{"id":62475,"date":"2021-12-03T18:14:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T18:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62475"},"modified":"2021-12-06T16:03:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T16:03:25","slug":"in-hip-hop-and-academia-mystic-defines-her-own-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62475","title":{"rendered":"In Hip-Hop and Academia, Mystic Defines Her Own Success Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hip-Hop and Academia, Mystic Defines Her Own Success Story<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

KQED<\/a>
\nSan Francisco, California
\n2021-12-01<\/p>\n

Nastia Voynovskaya<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Editor<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Mystic<\/a> surprised the world by walking away from a record deal after her successful debut album<\/a>. But for her, it was all part of the plan to create and be of service, completely on her own terms. (Nastia Voynovskaya\/KQED<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mystic<\/a> sits in her backyard on the kind of warm, autumn afternoon that makes people remark at how good it is to live in Oakland, California<\/a>. Dappled light shines through a lush canopy of persimmon<\/a>, fig<\/a> and guava<\/a> trees. Her pet lovebird<\/a> chirps in the distance, and she\u2019s snacking on almonds between Zoom<\/a> calls with young musicians she mentors.<\/p>\n

This is the veteran hip-hop<\/a> artist\u2019s little oasis, away from the unruliness of the city, where she ponders the changing seasons of life, love and art.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good time for reflection. The recent loss of her longtime close friend and Digital Underground<\/a> collaborator, Shock G<\/a>, shook her deeply. That, and the grief of living during a global pandemic<\/a>, prompted her to listen inward and ask herself what would fulfill her soul right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, shouldn\u2019t we be doing what we love? Isn\u2019t it the time now?\u201d she asks in her naturally poetic cadence, lowering her voice into a near-whisper. Then, she starts to get louder and more passionate, as if proclaiming a manifesto: \u201cIf we\u2019re artists, and art is part of our healing journey, then we should all be making art right now, right? There should be art flooding our speakers and our museums and our buildings, right? Public art<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for Mystic, one of the roles of hip-hop as a public art form is to bring traumas out of darkness and into the light, where they can be examined and processed\u2014maybe even let go\u2014in communion with others. That\u2019s the power of her classic album Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom<\/em><\/a>, whose 20th anniversary Mystic is celebrating this year. She recently took ownership of the master recordings and put out a podcast series<\/a> looking back at its creation. Now, she\u2019s gearing up for a vinyl<\/a> rerelease in December.<\/p>\n

From the outside, it might look like Mystic is recommitting to her art after years of focusing on her other loves: academia and teaching. After Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom<\/em> was released to great acclaim, she walked away from a record deal and took a different path that brought her to UC Berkeley and, eventually, the University of Oxford for her master\u2019s degree in education. For years, she spent more time in kindergarten classrooms than on stage in front of fans. But to Mystic, these multiple pursuits are all part of one continuous quest to create, express and be of service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes life to make art,\u201d she texts me after one of our conversations. \u201cThere are times of input and times of output. I take my time for input, and that includes healing, living, loving, working with children, school and community. When my art is ready to be born, that is output. That is all 😉.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mystic surprised the world by walking away from a record deal after her successful debut album. But for her, it was all part of the plan to create and be of service, completely on her own terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1245,2895,8,20,25],"tags":[455,2540,13063,32604,32577,1392,32576,32575,18255],"class_list":["post-62475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-biography","category-campus-life","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-california","tag-hip-hop","tag-kqed","tag-mandolyn-ludlum","tag-mandolyn-wind-ludlum","tag-music","tag-mystic","tag-nastia-voynovskaya","tag-oakland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62475"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62540,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475\/revisions\/62540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}