Meet Shantilly: More Than a ‘Cool Girl’

Something unequivocally enchanting, deliciously experimental, and musically profound emerges from L.A.’s music scene… Meet Shantilly T, a one-of-a-kind rising star. They are a Black, queer nonbinary artist whose music sits somewhere between eerie lo-fi pop and soulful R&B sounds. Intrigued? Before reading on, why not check out Shantilly’s most recent hit on YouTube: “Cool Girl.”

So, Shantilly. Where does your story begin? 

It’s funny, my family says that I was singing since I was talking. My whole life, I was like, “I’m gonna be a singer when I grow up,” and I’ve never really thought anything different. I sang in church. I feel like it’s very obvious that I’m a theatre kid. It’s just been a lifelong thing.

What inspires your music? 

Most of the time, I just write about the things that happen in my life. I can sometimes be inspired by movies and stuff like that. I hope to one day get to the point where I’m one of those songwriters that can just make up a story and then write about it, but most of the time, it’s, ‘Here’s the latest trauma; let’s unpack it’.”

How has your music been an outlet for you?

“I think that it’s a form of therapy, and it’s honestly the best way for me to process stuff. I’m not really good at keeping a journal or meditating. The easiest thing for me is sit down with the guitar and just write stuff. Even if most of the stuff is unsalvageable, at least I’m getting something out, you know?”

Photo Credit: @reyyeszz

How has your creation process developed?

My first EP was all me. I sat down in my room and taught myself how to play the piano and learned how to be a producer. I was trying to work with other producers, but men in the music industry are terrifying sometimes. So I was like, you know what, fuck this. I’m just gonna do this by myself. And then for this latest EP, I actually met a lot of really cool people. I have one song, “Out of Reach,” which is completely produced by a friend of mine, Voltaire Slapadelic, who is very talented. And then my audio engineer, Danny, added guitars and bass to all of the songs.”

What has your biggest struggle been thus far? 

Probably me. It’s really interesting. A lot of my friends are like, “I don’t know anyone who’s gonna go after something and, like, complete it like you do,” but most of the time I feel like I’m paralyzed by fear.

I think it’s just me getting in my own head and internalizing all of the nonsense that we have in our society. It’s hard like being a Black artist, being a queer artist, and the things that come with being nonbinary—all of that already creates a struggle. And then I internalize all the things that people throw at me, and I’m thinking, “I don’t know if I can do this.” But we’re making it through.

Will you share how you came to realize your identity?

It’s such an interesting journey beyond and even now, I feel like I’m still discovering stuff about myself. But ever since I was little, my family thought I was really different. I grew up in a family of all boys. I always did a lot of “boy stuff,” but then I still felt really in touch with a lot of feminine things. I grew up going to church a lot, and I think that made it a lot harder to deal.

As a middle schooler or high schooler, I was really struggling to figure out like my sexuality. It’s so much of, ‘This is your gender,” and, “This is the gender you like.” But I didn’t quite understand my own gender and therefore couldn’t even figure out what the hell I was supposed to feel for other people. In college, I started going to the LGBTQ Center, and I met nonbinary people for the first time. It took me a while to like come out, but once I did, I was like, “Cool, this is who I am now.” It just felt like coming home, y’know?”

What has been the most gratifying part of your music career so far?

I would say the moments where I feel like people really see me and what I’m trying to say. Or when I have a show and I have someone come up after and be like, “Oh, this lyric really stuck with me,” or, “You said this, and it helped me get through something that I was going through.” Every time that happens, I’m just like, “Woah.”

There’s been much conversation about your release “Cool Girl” circulating lately. Care to weigh in?

I put this song out, and I actually was really nervous. I was really proud of it. And then right before it came out, I was like, is this song, like, too plain? Are the lyrics not deep enough? Or boring? But then it came out, and people started saying a lot of things that I found really interesting. For me, I wrote “Cool Girl” about being hyper-femme before realizing and coming out as nonbinary. And so to me, the song is about how damaging gender norms for woman were to me.

I have been getting misgendered a lot more (since the release), which has been interesting. But hearing from other nonbinary people, trans wome,n and other gender nonconforming people, and their experience with the song has been really cool. With the music video, I was trying to do a horror aesthetic; I wish it was a little bit different than how it came out, but I’m still really proud of it. There’s not really a lot of Black women in horror movies, especially not as, like, the antagonist. So I didn’t realize that I was creating something that perhaps has not existed yet, and that like people wouldn’t quite get it.

When I was younger, I wanted to be a pioneer. I wanted to make stuff that’s different. And then as I got older I just wanted to make stuff that I like. Now, I just want to make cool stuff.

Check out Shantilly on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify, or Apple Music. And grab tickets for their next show from @queeredsound on Instagram!