February 24, 2024 • 58 mins
Hey, welcome back to another awesome episode of 'The Success Palette'! Today, I'm super excited to chat with Kaesevyn, an amazing artist who's all about honing his skills through real, no-nonsense feedback. We're diving deep into his world, exploring why he values honest criticism over sugar-coated praise and how he's all about getting insights from total strangers who come without any preconceptions.
Join me as we delve into Kaesevyn's fascinating journey of artistic evolution, where he went from imitating others to forging his own musical path. What really grabbed my attention was our chat about handling HARSH criticism – how Kaesevyn sifts through it all to find the gems that truly resonate with him. He explains how hearing diverse perspectives shakes up his creative process, opening doors to fresh ideas and continuous improvement. It's like he's on a perpetual quest for growth, and his approach to feedback is the secret sauce fueling his artistic journey!
Kaesevyn is all about ditching the cutthroat competition vibe in the music scene and embracing a more supportive approach. We dig into his own experiences, where he emphasizes the importance of clear communication and lifting each other up in creative partnerships. It's a refreshing take on teamwork and solidarity in an industry often plagued by rivalry and ego clashes. Get ready to rethink your approach to collaboration after hearing Kaesevyn's perspective! 🎶
Kaesevyn opens up about collaborating with his wife on one of his favorite pieces. He gets real about the journey, sharing how he's been there to be critical but also uplift her confidence and nurture her creative spark. Kaesevyn's all about keeping it honest even with her – he's not afraid to dish out constructive criticism, knowing it's key to pushing each other to grow as artists. It's a beautiful testament to the power of support and honest feedback in nurturing creativity and strengthening bonds.
Our conversation concludes with an exploration of Kaesevyn's latest album, "Underground Heart". A tribute to his late mother, the album traces Kaesevyn's journey with grief and depression. "Underground Heart" is a testament to his faith in the power of vulnerability in music and his commitment to express and share his emotions with his audience.
Even in the darkest times of self-doubt and struggle, Kaesevyn found solace and strength in his craft. It's incredible to hear how music became his lifeline, helping him navigate through tough times and emerge stronger. Kaesevyn leaves us with a heartwarming reminder that no matter what challenges we face, there's always hope for brighter days ahead. His message of love and support is a beacon of light for anyone going through a tough time, reminding us all to believe in ourselves and our capacity for growth. ❤️
Kaesevin’s info: https://linktr.ee/kaesevyn
The Success Palette info: https://thesuccesspalette.com
Supported by Women Into Networking: https://www.wincommunity.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:06):
All right. Hello. Hello, everyone.
You are listening to The Success Palette, a place to discuss how creatives can
succeed in every aspect of our lives.
I'm your host, and today I have Kaesevyn with me to talk about critiques,
feedbacks, gatekeeping in the arts, and how we can really help each other by being honest,
(00:32):
by being welcoming to new people in whatever sort of medium you work with,
whether it's music, visual arts, writing.
And what really got me interested in talking to you about this,
K7, is your Instagram Live last night.
You were were critiqued on your music and you handled it so well.
(00:57):
How did you kind of get into that situation where you reached out to someone to do your critique?
And can you talk a little bit about your music? What kind of music you create?
Absolutely. So the first part of that, that I'll speak to is the fact that,
so the kind of music that I make is mostly hip hop.
(01:17):
That's where I kind of grew up you know my
whole life listening to and it's kind of where I get
all of my influence and everything like that from as
far as taking criticism as far as getting it and then processing it I'm the
kind of artist or at least I've always positioned myself to be the kind of artist
that I look more so for feedback from people that don't know who I am don't
(01:42):
know know anything about my music, don't know anything about me.
I look to those kind of people that will give me those honest critiques,
those honest criticisms, and I'll tell them to their face, please don't worry
about hurting my feelings.
Don't worry about trying to be nice.
I want you to be as honest with me as you possibly can, because as an artist,
(02:03):
my job is to get better. right?
I don't want to be stagnant. I don't want to do the same thing that I did two or three projects ago.
I don't want to be the same person that I was yesterday.
I want to get better, but I can't get better if there are a hundred people versus
like five or 50 that'll tell me, oh yeah, man, no, this is great.
This sounds good. This is that wonderful.
(02:26):
No, I look for people.
When it comes to my art, when it comes to my artistic ability,
I look for people to tell me what they don't like and why they don't like it.
So that way I can take those critiques.
I can take those notes and get better.
I have to get better. Otherwise, what am I really doing?
I guess I've been doing music. I've been making music for 14 years and have
(02:49):
just in the last year and a half dabbled in producing my own arrangements and everything. thing.
So as far as I'm concerned, I'm nowhere near the breaks, right?
I'm nowhere near the level of, you know, a commercial project or,
you know, being like a mainstream kind of artist.
So as far as I'm concerned, you know, the majority of people that listen to
(03:13):
music on a daily basis, you know, they listen to the mainstream artists,
they listen to the mainstream sound.
So I take that being an independent artist and I, you know, I want the notes. I want the criticisms.
I want you to tell me how much I sound like someone else.
So that way I can take that and appreciate it for what you're trying to tell
me because, hey, at least you're relating it to someone that you like in your music catalog.
(03:37):
But I take those notes and I apply it to what I'm doing.
So that way, again, I can get better as a writer, get better as an artist,
get better with my delivery, with the things that I come up with,
just get better overall.
Because again, I do not, I do not for any reason want to be a stagnant kind of artist.
The minute that I think for a second that I no longer need to improve,
(04:01):
I no longer need to do better, is when I become a crappy artist,
when I become someone who's not deserving of anyone listening to them for 21
seconds or five minutes per song.
I don't deserve that.
So if I'm going to put the work in on my side, I've got to do my due diligence
(04:23):
and listen to the people that are listening to my songs, even if it's somebody
who says something that doesn't align with what I want to hear.
But it's not about what I want to hear. It's about what needs to be heard.
It's about what needs to be said so that way I can learn and everyone else in
attendance can learn and we can all get better. We can all go from there.
(04:48):
Completely agree. And I am so guilty of being stagnant for a long time because
I'm scared sometimes of hearing the truth and hearing what I need to improve on.
And sometimes I end up asking the wrong people for advice and feedback.
How do you find, I mean, those two gentlemen that you were getting feedback
(05:10):
from last night, they seem to really know what they're talking about. out.
How do you find people who can give you actually good criticism?
So there is a, there's a saying that I've heard a few years back,
strangers will show you all of the love that you'll ever need.
And I take that to heart mainly because, you know, there's a lot of truth to
(05:35):
that, you know, like your friends, your family, you know, whoever you're with,
your partner, whatever, They are going to tell you because they're biased.
