Evann McIntosh is a 17 year old singer/songwriter that creates unique sounds across Indie, Funk, and R&B. They have a strong and growing community around them, which has become a safe space for many. In this conversation, we dove beneath the layers of Evann’s careers and shared some introspective moments on what their journey of identity means to them, and where they are going next.
Anushka Joshi:
Thank you for joining us! Why don't you just start off by introducing yourself and telling us who you are?
Evann McIntosh:
My name is Evann McIntosh. I make music for the most part. I live in Kansas.
AJ:
I’ve read that you lived in a lot of different places growing up. How did place and location impact your journey to finding yourself?
EM:
My dad is retired military. So we moved all over the place. I was born in Monterey, California, then we moved to Florida, and then Alabama, and then we lived in Germany. And now we live in Kansas. Being surrounded by different people all the time and having my environment constantly changing matched what was going on internally for me.
Being a queer kid, you're constantly thinking about identity, and you're constantly changing and shifting all the time. Being a kid is constant growth anyway. But I'm constantly trying my hardest not to mold into my environment. I felt like each place that I lived in, I was experiencing resistance to whatever I was being thrown into.
AJ:
I’d love to know more about the journey of exploring your gender identity. When did you begin questioning, and do you feel like you have come to terms with it?
EM:
I haven't come to terms with it yet because it’s going to be something that I explore for the rest of my life, just because it’s so fluid. But questioning my gender identity goes back to some of my first memories. Some of my first strong feelings were fear. Just knowing that there was nothing that I could hide behind at the time, or knowing that if I were to express these emotions that I'm feeling––a lot of people don't feel that way. That set me apart from everyone else and I wouldn’t express those emotions because my cover would be blown and I had so much to hide.
I think I've gotten to a point where I'm comfortable with that aspect of myself. And just acknowledging who I am and taking the time to really learn and be who I am. I feel like for a really long time, I would look for myself in others. Whether that's what they think about me or how they mirror me, or respond to me. And that's so difficult when you're not with a queer person. Now I'm comfortable enough with myself to be able to really go on like this journey of “How do I really feel about myself in relationships with other people?”.
AJ:
I love that idea of constant evolution and revolution of self, and so I don’t think anyone's journey is fully complete. We were talking about the fact that you felt a little bit different from other people growing up, but did you have any clear icons to look up to or anyone who you met where you were like, “Oh, I see myself in you”.
EM:
Yeah, I think the first time that that happened was with Prince. I unfortunately l got into him the month after he passed away because my mom had downloaded the Prince Hits album. He blew my mind. I was in sixth grade, which was one of my most formative years, and he's stuck with me ever since. I thought it was so crazy how he could just be a very fluid, feminine flamboyant man. But anyone who knows him has no question at all that he is who he is. And I thought that was so great. I was obsessed that he could do whatever he wanted to do, all the time.
AJ:
Some of your most impactful influence came from Prince who's an artist as well. So would you mind sharing a little bit about how a fluid identity influences the art you create and what you want to achieve with the music you're putting out?
EM:
Just being who I am and having music be an outlet for me, it just pours into my music naturally. I tend to write when I'm struggling or when I have a strong emotion about something, and it tends to either be all about me and my identity and experiences that I'm struggling with. Especially feeling so isolated in the environment that I'm in because no one around me really has an understanding of queerness, and more so they have a resistance to it. But I realize that’s just how they grew up thinking, so I can’t have high expectations for them to understand where I’m coming from. That's just my personal experience with it. I can't speak for anybody else.
It became like a way of survival to cope with that way of being like, “why do I have these expectations for these people who it's like impossible for them to even begin to understand who I am”. They have never had these struggles in their life so I've got to get out of here, but what I want to achieve is talking about it through music. And I can say what I feel without being questioned and me needing to give an explanation for it can just be questioned and interpreted on its own. But I think if somebody in my position can hear something like that and feel less alone and know that there are greater things––I think that would be the best possible outcome for any music that I make or anything that I do, if it's beneficial for anybody besides me. Because I mean what's the point? I benefit from it because I get to have a career out of my music, but like what's the purpose in my life if I'm just living to make money and then die? I want to connect with people too.
AJ:
Don’t we all––I’m excited to talk about community with you, but before that I want to talk about fluidity in an abstract way. What does that word mean to you?
EM:
Fluidity is everything to me. I embody fluidity more than I embody masculinity. Fluidity is just being capable of making these decisions for myself and owning myself in my own body without having to be questioned by others. Even if it is questioned by other people, it doesn't matter. Because what do they know about? I just don't care. That's how I feel about music today too. Half the time these people saying shit about my music don't make music. So I just don't care about it. But especially with gender identity, my life is constantly changing, and I'm constantly shifting, and that's okay. I don't have to be one thing. Labels are great. And if you're comfortable with a label, that's phenomenal. I've just never found something that I've really felt like I've fit comfortably into, that I could really own. But I'm a creature who's capable of change, and I'm prone to change and it's just always gonna happen. Just knowing and accepting that, that's okay. And if someone else doesn't understand it, why should it matter? I never make a decision in music and be like, this is something that I'm going to do because I have this idea about what it's going to be like. It just tends to happen with influences and things that I think are really cool. It just ends up pouring into my music because it's influenced me and my creative process. I believe that’s how I grow musically, it's just that I listen to more art. I'll soak it up and just spin it back here. But fluidity is growth and change, and it's something that I can be comfortable in.
