Interview: Wavy The Creator Is Ready to See You Now

A trip canceled, plans interrupted, projects stalled. It is six months now since Wavy the Creator has had to make a stop at an undisclosed location to go into quarantine and get away from the eye of the pandemic.

The professional recording artist, photographer, writer, fashion artist, designer, and evolving creative has been spending all of this time in a house occupied by other creatives. This situation is ideal. At least for an artist like Wavy who is always in a rapid motion of creating and bringing interesting things to life. The energy around the house is robust enough to tap from and infuse into any of her numerous creative outlets. Sometimes, they also inspire trips into new creative territories. Most recently, for Wavy, are self-taught lessons on a bass guitar.

Wavy's days in this house are not without a pattern, of course. But some of the rituals and personal rules she drew up for herself, like many of us did for internal direction, at the beginning of the pandemic have been rewritten, adjusted, and sometimes ditched altogether. Some days start early and end late. Some find her at her sewing machine fixing up thrift clothes to fit her taste, a skill she picked up to earn extra cash while in college, others find her hard at work in the studio, writing or recording music.

Photo: Jhey Too Cool

One thing is sure though: Wavy is always going to be up to something. It can be new information that has sparked her curiosity or a trip back to an already mastered skill, whatever it is though, it has to be creative and it most certainly has to represent her person.

As we talk over Zoom, her background is a neon outer-space-themed wallpaper she'd randomly picked out some months back, in her arms a pink soft-looking giraffe toy, her shoulder length braids artfully cradling silver coloured beads and falling over an oversized Orange shirt. Her otherworldliness is as undeniable as it is positively striking.

We speak to Wavy on life during quarantine, her latest single, her fashion, wearing more silver, working with her different creative talents and how like many of us, she is simply doing what we have all been grappling with since the beginning of the pandemic: constantly learning how to thrive at the face of a possible, cosmic ending.

Read our conversation with Wavy The Creator below.

Photo: Jhey Too Cool

As a creative, I feel like the pandemic and having to stay in one place for a while has presented an opportunity for self-discovery and has helped us really depend on art in many ways. Is this also true for you?

Certainly. The pandemic has forced a lot of people to be by themselves and try and figure out who they are, what they like, what they don't like and what they have to accept about themselves. Because I haven't been able to travel as much this year, I have had time to be by myself and enjoy everything that I come with. And I feel like art has also helped me understand that everything that I am is creation. So whatever feeling or emotion, happiness, sadness, it stems from inside me and helps me get through by infusing them into creations.

You've talked about being in a phase where you are trying to find balance for all of your creative outlets, how is that working?

Wavy: I haven't yet been able to explore that or do as much, again because of the pandemic, but from the little I've been able to do, I've realized that I don't need to separate everything I do, because they are all a part of me. The goal now is to fuse them and make everyone understand that I am not just a photographer, or a musician, I am a creative. I've dabbled into a lot of things before I started at music, so it makes sense to see myself as a creator and not just one thing. Music is a very jealous craft, it's like your last born and it requires a lot of love and attention. So it is important to me to find a perfect balance so one part of me doesn't suffer. For example, when working on a project, I can use all other stuff I am good at. Maybe I direct my own video, or design the clothes I am going to wear and I feel like as my music grows, all of my creative outlets will grow along with it.

Photo: Jhey Too Cool

Can you talk a little about your latest single "Black Card"? The track is considerably more inventive with sound and comes with an interesting Afrobeats twist.

Wavy: I recorded "Black Card" during quarantine in a studio here in the house. I was always recording back to back, we were in lockdown and plans were fast changing and I was just experiencing a lot of emotions and going through some stuff. So I decided to just sing, write music and better my skills as a songwriter. DJ Breezy pulled up in the house, we recorded two songs and "Black Card" was one of them. I recorded verse two of the song before anything else, and I was like 'yo this is really sick', it was a really different form of writing that I've done on any of the track I was recording. After writing the second verse and hook, the song didn't quite feel finished to me so I sent it to my manager, who worked on it with another producer, they sent back a new version and it turned out that I loved both, so we decided to put both of them out with some changes added to the second one with PsychoYp. I just want to see what people vibe to and see how they react to these two options.

How did you come about the schedule you drew up for yourself at the beginning of the pandemic and do you still stick to it?

Wavy: When the pandemic was crazy and quarantine just started, I had a schedule of wake up at 8am, do my prayers and say my affirmations. Clean up my room a little bit, I try to clean up my room everyday, I think I have OCD that only people around me know about. I used to work out the night before, but I haven't done that in a while. Now I still make schedules to be fair, mostly because I like to know that there is some sort of guide for my day that I can go back to, but right now, I just wing it, whatever happens, happens. Anything can come up.

Photo: Jhey Too Cool

Your fashion has a certain artistry to it, an individualism that is as authentic as it is aesthetically considered, what drives that vibe?

Wavy: I see myself as a canvas and I like to dress shit up and make me look good. There was a point in my life when I liked to just wear black, and then there were times when I started to incorporate colour. For me it feels like I am playing dress up everyday. Even when I am home, I wear my accessories, my rings, just to feel good. I always tell my friends that you never know what's going to happen, you never know who you're going to meet, someone might want to take a photo or something so you always have to look great. I also like to put things together, for instance, I am interested in seeing what happens when I pair denim with leather. I love clothes, I love to buy them, most importantly I love to get clothes for free, just getting that out there. And for me it is something I can really have fun with

Also with fashion, what you wear says a lot about you. That's the first thing people see before they speak to me, it is often the first thing people talk about when they see me. Many times my fashion is the reason why people talk to me. Also as a private person in the creative scene, my fashion makes it helpful because it speaks for me many times and has opened a number of doors for me.