They're going to tell you what they think you want to hear. You know what I mean?
I like getting the notes. I like getting the feedback, the criticism from complete
strangers because they're unbiased.
They're not going to sit here and try to be nice to me. They're not going to
(05:58):
sit here and know my whole history.
They're not going to know who I am. They're not going to know anything about
me other than the, you know, the last three minutes of me rapping, singing, whatever.
And they're going to give me their honest thoughts and their,
you know, their criticisms about what they heard.
And that's what I value a lot more. I can send a song to my best friend,
(06:20):
you know, seven times a week, you know, three hundred fifty two weeks a year,
whatever. And they're going to tell me what they think I want to hear.
Right. And a lot of times I've actually gotten away from trying to get validation
from friends for the objective purpose of, you know, you're my friend.
(06:41):
You know me. You know everything that there is to know about me.
You know what I'm trying to do. You know where I'm trying to go. You know everything.
Yada, yada, yada. So, again, you're biased to, you know, help me along with
what I think this stranger,
this person who's known nothing about me other than the first five minutes that
(07:04):
I've had introducing myself,
you know, there they have nothing, you know, over me, with me,
nothing there. It is what it is.
So if and then especially if I tell you, you know, you know,
give me your honest feedback of what my song does for you or what it doesn't do for you.
I like I said, I want to I want to know that more than I want to know that you
(07:28):
like the song. Great that you like the song. Fantastic.
And I am in there and I'm not trying to be facetious when I say it,
but it's fantastic that you like the song.
But what does that do for me as an artist who's trying to get better?
It's great that you like it. You know what I mean? It's another thing for you
to share it. It's another thing for you to show it to your friends.
(07:51):
Listen to it on repeat. That's all well and good and it's fantastic.
It's a whole other kind of ball game when you don't like it or you don't like
everything about it or you rate it somewhere on a scale of 1 to 10 on the lower
side or somewhere close to the middle and you're calling it average because at that point,
I'm going to take that you're not saying that it's bad,
(08:15):
but this is what you're saying I can improve on.
And to me, that as an artist, that is more important than anything in the world,
because like I said, I want to get better.
I want to make sure that everything that I put out, album, EP,
single, mixtape, whatever, I want to make sure that all of that,
you know, that I do, everything that I put out is the very best that I can possibly make it.
(08:38):
So I will take all of the criticism.
I will take all of the notes and I will apply it to what I'm working on.
So that way, whenever I do put this out, whenever I do go live with it, whoever I do show it to.
Right. This is as best as I can get it with the resources that I have.
And I want you to tell me whether or not I'm doing good, I'm going in the right
(09:00):
direction or if I need to go back to the drawing board. And if I need to go
back to the drawing board, that is perfectly fine because that's exactly what
I was looking for you to say. You know what I mean?
And once you get that awesome criticism from all these different people,
how do you filter out what's actually good criticism?
What is bad criticism? Things that,
(09:22):
you know, if someone like me who's not a musician gives you feedback that conflicts
with someone who is a musician,
you might realize that maybe my feedback isn't the best how do you go through
that and how has your education your experience in music affected your confidence
in knowing what criticism to take.
(09:45):
So to preface the answer for that, I've been making music for about 14 years or so.
I've gone from literally, you know, biting off of other artists' styles to rapping
over other beats, rapping over, you know, things that, you know,
I don't know anything about copyright.
I don't know anything about plagiarism, anything like that, to being,
(10:09):
you know, someone who has decided that, hey, we're going to do all of this in-house.
And we're not going to pay any money to anybody other than ourselves because copyright.
And we don't have enough money to deal with that in open court.
But to filter through what is good criticism and what's just someone being a
(10:31):
hater, it's really the way that they phrase it.
And it's really the way that they execute giving me the note.
So take, for example, the two gentlemen and last night, you know,
first and foremost, I always tell anyone who's going to give me criticism,
I always let them know, hey, look, do not be afraid of hurting my feelings.
(10:51):
Do not be afraid of saying the wrong thing, because as far as I'm concerned,
you're never going to say the wrong thing when you're criticizing me,
because all of what you think is wrong to say, I'm going to take it and run with it anyways.
Because as far as I'm concerned, that's something that I didn't think about
when I wrote this song. That's something I didn't think about when I recorded this.
But to filter out what's good advice and what's not good advice,
(11:15):
it really does depend on what's being said and how they say it.
If you say to me something like, hey, look, your beat was fantastic.
I really vibed with it. I like this. I like that. But your lyrics didn't really do it for me.
Something like that. I know the kind of person that I am.
I was born in the 90s. So a lot of the things that I do tend to put in into
(11:38):
my music, a lot of it is like, you know, very similar,
very adjacent to early 2000s, like everything before 2010 kind of hip hop kind of rap.
So I'm kind of I'm kind of old school when you really think of it or when you
really sit back and listen to what I say or how I say it.
So that in and of itself doesn't really bother me.
(11:59):
But what would bother me would be, you know, you're telling me,
hey, you don't like my songs. You don't like anything about me as an artist,
but you're also not offering me any suggestions or any kind of advice to get better.
Right. You're you're wasting your and my time by telling me that you don't like me.
That's fine that you don't like me, man. There's over eight billion people in this world.
(12:19):
And I'm pretty sure at least 25 percent of that eight billion make music.
Go find someone else to listen to at that point.
Right. But if you're telling me, hey, look, you know, this is what I like the
song, but this is what I would have done different.
I'll listen to that. OK. OK. I see why you say that. that I,
okay, I can look back at the song, keep your thought in mind.
(12:42):
Damn. Okay. I see exactly what they were saying. So my biggest,
my biggest thing is when, you know, whenever I get criticism,
I like to look for it from strangers as opposed to people that know me and know a lot about me.
And just, you know, ultimately to filter out between what's good advice and
what's not good good advice is telling me something because I'm a one man army, so to speak, right?
(13:08):
I do everything myself from writing to mixing, mastering, marketing,
everything that there is to do for music. I do it all myself.
So when you tell me something that I've never thought of before, right?
It's not to be egotistic, but I take that into consideration because,
(13:29):
well, damn, man, I didn't think of that.
Why didn't I do it that way? Why didn't I do it like this?
You know what I mean? And I value that kind of creativity because it's always better.
It's always more fun to be in a session with someone than it is to do it all by yourself.
I value people that think differently
(13:49):
than I do because of how much of
what I do is fueled by just me
and my thoughts and my feelings so i i
take it to heart and i take so much pride in
hearing someone else critique me because as
far as i'm concerned you either like it or you don't and if you don't like it
i would hope that as an artist as a professional that you would tell me how
(14:13):
to get better because i dislike so much in my profession and you know in life
in general i hate keeping being beneficial information from anyone for any reason.
