With DAMN GENESIS, BRIEL the Artist confronts everything the world tried to erase or diminish—faith, queerness, vulnerability, and the murky truths that live between healing and harm. In this full-length interview, he opens up about the emotional and spiritual labour behind the project, from tearing down false identities to writing through temptation, grief, and grace.
Drawing from the richness of Black and queer culture, his relationship with Jesus, and years of inner reckoning, BRIEL built something far deeper than a debut tape. He built a statement. If you’ve ever tried to reclaim a piece of yourself the world tried to shame, you’ll want to hear what BRIEL has to say.
1. DAMN GENESIS feels like a powerful declaration. What drew you to that title, and how does it anchor the emotional and conceptual foundation of the tape?
The title DAMN GENESIS came from my faith in Jesus Christ. After giving my life to Him, I built a relationship where I could bring all my pain, confusion, and mistakes to the altar. While working on this project, I found myself doing a lot of inner healing—telling stories I had kept buried inside. Through prayer, I began to process my past, but I also struggled. I fell into temptation and sin while trying to live in a way that honored God. I felt lost, ashamed—damned by my own habits. But even in that, I knew this was just the beginning. Not only of my walk with Christ, but of my purpose, my voice, and my career. That’s what DAMN GENESIS is—beauty born from brokenness, and a bold start rising from everything I thought would hold me back.
2. You’ve spoken about burning down false identities to reclaim your power—can you walk us through what that deconstruction looked like for you in your personal life and how it fuelled the creative decisions on this project?
As a gay, Black man, I’ve had to navigate a world that often decides who I am before I even speak. There were so many stereotypes and assumptions placed on me that, for a long time, I felt like I had to fit into the boxes others put me in—rather than live as the person I truly am in my heart. That kind of pressure strips you of your identity. But in seeking Christ, I found a deeper sense of purpose and truth. It helped me start focusing on who God says I am, not who the world expects me to be. That shift pushed me to reclaim my voice, to be fully myself without apology. People will always have something to say, even if they don’t know you from a can of paint—but God knows all of me, and that truth gave me the confidence to create from a place of freedom, not fear.
3. There’s an intensity in that dual theme of destruction and rebirth. How did you approach shaping the sonics and lyrics to reflect that emotional push and pull?
That emotional push and pull came straight from my lived experience. Nothing about this project was calculated—it was messy, unpredictable, and real. I didn’t go in with a concept or structure. I just started freestyling over beats I found on YouTube and jotting down whatever came to me in my notes app. One day I’d feel like everything was finally coming together, and the next I’d spiral—depressed, anxious, numbing the pain with weed, questioning if I should even continue. At one point, I thought about turning the project into a short EP, or scrapping it altogether. But instead, I let the music hold space for everything I was feeling—no plan, no pressure, just truth. That’s what gave it its emotional weight: it’s not polished pain—it’s lived-in, raw, and honest.
4. From THE BLINDS to LADIES SONG, and now BLUR, there’s a clear thread of peeling back layers. How has your relationship with vulnerability evolved across those singles, and what space did you reach within yourself to create DAMN GENESIS?
By the end of 2024, I realized I had built a catalog of songs that were all deeply vulnerable in their own way. Each one revealed a part of me I had either hidden, ignored, or just started to understand. I was intentional about the rollout—THE BLINDS came first because it felt like a soft opening, a way to ease into the truth. LADIES SONG came next, during Women’s History Month, as a tribute to the women who’ve shaped me and held me down. And then BLUR—that was the emotional gut punch. It set the tone for DAMN GENESIS and opened the door to the sound and spirit of the project.
Through these songs, my relationship with vulnerability shifted. I stopped writing just to express pain—I started writing to process it, to heal from it, and to connect. DAMN GENESIS became a space where I could finally introduce myself as I am: no masks, no filters. Just the truth, in every shade it shows up in.
5. As a gay, Black artist from the Bronx, how have your roots and identity carved out your path sonically? Do you feel that DAMN GENESIS allowed you to express that intersection more freely or differently than before?
