After 7 years, Clear Mortifee is back home. Born and raised in Vancouver, the R&B/alt pop artist has spent time growing his music career in both Toronto and California. But now, he says they’re back for good.

Their most recent EP, Fairies: Act II, came out at the tail-end of 2021. It’s an incredibly smooth, self-assured collection that shares personal narratives exploring themes like gender identity, love, empowerment, and relationships. More recently, he’s dipped his toes into the NFT scene. The first of what may be many for the artist is a dual NFT, pairing their track “Prophecy of the Morning Dew” from Fairies: Act I with another artist’s animated depiction of glistening futuristic fairies.

While his career continues to steadily move forward, his biggest focus right now is themselves. Morftifee says they’re taking their time, laying the groundwork for letting future creativity flow—perhaps like it never has before.

[Interview has been edited for clarity & brevity.]

Moving back home can come with a lot of mixed feelings. How have you been navigating the experience so far?

Yeah, definitely. My family all lives here. I have my three nuclear family members—my mom, my dad, and my sister are one of the main reasons I came back just because I have had so much healing with them, specifically with my parents, since transitioning. All of a sudden, for the first time in like a decade, I've felt homesick. It's almost like it's compounded in all the years I didn't miss home. I got to feel the weight of that experience in the past three to six months.

Something people say a lot is that it’s hard to be an artist in Vancouver. Has this felt true for you?

You know, I feel like I'm not fully informed enough to be able to comment, because I just got back. But I know that part of the reason why I left was because I felt like I had already hit a bit of a ceiling when I was here before. And I wanted to see what other cities could offer in terms of me stretching my wings, and also being challenged to expand bigger and come into more of myself.

Listening to Fairies: Act II, I felt a sense of vulnerability, but also so much confidence. Vulnerability is often conflated with or felt as weakness, but when you can stand in your vulnerability with courage—I can't think of anything more powerful, and so much confidence could come from that.

People will say, “you're very vulnerable in how you show up”. And I think it's just me being honest. I think it's really just me not cutting parts of myself off or out. Which for me, feels better. I feel less fragmented. I feel more multi-dimensional. And I wouldn't want to cut parts of myself out. To please who? This kind of amorphous, ambiguous, faceless other? It’s just not a part of what I'm interested in doing at this point in my journey. So thank you for that. I do feel—I think it's a confidence in choosing to not censor myself.

What are you working on right now?

I’m in such a massive transition point in my life. Becoming a man in a way that people on the outside can see me is just such a trip. Such an interesting experience. And it's definitely not complete, my experience of transition. I don't know if it ever will feel finished, but it certainly doesn't at this moment. I'm just really holding space and being patient for the process and allowing my lifeforce energy to be released. I have so much more energy and capacity for everything that I love in my life, as I'm transitioning. As it progresses, I expect that that bandwidth will grow wider, and I'm so excited to see what dreams I finally allow myself to experience as that bandwidth grows.

That being said, I'm sitting on so much music and I think a big piece around the bandwidth growing as I'm transitioning is that I can actually take the steps that can allow my music to have greater life, have more songs out, be in the public eye more, perform more, perform bigger stages more.

…But for now I’m just taking my time and listening to my body as I'm taking steps forward. Even moving to Vancouver and just having one city where I'm gonna be settled in will enable me to build a band again, and just be grounded, and have a strong foundation that I can then bound off of in a way that I perhaps didn't have [before].

Still taken From the video for “honey boy” Cinematography by Emmett Bright + Hunter Cates

You’ve been open about your transition on your social media and how that's influencing your singing voice. Can you share more about this part of your journey?

About this time last year, I was slowly upping my testosterone dose. That felt like the right thing for me. And I genuinely didn't know if I was going to be able to sing after. I went through an internal process of psychologically letting go of my attachment to my identity as an artist and my sense of it defining who I am. And I came to peace with it. I just trusted that if I had to give up singing to really be who I am, it's okay.

Then it was September of 2021 and I was staying at an Airbnb in Oakland with this singer named Collette Washington. There was this one night, we'd had a glass of wine and had dinner and we were vibing. I was sitting down at her piano, and I was playing and singing for her lightly, and she was like, “come on, sing for me, sing!” She started belting, and then I started belting. It was the first time that I had really used my chest voice since taking testosterone. I was singing, and I remember I was going a bit higher belting, and then my voice totally cracked and broke at one point, and she was like, “Yeah, that's it! That's that emotion, that vulnerability, yes!”