Yeah. And before we started recording, you kind of talked a little bit about
that on the importance of us giving feedback to others and being giving honest feedback.
(14:39):
And sometimes we feel that maybe we're being mean by telling the truth.
But we were talking about kind of the what was the example that you were talking about?
I think it was Adam and Eve or something like that.
I thought that was very interesting. Yeah, no.
So to go off of that,
(14:59):
if I have information or if I have certain keys to success that another artist
in my field or just adjacent to what I'm doing can utilize for the benefit of
their career or whatever it is that they're doing,
I would be a fool and I'd be a criminal, so to speak, if I didn't give them that. Right.
(15:21):
Don't get me wrong. Yes. For all intents and purposes, we treat making music
like it's a competition.
Everyone's got to be the best something. Best songwriter, best rapper,
best singer, best whatever. Right.
My honest opinion is that there's more than enough love.
There's more than enough money. There's more than enough whatever it is that
(15:43):
you're chasing, whatever it is that you want.
There's more than enough success at the top. So why then should we treat this
field as a dog-eat-dog kind of competition?
Why can't we just help each other?
You want the same thing that I want. At the end of the day, and let's call a
(16:03):
spade a spade, you want to be able to utilize your music or whatever it is that
you're doing with your art to pay your bills.
You want to be able to live off of this You want this to be your job You want
to be able to wake up And do nothing else except this Why can't we both help each other get there?
Why do I have to tear you down In order to get to where I want to be?
(16:26):
Why do I need to be torn down So that you can get to where you want to be?
If I can open the door For the next 10 artists to get through Just to speak
with somebody on the other side why would I deny those 10 their opportunity?
Right. I'm the one who got a chance to open the door in the first place.
(16:48):
So as far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to be the one who gets the door first,
well, I'm going to hold it open for as many people as I possibly can,
because that's just right.
If they reciprocated or not, that's on them.
But it's I feel like it's my job as an artist, it's my job as a human being
to help as many people on this planet as I possibly can before I'm gone. on.
(17:08):
So when it comes to music, I'm not going to deny anyone the opportunity to make
something of themselves if that's what they really want to do.
You've got to prove to me at some point that you deserve it,
but we'll cross that bridge when we get there, right?
And until we do get there, like I said, I'm not going to stop you from being great.
(17:28):
I'm going to root for you. I'm going to give you everything that I possibly can to be great.
Even if it means being greater than me, I'm going to give you that for as much as I can.
So that way, when you do make it, I will only hope that you don't forget about
me. And if you do, that's fine, because I'm still doing my thing.
But big ups to you and congrats to you for taking yourself right where you need
(17:52):
to be at, despite what I am or am not able to do for it. I love that mentality.
And I think we need more of that because in some communities,
like it gets bad, just this, this jealousy, the tearing each other down.
How do you not get jealous or compare when you realize that you are,
(18:15):
you do have a lot more to work on and you see these other people who,
you know, they, their music, their art, whatever.
It's just, you feel it's so much ahead of you.
What are some ways that you could keep that confidence and not be scared of
the honest criticism that you're receiving?
The first thing that I have to remember in every situation is that regardless
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of what I think, regardless of how I feel, there are always going to be people
that are just better than me.
It is just an inevitable fact. There are going to be people that rap better
than I do, write better than I do, mix, produce, master, whatever it is.
There are going to be people in this world that exist that are just way better than I am.
(19:01):
I am not always going to be the smartest person in the room.
I'm not always going to be the most talented.
But knowing that and keeping that humility allows me to do the things that I
do and move in the ways that I do.
Because Because again, I want to get better.
So when I run into someone who is better than me, I'm going to shut up and I'm going to take notes.
(19:25):
I'm going to start doing my homework because, oh my God, this person has it going on.
They know what they're doing. They were ready two, three hours before they even got here.
And here I am just now getting ready. I'm in the room.
I need to stop what I'm doing, put the phone down and pay attention.
You know what I mean? I don't care if it's the cadence. I don't care if it's
(19:46):
a technique. I don't care whatever it is that they're doing.
I need to make sure that I walk out of here smarter and better than I was when I walked in.
I have to. It is not, you know, it's mandatory that I do.
Right. So dealing with feelings of like inadequacy or jealousy or anything like
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that, there's no way to avoid it. But there's just in 14 years of doing music,
there's just no way to avoid it at all.
What I will tell you is that for as for as envious or as jealous as you can
be of someone doing what you do better than you.
Don't look at it like they're better than you and they think they're better
(20:29):
than you. Well, pick their brain.
Pick their brain. See what makes them better. See what makes them do what they
do differently than you.
Because for all you know, they'll give it to you. They're waiting for someone
to ask them, how do you do this? How do you do that?
They're waiting for someone like that the same way you're waiting to be the
one to tell somebody, to give someone the keys to success.
(20:53):
Success they're waiting just like you are so pick
their brain make them feel good you don't gotta you know
necessarily stroke their ego or kiss ass so to speak but it's
more beneficial for everyone involved if you choose to learn from your peers
learn from whom you're around learn from the opportunities that you're graced
(21:13):
with as opposed to sitting there being upset being you know envious being a sore loser.
I have no problem whenever I invite someone to feature on a song or collaborate with.
I have no problem, man, if you are the better artist on this song.
I'm going to give you your props in the studio and also when we put it out,
(21:38):
because that's just how good you are to me.
You're so much better than me that you've waxed me on my own song.
I'm not going to not put that that out, man.
It's a dope song. It's great. It's wonderful.
And again, I'd be a criminal if I tried to hide this from someone because of my own insecurities.
My own insecurities will hit me so hard that'll tell me, hey,
(22:00):
listen, if we have the opportunity to, at the very least, you can go back and redo your verse.
You can go back and redo this. So that way, at the very least,
you're not greater than them on the song, but at the very least,
you're up to par. and I look for people, I look for other artists to be better
than me. So that way, again, I learn.
The way I get better. You know what I mean? You can wax me on a song. I don't care, man.
(22:24):
As long as you do me a favor and teach me rather than ridicule me,
educate me instead of making fun of me, I'm going to do everything in my power
to learn as much as I can from you in this one session.
And then who knows, we may have five or 10 sessions after this.
And I keep, and I continue to learn from you until I surpass you or at the very
(22:45):
least get on the same level as you. you.
There's more than enough room at the top or wherever it is that we're trying
to go to get, you know, to have love for each other, to have respect for each
other, to share the money, to do everything that we need to do.
