2020
The start of our Music Export Memphis story is kind of funny – the first grant we got was in 2020, it was for an east coast tour we had planned. COVID hit, the tour was cancelled, but Music Export Memphis let all their funded artists keep their grants and use them however they needed. So, we did some recording – the two songs we cut were “Bunkbed” and “Rhodes Avenue,” and “Bunkbed” is the one that kind of put us on the map.
2021
In 2021, we did our first six week run of dates. The goal was like exposure therapy – get us acclimated to touring life as quick as possible. Me and our drummer had done a 10-day stint before, but that was the longest we’d been out and we thought, ‘if we do six weeks, we’ll be road worn, we’ll be ready to start touring for real.’
Everything was new. There was stress but we had no reference point so it was easier to roll with it. And right before that tour we had blown up on Tik Tok with “If you Feel Alone at Parties.” I still have no idea how it really happened, we were just posting Tik Toks with the song and people found it somehow. One of the videos happened to blow up, that made the song blow up. One was just me eating a bao bun in Chinatown in Chicago. It was pure luck. A time before the algorithm got super weird. Any band could do Tik Tok and build a following. It was a perfect storm.
I remember when we played our first SXSW I got asked in an interview, “how does it feel to be a Tik Tok band?”
But because of that, here we are on this first big tour, and people knew our music. In Cleveland we signed someone’s chest. It was crazy. None of us expected that. The whole run of that first record – this isn’t going to work, it won’t get that big. But we sold out of merch on that tour with two weeks left. Had to stop at Michaels and buy fabric spray paint and a bunch of shirts. There’s still people from those cities who come to shows with those shirts – we made them in the parking lot after sound check.
By the time the album came out in 2021 we’d been in Afropunk and Under the Radar, which was a dream. I was doing interviews nonstop all year.
2022
In 2022 we made our second trip to SXSW. Music Export Memphis gave us an Ambassador scholarship that let Anna and Vivian, our management team, buy badges to attend the industry conference. We did Treefort Fest in Boise. Came back and cold emailed Beale Street Music Festival and actually got the gig! We did our first west coast tour. It was brutal but cool.
Went back to the east coast and sold out Brooklyn, 115 people in a 100 cap venue.
We played our third or fourth festival that year, and got to do a Paste Magazine Session there. We also did an NPR Session at a Goodwill! We recorded our second record this year, too, but it would be a while before we put it out.
2023
This was probably the best year to date for Blvck Hippie. We started the year as support on a tour with M.A.G.S. and played for 500 people every night. He’s such an amazing performer that he brought a lot out of us.
We came out of that into our second SXSW and Treefort – got to play the mainstage at Treefort. We were a different beast at that point as a band.
We got an Ambassador grant to do our first European tour this year, and it started rough: our guitarist flaked at the last minute and didn’t make the trip. Between that and being away from home, the language barrier, it took a while to get acclimated. But in Paris our show was like 2 or 300 people, and a French fan asked to come on stage and sing If You Feel Alone at parties. We thought we were going to show up as unknowns – but fans had been listening to our music for so long. Some people, the only English words they knew were Blvck Hippie songs. In Edinburgh a fan was singing the words back to me in tears.
We came out of that tour different. It was five weeks, and we got to go to all of these countries and cities I thought I’d never get to see. We came out of it better. I learned a lot about myself.
Coming off of that, we opened for Making Movies for about a week or so – doing everything we can at this point to seem like we belong here. Getting to learn from M.A.G.S. and Enrique, it was like a master class from two POC performers that were where I wanted to be.
2024
We released our second record, Basketball Camp, and played SXSW – the Music Export Memphis day party with Nine Mile and two other showcases. It was really cool getting to be around Memphis people there – Ya Ya Bey came to see Talibah Safiya, who was also on the MEM line-up, and we had played a Juneteenth festival with her.
The release of Basketball Camp was a huge success helped by the MEM Publicity Grant. Some notable examples of impact were at our D.C., Tampa, and Overton Park Shell shows. All shows were hugely successful and the press features helped get people in the know. Additionally, the playlist exposure we got through the help of our publicist contributed to achieving over 100,000 streams in less than a year.
The album earned praise from FLOOD Magazine, Glide Magazine, WNXP and more. Here’s an excerpt from the review in Add To Want List: “Thematically, this is about finding togetherness and overcoming anxieties and insecurities. Musically, it is a mix of dreamy indie pop melodies, emocore with heartfelt freak-outs, and quite complex jazzy structures. Heavy stuff, at times quite weird, but it’s fascinating how the vocals and instruments search for the balance between introvert and extrovert, switching between control and outbursts, with various beautiful singing styles and spoken word, but also raw screams at the most tense moments. Mesmerizing.”
2025
In March of 2025 we did our second European tour, funded of course by a MEM Ambassador grant. It was another five week run, but we went to different places: Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark. Got paid a lot more. Packed out almost every show. People knew the words, they had been fans for years. Had a fan who wanted to do the rap verse on “Cain and Abel” and we let him up to do it. It rejuvenated us – the end of the album tour in 2024 was rough. In Europe they treat you like stars: They feed you, they put you up. People there from the last time wearing the old merch, buying the new merch.
We’ve been working on the next album since 2024, after SXSW. I’m studying who and where I am as a black artist, and I’m more in touch with myself than I’ve ever been.
In this scene you get some rich kid bands who can take the L, they can play in front of 2 people. We’re the actual DIY. We’re rolling and taping our own tee shirts.
The access to funds from Music Export Memphis is the reason we’ve been able to tour like we have. And the Merch Fund led to us having a long-term relationship with a printer in Memphis who we love. We ran out of merch on a tour once and he mailed it to us!
I’m always proud to say, “We’re Blvck Hippie and we’re from Memphis.” Thank you, Music Export Memphis, and happy 10 years.