Melisa Rincón (born ) known professionally as Bunny Michael, is an American interdisciplinary visual artist, musician, and rapper.

Early life and education

Bunny Michael was raised in

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. They are the middle of three children born to a second-generation

Mexican American Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexico, Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the Unite ...

father and a Samoan mother. They were raised in an affluent suburb. Michael attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. They realized they were queer at the age of fifteen and stated that

coming out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

to their family was a difficult process. Michael briefly moved in with their first girlfriend's family. They have since reconciled with their family. Michael graduated from

Marymount Manhattan College Marymount Manhattan College is a private college on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. As of 2020, enrollment consisted of 1,571 undergraduate students with women making up 80.1% and men 19.9% of student enrollment. Columbia University Masters ...

Career

Michael is a visual artist, musician, and rapper whose work often examines the relationship between the masculine and feminine, the body and the soul, and the self and higher self. After graduating from college, they shared their music through

Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

. Michael was the vocalist performing by the name Bunny Rabbit with producer Black Cracker. It is described by ''

HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'' as an "eponymous experimental rap collaboration." Bunny Rabbit toured with CocoRosie and gained praise from New Yorker critic

Sasha Frere-Jones Alexander Roger Wallace "Sasha" Frere-Jones ( né Jones; born 1967) is an American writer, music critic, and musician. Frere-Jones was pop critic of the ''New Yorker'' from 2004 to 2015. In January 2015, he left the ''New Yorker'' to work for ' ...

who stated in 2007, "I am fond of the deeply odd, occasionally obscene art rap of Bunny Rabbit." Michael garnered a large fan base through Myspace which allowed them to book their own U.S. tour. Michael was working as a waiter in 2017. In 2018, Michael went on tour in Europe with Fever Ray. They are known for their "Me and My Higher Self"

meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...

s on Instagram which started when Michael was undergoing a major spiritual transformation of their own. This project is aimed at increasing

self-love Self-love, defined as "love of self" or "regard for one's own happiness or advantage", has been conceptualized both as a basic human necessity and as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness, synonymous with amour-propre, conceitedness, ...

, and much like Michael's music and visual art, also explores the multiplicities within the self. ''

Remezcla Remezcla is an American media company focusing on the Latin American cultural sphere. It serves the millennial market. History The brand was founded by Claire Frisbie, Andrew Herrera and Nuria Net in 2006, had no outside funding; it first re ...

'' reports that Michael is a "queer multimedia artist... houtilizes music, art videos, and memes as their mediums to explore themes of self love and acceptance, spirituality, and sexuality in a time when our 'deepest truths are being revealed'." Michael is the host of “Broadly Hotline,” a web series on

Broadly Vice Media Group LLC is a Canadian-American digital media and broadcasting company. Vice Media encompasses four main business areas: Vice Studios Group (film and TV production); Vice TV (a joint venture with A&E Networks, also known as Vicelan ...

. Michael is currently working on starting a podcast centered around self-care, personal growth, and other millennial-related topics. Michael appeared in two seasons of the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

series

High Maintenance ''High Maintenance'' is an American anthology comedy-drama television and web series created by ex-husband and wife team Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld. The show follows The Guy, a cannabis courier (played by Sinclair), as he delivers his p ...

Influences

Two years into their music career, Michael was influenced by the book '' A New Earth''. They are a student of ''

A Course in Miracles ''A Course in Miracles'' (also referred to as ''ACIM'') is a 1976 book by Helen Schucman. The underlying premise is that the greatest "miracle" is the act of simply gaining a full "awareness of love's presence" in a person's life. Schucman ...

.''

Personal life

Michael moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

one week before the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

in 2001. Michael is non-binary and now lives in The Hudson Valley with spouse, Khara Gilvey and a cat named Pepper.

References

External links