I don't need to tear you down.
I don't need to have this crabs in a barrel mentality.
You know what I mean? Just to have a career. I don't care if you make it before I do.
(23:10):
The fact that I know you, the fact that I've had the opportunity opportunity
to be graced in your presence,
to be honored by you featuring on one of my songs where I'm just in this room
making it by myself is enough for me to say that, hey, this person has respect
for me and I'm going to give them that respect back no matter what.
I want it to always be a thing of love and camaraderie whenever I'm working
(23:34):
with anybody, whether it be a stranger or someone I've known for the last decade.
I need you to know I'm always going to be the same person on camera as I am off camera.
So I've got to show you that I can't just tell you.
That was powerful. That was powerful, dude.
Like if everybody in the arts had that mentality, like this world would be a different place.
(23:57):
We wouldn't be, we wouldn't be scared of AI.
We wouldn't be scared of not being respected because we would be actually supporting each other.
So I'm so glad that you talked about that. And I love it so much.
And I know you do quite a bit of collaborations. The song that I did listen
to from you, I believe your wife was collaborating with you, right?
(24:21):
How does that work? Do you give feedback to each other?
I know feedback from my spouse is very uncomfortable because he's like really blunt.
But how is that working with your wife?
So it actually works the same way that it does with strangers.
Me and my wife, we have this connection. We have this kind of communication.
(24:45):
One, it just didn't happen overnight. Right. It took years to build.
But we we both agree to refuse to not educate the other one. Right.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you what you think you want here.
I'm going to tell you what I actually hear.
I'm going to be objective with it because, hey, look, you're trying to do this.
(25:07):
And for as much as I respect that you're trying to do this, what you're right now is not cutting it.
I'm not sorry. It's not cutting it. You need to do better because what you're
going for and what you're doing right now are two totally different things.
And let me tell you something, if you're going to put this out like this,
it's not going to work. And I'm telling you now it's not going to work.
(25:27):
So don't be surprised that if you do put it out in this state, that it doesn't work.
So the song in particular, for those out there listening, it's called Some of That.
That song came about, I was, admittedly, I was under the influence,
you know, and I was playing around with some samples,
(25:48):
royalty free, by the way, just in case anyone wants to get their copyright knickers
in a bunch, playing around with some samples and, you know, and I'm doing the,
I'm making the beat and everything.
And I've heard my wife just like casually sing some of her favorite songs.
And I tell her, I said, babe, you have an amazing voice and I really want to
(26:12):
harness that for what I'm trying to do here.
And I know that you're shy. I know that you don't do this in the depth that
I do, but I'm going to be honest with you.
I don't think this song will be as great as it possibly can be without your voice.
It's just not going to happen. I'll put this song out and it'll flop.
(26:33):
But you, on the other hand, you'll take this song to higher heights than I ever could.
But to piggyback off of what you said earlier, when it comes to using AI in music,
the way that I look at things nowadays is I respect every and all kinds of resources
that I'm able to put my hands on.
(26:54):
In some ways, using AI to create music is extremely disrespectful to the art funding.
However, when you're utilizing it in a sense where it's only,
you know, helping you, you know, create or paint the picture of whatever your
vision is for this song, I don't see a problem, right? Right.
(27:16):
If if you're like me, if you're anything like me. Right.
Everything that I do is basically by myself until I work up the courage to go
ask somebody, hey, can you help me with this?
Once I get past my little inadequacies or once I get past my little insecurities
about asking someone to be on a song with me. Right.
In any case, like, listen, as far as I'm concerned, this is just a working demo.
(27:39):
And I want to get this working demo as great as I can before I go show it to
someone else who will really deliver on this song.
So in some cases, using AI, I mean, it is what it is, man, whether you're using
it for chord progression or using it to change a voice or do whatever. Right.
(28:00):
As long as you're respecting the resource and as long as you're respecting the
art form when you do it and not just like having a I write a song,
create a song and then you putting it out like, yeah, you did it all yourself.
Right. I don't I don't see a problem.
But to to put a button on on your question, getting getting my wife to do the song with me.
(28:21):
She's actually on a few songs throughout the album, but getting her to get her
voice, you know, on some of the tracks that are on there, you know,
it was an uphill battle because she's a lot shyer than I am.
Again, I've been doing this for so long and she's only got so much exposure and experience to it.
(28:41):
So trying to get her to look past her own insecurities and her own inadequacies
that she feels just to, you know, deliver, you know, grandstanding performance on the track.
Again, a lot of it was trying to help her build up her self-esteem,
build up her confidence, and just telling her, look, babe, I'm going to be honest with you.
(29:03):
Again, if I don't get you on this song, I'm going to have to go cheat.
I'm going to have to go do something else to get this song to where it needs
to be at. And then in that process, I'll probably make the song sound like trash,
whereas you're right here.
And I, you know, I can just I know how to mix and master.
I know how to do all of the whatevers to your voice or whatever to give you
(29:28):
the vocal presence that this track needs.
And I can't hear anybody else's voice and hear anybody else's work on this other than yours.
So if if you don't help me and it's the ultimatum, but if you don't help me,
it's that this song is not going out.
It'll just be on the cutting room floor and it just is what it is.
And, you know, because you're so honest, like this is how I think of my husband.
(29:51):
My husband's very honest.
He'll tell me if what I make sucks. He'll tell me if I'm boring.
He'll tell me whatever. But when he gives me a compliment, like you gave her
a compliment, you know that it's sincere because you're not just flowery,
you know, giving what they want to hear.
How can we, what's just as important, in my opinion, as giving this criticism
(30:15):
is really boosting each other up when we deserve to be boosted,
especially in the beginning.
I know I really needed some, maybe not, oh, you're such a great artist,
but maybe, hey, I love your work ethic or your consistency or something.
What are some ways that we can encourage each other without giving false uplifting
(30:38):
feedback, if that makes sense?
No, absolutely. It makes it makes a lot of sense. The first thing that the first
step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one. Number one. Right.
If you if if my wife decided, you know, hey, babe, I want to make music,
I want to do an album, I want to do something. something, right?
(31:01):
I can only take what you're telling me at face value until you show me that you're serious.
If you show me that you're oh so serious just as I am or beyond what I do for
my own stuff, if you show me that you're serious, I will back you no doubt 100%.
(31:21):
I will give you everything that you need.
I will give you all of my time, all of my attention.
I will make sure that this is the best thing that we both put our names on at the time.
If you are just telling me that you want to do this, it'd be cool.
It'd be nice. It'd be whatever.
If you're finicky with me, I'm going to be finicky with you and I'm not going to take you serious.
