Zine 39: Alayisha

FOR THE BELOW ZINE, MY MESSAGES ARE IN WHITE. ALAYISHA’S RESPONSES ARE IN BLACK FONT. OUT OF MY BODY AND SHE KNOWS ARE THE TITLES OF SONGS BY ALAYISHA.

I wish I knew ingredients and plants more. I wish my thesaurus of tangible comparisons was as wide as needed to capture Alayisha’s voice. It doesn’t do her justice to describe it as honey. That warm, satiating golden goo that lets us know someone’s voice is smooth and sweet to the taste. Like that era of female vocalists that soundtracked every boutique’s store playlist on loop. Alayisha has the foundations of the Joss Stones, Corinne Bailey Rae’s and Norah Jones we all grew up dancing to fast forwarded into the reality of existing. She goes down like honey, and she turns problems into fresh vanilla. Suddenly, the depression and insecurities that some of us face can are reflected back as Alayisha opening her arms to give you a big hug. I guess my weird trains of thought have decided that when it comes to her, nature’s organic sweetness is the theme. When we talked, she did one of my favorite things. She delved into processing. The questions I gave her were like missions etched in stone. She took them on as if an epic adventure from the days of oral literature. This truly is a glimpse into her mind and I think we’ll all feel at home very quickly. 

Alayisha’s music

Alayisha on insta

Alayisha on tiktok

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Baby Ballou: what was your first out of body experience?

Alayisha: this question made me realize, I guess my first out of body experience was probably in ninth grade. When I experienced my first real case of depression, you know, I had some issues with my friends when one of my friends moved away. My parents split up, so my dad was living with me. I wasn't doing amazing in school. I kinda just, I don't know. I didn't feel like I was supposed to be there. I felt really numb. I didn’t really care about anything. I was kinda just floating. I even remember at one point, for a good couple of days, I decided ‘I'm just not gonna smile.’ That was my first experience, but it wasn't actually the experience that influenced the song. What actually inspired the song was me actually going into my second my second deepest depression. About two years ago; a year after I graduated from high school, my boyfriend went to college and I just really did not understand the purpose of life. I like had death around me, a young kid I knew died at the school I was at, my great-grandma died and it was just, it was a lot and I just felt very numb and felt like I was just watching myself do shit.  

Bb: thank you for trusting me with that vulnerability at the first question out the gate. I feel like a lot of people, especially those who don’t have depression, associate out of body with like an amazing high or with a near death experience. Like immediate and short term. It’s really important to hear about experiences like yours. What first came to you for the song? A lyric? A melody?

Alayisha: I didn't even think about it that way about people thinking of it like a high, but honestly, when I was trying to explain it to people and kind of how I felt, I kind of realized it felt like I was drunk to be honest. Like it literally felt like I'm kind of watching over my body and I'm very like aware of like the stupid shit I'm doing. I mean, I get the highness and I guess it's kind of like that. Just not like in a good way. I don't think I do it in a weird way, but most of the time I write chorus first and to be honest, I don't remember writing the song. I think I kind of blocked it out because like I said, it was such a bad time. I kinda just sung how I felt in the melody just came along with it. Um, yeah. And I feel like that's of really how I write . The words just flow out with the melody kind of at the same time and maybe over time, it's a little bit, you know, different, but yeah. 

Bb: You have this almost haunting and nightmare experience leading to out of my body, then later last year you released She Knows with its delectable layered vocals, how did the creation of she knows differ from out of body

Alayisha: It's definitely different; I feel like when I wrote out of my body,, I kinda was asking like, why is this happening? But not even fully. I was kind of just focusing on the feeling itself versus why exactly I was feeling the way I was feeling. And I feel like when I wrote she knows it was just literally why I feel out of my body. she knows is kind of like the answer to why I was feeling the way I was feeling and kind of just accepting where I am and I feel like, and out of my body it was also accepting, like they were both accepting, but out of my body it was like accepting, but not thinking there was a way to change it or there was like a positivity to it. It just felt like this was it that's it there's nothing to change it, but she knows, I just feel like there was like, you know, like a little glimmer of hope. Like, oh my God, I could be optimistic. I feel these ways about myself, but that could change. I feel like it kinda just showed me the root of basically all my problems and that is my self-esteem. Ayy hashtag therapy haha.  Um, and yeah, I just feel like, I don't know. It was like having an epiphany  versus just, you know, being observant of how the life kind of sucked at the time.

Bb: I loved hearing you process in real time. That was so interesting. Thank you. It sounds like what you’re saying is the two songs came from similar foundations, out of body was about accepting and she knows is more about embracing. What’re some of the roots of your self esteem issues?

