Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandi “Swift, The Goddess” Trujillo.
Hi Brandi “Swift, The Goddess”, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Some of my earliest memories are connected to sound.
I remember singing to the animals around my grandmother’s home when I was little. I lived with my grandmother and my aunt, and I was always humming, singing, listening, observing. I used to get in trouble for humming music back to my grandmother while she was talking to me because I was literally hearing songs. I still do that now, I’ve just grown up enough to know when not to be rude.
Music has always been one of those things I could hear naturally, and meditation was the same way. I often say some things came pre-installed in me. I don’t remember having to be introduced to stillness, sound, rhythm, nature or reflection. They were just always there.
My great-grandfather also planted something in me very early. He told me that if I ever wanted to know something about myself, or needed somewhere to reflect, I should go to nature. He taught me that nature demonstrates and mirrors so much of who we are, and if you observe closely enough, you can find answers.
My Uncle Wayne gave me one of my earliest boomboxes, which only deepened my love for music. My father is a musician, and my mother is extremely creative in her own right. She could draw, sew, make clothes and create things from nothing. Some of my earliest memories with her involve fashion and making clothes, so creativity was around me in a lot of different forms.
Church was also a big part of my early life. I helped my aunt clean the church when I was little, and there was always a microphone around. I sang in the choir, did recitations, participated in programs and was regularly in front of people. From the time I was old enough to write well and stand up and read from a piece of paper, I served as the church secretary. I did that until I left home at 15.
Looking back, I can see how much of what I do now was already present then.
As I got older, life became more demanding. I became a mother, worked hard to provide for my family and spent more than a decade working in the mental health and substance abuse field. There was a period in my twenties when I was working so much that I let my meditation practice fall into the background, and eventually my body let me know that something was off. I was dealing with health challenges and realized I had disconnected from one of the things that had always helped keep me grounded.
That brought me back deeply into meditation, sound, breath and frequency. I started listening to Tibetan singing bowls, meditation recordings and teachers like Dr. Wayne Dyer and Jonathan Goldman. Years later, studying work like The Humming Effect felt like a full-circle moment because humming had been something I had done instinctively since childhood.
My own meditation and sound practices also helped fortify me while working in behavioral health. I belonged to communities where drumming, chanting, meditation, movement, education and spiritual practice were part of how we stayed aligned mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Long before everything was being called “somatic,” I was already very interested in breath, sound and movement because those practices made sense to me and because they had lasted for thousands of years.
Eventually, that curiosity led me into more formal study. I became a Thai Yoga Therapy practitioner, a Reiki Master and studied traditional clinical reflexology across seven systems. I also studied Qigong, Eastern healing traditions, meditation and other mind-body practices.
From there, I started hosting and co-facilitating wellness and sound experiences. I worked with a sound healer named Austin Shook, and we began creating experiences together centered around sound, meditation and healing. Later, I founded BlackMoon Soundscapes, an ambient sound healing band and community experience. We were doing beautiful work together until the pandemic naturally changed the direction of the group. One of the things I’m proud of from that period was helping open Gaston County’s first YMCA Yoga Day.
Over the years, I’ve performed and collaborated in a lot of different environments, including arts organizations, wellness spaces, community spaces, ceremonies, poetry events and cultural gatherings. Through the Otter Dance Medicine Community, I also served as a vocalist and drummer during ceremonial gatherings in the United States and internationally.
Music has always remained the thread.
I perform professionally as Swift, The Goddess, and my work blends music, spoken word, improvisation and storytelling. I’ve been fortunate to perform and collaborate with organizations including the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Gaston County YMCA and Valley Soulz Full Moon Poetry LV.
I also have three sons who are artists in their own right, and two of them have released music, so it means a lot to me to see that creative lineage continue.
Today, a lot of these different parts of my life come together through BRYCELY, the company I founded to create cultural, creative and community-centered experiences. I’m building work around music, hospitality, wellness, gathering, storytelling and meaningful connection.
Now I’m moving between North Carolina and Las Vegas, and in a way I feel like a modern-day pioneer in my own family because I’m the one carrying this work back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast.
Being nominated for two 2026 Las Vegas Black Music Awards, Spoken Word Poet of the Year – Performance and Jazz Artist of the Year, was a beautiful full-circle moment for me, not because the awards are the whole story, but because both categories recognize different sides of the same voice I’ve been developing all my life.
When I really look at the timeline, it all makes sense. The little girl humming songs, singing to animals, standing at the church microphone, sitting in nature, paying attention to rhythm and learning how people gather is still very much who I am today.