(31:44):
I'm only going to take you serious when you show me that you're serious.
So that's what lets me know how to give advice, how to support somebody when
you show me that you're serious about what you're doing, right?
I'm not, and I refuse to waste your time or waste your energy or waste giving
attention to something that you're not serious about.
(32:06):
So that way we can both come together as a partnership.
We can both come together as two individuals and figure out what's going to
work and what's going to satisfy us both.
If for whatever reason, you know, we can't at the very least compromise on,
you know, something to do, well, then we'll just agree to disagree.
Hey, look, this is the way that I feel about it. This is what I think.
(32:30):
You feel and think differently.
So we'll just, we'll table this for another time if you'd like to come back
to it. And if you don't want to, well, that's fine, but it's on the table.
The offer is still there.
I can still do this for you if you want to, but I'm not going to waste my time
and I'm not going to let you waste my time just in the same question.
(32:51):
I'm not going to waste your time and I'm not going to want to waste your time.
I'm not going to want to waste your energy when it comes to this.
I'm very, I'm a very passionate person when it comes to music.
If I did not have my wife, if I did not have my kids, if I didn't have anything
going for me except music, and then I lost music, I would be a show of a person.
(33:11):
I would 100% not, I would feel like I don't have anything else in the world tying me to the world.
That being said, for as passionate as I am, for as much as I want music to work for me and my family,
I refuse to treat it as anything like a hobby or anything less than someone
(33:34):
serious until they give me reason not to believe that they're serious about it.
You know what I mean? But I will say that when it comes to supporting her and
the things that she wants to do,
it takes a level of communication that you have to foster over some time to
(33:54):
execute and communicate properly what they need to hear versus what they want to hear. hear.
You want to hear that the person that you're with supports you.
You want to hear that they like what you're doing.
But if they're anything like your husband or like me, I'm going to tell you
(34:17):
what you need to hear because as far as I'm concerned, you're serious about
this and I want you to get better.
And if you're asking me from a fan's perspective, from just a viewer perspective,
no, this is boring. I'm going to tell you right now, it's boring.
This is not the best that you can do. And I think you can do better.
So before you put this out, I would revisit this point, this, this, this, and this.
(34:40):
And then if you don't, that's on you. It's your, it's still your,
it's still your call. It's still your choice.
But if you're asking me and for all intents and purposes, you are,
this is what you need to do to get better. If you want to get better.
But then I got to put the ball, I got to leave the ball in your court because
at the end of the day, it's your choice.
It's your prerogative to do or not to do what I'm advising or suggesting that
(35:05):
you do to get better or to, you know, master your craft.
Yeah. And when going back to what you said about what someone needs,
something I had to learn because I come from a very, very sugarcoat family where
we just, oh, it's so great. great.
You know, we, we are not confrontational. And then again, my husband's family, they're very blunt.
(35:25):
And it's been it was very difficult for us for a long time.
But something that we we had to be really honest with each other.
And he had to be like, Okay, do you want this a hobby? Or do you want this a business?
And then he would ask me, Okay, now do you want constructive feedback?
Or do you want a confidence boost? Because if you just want a confidence boost,
(35:47):
and this is just just a hobby for you, then I'll give that to you.
But if you you know, and so the person asking for feedback, I'm realizing has
a responsibility to tell them, hey, I'm just feeling nervous,
and I just need a confidence boost.
That's what I need. But if you want feedback, you have to be open to that honest
(36:08):
feedback and have that communication, that honest communication, communication, right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. There's nothing, for me, there's nothing more disrespectful,
regardless of your craft.
There's nothing more disrespectful than being facetious.
Nothing more disrespectful. I don't care what you think I want to hear.
(36:29):
I need you to tell me, especially because I'm trying to be better.
I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to do more than than what I'm doing now.
I need you to tell me what I need to hear, especially if it's something that
you think I don't want to hear.
That's what I need to hear the most. I want you to tell me, hey,
(36:51):
babe, listen to me. I love you so much, but this song is garbage.
This song is not going to get you to where you think it's going to put you.
It's not going to happen.
I'm going to be honest with you. Babe, we listen to music all the time. We do this. We do that.
I've heard every song that you've ever worked on, every song you've ever put
out before it got put out.
I'm telling you right now, this is not you. This is not the direction you need
(37:12):
to go in for this project. This is not what you need to do.
If you do this, I need you to understand that I do understand why you did this.
I understand where you were trying to go, but I need you to know that I'm not
going to support you because I don't like it. I don't agree with it.
I don't think this is you.
(37:34):
I think This is something completely far beyond your scope or something completely
beyond, you know, your identity as an artist that I can't rock with this.
I just can't. And I'm not going to. So don't ask me to pretend.
Don't ask me to like it. Don't ask me to share it or anything like that,
because I don't agree with it. I don't like it.
(37:54):
And I will take conversations like that too hard.
I won't take it personal like it's an attack, but I will take it to where,
you know, if she feels so strongly about this and what I'm trying to do,
song title, lyrics, chorus, beat selection, whatever.
If she doesn't like it and she's telling me all of this in depth,
(38:16):
in detail, damn, it really must be that bad.
I must really be in my own zone and I'm so far gone that I am so far removed
from objectivity that this is my wake-up call.
This is what I need to hear right now because otherwise, no,
babe, it's great. No, I like it. You could do this. You could do that.
(38:38):
You could do this for the chords.
You could do this for the hook. But if she's telling me in so many words that
this is not the right move to make in my heart of hearts as an artist and as
a person and as a husband,
I'm going to make sure that I take the criticism in stride and run with it because
(39:00):
she knows I want to get better.
She knows that I want to do this for the rest of my life.
And as far as I'm concerned, there's nobody else that I run music by demo or
otherwise before I put it out saying, hey, does it sound OK?
You listen to everything that I do literally all the time.
If no one knows better about what to do, what not to do other than me, it's you.
(39:24):
So if you're telling me no shit, it must be no. Fuck it. We're going back to the drawing board.
Absolutely. That completely makes sense. And I just I love how how you have
such a great, honest relationship with yourself and the people that you work with.
And before I go into my last question, which I think is probably the most important
(39:45):
question about this, I want to hear a little bit about your album.
What inspired your album, where people can find you? Again, the album's called Underground Heart.
It's on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music,
wherever it is. People stream, you know, their favorite songs and favorite artists.
It came out February 2nd this year, 2024.
(40:09):
It is a project that it took form and it took shape over the course of a year and a half.
At first, it was just a mix-match of songs that, you know, hey,
I'm just now getting into, you know, producing my own music.
I'm just now getting into trying to do everything in-house.
