Minko.

He began writing and recording at seventeen in Libreville. Even then, he was writing in English, though everyone around him spoke French and his English was still broken and largelly incoherent. 

He realized over time that this choice was instinctive, and in hindsight, likely protective. 

For him, unawaringly living in an AuDHD, depressive, anxious and dissociative body, a second language carried less emotional charge than his mother tongue. Researchers call it the foreign-language effect. It's the creation of distance through language and culture that creates a space for bilingual leaning people to say what would otherwise overwhelm and quiet them.

English became the private room where he could write about depression, alienation, passion, and wanting more, without the words landing too hard to bear. 

That instinct still defines pieces of his work, though a stronger sense of self and identity makes the line between the two languages more coherant and more flexible. French often carries the closest, most vulnerable truths of home and self with a direct connection to his inner child; while English is the language of the dream and the open confession. Switching between them is a kind of self-regulation performed in real time through his music.

He learned audio engineering by recording & teaching himself how to use Pro Tools. For a while he was going from bedroom studio to bedroom studio, at a time when he was mostly living on the road across Northern Virginia, Maryland, Atlanta and DC; until the craft became a career that took him to pro studios and ultimatily led to him finalizing his training at Omega Studios in Rockville. Today he mixes for 50+ DMV-area artists, works at a social-justice nonprofit, and co-founded Open Circles Collective with a group of talented people he's fond of, aim to contribute to the color and community of the city's independent art scene.

His own mental health process (living with AuDHD and only realizing & starting to understand it as an adult) and a series of losses ranging from socio-personal to artistic ones at the edges of his neuro-cognitive limitations, sit underneath his desired long term impact. 

He realized that like him, many people walk around with brains that they were never taught how to use, then get siloed by a world that treats one neurotypical reality as the universal truth. Observing himself and others, he noticed this dissonance often led to a drop in self-trust that triggers further self isolation, self-erasure, self-abandon and for many (including him) a drop in will to live that could more accurately be characterized as a general feeling of pointlessness, constant defeat and uselessness when relating to self.

That growing understanding shaped the mission underneath his music and his overall output: to build bridges between people by making it easier for them to see the full spectrum of human psychology a place of compassion. Compassion here defined as a humanity wide nervous system; not a virtue applied after the fact — an approach he was able to refine through the teachings Brandel France del Bravo a wise & masterful poet who also teaches CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training). He feels in deep solidarity with systems that support people's mental health as an ongoing process, and understand the importance of notreating at as a problem to be band-aided and set aside. 

His work: songs, sessions, Open Circles, shows, events, content and speaking engagement; is the practice and the refinement of that belief as he continues to seek ways to get involved on a growingly more impactful, effective and meaningful scale.