Rapper and conceptual artist Shirt is someone who always leaves me with a keen sense of wonder and that warm feeling of being understood. Sampling, collaborating, and collaging in almost every medium, his work reminds us that we are all people consciously or unconsciously looking to be intertwined with one another. His continuous prodding at this feeling is powerful in a way that's hard to articulate, amplified further by the sheer number of threads across music, media, relationships, in-process ideas, installations, interventions, and clothing he uses to construct and amplify our interconnectivity. His do’s and don’ts—honed through more than a decade spent sharing work with the world (much of which can be found on his meticulously kept website)—reflect this too; honest and deeply celebratory of the ways we are shaped by others.

Do's and Don'ts is an ongoing series for Metalabel Studio where we ask interesting creative people to share their learnings about the artistic ecosystem. No fluff, just practical insights from those who've been in the trenches.These conversations aim to capture the unwritten rules and hard-won wisdom that doesn't make it into portfolios or press releases, but we often wish we had sooner.

From the mind of Shirt: the do's and don'ts of people-first collaboration

Do

Be a real fan of people, your family, friends, lovers, those around you, the ones you get to witness up close or believe in from afar. 

Be here for their lore; help build their mythology, because that’s all that will be left. Start now. In front of them, in collaboration with them. Be here for them fully—not just for the parts you like best. Dead that "needing to like" shit, aesthetically or whether it's something you would do or not. Fall for people—their full, messy selves. That doesn’t mean loving everything, or ignoring the need to be critical or help each other sharpen up. It means understanding that for them to make some of what you love, they have to do shit you don’t. Many times—if not every single time—you can’t have one without the other.

Take into account that people are always going through something—they’re never not. 

No one’s just chilling. Even if it looks like they are, even if evidence suggests they are, make it a rule to assume they’re probably not. Someone might be at ease in one area of their life and drowning in another. And that troubled place, if or when you're there, could win at any time. We never know the full story. We never know the full context of why someone does something, says something, or is a certain way. From a stranger on the other side of the world to someone in your own family or home, their life is their own, and only they know the full weight of what they carry. I always try to remember to bring this grace to my interactions with people. I just read something the artist Alvaro Barrington wrote: "Anything removed from context can be positioned as violence." I think that’s true.

Keep your head on a swivel. 

It’s likely been true forever that you need to be as aware of your surroundings as possible. I advocate for being open as a person, but there’s still a playing your cards close to your chest kind of thing that I recommend as best practice. The world gets more dangerous by the day. People move through life in all kinds of ways, and some may have no problem hurting you or worse to get what they think they want, need, deserve, or just want to take. I don’t take the possibility of someone mowing me down personally. Cause it reeally wouldn’t be. Someone might think they’re mad at me or want to topple me for whatever reason, but it’s not really me they’re mad at. Maybe I represent something. Maybe I’m just in their perceived way. Maybe they’ve constructed some narrative where I play a role. That’s possible. So "my mind’s like a flower in bloom, peep how my eyes scour the room." 

Do that idea you’ve been thinking about—do it for real, once, and see how it feels. 

I think we’re drawn to ideas that persist for a reason. I know bad ideas can persist too. Or worse—ideas that can hurt people or hurt ourselves. I don’t think you should do those. My logic is simple—there’s never a good reason to purposely hurt someone or yourself. We will hurt others, and we will hurt ourselves—that’s inevitable. That’s part of growing up and this living life. We’ll do it without realizing and should learn from it. So for me, fuck going there on purpose. But if it’s ultimately some positive action idea? Something I think is poetic in some interesting way or is positive—for the world, for your world, for your loved ones? If it’s some creative idea pouring out of you, that could put a smile on yours or someone else's face, offer some helpful perspective, or put real information out there—my thought is, just do it. So many people don't get to do things they think up. But then also please talk to people about it. Let some sunlight touch it. And honestly, even for bad, wacky, or pointless ideas—even talking about them helps. It helps work through them, clarify, sharpen, or shift to a better understanding. At the very least—write it down. Sometimes it comes just the one time––write it down. At least then you or anyone who reads it ever can decide to do it or not.

