Indigo De Souza grew up feeling like she never fit in, but now the 25-year-old musician has no qualms about standing out.
De Souza is set to headline the first day of the Southside Spillover concert series at Tulips FTW in the city’s Near Southside.
Hailing from a small town in North Carolina, De Souza credits her mother, Kimberly Ellen Oberhammer, for encouraging her to lean into her own artistic gifts and to write her own music as a child.
“I feel like the reason she was so influential is because she just didn’t care about what people thought,” she said. “She always was making art because she wanted to make art. She was never actually trying to profit from it. She didn’t really care if people saw it or not.”
If you go
What: Indigo De Souza will perform the first evening of the Southside Spillover
Set times: 3:00 p.m. Flowerbed
3:40 p.m. Dome Dwellers
4:20 p.m. EVNTYD
5:05 p.m. Andi
5:50 p.m. Nitefire
6:35 p.m. Cheekface
7:25 p.m. Kevin Holliday
8:15 p.m. Quarters of Change
9:30 p.m. Enumclaw
10:30 p.m. Indigo De Souza
Date: March 18
Location: Tulips FTW
112 St. Louis Ave
Fort Worth, TX 76104
Tickets: $25
The tenacity to defy stereotypes and chart her own course was something that De Souza had to grow into, she said.
“I have mental illness and have always felt out of place… I always felt like I woke up in this weird reality where there’s tons of violence and trash, consumerism and people ladder-climbing and not being honest,” she said.
Moving, building up her own community and setting boundaries has been empowering for De Souza.
She uses her art as a vehicle to help other people be cognizant of issues in the world and to encourage them to create a different reality.
“We can choose to be really strong,” she said. “We don’t have to let the (hard) parts of being alive just completely crush us.”
The singer doesn’t hesitate to talk about depression, romantic relationships gone awry and angst about the state of the world with a mixture of pop, folk and rock influences – and a heavy dose of self-reflection.
Her new album “All of This Will End” weaves together these ideas through songs like “Time Back,” “You Can Be Mean” and “Younger and Dumber.”
As a teen, De Souza said she experienced a lot of turbulence and dysfunction, but she’s grateful for how it helped her to grow into the person she is today.
“The past two years have been the most stable and incredible years of my life,” she said. “Every day I just felt so happy and grateful for my community, for having time to make artwork and for being blessed with the opportunity to do this job.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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