New year. More projects. More Singles. Higher heights of creative expression.
Bet.
IZABELug shall deliver.
A lot of the questions from friends, fans and whomever is curious when it comes to a creative is, “When are you doing the next thing?” I am no exception to this for sure, and the questions usually concern whether there shall be new music and if so, what to expect concerning it.
So, sit down and settle as I divulge where I am kind of at currently.
I guess there must always be some sort of anxiety that follows whenever you are setting out to do anything that matters and that also matters to you as well. Sharing my feelings and expressing musically checks both those boxes so there’s that for sure. However, the imposter syndrome, ne’bigenderako, is most times made worse in the spaces I need affirmation and support the most and therefore, as I make the plans and write the songs, I have to fight a ton of battles before we even get to recording and putting them out there.
Yesterday we were having our family devotions at home and my father was praying for all of us, his children. We are four children. We are basically all lawyers or have studied degrees and courses related to the law. We are all musicians as well; like we have stage names and compose and produce or express ourselves musically. (When you hear the name AINE, don’t say you didn’t know). I am the first born so he usually begins with me. As he prayed, his requests to God were mostly about my job and professional career and some other stuff (given my recent life troubles). The other stuff was also that I would remain a “strong” and “foundationalised” woman and not be swayed by “seemingly innocent distractions”. When he came to my brother who is a professional musician in Nairobi, he referred to him as such (at least) and also prayed for him not to be swayed by his own other seemingly innocent distractions as he also has his life jazz, like all of us do.
While the gist of this on my part shall be unpacked and hopefully eventually resolved in therapy, as you can guess, what irked me was that, and trivial as it seems, the “distractions” he was referring to for me, are basically and most likely my music and the fact that I identify as an artist. My parents are not excited about the fact that I am a musician and everything that has ever gone wrong in my life started when I chose to take music seriously in their opinion. Of course, it’s similar fears any parent would have for their child; music and its lifestyle and the characters galivanting the studios with sticks of weed joints in their mouth and Rastafarian dreadlocks dreads on every single person that haven’t been washed in months; how evil, yada yada yada ! As a parent, I can’t take it away from any other parent, including my own, that what matters is that from a parent’s heart they know what they are asking of God is for their children’s good and for sure, their intention is always and genuinely the welfare of their children. Because of this, I decided I would do my best to genuinely honor them and not give them heart attacks with my strong headedness. However we see what I do differently, I love them. So, my father’s prayer and how its loaded trigger potential for me is not the point. At least, it shouldn’t be.
My reaction is the issue; and that’s what I want to talk about today in relation to my archives of demos and unreleased music and ultimately, whether I shall put out any music for a while. There is evidently some stuff to work through in that regard so here is some of where I begin with that process.
Making music is not my identity. That I know. Just like being a lawyer, or mother is not my identity. I still am and still can be without those things there or not. So, when the streams are a handful, or people get excited and run with an artistic narrative different from what you hope they would take away, it can be kind of a bummer. But remembering this anyway, is a great start to not losing all self-concept. My worth, success, value etc., isn’t tied to how and why my music is received the way it is, and shouldn’t be because I am not my music.
These things, however, are how I express myself in this world. They are how I express in society; and like any other human being, when you feel like such a core tool of vicarious being is attacked in some way, even by yourself or those you hoped would affirm and support you more than anyone, it takes work to realize it isn’t you being attacked. You want what you do to be acknowledged, in the very least, or that your endeavors are maybe even affirmed and appreciated if you want to stretch it a bit further? It won’t always be the case obviously, so what is a fragile insecure creative like myself to do in knowing it isn’t always assured that it shall translate into life and living the way it ought.
Here’s the other facet to my hesitation and fears and general reluctance.
