In honor of Black History Month, Atwood Magazine has invited artists to participate in a series of essays reflecting on identity, music, culture, inclusion, and more.

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Today, rising singer/songwriter Dali Rose (born Drake Hunt), a 22-year-old Brooklyn-based artist, explores themes of arrested development and untapped potential in his essay, ‘Toys Killing Toys,’ as a part of Atwood Magazine’s Black History Month series! Inspired by a world on fire and modern American oligarchy, he reflects on the decay of community and the pursuit of common understanding.

Atlanta native Dali Rose is carving out his own lane in music with a bold fusion of classic soul, eclectic influences, and modern soundscapes. Inspired by legends like The Ohio Players, Sly Stone, and Nina Simone – alongside contemporary innovators like Earl Sweatshirt, King Krule, and Mac Miller – Dali crafts a sound that is both timeless and refreshingly original. Raised in a deeply musical environment and rooted in his early experiences singing in the church choir, Dali’s passion for music solidified in his late teens. During the pandemic, he made a pivotal decision to switch his major from Political Science to Music at NYU – a leap of faith that has since shaped his artistic journey. Now a graduate, Dali is fully immersed in his craft, delivering raw, authentic songwriting that resonates with emotion and honesty.

His debut single, “Stray,” a track that captures the essence of longing, survival, and redemption, is out now. The visualizer, set against the vibrant backdrop of New York City, enhances the track’s raw and genuine energy, brought to life through a VHS video shot by Dali himself, perfectly reflecting his ground-level aesthetic.

Read Dali’s Black History Month essay below, and stay tuned for more to come!

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TOYS KILLING TOYS

by Dali Rose

Toys killing toys.

We’re all children.

Your partner is a toy, a syringe filled with pleasure. Once depleted, you’re stumbling off to the next crevice. Your friends are toys. They’re more tools for validation, your own personal echo chamber where you gleefully count the reflections. Soon, you grow sick of the sound, as you hate the sound of your own voice, so you’re off stumbling again. You find a hall of mirrors, each one a picture frame dressed with abundant dreams: radiant love, the infinite cosmos, forests of evergreen, and voyages to paradise. Eventually, the colors fade. Mundane truth settles in, and cacophonous silence takes its rightful place. How you hate the silence, how disgusting the truth, so you barrel through the hall, your grizzled arms flailing, sending mirrors careening until nothing remains but the shatters of dreams.

We’re so careless with these toys.

Why not treat them with care?

Perhaps no one ever taught us to.Our teachers, visionaries, our heroes are mere reflections of ourselves. More children, gifted with billions of dollars, and millions of toys. Soon these insignificant bundles of blood and plastic are tossed, bitten, and discarded into the water.

Down the aimless river, you’ll find billions of souls deemed broken. They hate the river. The smell makes them nauseous, the sick shade of brown drives them rabid, as our most obedient become deranged cannibals. Soon, plastic rips into plastic. More children discarded. Toys killing toys.

Damn the metaphor.

Damn it all.

I’m angry.

I spend each day quieting the rage, telling it to sit still and compartmentalize. That’s what I’m told to do. A man like me should be digestible. There’s no room for error in this delicate dance. They’re all waiting for you to explode. They’re compelling you, begging you to explode for the entire world to see. It’s futile, telling rage to behave when each day I’m accosted with ten more reasons to scream. Now, I’m unexpressed and the fire unprocessed, so the flames give birth to poison. The venom spews through every thought, scorning my words, blinding my actions, cursing my desperate attempts at love. I begin to sink, further and further out of reach, drowning without a soul to care, alone in the wasteland of plastic.

Are you alone?

I can’t be the only one drifting towards the depths.

I sense you somewhere off in the distance, clinging to air. Maybe we can save each other, but first we must save ourselves. I’m going back to the mirrors and I’m piecing together the shatters. Each day, a dream will be reborn. I’ll sit there in the silence, and marvel at the infallible truth. This fire must be released, and this rage must be expressed, channeled into something far greater than we could ever fathom.

This river is a prison of our own creation.

Imagine the world we could make: a place where toys are left to children, and children become adults. Imagine a place where love radiates: how colorful the playgrounds, how clean the air, how protected our souls. Imagine a world where these streets could be called a community.

The only way through this poison is fire.

Express yourself.

Unleash your rage.

Watch the home you’ve always dreamed for dancing towards the horizon. – Dali Rose

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