“The truth is lived before it is understood. It must be fought for, tested, and appropriated. Truth is the way… Anyone will easily understand it if he just gives himself to it.”
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
For so long, I have told myself and preached this gospel; my art was good enough for me and that’s all that mattered. I am realizing that’s not completely true. There were and are still a million and one ways I could do better with my music, and so many situations where what I envisage while creating, and what I actually put out there doesn’t even come close; like if I had the time to get technical about it, it would be much. In fact, sometimes when my brothers for example hear me criticize my writing, or my singing or a project I’ve done, they just get annoyed and leave the room because my mind cannot be changed. I am self-critical that way and maybe some of it is steeped in maladaptively coping with trauma, but I have always loved excellence and to be excellent. So, here’s the truth: I think my art can be better in a lot of ways.
For so long, I have lived in the clashing philosophical worlds and their expressions in society today when it comes to art against financial and social stability. The culture of capitalism we are steeped in, (because it is so much more than just an economic and political system) would have us and need us financial stable to afford the basics of this world we live in and to be “independent,”; you know, not living with your mum and dad. Usually, the solution for that is to get a job, and by job, I mean a well-paying job because despite whatever it is we would do to meet the needs of the capitalist world, there are some more social demands and expectations to go with it. There is the pressure to be successful at what you do and yes, the word “success” has very identifiable connotations and meanings put forward by popular culture. There is a successful lawyer. A Successful mother. A successful artist. A successful wife. There is the pressure to “Be this by this age” and the pressure to become an “entrepreneurial boss lady” and watch YouTube videos titled, “This is how I grew from a three-figure salary to a six figure one with my social media”; and so many others that creep and into our minds and pound in our subconscious, giving us those migraines, we are always complaining about, and failing to notice that they start as soon as we open and close our Instagram. So, here’s the truth: You don’t make much with art in Uganda and to be successful as an artist in Uganda comes in an already designed package for the most part. You can make a lot being an influencer, but there is a difference and there is a criteria. To be financially stable and more socially acceptable, you might in fact want to steer clear of the arts and the “Bayaaye.” Get a real job. Be a lawyer or something instead.
For so long, I have felt and literally lived the existential implication, from the incongruities of what is expected of me and what I would want, not to mention the fact that I am still figuring out the technicalities of the latter. I would be happy if all I had to do all day was write songs and produce them with a team in a studio; if all my meetings were about how to creatively share and express this project and the other collaboration; if all my learning and reading was concerning how to become better and creating and applying the lessons learned to my creativity and the arts; if time was for taking care of the human, of me, in my mind and heart for it is where all my art comes from. I would indeed be so happy. But I have bills to pay. I have to be realistic and responsible with my time and life. I have a baby to raise. I have a home to build. I have an education that could serve society in more direct and meaningful ways. So, here’s the truth: I need money to take of myself and my family. I need money for basic needs like rent and food. I even need money to make the music and the art I would be so happy to be making. But I am not getting it from my art, and that’s the truth. Maybe, I should be the lawyer instead.
There is a cognitive bias known as the Dunning- Kruger effect, and basically, the bias results from an internal illusion in people of low ability who believe that they are of high ability and highly competent and experts. It also exists as an external misperception in people of high ability that everyone is like them. So comprehensively, “the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others”. We sometimes think we are badass when we are not and that is a bias of illusory superiority, coming from people’s inability to recognize their lack of ability. There is actually a lot of thinking that needs to be put in when it comes to areas of competence and skill, like in the arts and music. Without a good self-awareness of metacognition (generally the ability to think about one’s thinking or thoughts) it is difficult to objectively evaluate one’s level of competence.
For so long, I have been afraid that my music isn’t as popular or understood or accepted by the masses like Sheeba’s or like Fik Fameica’s because it was too different. As applied to what’s relevant in our society today regarding “musical and artist needs”, my music was not or is not relevant. In law we have what they call the officious bystander test. It is used in determining implied terms of contracts and agreements and its suggested approach is to imagine a nosey, officious bystander walking past two contracting parties and asking them whether they would want to put some express term into the agreement. If the parties would instantly retort that such a term is “of course” already mutually part of the agreement then it is apt for implication. So, if I was to walk throughout town and ask a bunch of people listening to music if they would prefer to listen to some English-speaking girl sing about heartbreak, not just in English but with weird English terms like “convoluted” and “debilitated” with weird beats and sounds made by her and her brother, it would be an “of course NOT.” So, here’s the truth; maybe I have been thinking of myself as highly competent yet relevantly, as an artist, I am mostly incompetent. The other option is I am highly competent but the rest of the world isn’t?- very unlikely.
For so long, I have thought that the purpose of the arts is to inspire in ways other means of expression cannot; and that the role of art can be, not just to entertain but to influence a people that can relate to feeling and message within art to act on the convictions of those feelings and messages; like you could change the world through art. I like framing my art that way; making it to engage you cognitively and emotively. I believe that’s the kind of art the moves the most and casts the longest spell. So, here’s the truth about that; not many people care, or excuse my French, give a shit, about that. People have other things to worry about like putting food in their bellies than to care for how I used the symbolism of the life of Bronte to talk about cultural identity in my sophomore EP, “BRONTE.” I accept that.
For so long, I have thought that to be relevant to my society requires a flexibility to move with the times and make your purpose applicable to them. If I feel I can use words and melody to “change the world”, why don’t I begin from immersing myself in the world of the officious bystander in my society? Sing some more songs in Luganda. Dancehall is just a genre, don’t be so close-minded Isabel, you can actually do what you were meant to do if you tried. Yeah, no. I feel my time to think like that has not yet come (or most likely might never). Micheal Jackson was meant to be who he was, not like Leonard Cohen; and Bob Dylan was meant to be who he was, not like Lionel Richie. So, here’s the truth; it is within the choice of my purpose and the conviction of it to sing and make music the way I do. I believe being true to myself and holding fast to the duty burning within myself is the best way to be useful to society.
For so long, I have used my convictions as a shield and sword against the abeyance of my artistic journey. My music is fine, it’s just everybody else’s fault because they don’t get it, otherwise my streams would be through the roof and my following would be sizeable. Yes, I could do better as a musician, but I don’t suck that much to not be at least considered, right? So where are the people that get it? Where’s that sizeable following? People just need to see and learn from people like Tolstoy and Bronte and Dylan and Cohen with how they used art; I’m just trying to be like them and follow somewhat in their footsteps, right? You know what, forget all this other stuff, I blame the Bristish and their colonization of us. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be so alone in this post-colonial hybrid world I seem to exist alone in. Who knows, I’d probably be like everyone else in that alternate reality because we would have been given the chance to truly become Ugandan. For now, with our art and with our education and with our governance and with our security and with so much, we are still a bit lost because of it. Maybe, if I remained consistent enough, like Burna Boy I could get a record label to notice me, or like Ed Sheeran I could get that one *chef’s kiss* distribution deal or like Chance the Rapper, I might not need any of that and then, I can begin doing what I really ought to be doing.
So, here’s the truth as put by my man Kierkegaard;
“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.”
In case you missed it, the truth is you make your own path, and your own path makes you. Everything in between is up to you. Everything in between is the path and therefore, is you too. I am therefore writing this to remind myself and you that this artistic journey in its form is a Russian Roulette and we have to stay alive.
So stay alive and keep at it.
You just might survive.
You might not too.
And that’s the truth.
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