Release Sly Watts
Sly Watts: A performer and visual artist whose name carries weight in the New Orleans underground hip-hop, hardcore, and punk scenes. His musical curiosity has been explored in trip-hop, drum&bass, acid jazz, and hip-hop in his solo project. His erratic performances and raw vocals snap audience attention right to him, creating an undeniable charge in the atmosphere that radiates from his body and is released through both his physical movements and confrontational vocals.
Sly earned his reputation by word of mouth through his presence and music, but has become something of an enigma. Despite performing since high school, there is no publicly available archive of his solo work, making his live shows addictive. You never know when the next hit of this particular contemporary rhythm will reemerge.
While the mystique is seductive and almost seems like an intentional stroke of genius, the very real reason behind his ephemeral presence is that the bills still need to be paid. Entergy doesn’t know that Sly Watts needs time to write his next songs; the public doesn’t know he is writing his newest lyrics on the back of eviction notices. His landlord doesn’t care that the money he has could be used to press vinyl to document his existence as an artist. His grantors who gave him money to create music don’t know that he actually needs the money to cover the bare bones essentials.
Raised by a percussionist father and his early connection to rap, Sly knew by the age of 10 he wanted to be a musician as an adult. It’s a blessing and a curse to know exactly what you want out of life, especially when your passions aren’t lucrative and you’re outside the mainstream industry. Throughout his teenage years, he would perform at school events, which eventually led Sly to open mic nights at the Contemporary Arts Center, where he could cast a wider net for an audience. He describes his younger music-making as being in his room, making beats, and layering lyrics of activism, social work, and poetry—being angry at the world.
By the time Sly turned 22, he started using an artist studio and community space, 912 Julia, to rehearse performances (often at midnight) and begin his work on visual arts. 912 Julia offered a landing pad for artists like Benry Fauna, Tyla A. Maiden, Taylor Balkissoon [ANTIGRAVITY’s astrologer], and travelers. His reputation began to spread further through offline interaction. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, he would upload his newest creations, and the people stuck at home on their phones began to get curious about who he was. It was then that he noticed a visible pop in audience interest.
In 2023, Sly found himself somehow immersed in the hardcore scene after friend and long-time fan Eli Luchak of Panama Papers booked Sly for a DIY show at El Cucuy with _thesmoothcat and The 9th Life. People from the hardcore scene came out to support Eli, and Sly eventually became friends with people like Soumya Ramineni (of Panama Papers), who later became his bassist in his solo project and whose music was nothing like his, leading to Sly getting booked on mixed bills, further expanding his audience.
While his visibility was increasing, behind closed doors he spent the better part of a year without water or electricity. While he was aware he could have spent time becoming more financially secure, he chose to use it to write songs and work on conceptual art, sometimes sleeping in his studio space at ArtEgg Studios.
In October of 2023, Sly played his first show at Tipitina’s with ÌFÉ and Big Freedia. “I vividly remember the day of that Tipitina’s show, knowing I’m about to share a bill with a Grammy Award-winning artist [Big Freedia], even though I just came from eviction court. People were giving me praise and shit. None of it really landed. It really changed the way I looked at my relationship to art-making, like, ‘why do I do this?’ I had to make a choice: Do I really want it that bad? Is it going to become my livelihood?” After receiving grants from the National Performance Network (NPN) and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation [an ANTIGRAVITY advertiser] for studio time, Sly decided to use that money to stabilize his life.
Taking some time to recover, Sly joined the psychedelic soul-punk band Twin Sugar with FreeTrial and HU$HPUPPY. He was able to relax into a supporting bandmember position while still bringing his specific contemporary edge to the music. After taking a bit of a pause to regroup, he’s finally ready to release old material in order to make way for the new. After the stormy period, he’s finding his previous material—created by a manic artist who was barely getting by—just isn’t who he is anymore. But to be able to write music from this new place, he feels the need to clear and release the old by putting out songs that never got to see the light of day, finally creating an archive of his work.
“For the longest time, it felt like a weapon—the fact that word of mouth is strong enough to give me opportunities in a digital age. But I got to a point where I’d like for the work to exist because people are looking for it.” And he’s right. I wanted to listen to his music while I wrote this piece, and he had to send me demos from his Google Drive. After years of pouring himself into his art, it was time to see some returns in other areas to keep life sustainable. I’m glad to see a shift in stability, and also impressed by his devotion to what his soul yearned for. Somewhere is a balance, and some new songs.
For more info, you can follow Sly Watts on Instagram at @sly.watts.
Top photo: Sly Watts performs with Twin Sugar at Saturn Bar on May 29 (Photo by Dalton Spangler)
