Original story:
The holiday season is a great time to celebrate and get together with loved ones but it’s also a special time during the hectic year to stop and give to those less fortunate. Houston artist Nosaprise will combine all of these things plus great live music for his seventeenth Trills The Season event taking place on Saturday, December 18 at Axelrad.
Trills The Season is a yearly toy drive where attendees only need to provide an unwrapped toy to donate for entry to the all day event. There will be food trucks and vendors on site so there will be plenty to do while soaking in the great music and libations from Axelrad.
Along with toys, Trills The Season will be accepting diapers, formula, jackets, shoes and clothing for kids of all ages. He also encourages anyone who is interested in supporting this years event or future events to reach out to him.
“We are Houston and it’s definitely something that plays on the holiday season but also what it means to be from Houston,” says Nosaprise of his clever name for the event. “We are trill in Houston. We like to keep things real, we like to keep things true to ourselves and be authentic to our culture and our communities.”
This year the event will be hosted by BBoy Clause and kicks off at two o’clock in the afternoon and runs until 11 in the evening. Throughout the day there will be performances by DJ’s and live bands including BLACKIE, Ancient Cat Society, Free Radicals, Frank’Synato, Perseph One, Slogun and Nosaprise’s own project BNG who will be performing for their second time ever at the event and have an album set to be released next year.“We are trill in Houston. We like to keep things real, we like to keep things true to ourselves and be authentic to our culture and our communities.”
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“Nobody is a stranger in our lineup. Every year I want it to be a diverse line up, not just one style of music to represent the different flavors of music. It’s just all a family affair and everyone that has done it has always volunteered their time,” he says.
“They are always so open and supportive to come and do something to help bring a little bit more lightness to our community. I couldn't do any of this stuff without the support of the community and support of other artists.”
Nosaprise is also getting support from Black Swan Yoga where he is a teacher. People can drop off toys to all three Black Swan locations as well as attend a class at the Midtown location on December 17 at 7 p.m. in return for their donation. Toys and other donations can also be dropped off at Buffalo Bayou Brewery.
Nosaprise has also been pleasantly surprised at people's willingness to host their own events to collect toys for his toy drive or use Trills The Season to celebrate their own birthdays, anniversaries and holidays.
Nosaprise thought up Trills The Season as a young man in his twenties. “I was in a break dance crew and we came from a program that helped under served kids. I wanted to do something to help kids and we were just broke twenty year olds at the time so we didn't have any money to buy toys for kids.”
Despite his lack of financial backing, Nosaprise did what he could and decided to just throw a party asking attendees to bring a toy to donate. Once the party was over, Nosaprise and his crew were looking for a way to put the toys directly into the hands of kids around Houston.
They approached organizations and nonprofits but none would let them interact with the recipients so they took matters into their own hands and just started knocking on doors in Houston’s most in need neighborhoods.
“We just started giving out toys and it was so different because these people had no idea what was happening. You really got to see how an act of giving somebody something without asking for anything in return really just brought this light and happiness to people.”
From the first year he got a massive response and has kept the party going, deciding right there to continue the tradition creating what he describes as “An amazing high of happiness and spreading love.”
"Every year you'll find people that are so thankful," says Nosaprise. "Rather than people having faith and believing in Santa Clause, people actually just having faith in your community. Knowing that people are out there doing nice things for each other when that doesn't always seem to be the case."
Throughout the years the event has taken place in various venues around town and this year's decision to host it at Axelrad only keeps the event growing stronger as the venue has a large outdoor area and is family friendly open to all ages until eight p.m.
Shifting the event from a straight up party to a family event has been a perfect reflection of Nosaprise’s own growth and maturation in life and the past seventeen years as he looks to leave something behind that his own son can pick up and follow in his footsteps if he wants to.
“For me becoming a dad was this huge shift in perspective, in life and things that I do. I want to leave the community better for my family, for my kid and the next generation,” he says adding, “It just shows us we can do it. Not everything is all so bad if we can just work together.”
"My whole philosophy was doing something like this to show people that you don't have to be a rich person to help people around you. You don't have to have a lot of money to be able to give back to people. If I can do it, especially at the time when I didn't have no money but I did have a network of friends, then really anything is possible."
Trills The Season will take place on Saturday, December 18 at Axelrad, 1517 Alabama, 2 to 11 p.m., donation to attend.
