Baby Tate Dreams Of Maturity’s Angels

Baby Tate is a butterfly born of countless butterflies, gifts from nature to be appreciated for the beauty and the pleasant, gentle sounds elicited by their wings. She’s a rockstar, an icon for feminism, good music, Atlanta, and well- crafted humors. The work she is doing now and the songs she will produce over the next ten years and the philanthropic ventures pursued following will define an excellent legacy.

She told Forbes with a wish she’d use endless money to open vetted daycares staffed by advanced degree holders in “early childhood psychology or childhood education.”

When it’s said she’s born of butterflies, her father is David Ryan Harris, and her mother is Dionne Farris. Each are musicians of indispensable care, contributors to the cloth Americans are weaving right now for future generations to listen to tomorrow with awe. “I don’t know if you know, but I’m a nepotism baby,” said Tate.

A song of Tate’s from 2016, “Hey, Mickey” went viral on Tik Tok at the tip of the end of 2022. The song broke Baby Tate’s single day streaming record reaching more than one and a half million playthroughs on one platform.

Prolific in their own rights, Jason Lipshutz and Andrew Unterberger wrote in Billboard,

““Hey, Mickey” had limited commercial impact upon its release, but is making waves in 2023 thanks to — what else? — the song going viral on TikTok, with hundreds of thousands of videos of users miming along to its refrain, or posting it over various clip montages, with some videos receiving likes in the millions. It’s led to the song also detonating on streaming, with its weekly official on- demand U.S. streams growing from barely over 2,000 in mid-December to over 2.3 million for the week ending Jan. 19.” This week, the song appeared on billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 – which lists the songs tracking just under the Billboard Hot 100. It arrived on the chart already at a rolling boil, number five.

Baby Tate’s worked with 2 Chainz, Kali, REI AMI, JID, Latto, Kari Faux, James Vickery, 6lack, Flo Milli, Childish Major, Buddy, Issa Rae, Bas, Guapdad4000, and Jean Deaux.

And the internet, American culture, surrounding Warner Music Group pre-Grammy party, and generations unborn shook in their wombs when they saw picture proof– the sweet immortalization of that which is only irrefutably immortal after our eyes close and our ears cease to reach for sound – of Baby Tate dancing with Rico Nasty and Saweetie under Anderson .Paak’s hands at the electronica.

There are whispers on trusting winds the three women will have a collaboration out soon, something of a remix.

Through interview and illusions and arc, a piece of pop portraiture, a surreal story aiming to land on buttered wings in the silliest sands of literature, follows – from Baby Tate and the author.

An Angel And Baby

Baby Tate, shortly after moving from Atlanta to Los Angeles, dreamed an oddly lucid and driven dream. The idea of it bordered on utterly foolish, so it’s best to get into the fantasy and detail with haste. Baby Tate awoke in her dream.

Elegant as nature, she moved. Graceful as forgiveness, she wrote. And devastating and thoughtful as a breakup, she stood there in the dunes stretching to eternity against a still, massive sunset, Dr. Maya Angelou. It could have been her spirit, an echo, or a stray strand of her electricity from a long life of sparks. Spirits are as powerful as their predecessor corporeal without feelings imposter, strife earthly, or flavorless judgement.

“Thank you very much for coming. I’m a fan of yours,” said Maya.

“Are you a spiritual person?” the legend, the angel, and the never-ending wave, possibly the greatest source of literature for a century – surely so for America – asked, echoing like a song from Frank Ocean, Choker, or Lou Val.

“I am a very spiritual person. I like to stay in touch with God, with my ancestors. I’m just glad to stay grounded. Being in this industry, sh** can get crazy get hectic; the devil is around every corner,” said Baby Tate. “So, I like to stay prayed up and keep good people around with good spirits, good energy, especially in this industry, where people are, you know, lychee and not like the fruit. They can be dangerous.”

“I was entering into Buddhism at one point, but never fully though. I think my spirituality is more so – I won’t say it’s Witchcraft. I would say maybe it’s baby witchcraft,” said Baby.

“It’s personal; everyone has their higher-self leading us to the right path. Everybody’s path isn’t the same, but all these higher-selves, they lead upwards to one highest-self, the oneness we are all from,” said Baby.

“Your tattoos,” said Maya, the angel, smiling and wrapping herself around Tate, but Baby didn’t let her finish the compliment which would surely be laced with too much heavenly insight to bear with bloodless cheeks.

And Baby spoke saying, “I have six. This butterfly was my first tattoo I ever got, this one right here. And it’s for my cousin who committed suicide in 2017. I knew I wanted to get something for her. And I didn’t have any tattoos yet. The last quote that she left in her Instagram bio was one of yours.”

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty,” the angel and Baby said like two strings struck by one finger.

“And I don’t know if you can tell the body of the butterfly is a semi colon for suicide awareness,” said Baby. “I have that quote actually tattooed on my spine. I have a seven on my ankle right here. That’s my life path. And I have it on my right foot because I want to always be on the right path.”

“Oh, you are,” said the angel.

“Oh, so, I want to decorate my body in a cute way dancy way,” said Baby to the dancer, the poet who started at dance and poetry and theatre as one art, a limitless thing in life and ever immensely more in death too. The angel smiled.

“I have a kiss mark on my left cheek. And I got that on the first day of Black History month last year,” said Baby. “And it’s like, I wanted to put the word ‘Black’ on it, but my managers said that was a bad idea.”

Maya was a dancer. She excelled at filling space with life. And their conversation was like a dance, with Maya – the ethereal spirit, the limitless beacon – leading. Maya asked Baby about the strifes of her many invisible footprints in faith.