I just have more language, more experience and more tools now.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely hasn’t always been a smooth road. I think one of my biggest challenges has been learning how to navigate being someone who has always been a little different.
I’ve naturally been a disruptor in the sense that I tend to shift rooms, conversations and what people believe is possible. I sometimes think about Plato’s allegory of the cave. Illumination sounds wonderful until what is revealed requires somebody to change the way they think or see themselves. Some people welcome that kind of energy, and some people resist it.
I experienced that early in my professional life. I entered the mental health and substance abuse field very young and spent more than a decade there. There were assumptions made about me because of my age, appearance and simply not fitting what some people expected. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized those kinds of assumptions don’t necessarily disappear. They just change form. Ageism, sexism and other people’s limited beliefs about what someone should look like, be doing or be capable of are still very real.
What maturity has given me is the ability to give people grace without adopting their limitations as my own.
Relationships have taught me a lot as well. I’m naturally a people person, and people tend to gravitate toward me. Learning healthy boundaries became important because being loving, open and loyal doesn’t mean everyone is meant to have unlimited access to you. I’ve actually always had a strong sense of discernment about when something no longer serves me and when it is time to move. My lesson has been trusting that knowing and understanding that everybody cannot accompany you into every season of your life.
I’ve also lived through some major pivots, including the ending of my marriage, a significant car accident involving my children and me, a house fire, professional transitions and times when life simply did not unfold the way I expected.
All of it has made me more adaptable.
I’ve learned not to confuse somebody else misunderstanding me with me being wrong. I’ve learned to trust my discernment, maintain my boundaries and remain open enough to recognize when life is redirecting me instead of resisting the change.
That ability to pivot without losing myself has probably been one of the greatest things adversity has taught me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a multidisciplinary artist, healing artist, creative and entrepreneur. I use that lens not only to make art, but to actualize ideas, build experiences and create opportunities for myself and other people.
My work moves through music, spoken word, sound, wellness, hospitality, storytelling, cultural experiences, relationship-building and business development. I perform professionally as Swift, The Goddess, and I’m also the founder of BRYCELY, where a lot of those worlds come together.
One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m not just an idea person. I’m very much an execution person.
I can see a concept and immediately start thinking about who needs to be involved, what resources are needed, how it should be positioned, who needs to be contacted, what relationships can support it and what needs to happen next to move it from conversation into reality. That might mean building a partnership, curating a room, producing an experience, writing the outreach, finding the right people, coordinating the details or creating the follow-through after everyone else has gone home.
I do that in my own work, but I’ve also naturally done it for other artists, entrepreneurs, organizations and community projects. I genuinely enjoy helping connect people to opportunities, resources and one another when I can see where the alignment is.
The creative and healing sides of me are still central to how I work. I’m trained in Thai Yoga Therapy, traditional clinical reflexology, Reiki and other mind-body practices, and I’ve spent years working with sound, breath, movement, meditation and community experiences. That affects the way I produce and lead because I pay attention to people, environment, energy and how an experience actually feels, not just how it looks on paper.
What I’m most proud of is my ability to move between worlds without losing myself. I can be on a stage, in a wellness space, at a business table, producing an event, building a partnership or making introductions between people who may have never crossed paths otherwise.
I think what sets me apart is that I can see possibility and then help give it structure.
For me, creativity is not separate from business. Creativity is how I see what could exist, and business is one of the ways I help bring it into form.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something people probably don’t know about me is that I can watch home improvement, interior design and DIY content for hours. That is genuinely one of my self-soothing spaces. I’ve loved it since I was a kid.
I’m also a serious reader, but I mostly read for information, knowledge and application. I go through seasons where I can read dozens of books in a relatively short period of time, and I usually end up studying whatever I’m learning and figuring out how to use it in real life. I’ve always been very self-directed that way, and I think I got a lot of that from my grandmother.
When I’m decompressing, I usually reach for books, documentaries, design content or something that teaches me something new. I was also raised around a serious sci-fi lover, so that definitely rubbed off on me.
And if you looked through my phone, you would probably find more pictures of plants, flowers, food and animals than pictures of me.
I think that surprises people because so much of my public work is social and outward-facing, but a lot of the way I recharge is actually very quiet, observational and curious.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://payhip.com/BRYCELY
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swift_the_goddess
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandi-trujillo-680b003a7
- Twitter: https://x.com/swift__goddess
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@swiftthegoddess
- Other: https://sticky-space-886.notion.site/Feature-Series-2fd6d215d0ee80acbd1fc1d5e4bda27d?pvs=149
