The Many Dimensions of Rapper and Designer Shauna Moon

Selling her art as early as 12 years old, Shauna Moon has been a lifelong creative. She has moved between many mediums, but at her core, Moon is a storyteller and visionary. Identifying as an “experimental hip-hop artist,” Moon is a chemist-turned-professional rapper who pushes the bou nds of music and art. Both being raised by Jamaican immigrant parents and having a diverse range of experiences at a young age molded Moon into the eclectic artist she is today.

Growing up, Moon moved around often, living in neighborhoods throughout Trenton and Central Jersey and spending time in Jamaica. As a child, she was surrounded by art. She listened to CDs by American artists like Ciara, Busta Rhymes and Timbaland and Jamaican artists like Shaggy and Sean Paul. Throughout childhood and through college, she also danced and acted in plays. “I am very much a theater kid,” Moon said.

Moon’s creative entrepreneurial drive also developed early on. Deeply interested in manga, she hoped to join a scanlation team but needed editing experience. That is when she decided to teach herself graphic and web design. At 12, she started selling her designs.

“I [did] what my mama has always told me to do, which is create my own space, create my own business. [She] was really big on, ‘make your own money.’ So I did,” Moon said.

Studying chemistry and economics at a college in Massachusetts, she hoped to become a cosmetic chemist with her own skincare or haircare line. While she ultimately decided to go a different route, she said that each of her experiences prepared her: design influenced the way she approached science, and science inspires her music today.

“Chemistry applies to everything. [There’s a] conversion between chemistry and art … I think chemistry is the general makeup of all things that we interact with,” Moon said. “Music also has chemistry. Certain hits, certain points, how you fit into the pockets of music, how things blend – those are things that I’m thinking of when I make music.”

Moon’s transition to music was not intentional. For fun, she would post freestyles to social media, and she even began creating visuals. Things changed in 2020 after she posted a freestyle called “Beautiful Black Child” for Black History Month – the beat producer reposted the video, and then an Oakland artist reached out to her to collaborate on the song.

“I was like, ‘what do you mean be on my song? This is not a song.’ I was doing this for fun. At that point, he was like, ‘no, I really think this could be a song.’ I didn't know anything about making music at the time,” Moon said. “When it came to doing music full time, I kind of just fell into it, and then I really liked it. I was like, ‘oh, this is fun. [It’s] a challenge, but it's also a chance to be really poetic.’”

The collaboration dropped on Juneteenth that same year. Weeks prior, Moon released her first song “Candy” to gauge the public’s reaction to her music. People received it well. 

As a musical artist, Moon produces complex lyrics and captivating visuals that often reflect her feelings at that moment or comment on society. In each of her music videos, she introduces a new character from a different world and invites her audience to see a story unfold, much like the stories she saw in cartoons and comics she engaged with as a child.

The concept behind “Exhale,” for example, was inspired by Moon’s own struggles with anxiety and depression. For the music video, she drew from her sister’s experiences working at an inpatient facility and other sources, thinking about how she can mimic reality within an imagined world. 

“Most of my music is centered on me, but I [also talk] about the hypocrisy of society. How does capitalism, classism, racism, all the -isms affect our lives? How can we comment on society and life and the things that also need to be changed? And how can we use symbolism and literary devices and metaphors and similes and word play to tell and depict these stories?” Moon said. 

In her work, Moon uses creative freedom while also honoring people’s lived experiences within each context. In that, she hopes to heal herself and others.

“I think that if you're going to craft stories, you should interview people and gain a larger understanding of the story that you're trying to share from their perspective. Emotion is so big to me, so [I want] somebody who might have been through it [to be] like, ‘I can feel what she's trying to share,’” Moon said. “I create for the person that didn't have confidence or didn't feel like they could be loud, the person that couldn't freely emote without judgment. I create for the child version of me.”

Over everything else, Moon is intentional about being herself. In an industry that heavily relies on trends and formulas, she finds inspiration in unconventional artists who create their own lane – musical artists like Doechii, Lizzo and Kendrick Lamar, along with designers like Manfred Thierry Mugler.

“I was like … am I trying to trade in my authenticity for commercialization? That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Moon said. “I feel like [how I regard] trends [is] I'm like ‘that's cool, but it's not me.’ And I'm going to do what I feel like is going to best be me. I like the excessive theatrical – I'm more of an avant garde type of person. I like out of the box sh*t. I’m not the type of person to fit into a mold.”

These days, along with creating music, Moon runs her own design and management business and co-hosts a creative branding lab.

SINNI Art Lab offers merch management, set design and creative consulting services to independent artists. Moon launched the design agency in 2024, after winning the Black Music City grant. When it first started, SINNI Art Lab was a journalistic project that told the stories of Black women and their impact on the Philadelphia music scene. It has since expanded to much more.

Moon also co-hosts Audiovisual Club, an art collective focused on the intersection of music, media and brand storytelling. In her role, she does storyboard art direction for brand campaigns and leads workshops for the creative community at REC Philly.

No matter what kind of art she is creating or what medium she is working within, Moon prioritizes authentic storytelling – starting with truth and telling the truth. 

“At the end of the day, art is inspired by life, and life inspires art. For me to stay grounded as an artist, I just gotta just keep experimenting. Play is the idea. You shouldn't be trying to force something to happen,” Moon said.

The artist remains authentic by staying grounded in who she is, in all that she is. Since she does not want to be easily understood, she writes lyrics and creates visuals that are less obvious and inspire people to want to learn more.