Today we’d like to introduce you to Forefeather Zac Hills-Bonczyk.
Hi Forefeather Zac, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
There are a lot of different facets to who, why, and what I am. I’ll try to give you as thorough and succinct a walk through my story as I’m able to.
I grew up in South Minneapolis as the youngest member of a three-sibling household created from the coupling of a soft-spoken, introverted, gentle-but-unassumingly-masculine carpenter and a cartoonishly charismatic powerhouse boss-lady who grew up in Zambia, Africa, and – after many years as a high-powered mover/shaker in the public health field – eventually devoted herself to building her community (and self) through yoga and meditation. Our family was always an obvious matriarchy, so when my mom was sidelined by a brush with cancer and it inspired her to dive headfirst into the studies and practices of Ayurveda, Kripalu Yoga, and Vishoka meditation, everyone else in the family wound up exploring these paths in their own unique ways.
My own particular interest in mindfulness and Eastern philosophy poignantly complemented the deep fascination with creativity and flowed that I was born with, and it eventually guided me from my career as an up-and-coming indie-rapper from the Rhymesayers capital of the midwest to a year living in residence as the intern of the largest school of yoga in the US (the Kripalu Center in western Massachusetts). After my stint in what could best be described as yoga grad school, I trust-fell into the experiment of making it in New York City (I had only $200 to my name when I landed in the Big Apple), spent an unforgettable seven years there creating – and eventually selling out venues with – Big Village Little City, a nine-piece live hip-hop / New-Orleans funk/ brass band that I put together with jazz-singer Amy Grace.
While (due to the always-unfortunate ‘creative differences’ ) Big Village Little City may or may not ever be an active project again, I’ve recently reoriented my focus into my solo career as Forefeather and relocated to beautiful Los Angeles with my partner Sophia Avramides, the genius Ayurvedic herbalist/creative behind boutique apothecary, skincare, and wellness brand Avraveda. My upcoming album, “Bathe” will be a sort of debut as the artist that has finally found a way to fuse together the many seemingly contradictory identities that develop from being a millennial that grew up just as much under the influence of progressive feminism and new age spirituality as under the magnetic misogyny of mainstream hip-hop culture.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I’ve never been an artist or an individual that can easily be fit into a box, which is just as much a huge blessing as it is a curse. I think I find it easier than most people to see the world from others eyes, which I think has been extremely helpful for me to get through life on a personal level… as an artist, however, I think it’s very difficult to engineer a cohesive brand or even a direction for marketing your work when it’s too mutable. Some days I want to make music that sounds like Eugene Hutz made it. Some days I want to make music that sounds like Pimp C made it.
The other thing that I think has always been a struggle for me is that I’m just genuinely not big on social media. I think when I’m in the right space mentally, I’m able to let a positive light shine on that awkward grey area between art and content… but it can be really tough to appreciate the (infinite variety of) creativity that we encounter all over socials when you get into the cynicism-soaked space of seeing so much of it as purely marketing for the sake of engagement. I realize that it’s just a symptom of the times we live in that a lot of people’s creative output (especially for musical artists) has to function more as an ad for whatever product actually brings in revenue than as the product itself and I do my best to shift my thinking and have fun in the creation space along the way, but it’s one of those things for me where it’s like once you learn that lesson you can’t really unlearn it. I try to compartmentalize all that shit away from my mental when I’m getting into a creative space because I really deeply care about the music as a stand-alone product of its own, but then I ultimately wind up never letting all that shit back in, and without the necessary evil of it, I’m left over here alone with my work – that I’m very proud of – but then I’m like “okay… who do I show this to? Who do I perform this for?”
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a hip-hop artist… which is something that I think I’m sometimes pressured – internally as well as externally – to phrase differently, as in “I’m a musician” or “I’m a multi-instrumentalist, producer, etc…”. I am absolutely a hip-hop artist, however, at my core, because hip-hop is a form of expression that is purely rooted in and birthed from both honest awareness and forward momentum. “Hip” meaning ‘current’, ‘of-the-times’, or ‘conscious’, and “hop” meaning ‘action’, ‘flow’, or ‘movement’… I’m absolutely an artist cut from that cloth because I would never create from anywhere but the precise, authentic context that I do it from and because all that I create is for the sake of progression – just as much for me as for us.
I think what I’m known for as well as what I’m most proud of is that my work is integrative. The sound of what I do is broadly inclusive, as is the content and the poetry of it. When I was running Big Village Little City, we were fusing together different styles of music (boom-bap hip-hop and brass-driven New Orleans-style funk) for the sake of bringing together different people that might not necessarily find themselves in the same space otherwise, We were also interested in creating a larger community of instrumentalists and collaborators when we performed, again, for the sake of creating this energy that is inclusive and inviting to all. I think a lot of what makes my new album so powerful is that it really integrates a broad spectrum of different styles, which are all very authentic influences for me. I think one of my biggest strengths is in fusing together elements that you wouldn’t normally expect to coexist… and I mean that with regard to music as well as to community.
When BVLC was active in New York, we were running this regular session in Harlem that functioned as a combination between an original show, a jam session, and an open mic. We’d have a signup list going around the room for people to write in their artist name, their contact info, their instrument, and whether or not there was a particular song (original or cover) they wanted to do, and we’d start the show with original songs and then gradually start integrating people into the rest of the show in this tightly curated but very welcoming way. We’d prioritize getting everyone involved, but make sure to do it in a way that kept it entertaining and showcased their strengths most. Like, if someone had come to sing, but they really didn’t even have singing chops like that, we’d be ready with enough of the BVLC musicians onstage to back them up and maintain control of the show so that they felt included but didn’t bomb the value of the entertainment. The energy and community we created around that event is definitely one of the things I’m most proud of, and my spice kit has definitely been probing around out here in LA in search of the right gumbo pot to cook up the next course in my life that satisfies that flavor palette. I can’t say the stove is on quite yet, but I’m very aware there are a lot of hungry mouths out here who don’t even know yet that that’s just what they’re in search of.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I think the most helpful thing that the pandemic taught me was to remember how historic every day we go through is. I had an experience recently of thinking about how much of a fever dream those first few weeks of it were, and it kind of stopped me in my tracks to remember and mentally juxtapose that with how normal and predictable the whole story seems to be in retrospect.
To think about what it was like to go through that time… it felt like such a huge deal and also so blown out of proportion the whole time. I kind of feel that was about a lot of things these days. When I see people arguing so passionately about everything you can possibly imagine online… I’m like “I get it, I see you, I empathize, no wonder you are so bent out of shape. You’re completely right. Both of you!” and at the same time I’m like “You guys, relax. It’s just life. It’s a ridiculous comedy of errors. None of us know shit. Stop pretending you have any idea at all how this all works. We are all totally full of it.” I feel like I’ve always had delusions of grandeur, but living through the pandemic both enhanced those plus made me appreciate that I’m seconds away from a mundane death and complete lack of legacy at any given moment, and those two realities are both absolutely acceptable and in fact kind of awesome.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.forefeather.com/
- Instagram: @forefeather
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Forefeather
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/forefeather
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTYx117IxiTvvGq_rKbxmBQ
- SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/forefeather
- Other: http://forefeather.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Mike Shane, Sylvie Barnett, Sophia Avramides
