Here’s the story: we have another great photo shoot and profile with this crazy amazing Detroit R&B singer. Everything looks great; she looks great; she gives thoughtful, soulful answers during her interview. To top it all off, Shinola loans us this badass pink Runwell bicycle to use, too. This is a rare moment.
Then the shoot is finished and everyone is saying goodbye. The crazy amazing Detroit R&B Singer mentions she’s just finished shooting a new video and was thinking about how to make the video release special. She says maybe we could figure something out to premiere her new video with StockX?
Great idea. We’re excited. But she’s just being nice, right?
Fast forward several weeks and we run into the same crazy amazing Detroit R&B Singer at a concert downtown. It’s all hugs and hellos and the crazy amazing Detroit R&B Singer asks if we’re ready to premiere her video. At this point you realize it must be fate, it’s kismet or some kind of divine intervention.
Of course, we say yes and here we are.
But first…
Introducing
Bevlove, one of Detroit’s best and brightest in the music game. She’s an intense and soulful performer who sees herself as the underground queen of Detroit R&B. This isn’t meant as a preemptive boast or flex, she’s stating facts. Bevlove’s goal is to bring R&B back to center stage in Detroit. To do this, she wants to establish a platform for more and more artists to perform. As a benevolent queen, she says “there’s room for everybody.”
She’s dead serious when it comes to her career, but she cautions people not to take her too seriously. When it comes to social media, all she’s doing is making herself laugh. “Listen,” she says, “I’m a really sarcastic person so don’t take anything I put out on social media seriously.”
In addition to her sarcastic streak leading to misunderstandings, she also blames the stars for people misinterpreting her moods and personality. Breaking down her zodiac sign, Bevlove shares “I’m an Aquarius, so people see me as being really cold and removed.” But she’s quick to add: “I’m not cold! I feel emotion!”
Music in the Blood
When asked to describe herself, Bevlove says she’s a singer/songwriter. But she’s quick to add that she views herself as an “experience curator.” As serious and studious as any museum or gallery curator, Bevlove says she works to construct audience experiences so that “when people leave my show I want people to have seen something they never saw before.”
To consider yourself an “experience curator,” you really have to know what you’re doing. You can’t fake it or everyone is going to know.
So where do Bevlove’s deep knowledge and confidence in her art and music come from? According to Bevlove, it all starts with her mom and dad, and church. Bevlove’s mom is a church musician and her dad is the chairman of the deacon board. In addition to being grounded musically and spiritually in the church, her dad “has so many records,” she says, and growing up they were “listening to music non-stop.” Bevlove and her family are not casual listeners. When listening to, or singing any song, her mother told her that she could never sing only half a song. Bevlove’s mother imparted that you must “sing the song all the way through, to respect the song, and give it reverence.”
That’s real. That’s Bevlove.
Being Herself, All the Time
Bevlove’s confidence in herself and her art is directly rooted in growing up on Detroit’s west side. She says her childhood was “amazing, everybody looked like me and I was reflected everywhere.” In addition to feeling love and acceptance throughout her neighborhood, her family bonds were also strong. “My family is really tight,” she says with a smile.
Bevlove strongly felt this sense of belonging and community during one of her favorite childhood activities, rollerskating. Laughing, she says “skate parties were the shit.” Her favorite spots were Detroit Roller Wheels on the east side and the Northland skate rink. In fact, she’s still in love with skate parties: “When my cousin got out, we had a skate party.”
Her sense of self that she developed during her formative years on Detroit’s west side was also reflected by the first time music really grabbed her. The 1997 movie, “Cinderella,” starring Brandi and Whitney Houston really struck a chord with Bevlove. She remembers falling in love with everything about the movie because “it was shiny and everybody sang so good,” she beams. After seeing the movie, Bevlove went and got her hair braided like Brandi because “I was just so enamored with everything.”
Showing Off
Bevlove exudes style and fashion. She’s been outdressing and outclassing just about everybody since way back. She admits that she’s “always been glamorous and over the top” when it comes to the fashion game. In high school, at Cass Tech, she wore heels every day because she says she “always felt like a diva.”
Part of the reason why she gravitates toward fashion and being a “girlie-girl” comes from her experience usually being younger than everybody else. She skipped a grade growing up, so she was always younger than her classmates. She has two older siblings, so she’s always been the baby.
Her love of fashion and style has only increased in her adulthood. Her favorite designers and labels are Molly Goddard, Off-White, Gucci, and The Row. In addition to loving haute couture because it’s haute couture, Bevlove is also excited that streetwear and street fashion is increasingly breaking into the once restrictive world of high fashion.
When she thinks about Virgil Abloh heading Louis Vuitton she grins, saying “I think it’s overdue, but it’s validating that the fashion houses are looking at street fashion for their inspiration.” For Bevlove, this moment of increasing inclusion validates her love affair with fashion and style.
Style and fashion are all about self-expression. It’s all of a piece for Bevlove, in terms of crafting her identity and representing her true self to the world. “It’s about feeling powerful, feeling beautiful for me,” Bevlove explains about her look. She continues, “I just want to feel like I can flow through any space with whatever I’m wearing.”
“I always want to be the Baddest Bitch in most rooms,” and she says with a wicked grin, “I am most of the time.”
Putting it all Together in her Music
Of course, we wouldn’t be talking about Bevlove if she didn’t make some of the best music coming out of Detroit right now. So, how does she put it all together? “Melodies pop in my head,” she says and “they always have for a while now.” Melody is the most important, and strongest element of her songwriting. Without creating a melody first, her song won’t cohere.
She’s very selective when it comes to the producers she works with. They must share her vision and understand her approach to creating music. Furthermore, she only likes to work with producers who inspire her and push her to expand her art. Her go-to producers are Icepic, Chad Roto, and Syblyng. They’re able to compose a beat, pass it to Bevlove to create her melody, and then add something else to help finish the song.
Bevlove also has a refreshing throwback view of getting her art out to people: it’s all about the live show. She says “once people see me in a show, the see me forever.” Currently, she performs about 40 days a year, but she’s getting ready to book “stretches and stretches of shows.” Of course, she’s not a Luddite. She is all over the digital landscape and social media, but she likes to leaven her digital output with some analog appeal.
Music is the most important thing in the world to Bevlove because it has “the power to heal and pull people together.” She says, “I never had therapy, don’t think I need it. I just write.”
Leaving a Legacy
All of the work that Bevlove puts in into creating her art and identity is aimed at creating a legacy. Seventy years from now, she wants all the blood, sweat, and tears to “mean something.” She defines part of that legacy as taking care of her family and buying a big house in Grosse Pointe.
But don’t think that she’s not focusing on the moment and enjoying the ride. She ends by saying that success is “balling out and getting a Grammy.”
And with one final laugh, she says “I definitely want a Grammy.”
Check out our previous Off the Top installments with Vuhlandes, Sam Austins, and Tony Whlgn.
