Thoughts

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26
Jun 10

Change in the Gameplan, but You’ll Like It

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve had the con­cept for my album “For the Broken & Mending” for YEARS now. I’ve been writ­ing and acquir­ing ideas to make it as true to the orig­i­nal intent as pos­si­ble. I always felt over­whelmed by the task, even as I com­pleted more songs, and couldn’t fig­ure out why until recently.

I looked through the songs I felt fit the theme/concept of the album (I’m writ­ing new stuff that doesn’t fit this album too) and saw that I have enough raw mate­r­ial for a double-disc! Now, a double-disc project would be an awfully ballsy move for a debut album and I don’t have it in me to wait until EVERYTHING is com­pleted, so I made a deci­sion: the album will be released in TWO parts.

The songs that are just about ready will be released as “For the Broken & Mending, Part I” in the imme­di­ate future as a dig­i­tal down­load ini­tially, but hard copies should be avail­able for pur­chase in the month or so after. I’m really excited because my dream is finally feel­ing achiev­able and close to tangible.

I know more oppor­tu­ni­ties would come to me if I had prod­uct out and I’ve really hated sit­ting on so many songs for so long, but I refused to rush the release of this project and have the qual­ity suf­fer because of my impa­tience. So to every­one who asks “what’s up with the album,” thank you for being patient with me and sup­port­ing me through­out the process. I promise it will not be be vain. Stay tuned…

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5
Feb 10

Definition of a Diva: a brief training

Recently, I referred to a female friend as a diva. She replied in shock, “You think I’m a diva?” I responded, “You don’t?” Our dis­cus­sion (via twit­ter) revealed that she con­sid­ered a diva to be rude and demand­ing, that the term had neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tions. I real­ized she may not be the only per­son who feels this way, so I felt com­pelled to share my def­i­n­i­tion. Continue read­ing →

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2
Nov 09

They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To…

The other night, some­one who had never heard me before asked me to sing. I sang them a verse of “Ribbon in the Sky,” we talked for a while, and walked away. Then, I started won­der­ing, “Why do I always sing old songs?” The sim­plest answer came, I don’t really like much of the cur­rent songs, but that sparked another ques­tion: why don’t I like cur­rent pop songs? The truth is I do like some songs, but they don’t stick with me like the older music does. Recent music means so lit­tle because we now treat music like it’s dis­pos­able. Continue read­ing →

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1
Oct 09

“All Of This Is Not By Chance…”

I’m still on a bit of a high from the India.Arie con­cert last night at the Pageant. I think my open­ing set went rather well. It’s always hard to tell. I know when peo­ple have never heard you or your music before they tend to really focus and take it all in, so you never get an imme­di­ate reac­tion. I’d like to thank every­body who helped me out with my per­for­mance: Baba Kelly on per­cus­sion (who I asked only the night before), artist/producer Reign Smith on keys, superstars-in-the-making Teresa Jenee, Kiwi Harvey, & DB Sutherlin on back­ground vocals, some of the great stu­dents of Crossroad College Prep on per­cus­sion, gui­tars, and strings (includ­ing Ms. Emma Silver who gave a great sax solo) and their band instruc­tor, musi­cal genius Lamar Harris.

Continue read­ing →

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11
Nov 08

Notes to an Artist: 1. Study

The first bit of advice that I could give any­one want­ing to be an inde­pen­dent artist, or desir­ing any career a bit off the beaten path, would be study. I’ve always thought is was nec­es­sary, but it wasn’t until I heard it from Monica Tyson of Yoruba Records at the International Soul Music Summit did it res­onate as strongly as it does now. She went fur­ther on to say, and I’m para­phras­ing because it’s been some months since I heard her say this, “Your music should be a sym­phony. How can it be that unless you study? The best artists of our time are great because they have stud­ied and mas­tered their craft.“
Now this prob­a­bly sounds super-obvious and maybe a lit­tle bor­ing, but let’s explore the idea (just humor me).  There are sev­eral options that you could go about pur­su­ing, but it really depends upon your sit­u­a­tion and per­son­al­ity. Continue read­ing →