“Something about organized religion just doesn’t sit right with me. For me, it doesn’t make sense. I want to be able to talk about and I want to talk to God. For me the rules and the judgement and the rigidity, it makes people not want to find out,” said Baby. “And so, for me, I’m going to have a relationship with God. Some stories in the Bible don’t make sense to me. So, I can’t really rock with it. But yeah, my God, I know God.”

“A lot of people believe that, if you’re gay, you’re going to hell. And that’s ridiculous, number one. Number two, how do you even know hell exists?” asked Baby.

“It doesn’t,” said the angel. “And if it did, it would be on Earth – in every politician’s kitchen, on every poet’s door, and in the contrast at every earthly shadow making the whole picture brighter.”

Baby tried several times throughout their conversation to ask Maya about Maya. The angel was so elegant as to evade every mention with the slipperiness of the gentlest sea lion at play with a diver. Heaven’s mouth has never known an answer – for heaven is an experience, a surprise, a delight.

“I can’t believe you’re a fan of mine,” said Baby.

“You can go around the world and back, world and back,” sang Maya, the angel’s lips forming Baby’s lyrics. There wasn’t a lick of impetus to interrupt. “But you won’t find a girl like that, girl like that. Like that girl, not like that girl, you can climb. You can climb to the tallest tree. You won’t find.”

“Baby butterfly, I am interested in what changes you’ve went through,” said the angel. Oh! How that felt!

“I try to just focus on the positives. There are so many young, Black, talented, successful artists these days. I try to not focus so much on the colorism that, you know, people like us and girls that look like me, and even men that look like me face and go through,” said Baby. “The best thing I can do to battle it is just keep going fiercely and have people who believe in me, because I believe in myself.”

“If I had my druthers I’d rather be born Black, American, female in the 20^th century,” said the angel. She laughed and the sound looped aghast with joy atop itself at the end of her speech twice. “I don’t mean to laugh. What luck to have!”

“The internet, the spirit,” said Maya, in pains of empathy. “You girls get it hard.”

“We do. We get it terribly. I don’t think a lot of people realize the effects that social media and the internet have on artists; we’ve always had to deal with public opinion,” said Baby. “But with social media’s prevalence and accessibility, everybody can say anything that they want to anyone, to you.”

“And I feel like people don’t realize how that affects the way we think about ourselves. I can only speak for myself, so I don’t know what any other girls are going through,” said Baby. “But I know for me, it puts on me a lot of pressure. Sometimes people compare me. It makes me think. It makes me question. And just you know, it causes a lot of doubts. I think the hate on the internet is just terrible.”

“And it’s so sad, the amount of people that think it is okay. They think we signed up for it. Nobody picks up a microphone like, I want people to hate me,” chided Baby. “I am signing here for people that hate on me on the internet. Nobody does that. The hate that you get on the internet doesn’t like transfer to real life.”

“It’s just so weird to me. But I hope that – I don’t know. I don’t think it – I feel like it won’t get better. I don’t think it will,” said Baby.

“Until we reinstitute among ourselves and among strangers courteous greeting, we are slipping away from our connectedness,” said the Maya, the angel.

“How does capitalism affect your art?” asked the angel. Oh! How she asked it.

“I think capitalism is driving music,” said Baby. “It is not to say nobody cares. I make art, and my art is something subjective. But in this industry, the subjective art stuff doesn’t work all the time. It’s like, what is selling? I think about this all the time. What are the labels up to? Who are they signing? They’re signing the people that their music is projecting drug usage, killing each other, misogyny, hyper capitalism.”

“And so, it’s really sad,” said Baby. “There are so many artists whose music pushes through that barrier of where society wants us to go.”

“Sometimes I slip. I’m not going to lie. I’m not saying I can’t be hypocritical here and say that I didn’t make a song called “Sl*t Him Out,”” said Baby.

“But it’s the opposite. You’re pushing against glass expectations and glass roles,” said Maya.

“And I do that a lot of times on purpose. I like to kind of flip the patriarchy; I really do. And I think it’s important for women to take back our power in our own p***ies, because men have have done it for so long – take our power and use it against us,” said Baby. “But I think there’s like, there’s a limit. I don’t want to be 50 years old talking about, I’m finna sl*t this ni*** out. I’ve always wanted an evolving life.”

“Consumers are a double-edged sword. People don’t know they want until you give it to them,” said Baby. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to define what part of me I want to showcase today. But I think as I get older, it gets a bit clearer.”

“That it surely does,” said Maya, the angel.

“I want to be in this for a long time. People say, I’m not here for a good time; I’m here for a long time. I’m here for a long fuc***g time,” said Baby. “And we will have some good times; we will have some bad times. But I think for artists like myself, we’re in this for the long run because we love music. And we love creating art. That’s something I’m going to do regardless – whether this is my job or not.”

“Does this dreaming, greeting, and gabbing not greet you every night?” asked the angel.

“My dreams are very vivid and usually random. The moon cycles affect my dreams. During a full moon, they’re super intense. Even during a new moon day, really intense. Yeah, but my dreams be wild. Like the most random sh*t,” said Baby.

“Quick, before we go, a woman from TIME magazine once asked me if I was hopeful for American poetry,” said Maya. “And I told her what I’m telling you. All I have to do is listen to Hip Hop. I listen to some of the rappers and western country music. I write both here, and country western I took my hands to in life. If the lyric and the melody like each other and are wed, then it’s irresistible. And it is poetry.”

“It’s in your name,” she said. “Babies are as close as it gets to angels. Freshly clipped wings, still bleating to beat again, metamorphosis is aging is forgetting for the suffering. She’s a pill you must take.” She had a laugh like church bells and lutes. And maybe none of it made sense, but maybe only memoirs do.

You can stream Baby Tate’s music and get tickets to her upcoming performances, here. You can stream her latest cut of prime sonic sirloin “Mani/Pedi” here.