Artist profile ·
BLAKCHYL CAME UP IN THE CIPHER AND NEVER STOPPED PASSING IT DOWN
Te’aunna Moore’s road from The Cipher and Mindz of a Different Kind to a solo career keeps the community inside the craft.
Blakchyl’s East Austin story is made of bars, mentorship and years of showing up.
Te’aunna Moore joined The Cipher in 2007 after meeting her mentor Chris “Gator” Ockletree in a beatmaking class. That’s where the artist, then going by T-Fly, met future members of Mindz of a Different Kind and learned how poetry, production and community work could run together.
Each one, teach one
After MDK’s projects and international shows, Moore built up the Blakchyl name through solo releases like “Pushin Penz” and the album Better Than I Imagined. The music slides between East Coast-informed rap, R&B and jazz, and the pen stays at the center the whole time.
Her workshops, youth mentorship and steady collabs make longevity look like circulation, where whatever she picked up in one room gets carried into the next. East Austin is her subject and her method.
