First and foremost,
what I just feel like
everybody gotta slow down and understand is that
I'm truly just following my passion for art.
Seriously.
And just followin' my passion for music.
♪ It could get real, but please don't let it ♪
I am the female Drake.
And whether people choose to believe it or not,
they will see it soon.
The real problem is with my family, honestly,
and the fact that they choose not to open their minds,
expand their horizons, come on guys, like.
Let's do somethin', change somethin', somethin'.
My family just can't accept me
for who I am deep down inside.
They can just pretend I'm done, dead, gone.
I'm Telly Zelly.
I do me, I like to make music, I like to live life.
I like good vibes, good food, good bud,
and I just be chillin', takin' it day by day.
This is me, like yo'.
At the core of my music, is honesty.
It's transparency, but confidence.
♪ It's Telly, no hotel, but I put people arrested ♪
For people who feel like they can't listen to my material,
tune in to my content because I'm too offensive,
too much of this, too much of that.
To those type of people, ultimately,
I say, "Suck my (beep)."
A really big part of making it today is social media.
I feel like if you take Instagram away from me,
I don't have a life.
What I did was decide to go and get my tattoo.
And my tattoo basically says what I need everybody
to read when they're not feeling me,
or when they don't agree with me.
And that's "suck my (bleep)" (laughs).
And what it stands for is
the fact that (bleep) is a lifestyle,
not caring what people think
and dedicating myself to my inner passions.
When I got my tattoo, I decided to film it because
I knew I was making a really big life changing decision.
I had my brother, Josh, doing it for me.
After we took the video, we thought like,
why not share it to the world
and it got like 5.3 million views in about two hours.
Finally, I get the attention.
I would do it again.
I was actually gonna plan on going
for another one soon (laughs).
I'm gonna do and commit to doing what I wanna do.
Yeah!
I'm here, what's up, baby.
Nice to meet you, Phil! How you doin'?
How you doin'?
I'm doin' awesome.
(audience laughs)
Yeah?
What's up, what it do, what's up, what up, what up.
So, you haven't seen your mother in a month.
Yeah.
You haven't seen your aunt in four months.
Mmm-hmm.
So--
It's crazy though, like,
just listening to half of it,
like I was backstage,
it's just ridiculous to me, you know,
like, I'm me, and that's something
that I just passionately feel for, you know,
doin' what comes to my mind.
It's just, as simple as that.
But it's hard, too dumb, to listen to her,
when they got a "suck my--" across her forehead.
She sounds like a chicken head.
She sound mad, like everybody mad.
Some other kid, that really wanted to go to school
could've had a four year college scholarship.
That's the mad.
(applause)
So, what's your plan?
My plan? Is to just continue doin' what I'm doin'
and that's building up portfolio
of genre's of music, visuals;
I create the treatments for my own videos,
I sit there, I budget.
It's hard, I'm doin' it alone, independently.
Like, clap for that.
Most people can't do it on their own.
Thank you, that one little person, yeah.
That's the type of person that I am.
That's the type of person that I am,
I don't even need one person in this crowd
to believe in me, I believe in me.
Then why not go to school for something with music?
If that's what you wanna really do.
(applause)
Takin' a class for music, why?
When I could sit there and teach myself, you know?
These institutions-- What's the end route now?
With this tattoo on your face.
Alright, well this is just the beginning.
Me being expressive,
me having to deal with a family that's hostile,
like that's a whole different ballgame.
Oh, we're not hostile.
We are not hostile.
We are sad.
We're not hostile.
If you don't believe in this,
why are you supporting it?
Hmm...
I'm not hostile,
and I wasn't supporting it. (applause)
I wasn't supporting it.
I'm not gonna just give up on her
because she decided to do something different.