Melanin Blossom hits hard w/ release “Potpourri”

Melanin Blossom is one of those artists whose story can’t really be told through music alone. For the last several years, she has played an important role within Chicago’s music ecosystem, not only as an artist, but as someone helping cultivate camaraderie, community, and safer spaces for creatives to exist within. Whether through photography, entrepreneurship, event curation, music, or working alongside some of the OGs and mentors who have helped sustain Chicago’s open mic and hip hop communities, Melanin Blossom has consistently found ways to contribute to the culture while simultaneously building a world of her own. And with her project “Potpourri”, we’re getting another opportunity to hear that world through her perspective..

The project finds Melanin taking familiar instrumentals from records many listeners will recognize and completely making them her own. But what makes “Potpourri” resonate isn’t simply hearing her interpretation of those sounds, it’s what she chooses to say over them. Throughout the project, Melanin explores the everyday realities, struggles, growth, and internal conversations that can come with navigating life as a Black woman. There are reflections on elevation mentally, spiritually, and physically, with each record allowing her to approach those experiences from a slightly different emotional space. She does an amazing job of allowing those emotions to exist without forcing them into one particular box. We’re here for it. Our biggest critique is really that we want more Melanin Blossom. More music, absolutely, but also more documentation. To really understand who Melanin Blossom is, you have to understand the ecosystem around her and the ways Chicago’s independent music community has cultivated itself over the last decade plus. Melanin has been present within that story in ways that extend far beyond simply releasing records. That history deserves to be documented alongside this next chapter of her becoming increasingly visible as an MC..

We want the photographs. We want the archival footage. We want the studio sessions and conversations about what these records mean. We want to hear about the years of helping other people build while simultaneously figuring out how to build something for herself. And as the music continues growing, we would love to see the live experience grow with it, a listening party, performances, curated shows, and spaces where people can experience “Potpourri” and Melanin Blossom’s larger creative world in person. Because Chicago continues to produce an incredible generation of women MCs, and Melanin Blossom’s voice deserves to be part of the documentation of what is happening here right now. She has spent years helping cultivate the ecosystem. Now we want to see more of the ecosystem documenting her..

Until then, take a listen to Potpourri and let us know what you think..