Do chase love.

However it feels like that manifests for you in your life. No matter what you've heard or even what you’ve experienced so far––that's just so far! Full HD love for people and inscribed in this life existssssss. It’s everywhere if we train ourselves to see it.

Don’t forget that so much nonsense shit we feel or get shook by is constructed. 

Shit is man-made. We don’t believe youuuuuuuuu. “This” means “that”—yeah, no. All those rules need to be rewritten and redesigned top to bottom. Value systems are corroded and need tearing down and rebuilding. People reward the wrong things. Capitalism rewards some of the worst things. The fucking algorithms reward the wrong things. The culture rewards the wrong things. Don’t fall for any of it. Understand what happened here and correct it in yourself moving forward. Be the change. Do it slow if you need to but have the intention. Value the right shit in people and situations. Get past the bullshit. We know so much now. For example, we know when someone like Ye says some dumb shit like he "only respects people with more money than him"—we know that’s exactly the wrong way to think and move through life. We know having or getting money isn’t proof of a good person, a set of correct beliefs, or the right ethics. It's not proof of nothing––you might got lucky! We have to stop acting and moving like these age old tropes still hold weight. At least make the room for new thinking. Make a safe space for it.

Shirt's do's and don'ts for Metalabel

Don’t be a fucking stickler—adhering or asking others to adhere to a kind of behavior is rooted in white supremacy. 

Fuck being “proper” and properness—these terms that are tied to the idea of property and proprietorship, which has roots in and in the wake of slavery. As Saidiya Hartman puts it, "to be responsible was to be blameworthy." Or as Fred Moten says, a grading system becomes a degrading system. We don’t do that. Let people be ill, because they are. Let people come how they’re gonna come with it. Let people get freaky with their lives, do what they feel with others with consent, love who they want to love, dance, and be and create themselves. Yes, pockets of subcultures will be created. Yes, groups, clubs, movements, crews will form. Yes, houses will be built! 

Don't get into some desired position and just replicate the same systems of harm you’ve seen others do. 

It’s not your turn now to wreak havoc. We should be thinking up and putting into action new ways of being, taking into consideration how to correct fucked-up paths. I'm addicted to flipping shit they made up on its head. THAT'S NOT A RULE. 

Don’t do industry drugs. 

The concept and production of mainstream 'drugs' has been heavily commercialized––shit is fucked up, dangerous, and terrible for our bodies. There are natural substances from plants, trees, animals available on earth—things humans have long manipulated in different ways to get high. (I’m not just talking about weed, but natural substances in various forms.) But for me, it's largely fuck this man-made garbage that so many companies that don’t care about you are putting into the expanding marketplace. It goes back to the keeping your head on a swivel thing, being super aware of what’s happening, what we’re buying and supporting, what we’re putting in our bodies.

Don't hate getting older––it sounds cliché but it's really a blessing. 

Everything alive has a lifespan and afterlife span. I don't think it's about some amount of time we get...there are people who have done more with less and less with more. No doubt the more time you get the more you can potentially do, and the more your experiences can shape new insight. Stay a while if you can. So many don’t get to. Fuck society’s definition of ‘productivity.’ Just stay and take life in for a while if you can. Be kind to yourself in the moments when you might not like yourself or feel like you could be doing xyz better. I just saw this clip of Earl Sweatshirt talking to his mom the scholar Cheryl I. Harris about getting through apathy, and how apathy is often used as a tool to 'disarm collective resistance'. 

There are ways to be on the other side of these harrowing, incredibly difficult months and years—where new chapters, people, places, and understandings will inevitably open up new possibilities. Be there if you can. A last post I did on the New York Public Library's nyplpicturecollection ig account in 2022 had the caption 3am in concert in a central park in the year 2030  I want you there that spoke to this imagined future gathering to aspire to make.