The free-spirit, emotional, beautiful, bad ass, DJ that is NINTH CHILD wasn't always called by that name. Formerly known as White Horse, Natalia Benson went through a spiritual transformation not only of moniker, but of self. As her life and her music were evolving, her debut EP Lovers was born.
As she continues to work on her music, she'll be popping up at Basslantic City, April 28-29 (tickets here) and Lightning in a Bottle at the end of May (tickets here).
In this exclusive interview she talks about undergoing her transformation, how excited she is to be playing with one of her earliest influences, and what feelings are behind Lovers and the music video for Virgo (watch it below):
Ninth Child is a fairly new alias. Was it planned or did it come to you as White Horse did?
No it wasn’t planned. And to be very honest with you, it actually wasn’t even a welcome thing. I’d been playing under Whitehorse for about 2 years and then someone hit me up, a friend of mine, and was like “You know that’s a Canadian Folk band?” and I was like “No!”
I had already played Coachella for DoLab, I had some pretty incredible gigs under my belt and I was really into the energy. You know, that name came to me in a dream and it was very special. So when we found out its trade marked yeah know, you don’t want to move any further with this, I kind of just got creative - looked at my tarot, did some meditation and soul searching and that’s what we came up with.
And to be completely honesty it took me a minute to get into – I mean, it totally speaks to be now and it was an opportunity for a fresh start – but initially I was like ‘I’m Whitehorse. This is what I am’
And my hair, I used to have super, super white hair. It was a whole thing but, ya know, it gave me an opportunity for a fresh start and to evolve so it was cool.
How do the two projects compare?
Ninth Child, like I said, is an evolution. The evolution, whether I changed my name or not, would happen inevitably because as an artist and as a person I am always changing and always kind of building on whatever I’ve done. White horse, I would say it was really when I was getting my feet wet. And I kind of got thrown in some crazy stations where I would go ‘Whoa, how am I playing this? This is crazy?’ I got tested a lot and got to test out what I feel like my musical style is and what my message is and my vibe is.
And then with Ninth Child I took White Horse and just slung it into this whole other energy like doing my live performances and getting really into original production. Still really going full force with the music video content – that’s like a big part of this project for me. So really, I guess it was just sort of a natural progression I just happened to have name change to go along with it.
Listen on to hear how excited she is the play Basslantic city in April, and the inspiration behind her debut EP, Lovers and music video for Virgo.
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And make sure to check out here first music video for Virgo off of her debut EP, Lovers:
https://www.facebook.com/ninthchild.ix/videos/1857908351097587/