(40:30):
And then, unfortunately, excuse me, a year ago on the 2nd, February 2nd,
2023, my mom passed away.
And my wife and one of my older brothers actually found her.
So over the second course of the year and a half,
(40:50):
a lot of it was spent being under the influence, drinking every night,
smoking, and just doing something to feel anything other than depression and despair of, damn,
I really don't want to do this anymore. more.
But then at the same time, I also know my mom, before she passed away,
(41:11):
she was actually one of my biggest fans because everything that I made,
every song, everything, she's like, okay, I see what you did there.
And she would critique me. She would give me the notes like,
hey, listen, I understand what you're trying to do.
And it sounds good, but baby, I don't think you could get that on the radio.
Baby, I don't think anyone's going to listen to that because you're you're doing this, right?
(41:35):
So the whole gist of the project is really a journey.
It's a journey through someone's mental health.
It's a day in the life of someone who's trying to make it and also juggle their
feelings, their thoughts, their emotions, just on an everyday level.
(42:00):
My goal with the music that I make and with everything that I do is I want people
to resonate with what I'm talking about.
I grew up in a house. I grew up being a person that felt like he never had a voice.
He never really had a say in what happened to him or what happened with the stuff that he did.
So now that I don't have those limitations anymore, now that I don't have anything
(42:26):
or anyone necessarily holding me back, I can't help but write about what I think.
I can't help but write about what I feel and hope that somebody somewhere listens to it.
And you know even if they
even if i'm not someone's favorite artist they understand
where i'm coming from they understand what i feel they
(42:48):
understand what i think and they agree like damn man
you know sometimes i do feel like that too and i'm glad that you're confident
enough and have enough courage to put a song or put a a project out and be as
vulnerable about it as you are and hands down Now, in the 14 years I've been doing this,
(43:08):
underground heart is the most vulnerable I've ever been.
I'm usually the kind of person who clams up a lot and doesn't really speak to.
You know, the things that I feel or the things that I think about because I'm
afraid of being judged by people.
But then that's also why I take the position of not judging anyone and not,
(43:31):
you know, putting people through the things that I'm afraid of,
because I don't want that to happen to me.
I want even if you don't listen to the whole project, even if you don't care about what I'm doing,
the fact that you took time out of your day to listen to a couple of songs on
it is enough for me, you know, and coming from a place of not being able to speak.
(43:54):
Not being able to say anything, not being able to have a say in a thing.
It's kind of why I made this. You know what I mean? It's, it's showing people
that it is okay to not be okay with the things that have happened to you.
As long as you do it in a way that,
you know, you're addressing your traumas, you're addressing everything that's
(44:18):
happened to you in a healthy manner so that you You can move forward so that
you can be better if you want to be.
I really connected with that and I'm excited to listen.
I sort of I I follow you on Spotify, so I should have, you know, I'll be. No, it's OK.
(44:40):
No, the beautiful part about, you know, telling people my side of the story
before they go listen to the music.
I find that once you hear it from me and then you go listen to the music,
it makes it connect that much more.
But it's okay if it's the other way around, you know what I mean?
(45:01):
You hear the music first and then you get the explanation afterwards.
Again, my whole goal, at least with Underground Heart, is just to have it resonate with somebody.
I don't care if you're just driving along somewhere and it comes on and you're
just vibing to it, or you're in your feels and fuck it, you know what I mean? This is what's going on.
(45:24):
And he's saying exactly what I feel in this moment. That's great.
I'm glad that I can give you something that you relate to. I'm glad that you
have something or you feel enough about to feel like you're not alone in what
you feel because honest to God, you know, for,
for the year and a half that it took me to, to make this album,
(45:46):
when I admittedly, when I tell you the feelings of depression,
the feelings of despair, bear, all of the pressure that it took to get through this album.
There were several times where I wanted to quit music as a whole.
And I had to keep thinking, I had to keep pushing through, what would my family think if I gave up?
(46:09):
What would my mom think if I gave up? What would my dad think if I gave up?
If I give up now, I'm giving up on everything I've worked for,
everything I've worked up to up to this point and
do I really want to be known as a I've already dropped out of
college twice like let's just put let's just call a spade
a spade if I quit on music the one thing
(46:29):
that I've had literally all my life at that
point I'm not anything I can't be anything I don't deserve
it I'm a quitter and I refuse at this
point to be a quitter when
it comes to explaining and expounding on what
I feel on what I think and spreading the message of it's okay to not be okay
(46:51):
it's fine to be fucked up because a lot of us are but a lot of us are afraid
of being judged and a lot of us are afraid of what other people are gonna think
because of how fucked up we got.
And I want to be the catalyst for those artists, those people,
those whatever, you know, they identify themselves as.
(47:13):
I want to be the person that you look to and get the inspiration of.
It's OK to not have it all together. I didn't have it all together for a year and a fucking half.
And then before that, my father died in 2010.
I didn't have it together for eight whole years. years.
So as far as I'm concerned, music be damned, you know, career aside,
(47:37):
it is okay to be messed up.
It is okay to not have everything together.
It's okay to not have everything figured out as long as you're trying to figure it out.
If you've just given up, that's not okay.
If you're trying and you're trying your damnedest, that's all I need from you.
(48:00):
I just need to know that you're trying because then at that point,
I will support you with whatever you need.
I will give you whatever you need. I will make the time. I will be there. I will answer the phone.
I will answer a text, an email, whatever.
And I will make sure that you don't feel as alone as I do or as I did when I was making this album.
That was so powerful. And it kind
(48:23):
of goes along with my last question that I
find very important that you talked a little bit on
the live last night and that is why
did you make this album and
what is it for you or is it for your fans i know you want to inspire your fans
you want to you know you're talking about you want people to listen and be you
(48:47):
know uplifted and relate to your message but it was also a healing thing for
you what would you say is the number one purpose of the album.
Creating your album and why you want it to be the best it could possibly be?
In all totality, everything that I put my hands on when it comes to music,
(49:09):
it has to be the absolute best that it can be for the simple purpose of it being
the best that it could possibly be.
I need to exhaust every and all resources that I have at my disposal for making
music because I don't want to stagnate.
(49:30):
I don't want to just kind of bottom out.
I don't want to peak. I have to get better, right?
For making this album for the fans.
When I make music, I have to remind myself a lot.
And actually my wife said it best when I was making the album,
because for a while there, like I said, I was under the influence.
(49:51):
For a while there, it really did sound like the songs were, you know, just a pity party.
She told me, listen to me, I love you, but it really sounds like you just want
people to feel sorry for you.
And I don't because of who you are. I'm here, baby.
