shanté

1. Nielly is listed in the following categories: playlist curators, reviewers/critics, and historians/scholars/researchers.

2. Some more texts that inform Nielly’s viewpoint of Music as Literature (answered via email):

This Is What It Sounds Like by Susan Rogers [and Ogi Ogas] I recently finished! [Susan] worked with Prince and many others as a music producer. She walks through how to listen more closely to music you love so you can self-identify what it is about its production you like. She’s also a neuroscientist so I got some extra fun out of the connections to the brain. The website comes with playlist links and listening activities. It’s fun!

I also recently started Music is History by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson [with Ben Greenman]. I’m fairly confident his and my values/goals with sharing music history align, so I’m excited to see what I (re)learn about Black American musicians.