Tajh
Portrait with Roy Morrison
Description: A young man blends into a cosmic background depicting the earth, sun, planets, and other celestial bodies. He wears a black shirt with the lettering “Rare’’ on his chest. Behind him, there is a question mark and an Om symbol.
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“I feel like I always had that little bit of creativity in me. When I was really young, I did karate, drawing, and swimming. My grandma always helped me to stay out of trouble and made sure I wasn't being stagnant. My first creative art experience started with dancing when I was in eighth grade. I went to the Apollo and saw a break-dance convention which sparked the idea of becoming a dancer. I danced from eighth grade through sophomore year of high school. Junior year was when I figured out that I liked rap, so I started making music. I pursued that all the way up until this year; when I realized there's a lot of corruption going on in the music and entertainment industry. I kind of know what road you have to go down if you want to make it in that business, and I don't want to do that.
On the other hand, I still draw. I just recently bought an iPad, so now I do digital art too. I like to do ‘woke’ drawings and a lot of customization. When I draw something, I'll change certain aspects or add to it to give people a look into my mind. I’m also getting into a lot of historical art. For example, I started drawing the Egyptian Gods recently.
Junior year, my consciousness started to shift. I had a really close friend that introduced me to astral projection which changed the course of my life. I dived into the whole spiritual realm, and started learning about everything from chakras to different levels of consciousness, and dimensions. If my friend never told me about that, I feel like I wouldn’t be the person I am today.
2020 has been probably the best year, despite all that we've been through. It has been my best year for learning new hobbies and doing a lot more for myself. I’ve raised my consciousness so much this year and persevered through things that bought other people down.
If you ask me how I identify, I feel everything is really about the soul and the way you perceive yourself and reality. The way that you look at, think, and feel about the world around you is what's going to manifest. Lowkey, I don't even really look at myself as a human being. I'm a multi-dimensional spiritual being having a human experience.
As far as being young, I find people use their young age as an excuse to get away with things. I've never been that person. People don't even believe me when I tell them I'm twenty. They think I’m like twenty-seven. I don’t carry myself like such a young person. Other people may not perceive me this way if I were walking down the street but, for me personally, in the last year I haven't paid too much attention to people. I have such an inner peace with myself that I really don't care about what others think. If I get stares or someone's looking at me, I always see them as a good thing. There's a reason why people are attracted to me. Random strangers come up and talk to me, ask me questions, give me thumbs ups— this happens to me all the time. I feel like I am raising my vibration and people around me feel that energy and are attracted to it.
On the other end of the spectrum, there's a lot of people who will perceive me differently just because I'm black, have dreads, a lot of tattoos, and even sometimes for what I’m wearing. I’m not sure how that can be changed other than an internal change inside the person and some people are a little too far gone. They're so stuck in their ways that they're just not meant to wake up in this lifetime and that’s ok.
But everybody kind of makes their little judgments. I feel like I used to be like that a little bit. I try not to, with the best of my ability. In my head, I'll catch myself doing it, but then I realize I don't know that person. I don't know what they've been through or could be going through so I try my best not to be ‘judgy’.
Something I am most proud of about myself is that I didn't let social constructs control me and I didn't let myself become a product of my environment. I grew up in LeFrak, Queens by 57th Avenue during my younger years of life. It’s not too bad now, but it hasn’t always been this calm. There was a lot of shootings, violence, candle lights on the block, and drug dealing. A lot of people end up just falling into that cycle because that's what they see in the neighborhood. It's even pushed by the media and celebrities, promoting what happens in the hood and making it seem trendy. They're not really helping the situation.
It wasn’t just me though who contributed to my character. My grandma put me in private school which helped me with my own mindset— kind of making sure I didn't fall into that. I always just thought for myself. I feel like I've always been different. I was on my own spiritual path and didn’t fall into the social norms. I'd say that's a big takeaway for me and I'm so happy about that. My spiritual growth has really changed my life and The law of attraction has worked for me like crazy. That’s something that I'm most proud about.”
New York, 2020