In interviews, I always talk about how I started writing and composing songs as a teenager but didn’t begin my “career” until 2016. If you asked me if before then, or even after 2016 for a little while, I considered myself an “artist”, in the way we understand and affirm that, the ‘yes”, wasn’t as emphatic as it should have been, and this is why. Writing songs about your personal and emotional struggles and plucking on your guitar or playing at the piano is one thing when you are your own audience of one.
It changes a bit, and just a very little bit, when you play the songs for your close friends who know and understand you. The degree of disparity isn’t too much when you play for your school, or within the community that sees you every day for classes over years. So yeah, whatever you want to call it at the point. I am an artist- if you want.
However, the moment people who don’t know you, that don’t want or need to know you; people that already have presuppositions of what they expect to hear from you and moreover, are not modest about dishing out what they truly feel about the substance of your art in what they justify as constructive candor, suddenly, maybe I just want to be the other thing and not this thing loaded with expectation from being identified as an “artist.” I’d prefer just being a person whose psychological evaluations in song are affirmed by friends and family because ain’t that the safest route.
I am really proud of the fact that I have put out music. A couple of singles, some Extended Play (“EP”) projects but especially the two albums out. In case you want to listen to them they are called Little Grown Up Child and Love and Light ( but first finish reading then go listen). In summary, the first project was at least was ten songs of raw and discomforting honesty and young-adult confusion, delayed angst in an unpopular genre. (The second was 14 songs fueled by a delusion of love that makes me mentally gag given recent life events; but listen to it still bambi!)
Anyway, that first project took me about eleven months to write and perfect. I recorded the songs on there. Re-recorded some because with each forward step was a weird and increased measure of fear, that it wasn’t good enough or something else I would arrive at conveniently. I kept on wondering what had changed between the privacy and calm of my bedroom and the expression of the very same song through Logic Pro and MIDI technology?
Ever heard of Young’s double slit experiment?
Basically, in this experiment when beams of light are fired through two parallel slits and projected onto a screen, the particles display a wave like behavior. However, when the same thing is repeated but while being observed, the particles behave like particles instead and create two distinct lines on the screen. The deduction is that the mere act of observation changes the behavior of particles. What that means is that consciousness or thought can and in fact does affect the nature of reality. So many conclusions that are suggestable because of that of course. So many realities are related as well; the placebo effect, neuroplasticity and the power of belief and the dorsal vagal theory. So many things could finally be explained some day because of this beginning, including the big and amazing mind-body problem. Whether you are a physicist, psychologist, neurosurgeon or philosophy major, this experiment is all types of interesting.
However, what I relate to is how for me, my art and its expression “changes” or more specifically how much I struggle with wanting it to “modify” when I’m being observed. What changed between the privacy and clam of my bedroom, and the expression of the very same song through Logic Pro and MIDI is simply the fact that my observers have changed.
I struggle with expressing my “true” thoughts in the distinctiveness they pour out when by myself, before others because, I feel the immediate panic to re-write and re-express the same premise more palatably; like the difference between the details you pour out to your best friend of a personal issue, and then the way you express it to Human Resource at work when asking to take some personal days and time off from work.
Yes, being under scrutiny is as difficult as it is, before being exacerbated by embarrassment from whatever the audience might think is unabashedly cringe. I hate that feeling so much as I imagine all of us do in what is likely to be great and increasing measures; but as a creative whose process draws from deep and personal experiences, what to do but get through it?
Basically, the fact that I care what people think about me because of my music is a bit affecting. There’s some algebra to the angles of that I need to authentically figure out and make peace with; and definitely some esteem and confidence issues to work through but we move regardless.
That’s kind of where I am at now.
I would like to share and bare my heart to the world. But do people need that? Or it isn’t even about that; it is about making what is culturally and industrially relevant to the masses? What kind of success do I want? The success of being affirmed and appreciated, or known, seen, and related to? Who even says one kind of success is better than the other? Success is success.
Isn’t it?
I don’t know.
But for sure, for those that want to know; music shall be out, kama mbaya mbaya, nanti, I have an amazing therapist.
augandanartist.com 