Alayisha: One thing that definitely affected me was like growing up, I went to a school where we were basically graded based on performance, like when we gave like presentations, raised our hand and all that stuff. And I was very shy. I still am very shy. I'm, personally, not putting myself in the spotlight, believe it or not. And I'd rather people not look at me. And so going to a school that kind of, you know, loves that. I feel like I was always being told like ‘Hey, you need to speak your voice.’ And like, that's something my mom would always hear during like parent teacher conferences. And she'd be like, ‘Ugh, you're doing great. But you need to work on this.’ And also not even doing great because my grades were honestly not amazing, but I felt like people basically would never see the good in it, which never helped. And I feel like because of that, that's kind of like my inner voice where even though things are going great and I want to embrace all the positive and all that, I'm just like, but you didn't do this. You didn't do this. You didn’t do this even though like things are going good. And on top of that, I am an ex people pleaser still working on that. I'm getting a lot better at not people pleasing because I had that tied to my self esteem. I feel like my self esteem just issues come from just, you know, always being told something's not right. And maybe that I should change and do better and be better even though who I am is good enough. And just never basically being told that I'm good enough is really the root of it all. And like, I'm really trying to process that me being me and at the bare minimum living and being a human is good enough. And now I'm going to tear up because like it's so hard to process and I'm really not there. I thought I was. Also I wanna say I like the way you phrase, uh, your sentence of saying how out of my body was accepting and she was more embracing. I never really thought, I honestly haven't thought about this before you asked this question. So just thank you. Honestly, giving me another light into my mental health and just like, you know, the process of being a human and like going through all these emotions and just like growing to be a better person. But yeah, it is, it is about accepting

Bb: Wowowow that was so truly open and honest. I’m sorry to hear about you’re ever feeling enough. We’re kind of yin yang. I was always made to feel like I was too much (liability by Lorde plays and I cry) and I was really anxious about taking tests and stem subjects so I would actually go out of my way to speak up in class cause it was the only way I felt I could make people believe I was at the same level as them. Our education really doesn’t allow for much more than like three experiences and a lifetime of useless facts and boundless trauma. It’s interesting that you don’t like the spotlight, I know other artists who feel the same and I get it. But I like to hear people’s own views, how do you reconcile doing music/being a musician with not having that performer addiction. We’re so used to hearing artists on big studio tours talking about how this is what makes it all worth it. It can make us forget about all the labor and love that goes into the album itself. What would you say to people who might respond “wait, what? You can’t be a musician and not like to be on stage.”

Alayisha: I mean, I think honestly I don't really tie being a musician into performing. I don't think I ever have. I mean, when I was younger and I decided I wanted to be a singer, before I decided that was not realistic and I should be a writer or something like that. I don't know. Like I, I just grew up with singing music and I never thought like people being on stage. I do like to perform kind of ish. When I'm on stage, after all the nerves and like horrible stomach issues and after the first couple of songs and I let loose, then I like to be on stage and I don't mind, but yeah, it definitely don't have an addiction to it. Nothing in me is like, oh, you got to perform again. Definitely not. Um, and I feel like the best part of my part for me is doing the work that goes into the album and like going into the song and the preparation and like, just like getting the word out. That's the part that I love the most. I feel like show moments are amazing moments. They're very rare and great, but I feel like it's even cooler when you're a part of someone's daily regimen. You're a part of their life daily and you're in their playlist and stuff like that.

Bb: I totally get what you mean about concerts. I minored in music, I’m involved with musicians in different aspects, I love shows, I love music. But I don’t ever feel a longing to go to a show for a band I don’t know. I LOVE finding new music but I love hearing it and cleaning my kitchen to it and smoking a joint to it. That’s how I fall in love with music, and then a concert is like consummation. We’ve been talking on some more somber experiences. Talk to me about happiness. What makes you happy? What’s been bringing you joy lately?

Alayisha: That is a tricky question. A couple of things make me happy actually. My family makes me really happy. Having a really good conversation with my boyfriend. Music definitely still makes me happy, even though there are definitely a lot of stressful moments. But when I'm not thinking about posting on social media or how I'm gonna market this and all that stuff; when it’s just writing that song that describes exactly how I feel is like the best feeling ever. And um, also like one-on-one conversations with people. I'm not really into groups, I'm more of a deep conversation for hours kind of person. And that makes me really happy when I have a really, really good conversation, which doesn't happen - have good conversation - but not like that too often. Like I said before, like I've been going through a moment. I've been going outside a lot and just like getting that sunlight has definitely helped with my mental health. I've been really into binge watching shows and just like telling myself it's okay to not to do anything. I've been doing that for some months now. I’ve been doing TikTok lives every once in a while, sometimes I do it consistently and sometimes I'll disappear and come back, but like finding like the right people on TikTok and the right moment. And sometimes it's off and sometimes it's really on, on Tik TOK lives, but they, those actually make me really happy, especially when I get to like express my gratitude because I don't know, just like, um, having people like message me sometimes I've been a little disassociated lately, it's hard for me to be like, ‘you are a person.’ It makes it more human, you know, to like, see someone right then and there in that time and like be able to like go back and forth versus like seeing a comment and then five hours later, me responding. I just like hearing about peoples story and them talking about themselves and what they believe in and their life. Literally, I had a conversation with someone and we were complete strangers and we ended up on a zoom call together; hearing their story, comparing because we’re two different people yet we had all these similarities. A good conversation is when we’re both mutually talking about our lives and our beliefs.