CLIFTUN

floating out in space. We’re all from time to time executing the same ideas in some form or fashion. It’s just something that happens as artists, even as human beings. You just have to accept it and not get mad at it. It’s part of the game. Instead of getting mad at me, I’d look at the situation like, I’m somebody you should want to reach out to. If anything, we have something in common. We should fuck with each other. We clearly have had some similar ideas. We should link and build.” But you know, not everybody has that understanding, which is fine. The whole situation was funny to me. I wasn’t mad at all. I was cracking up. Honestly, I was just like, “wow, shout out to him…he’s got die-hards in my comment section.”

When truly creating pieces of pure expression, the outcomes and reception are often varied, as Cliftun has most recently experienced and always unknown until the moment of delivery and then still actually continue to shift to be interpreted differently throughout time. This unpredictability is a central piece to any creative process. When speaking of his own process, Cliftun zealously proclaims, “I love every bit of it — from the idea, to the execution, to actually being present for the happy accidents to occur…that’s what keeps me doing it. I especially fuck with the surprises that pop up during execution throughout the journey of creation. In one way, things come out how you envision, but at the same time not at all; that’s what I love about the game. You never fully know what you’re going to get.” It can be argued that the surrender to the outcome is what gives enough space for the true magic to manifest itself as art to then be enjoyed by and impact whoever connects with it.

Not only is art created for people to appreciate, but it’s therapeutic for the creator on a multitude of levels. Cliftun states that, “it’s how I process things. I take whatever it is and interpret it in my own way. That’s how my track that I dropped last fall, “Whole Year Been Halloween,” was created. It’s how I felt about being black in America and relating that to a horror movie. This shit is scary and crazy. That’s how I like to create though, taking the past and present and just making it extra.”

“My father’s death changed my creative expression deeply. It gave me something of importance to talk about. It gave me a responsibility. It also gave me another layer of purpose. ”

Cliftun has been using this healing technique his entire life, but it’s played more of a colossal role over the past decade when processing the death of his father to gun violence during a robbery which occurred on September 23, 2010 in the barbershop that he owned. As time went on, knowingly or unknowingly to him, a plan developed around his music incorporating his healing. He’s been creating installments known as “Acts” under an umbrella of an overarching idea named “The Poetry in Violence.” He recently released, “The Poetry in Violence Presents a Fucking Intermission” with a deluxe version following very soon. At the beginning of the intermission, Cliftun teaches his listeners how to make a strawberry, banana, and psychedelic mushroom smoothie. Once drank, the real journey begins. Each track on the album transports listeners to varied worlds and is a signified by each song being of a different genre. Act 1, his album that dropped in February 2019 focuses on his interpretation of gun violence and mental health. He says, “I created a whole world around it. I turned Cupid into a masked maniac with a gun. I find my own ways to make sense of the world around me. It’s a way to escape but still deal with the issues of the present. It really helps me process. My father’s death changed my creative expression deeply. It gave me something of importance to talk about. It gave me a responsibility. It also gave me another layer of purpose. I can connect with and support people who have gone through something similar, and it also creates a way for people that haven’t to broaden their horizons and learn about gun violence. The entire ordeal only made me better. When something traumatic happens, you can either allow it to fuck you up completely and put you in a dark, dark place, or you can find some light and beauty in such an ugly situation. Ugly can always be found in life though, point blank, period. Bad stuff is always going to happen. It’s all about how you deal with it and find the poetry in the violence. I had to find the beautiful words that could come out of such an ugly situation — gun violence and loss of life. I had to make it my own, take back the trauma, and turn it into a triumph. I had to do that. I hope to inspire others to take the weight and the darkness out of a traumatic experience. Extract the power and be fueled by it.”

It’s interesting how many things can fuel us, for good, evil, or simply in the name of exploration. Last year, a growing number of psilocybin users spent the lockdown consistently microdosing their way to expansive expression into the unknown corners of their minds, hearts, and spirits. 

“Like I said earlier, 2020 normalized microdosing for so many. Literally everybody was on mushrooms. I loved how it’s being used and appreciated in a medicinal way. I’m really an advocate for them because I think it can help with so much psychological warfare that we all go through. I also think it’s so important to take our mental health into consideration and take care of ourselves and each other,” shares the artist in-between swigs out of his straw. 

“During the quarantine I also took a lot of time to challenge myself and grow in skills where I’ve been saying for years, “I wish I could do this…I wish I could do that,” and I’m tired of being on that. I realized I just need to attack things instead of being stuck in the “I wish I could” loop. I’m learning the skills I always wanted to learn but never took the time to learn. At the same time, I’m also in the space of perfecting things. There are a lot of things I already know how to do but could be a lot better at. We can always be better. You feel me?” lays out Cliftun.

After coming into contact with his philosophies, understanding his perspectives, and interacting with his music and visuals, it’s so clear to see that Cliftun is an artist with about as little amount of inhibitions as humanly possible which act as the lifeline within his channel of raw creation. He’s a limitless artist fully committed to and successfully living up to his promise of reflecting the times, by telling the stories of these times. — S 03/31/21