It was such a breakthrough moment for me, where I realized that the imperfection in my voice now actually delivers the palpable emotional experience to the listener even more than my voice did before. So I've been doing shows again, and doing sessions, and I can still sing. It's been such a gift.

What are you listening to right now?

I was watching the Grammys the other night and this group called Maverick City Music won a Grammy. They’re a praise group, and I wasn't raised with religion, but I have a relationship with the Spirit of Jesus on my own terms. I don't have a relationship with Christianity, or the church or the Bible, but I do with the Spirit of Jesus. Hearing these musicians praising God, and Spirit is something that has just really been working for me. I was listening to them on my road trip up the coast, and yeah, it really helps me feel connected to the divine. It's been the vibe lately.

So you're a musician, but that's not all you do. Tell me about your other vocations.

I'm also a life coach and creative coach. And I am also trained as a Reiki Master Practitioner, so I do energy work and mediumship when it happens. I learn so much from my clients and from myself as I'm working with them, so it's really rewarding.

A lot of our readers and the people we publish are emerging creatives. What advice would you give them as a creative coach?

I would tell them that their creativity is totally valid. And it matters, both to their own wellbeing, and also to anyone who gets the privilege of witnessing their creativity. There's no metric of good and bad in my mind when it comes to self expression. I think that when it's real, and it comes from a place where it's providing a cathartic experience for the artist, there is innate value in that journey.

I was actually just speaking with a client about this, about how it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. We've heard this so many times, but that's how I approach my music. A successful writing session is if I feel a sense of authenticity and release. Most of my music will never see the light of day, and most creative art, you know, arguably will never see the light of day. I think getting in the habit and in the practice of giving ourselves a creative session and having that be enough, and having sharing it with anyone just be a bonus, is a great way to approach it.

Do you believe an artist has certain responsibilities, whether to themself or to the people who will be experiencing their art?

No, that's what's coming to mind is no, I don't think so. I think we're all just living life, and however we are is okay. We have an opportunity to be courageous and honest, and I think that that, in and of itself, can transform communities and cultures and worlds. There's an exciting potential within creativity. I don't know if I would say there's a responsibility in the sense of it being a heavy thing. But there is a possibility in the sense of it being an exciting, expansive thing. That's how it feels to me.

Are there any artists in Vancouver or emerging artists that you're excited about right now?

Yeah, I actually got a chance to do not one but two shows with an artist named Makadi when I was down in the Bay Area. He's originally from Boston, but he's been in Vancouver for four years, and it was just great to meet him and check out his art. His music videos are really incredible, and the music is gorgeous and stuck in my head, so shout out to Makadi. Kimmortal is also an artist who has been exciting to witness over the past few years and watching them grow and checking out their tunes again. Their stuff gets stuck in my head too.

What else have you been up to?

I just graduated from a fellowship program with a DAO, which stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. They're called FWB, Friends with Benefits. So it's kind of tongue in cheek, it's like a crypto/arts/culture org. Vancouver's very own Pat Lok started the fellowship program to make it more accessible for folks who otherwise the finances would be a barrier for entry.I was very grateful to get to be a fellow, and so the music NFTs are going to be part of the inaugural fellowship collection. I'm very new to the [NFT] space. But yeah, it's been really exciting to watch it unfold.

It's actually a dual [NFT], it’s the audio for my song “Prophecy of the Morning Dew” which is off Fairies: Act I. And then one is an animated visual to go with that song. And it's of fairies by a river that my friend Tara created.

So do you think this is just the beginning of NFTs for you?

You know, I do. Yeah, it's really interesting, being a part of the community and starting to wrap my head around the utility of NFTs. Of course, there's been the buzz about the PFP Projects, which for me, kind of resembles gambling. It's not something that is like particularly exciting for me. I recognize that there's beauty in the artwork of, you know, the different pieces as well depending on what they are; and there's culture around it, which is valuable in its own right. But yeah, I think music NFTs feel different to me.

There's artists who are literally breaking generational poverty by releasing and being compensated for their music for the first time in the music industry's history. The music industry, you know, was inherently broken, and also inherently racist. So to see artists being compensated for the incredible value that they're providing to their communities is revolutionary. I'm still wrapping my head around it, and how it feels to be watching artists being paid for what they're bringing. It's emotional, honestly. It's definitely a big shift in the whole mindset of what it's like to be an artist. So yeah, it's a really exciting space to be in and I'm excited for the future. It's just the beginning.

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Coming Home: A Conversation with Clear Mortifee