We often find ourselves mindlessly doom-scrolling on the internet, searching for escape to no true avail. The Little Rock, Arkansas-based experimental pianist Precious Renee Tucker is an anomaly to the formulaic algorithm. So much so that she’s captivated the attention of the heavy hitters in fashion. Videos of Tucker went viral on TikTok late last year of her playing two to four pianos at the same time. She’d transport us from our little screens to a meditative state.
Solange’s Saint Heron had asked her to perform at Surrogate’s Courthouse to celebrate the first issue of Saint Heron’s research journal on architect and artist Amaza Lee. Then at Telfar’s flagship store in SoHo, she broke the anatomy of the piano with an exploratory and interactive performance. After that, she appeared in a campaign for Martine Rose titled “A Waltz in C Sharp Minor” with choreographer Eric Christison.
In Milan, she performed for a Prada Frame event at the opening night of Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie with Hania Rani. While in New York, for Prada Mode, Tucker performed at the Chelsea Hotel for the fashion house’s exhibition curated by Nicolas Winding Refn and Hideo. Eyewear brand Chimi featured Tucker in a campaign titled “The Trial,” and invited her to perform at its New York location.
It’s safe to say fashion has welcomed Tucker with a warm embrace, all because she was audacious enough to express herself online, for the world to see.
“I have this tiny white piano that is often displayed on my like upright over here [in my room], and it’s the first piano I ever had, but I don’t have any memory of playing it,” Tucker tells ESSENCE. “My first memory of music was listening to instruments at church,” she says. “I make this joke that I was born on a Friday and I’m pretty sure my parents took me to church that Sunday, which they told me they didn’t, but maybe it was the next Sunday right after that. I’ve gone to church for as long as I can remember for the majority of my adolescence, and I remember staring at my very first piano teacher.”
Her parents say they noticed her attraction to the piano at around three years old. She started playing the piano at nine years old, taught by her piano teacher Beatrice Lyons, better known as Sister Beatrice at Tucker’s church.
“She would play a lot of octaves in her left hand during her lower notes, which are really the same but just in different ranges, and I incorporate that a lot in my playing, and it feels like I inherited that from her, or subconsciously did,” she says. “My hands just always love octaves. Maybe when you’re that [young] age as well, you have a different perspective on energy. It just felt like—not to be disrespectful of what is believed to be the Holy Spirit being the source of the energy—but at that age, I just felt like it was all coming from, or at least being driven by, the piano. The piano had such a part or a character in our story, and our ritual every Sunday, not even just the songs that the choir was singing.”
Church and fashion are one on Sunday. Tucker’s earliest memory with fashion and the concept of personal style was getting ready for church with her mom. “I noticed the difference between my mom and me getting ready for church, and my dad getting ready for church. It only took him maybe 10 to 15 minutes, but for my mom and me, I had to wake up super early in the morning so that my mom could press my hair out,” she says. “Maybe the night before or earlier that morning we would go and get a new, fresh pair of stockings. My mom decided what I wore, like when I was young, and I would have the stockings, and I would have my dress on. I would watch her get dressed so much growing up.”
She also attributes her grandmother as a bit of a style icon. Tucker’s favorite outfit of her grandmother is of her wearing a pink chuck hat with a pink blazer skirt set and stockings. “After [my grandmother] had passed away, hearing about how much she loved fashion and loved getting ready for church, I’ve been able to experience both sides of it.”
Speaking of, Tucker describes her personal style in three words: textures, layers, and lines. Her outfits online were an amalgamation of thrift finds. Her first video that went viral was her cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Earth Creation,” and she wore a blazer and tie from her local thrift store to set the solemn mood in her video.
Even though she is still learning more about fashion, she keeps a student’s humility to absorb this knowledge. “When it comes to designing clothes or creating a fashion brand, I always have my notebook out. I think it’s been so much fun working with these brands because they are so interested in storytelling and going deeper,” Tucker says. “Fashion keeps me lighthearted. Just being a part of or learning so much about the relationship between fashion and music, and just what that has meant to so many people, and what it now means and what it will continue to mean.”
As for fashion’s new darling, the future looks like studying planetary science to discover more planets, as that is another one of her great loves. While she loves instant gratification, she is forcing herself to think about tomorrow with a planner, and is sure to practice, practice, practice her piano.
She left some advice to other pianists who are struggling with discipline. “The piano can sometimes be like that friend that you haven’t spoken to in months, but then it finally aligns where you can hang out again, and it just feels like no time has passed,” she says. Tucker adds, “A lot of piano is muscle memory. A lot of it is just repetition, and you’d be surprised at what the body remembers a lot.”
Author: Kerane Marcellus
Read the original article on Essence.
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