I know, I see everything that's going on and I don't feel sorry for you because
(50:15):
we, baby, we still got to do shit.
We still have to get up. We still have to go and do this.
We still have to take care of everything and neither one of us have the time
To sit around and mope around and oh, what was me kind of, you know kind of
attitude for From making the album for fans.
I wanted to give them something, you know that It's not.
(50:39):
Too personal, but just personal enough to show them and invite them into,
hey, this is where I've been for the last year and a half.
This is where I've been mentally for the past, I don't know how long.
I want you guys to know where I'm at. I want you to know why I haven't been
doing anything, why everything's been going on the way it has and everything like that.
(51:04):
I don't want to keep you guys in the dark for me it was a healing process when
you know when we finalized the album when we you know sent everything off to
distribution it was a healing process because now.
Okay all of the trauma's gone all of
the everything all of the ends all of the loose ends are tied all
(51:26):
of the everything that we wanted to say everything we wanted to
address everything that I had bottled
up inside of me since my mom's passing or before I got
to say it and no one told me that I couldn't so
for me it's for me it's therapeutic in the sense that I got to say everything
that I wanted to about everything that was going on whether or not people caught
(51:51):
it or you know whether or not people caught it for the fans I wanted to give
them something new because,
you know, before Underground Heart, I had never really done a project, you know, all by myself.
I never really believed in my own ability that I could do it.
So halfway through, it was more like a challenge of, you know,
(52:11):
don't use anybody else's production, make your own, just do it all yourself.
And then once we get through this, we can revisit someone else,
you know, someone else's production, we can revisit someone else's whatever. Right.
That being said, it's for the fans because I want to give them something that they can resonate to.
I want to give them something that they can connect with each other over or
(52:35):
connect with me over because you guys aren't alone.
We're all fucked up in our own ways, and there's nothing to be ashamed of.
For me, it's therapeutic in that me putting this out means that I no longer
have to hold on to it. I can send it off and be a better person now. I can let it go.
(52:59):
For all intents and purposes,
this album, it means the world to me because it's the culmination of 14 years
worth of holding on to feelings and thoughts and emotions that I never got to talk about.
And I never got to be as personal about everything as I wanted to.
(53:20):
It was always like very subliminal message. It was always very,
you know, kind of walking around on eggshells with subjects and with people.
And I finally get to say what I want to say.
And it doesn't really matter to me whether people agree with it or disagree
with it, don't like it, do like it, are indifferent, I get to heal. I get to heal.
(53:45):
And that's the most important thing to me about this album.
I get to heal and hopefully I inspire others to heal from what they've gone through as well.
And I'm so excited that I was able to talk with you before I listened to the
whole album, because listening to what it's about and how much it meant to you,
(54:10):
like that, this idea of feeling silenced for so long, that's,
that's something so many of us can relate to.
So I really, really appreciate you sharing that with me. I know there are a
ton of different places you could be late on a Saturday night.
So I, I appreciate it so much.
And I know this message will relate to a
(54:31):
a lot of my listeners and i'm excited to share it
out and you know share your music
and just your message it
was really really beautiful so thanks again k7 and i if there's any last things
you want to say before we end i'd love to hear them yeah first and foremost
you know just thank you so much for the opportunity you know or for all intents
(54:56):
and purposes just like you said you you know, on your own accord,
so many different things you could have been doing on a Saturday night.
And here you are talking with me. So one, you know, I just, I appreciate the
hell out of you for allowing me to say my piece.
And then for, for all of your listeners and all of my listeners tuning in,
you know, we live in a day and age where it's extremely easy to be acceptable or.
(55:20):
To all of the vices, all of the negative influence that, you know,
that there can be on our lives.
And I want, I want everyone to remember that as long as you like yourself,
as long as you are in a place where you can like yourself, improvement,
(55:42):
you know, betterment, any kind of upgrading, creating adaptability that you
can do for yourself, it is possible.
It does not have to be the end of the road for you. It doesn't have to be the end of the world.
If you want to get better, seek out those who want to get better right with
(56:03):
you so that you can support them and they can support you just off the strength
of everybody needs somebody.
And for everyone everyone under the sound of my voice, I do have just a little
saying that I want to impart on everyone.
If you don't feel loved, if you don't feel anyone cares about you,
(56:25):
if you haven't heard in the last 24 to 48 hours, I love you. I love you.
I love everything about you. I love everything that you do.
I love the fact that you are here at this point. I love the fact that you exist.
You may not know who I am I don't
know who you are but that doesn't stop me from loving you and I
want to make sure that you understand that I do love you
(56:46):
and I don't care if I don't know your name I don't care if I don't
know where you come from or where you're trying to go I love you I will do everything
in my power as a human being on this planet to support you and everything that
you do as long as you continue to try to be better but thank you so much for
having me I really do I do appreciate the time that you've taken out of your
(57:07):
day, out of your life to let me speak.
And I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity. So thank you so much.
Music.
Music.
(00:06):
All right. Hello. Hello, everyone.
You are listening to The Success Palette, a place to discuss how creatives can
succeed in every aspect of our lives.
I'm your host, and today I have Kaesevyn with me to talk about critiques,
feedbacks, gatekeeping in the arts, and how we can really help each other by being honest,
(00:32):
by being welcoming to new people in whatever sort of medium you work with,
whether it's music, visual arts, writing.
And what really got me interested in talking to you about this,
K7, is your Instagram Live last night.
You were were critiqued on your music and you handled it so well.
(00:57):
How did you kind of get into that situation where you reached out to someone to do your critique?
And can you talk a little bit about your music? What kind of music you create?
Absolutely. So the first part of that, that I'll speak to is the fact that,
so the kind of music that I make is mostly hip hop.
(01:17):
That's where I kind of grew up you know my
whole life listening to and it's kind of where I get
all of my influence and everything like that from as
far as taking criticism as far as getting it and then processing it I'm the
kind of artist or at least I've always positioned myself to be the kind of artist
that I look more so for feedback from people that don't know who I am don't
(01:42):
know know anything about my music, don't know anything about me.
I look to those kind of people that will give me those honest critiques,
those honest criticisms, and I'll tell them to their face, please don't worry
about hurting my feelings.
Don't worry about trying to be nice.
I want you to be as honest with me as you possibly can, because as an artist,
(02:03):
my job is to get better. right?
I don't want to be stagnant. I don't want to do the same thing that I did two or three projects ago.
I don't want to be the same person that I was yesterday.
I want to get better, but I can't get better if there are a hundred people versus
like five or 50 that'll tell me, oh yeah, man, no, this is great.
This sounds good. This is that wonderful.