I think what really carved out my path was learning to embrace and appreciate the culture I come from—not just existing in it, but recognizing it as powerful. DAMN GENESIS is the story of me stepping into that fully. The freedom found in the queer community—especially ballroom culture, the celebration of femininity beyond gender, and the unapologetic spirit of self-expression—taught me how to own every part of who I am. The same goes for being Black—our language, our style, our influence on pop culture and music—it’s all deeply ingrained in my sound. I’ve always had those roots, but I was afraid to show them.
DAMN GENESIS gave me a platform to express the Queer community that lives within me and around me. On the skit at the end of CHEQUE, I drew inspiration from how openly and playfully some gay men speak when they feel safe with one another. In tracks like SITUATIONSHIP and BLUR, I use terms like “bareback” and “bottom”—words that hold specific meaning in the gay community, especially in a sexual context. Including them wasn’t for shock value; it was about reflecting the language and truth of the world I come from. This project gave me the freedom to be fully queer and expressive, to explore femininity without losing my masculinity—and to tell my story without holding anything back.
6. The Coming of the Year Sessions feels like more than just a concert series—it’s intimate and communal. How have those performances helped shape your confidence, and has the audience response fed into any of the choices you made while finishing the tape?
DAMN GENESIS was already finished before The Coming of the Year Sessions kicked off in February 2025, but those shows changed everything for me as a performer. The audience feedback didn’t shape the tape itself—but it reshaped how I think about bringing it to life. It reminded me that people don’t just want to hear music—they want to feel it. They’re craving connection, storytelling, a real experience. And that pushed me to think bigger.
I realized that a live show should be more than just a replay of the studio version—it should be 100 times more alive, more raw, more unexpected. That’s when I really understood the power of performance. You can have the most incredible project, but if the experience doesn’t match the heart you put into it, it won’t land the same. Those performances taught me that the real magic happens when you take what you created in isolation and build a world around it that your fans can step into. That’s where the bond becomes real.
7. This project carries a heavy emotional weight, but there’s defiance in it too. Was there a moment during its creation where you realised you’d finally said what you needed to say, without compromise?
The moment I finished PRETTY and decided it would close out the tape, I knew I had finally said everything I needed to say. Strangely enough, that song was the easiest to write—but the hardest to swallow, because it came from the deepest wounds. My biggest insecurity has always been tied to my beauty—my brown skin, my features, wanting to be loved and called beautiful even when I didn’t feel it myself. Growing up, I didn’t see people who looked like me being affirmed that way, and I internalized that. PRETTY became a song to myself, a moment of softness I had never really given. It healed a part of my inner child who had been bullied, dismissed, and never truly seen.
Another turning point came with DANGEROUS. Years ago, I went through a breakup that I never fully processed. I remember catching my ex on Grindr, “hosting,” before we had even officially ended things. I kept it to myself—never spoke on it, just pushed through. But it left a deep bruise. Even though I’m in a loving relationship now, I knew I had to revisit that moment—not out of bitterness, but to release it. Writing DANGEROUS let my inner teenager speak—the one who felt betrayed, who didn’t know how to ask for closure. That song helped me reclaim that moment on my own terms, through my own voice.
8. As you prepare to release DAMN GENESIS, what do you hope listeners will carry with them after hearing it from start to finish, especially those who might also be navigating reclamation or reinvention in their own lives?
What I hope more than anything is that people truly listen to DAMN GENESIS—not just stream it, not just play it in the background—but listen. This project was designed to be experienced from start to finish, in order, like a journey. Every song is a piece of the human experience—love, loss, healing, temptation, joy, confusion—and I poured my heart into making sure each track could speak to someone out there navigating life in their own way.
My hope is that listeners find at least one song that hits them so deeply, they want to hold it close. I want the music to meet them in their rawest place, to help them process something they might not have had the words for before. Whether it’s healing an inner child, facing an uncomfortable truth, or finally feeling seen—I want DAMN GENESIS to be that outlet. And later, when they come back to it, I hope they hear that same song differently—as a reflection of how far they’ve come.
This project is about reclamation. Reinvention. Resilience. I just want people to walk away feeling like they found a piece of themselves somewhere in it.
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Discover BRIEL the Artist on Spotify and learn more about the artist via their official website.
Interview by Amelia Vandergast