AJ:
When we talk about fluidity as it relates to growth and change, so much of the world is people living in binaries. When we all subscribe to one story and one narrative in life, we really limit ourselves to specific silos and experience stagnation of our collective potential, I assume. Big question, daydream with me for a second here but, if everyone created their own narrative of identity, what would the world look like, how would the world be? Would we just be happier beings?
EM:
It's hard to even imagine something like that, because the binary is something that's been prioritized in our lives when it comes to gender and society. It's just, this is what a woman looks like. And this is what a man looks like. And this is what a household looks like, when these two people come together. That's something I've always struggled with. I've always wanted to be the man in it, because that's the one that I related to most, if I had to choose. But that's such a heavy transition from one thing to another. And I don't know if that's even something that I really feel. And then you realize that it's not even a real thing that you're looking at. It's just an image. It feels almost like an image created for control. It's hard because everybody believes that. So when you don't fit into something everybody wants to fix and change you so that you look right.
I've had to kill that character in myself because it's an internal struggle of internalized homophobia and anti queerness and being like, I have to look this way, or I'm too strange.
AJ:
Even in nonconforming, there's a pressure to conform! You definitely are a figure that many people look up to, and to my understanding, there are few non binary artists who are rising to such popularity and are able to create a community around them. What does the community around you feel like and mean to you?
EM:
It's a safe space for me because I have an intense fear of having a huge audience because when you grow that fast, you have no time to connect to anybody. And then it's like you’re against a world at that point. I would rather have friends than like a massive group of people. So I know each and every one of them. I talk to them, we check up on each other, and I have a genuine relationship with these people. I've always had the need to connect to the people who want to follow me, and listen to my music, and create fan pages and stuff. It’s crazy. But also, I've never had people think I'm that cool in my environment before because I've never felt right. So if these new people think I'm great, they're also great.
They obviously see something in me that they see in themselves, so I try to get to know them. It's beneficial for me, because I can surround myself with people who have similar thoughts. It all funnels down to this small very saturated group of people who are questioning the same things.
AJ:
What do you have around you now that you wish you had before?
EM:
I wanted to go into music from a super young age because I was already making music. I wanted to be famous, and I wanted all this love, and I wanted all this attention that I didn't feel and I wanted it so bad. And I think in my adventure through the last couple of years with signing and having an audience, and having a platform, it’s not really what’s most important to me. Especially as I am coming to terms with myself and journeying through self love, cutting off negative influences, and taking the time to get to know myself and feed myself. I don’t want to have a massive audience. I’ve found that in this community of people, that I am so privileged to surround myself with, I’ve found myself somehow helpful by being so outspoken about what's going on inside of my head. I get to be a part in other people's journeys with themselves and whether or not they outgrow me and what I'm doing, it doesn't matter because I know I've found what I was looking for and am able to be helpful to past versions of myself that were struggling.
AJ:
I keep coming across quotes that are like “you are living your past self's dream”. And knowing that along the way, yes, you have arrived at one of the many destinations in your life, but to all of the younger people, like someone's looking at you and seeing themselves in you. And that gets to bring them to their next destination as well. So, what's your next biggest dream?
EM:
My next biggest hope is just being able to continue to overcome these obstacles that I have in my brain, not only with gender identity, but the emotions that came with surrounding myself with people who did not want me to be who I am. And they try their best to curve me the other way and call that like love. That's my biggest struggle right now.
Two months ago, I got this journal, and I just sat down over the span of a couple weeks, and journaled 60 pages. All these things had been sitting in my brain that I never took the time because I wasn't capable of digesting something like that at such a young age.
I got a new therapist, because my other one I just happened to outgrow. Therapy for queer people is really strange. Because when you're talking to someone who has no idea about queer issues at all, it's hard when they don't understand those experiences. I mean, it's different. Because what are they supposed to tell you? I don't know. But I’m really trying to work through these issues. Because how else am I supposed to move forward, if I'm still like coming back to the same obstacle, over and over and over again. So I think just continuing to better myself, and making sure that I'm armored and prepared for whatever the next chapter in my life is. That's not fair to me if I continue to move forward and not address things that are harmful.
AJ:
Secure your mask before you secure others. Yeah, I get it. You have to nurture yourself and grow as an individual in order for you to truly pursue your journey. Thank you for sharing all of that. The last question I'm going to ask is, if you could tell one thing to your younger self?
EM:
I think I would try to tell myself not to be so scared. Because a lot of what influenced decisions that I was making, whether I chose to do something or chose not to, or pursue things that could have been really beneficial for me with my identity, was fear. Don’t be so scared of good things.
AJ:
It hurts if you do, and it hurts if you don’t. Thanks for chatting, Evann.