On Saturday, June 16, at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s 21Minus event, 20-year-old North side poet and rapper Tati debuts her first performance-art piece, Luvpotion—the result of a year’s worth of emotional trauma, self-care, and spiritual growth. She’s been writing raps (and rapping for her friends) since elementary school, but her first public performance as a rapper was only about a year and a half ago—part a rapid transformation during which she’s brought several of her private artistic pursuits onto public stages.
The first time she rapped in public was at an event put on by south-side arts collective Las Topo Chicas in December 2017. She shuffled onto the stage with a disclaimer—”This is my first time doing this, so if it’s trash, don’t roast me too badly”—but the response was overwhelmingly positive. That performance was a major step in what she calls her “bad bitch evolution.”
“This is queer art, this is brown art, this is black art,” she says. “In every piece I loudly mention my queerness, my brownness, my spirituality.” But as important as her identity is to her art, Tati doesn’t want Luvpotion to be only about her struggles—she wants to help other people find their paths.
