The Past Presents: N3PTUNE
Interviewed & Edited by Tommy Clift in 2022.
The Past Presents is a series highlighting artists from the denver undergound magazine, Worldview’s predecessor. These are some of N3PTUNE’s words directly from the conversation.
I literally come from a family of fashion. So I wasn’t allowed—it made sense that wasn’t allowed to dress how I wanted to dress. My great grandma was a seamstress. So if she was wearing it, she probably made it. You didn’t go anywhere without looking good. So because my mom was scared that eventually I was gonna tell her that I wanted boobs and a fucking vagina, because she’s just closed minded… just toxic Christianity was just permeated and just ingrained in her to the point where she doesn’t think for herself. So I wasn’t allowed to dress how I wanted to. “Oh, girls dress like that; you can’t dress like that. You going to hell if you dress like that.” There was always some bullshit.
That was petrifying to dress how I wanted cuz I was like, fuck, what are people gonna think? (Laughing). Most people would actually tone it down with those thoughts. The only way that I was about to dress how I wanted was to scare the shit out of myself. So I’d wear incredibly skimpy clothes in the most unconventional spaces. I would literally be going to hip-hop events dressed in a fucking leotard and seven-inch boots and a mask. People’d be just looking around: “Who the fuck is that?”
Life is a performance, music is a performance. It’s a visceral thing. It’s only visceral when it’s visual… even if you close your eyes, you see something. It’s a matter of if it actually excited them or not. I hear a song, I’m like, geez, I see myself in nine-inch stripper heels, right? Some latex fucking catsuit, this huge hat, and gloves with large fucking nails on them. Those are the things I think about when I hear music. Most people just think of this meadow with a sunset, maybe the ocean. I just see fashion.
The first ever music I heard was gospel and blues. I wasn’t allowed to listen to the music that I wanted, so everything I heard was gospel, blues, soul, R&B. I was introduced to much older music. But when I heard pop music, I was like, woah, I want to put that on that… when I’m famous, I’m gonna put gospel and blues on pop music.
I realized I had even in my head started saying, I’m gonna wait to do this, I’ma wait to do this, I’ma wait to do this. And then life fucking changed entirely, and I was like, I’m gonna start making what I want to make now. I’m not gonna wait until I’m famous to start doing shit. If I’m able to do it, I’m just gonna do it.
When COVID first hit that’s the first time people were starting to talk about Blackness in music more, to be black in music and not just piddle paddle around it. For a good amount of time, I had to wait, and when talking with my friends, I was like, I can’t just talk about certain things yet… I’m already a Black dude in platforms dressed like a streetwalker at these shows. I do too much and I’m gonna not be received at all. But I stopped giving a fuck after a certain point. After being in the gay community here for so long, which is the toxic white gays and the entire nation of people here that just kiss their ass. Being in the circles that I was in and who was coming to the shows, I hadn’t made it blatant enough that I’m not tolerating that, you know, I’m Black—say it, bitch—you scared of that.
For some reason protesting helped my music career, I guess. Kind of weird, but it did. I call it white guilt (laughing). I was performing a bunch during 2020. Coming into 2021, I quit my job after a crazy couple months, almost died twice in a three-month period. Got COVID and was locked in the house for two and a half weeks and that two and a half weeks changed my fucking life. Literally, the day after they were like, “you’re good,” I was like, cool I’m sitting in the house for one more day. I actually had a show that I was supposed to do. Did that live stream show and had a whole new outlook on life. Shortly after I quit my job, moved out, gave all my shit away, moved into my best friend’s house, and I have been non-stop since May of 2021.
Going into quarantine, I was just going to protest but then that translated to my music. I’m not talking about anything unless—misery loves company is a prime example—that has nothing to do with blackness at all. The song itself at some point, that song, it’s gonna sound black. But then coming into 2021 actually, yeah that changed my outlook entirely. Everything came full circle. I learned the hard way that I can’t be an artist all the time, and that I can stop to have a personal life. That’s stuff that I’m still not comfortable with fully. 2020 really fucking sucked. I wasn’t in a good headspace at all. A lot of people came out of it with a bag and they managed their money well. Personally, I was not granted that luxury cuz my job cut my fucking hours. The person I was living with just got toxic as fuck. It was exhausting, and their energy made you feel bad to be happy. It got bad.
2020, that’s when it escalated, that was my last suicide attempt. I was pretty much over it, and I purposefully called the person who I thought would not answer the phone. If they don’t answer I’m going according to plan, and literally on the last ring the person answered. I was almost let down that the person had—that’s how I knew it was really bad—I was let down that the person actually answered. So that was one of the moments where I was out of it for days. I think March 2021 was definitely the lowest, but I mean I’m an artist. I’m working on being healthier all around.
My life did an entire 360 in less than a month. The change hasn’t even been in an entire year. Even from March 2021—the fact that it’s coming up on a year, mind-blowing. It’s ironic, I actually play a show the same day as the attempt was. I had tried to almost predict and be in those low moments. I was always in low moments hoping that was the break and something was about to happen and everything was gonna change. And it was not the fucking case. That and being sick with something that is killing thousands of people across the entire world I was like, wow, I kind of want to take over the entire world now… Let’s do that…