(02:26):
No, I look for people.
When it comes to my art, when it comes to my artistic ability,
I look for people to tell me what they don't like and why they don't like it.
So that way I can take those critiques.
I can take those notes and get better.
I have to get better. Otherwise, what am I really doing?
I guess I've been doing music. I've been making music for 14 years and have
(02:49):
just in the last year and a half dabbled in producing my own arrangements and everything. thing.
So as far as I'm concerned, I'm nowhere near the breaks, right?
I'm nowhere near the level of, you know, a commercial project or,
you know, being like a mainstream kind of artist.
So as far as I'm concerned, you know, the majority of people that listen to
(03:13):
music on a daily basis, you know, they listen to the mainstream artists,
they listen to the mainstream sound.
So I take that being an independent artist and I, you know, I want the notes. I want the criticisms.
I want you to tell me how much I sound like someone else.
So that way I can take that and appreciate it for what you're trying to tell
me because, hey, at least you're relating it to someone that you like in your music catalog.
(03:37):
But I take those notes and I apply it to what I'm doing.
So that way, again, I can get better as a writer, get better as an artist,
get better with my delivery, with the things that I come up with,
just get better overall.
Because again, I do not, I do not for any reason want to be a stagnant kind of artist.
The minute that I think for a second that I no longer need to improve,
(04:01):
I no longer need to do better, is when I become a crappy artist,
when I become someone who's not deserving of anyone listening to them for 21
seconds or five minutes per song.
I don't deserve that.
So if I'm going to put the work in on my side, I've got to do my due diligence
(04:23):
and listen to the people that are listening to my songs, even if it's somebody
who says something that doesn't align with what I want to hear.
But it's not about what I want to hear. It's about what needs to be heard.
It's about what needs to be said so that way I can learn and everyone else in
attendance can learn and we can all get better. We can all go from there.
(04:48):
Completely agree. And I am so guilty of being stagnant for a long time because
I'm scared sometimes of hearing the truth and hearing what I need to improve on.
And sometimes I end up asking the wrong people for advice and feedback.
How do you find, I mean, those two gentlemen that you were getting feedback
(05:10):
from last night, they seem to really know what they're talking about. out.
How do you find people who can give you actually good criticism?
So there is a, there's a saying that I've heard a few years back,
strangers will show you all of the love that you'll ever need.
And I take that to heart mainly because, you know, there's a lot of truth to
(05:35):
that, you know, like your friends, your family, you know, whoever you're with,
your partner, whatever, They are going to tell you because they're biased.
They're going to tell you what they think you want to hear. You know what I mean?
I like getting the notes. I like getting the feedback, the criticism from complete
strangers because they're unbiased.
They're not going to sit here and try to be nice to me. They're not going to
(05:58):
sit here and know my whole history.
They're not going to know who I am. They're not going to know anything about
me other than the, you know, the last three minutes of me rapping, singing, whatever.
And they're going to give me their honest thoughts and their,
you know, their criticisms about what they heard.
And that's what I value a lot more. I can send a song to my best friend,
(06:20):
you know, seven times a week, you know, three hundred fifty two weeks a year,
whatever. And they're going to tell me what they think I want to hear.
Right. And a lot of times I've actually gotten away from trying to get validation
from friends for the objective purpose of, you know, you're my friend.
(06:41):
You know me. You know everything that there is to know about me.
You know what I'm trying to do. You know where I'm trying to go. You know everything.
Yada, yada, yada. So, again, you're biased to, you know, help me along with
what I think this stranger,
this person who's known nothing about me other than the first five minutes that
(07:04):
I've had introducing myself,
you know, there they have nothing, you know, over me, with me,
nothing there. It is what it is.
So if and then especially if I tell you, you know, you know,
give me your honest feedback of what my song does for you or what it doesn't do for you.
I like I said, I want to I want to know that more than I want to know that you
(07:28):
like the song. Great that you like the song. Fantastic.
And I am in there and I'm not trying to be facetious when I say it,
but it's fantastic that you like the song.
But what does that do for me as an artist who's trying to get better?
It's great that you like it. You know what I mean? It's another thing for you
to share it. It's another thing for you to show it to your friends.
(07:51):
Listen to it on repeat. That's all well and good and it's fantastic.
It's a whole other kind of ball game when you don't like it or you don't like
everything about it or you rate it somewhere on a scale of 1 to 10 on the lower
side or somewhere close to the middle and you're calling it average because at that point,
I'm going to take that you're not saying that it's bad,
(08:15):
but this is what you're saying I can improve on.
And to me, that as an artist, that is more important than anything in the world,
because like I said, I want to get better.
I want to make sure that everything that I put out, album, EP,
single, mixtape, whatever, I want to make sure that all of that,
you know, that I do, everything that I put out is the very best that I can possibly make it.
(08:38):
So I will take all of the criticism.
I will take all of the notes and I will apply it to what I'm working on.
So that way, whenever I do put this out, whenever I do go live with it, whoever I do show it to.
Right. This is as best as I can get it with the resources that I have.
And I want you to tell me whether or not I'm doing good, I'm going in the right
(09:00):
direction or if I need to go back to the drawing board. And if I need to go
back to the drawing board, that is perfectly fine because that's exactly what
I was looking for you to say. You know what I mean?
And once you get that awesome criticism from all these different people,
how do you filter out what's actually good criticism?
What is bad criticism? Things that,
(09:22):
you know, if someone like me who's not a musician gives you feedback that conflicts
with someone who is a musician,
you might realize that maybe my feedback isn't the best how do you go through
that and how has your education your experience in music affected your confidence
in knowing what criticism to take.
(09:45):
So to preface the answer for that, I've been making music for about 14 years or so.
I've gone from literally, you know, biting off of other artists' styles to rapping
over other beats, rapping over, you know, things that, you know,
I don't know anything about copyright.
I don't know anything about plagiarism, anything like that, to being,
(10:09):
you know, someone who has decided that, hey, we're going to do all of this in-house.
And we're not going to pay any money to anybody other than ourselves because copyright.
And we don't have enough money to deal with that in open court.
But to filter through what is good criticism and what's just someone being a
(10:31):
hater, it's really the way that they phrase it.
And it's really the way that they execute giving me the note.
So take, for example, the two gentlemen and last night, you know,
first and foremost, I always tell anyone who's going to give me criticism,
I always let them know, hey, look, do not be afraid of hurting my feelings.
(10:51):
Do not be afraid of saying the wrong thing, because as far as I'm concerned,
you're never going to say the wrong thing when you're criticizing me,
because all of what you think is wrong to say, I'm going to take it and run with it anyways.
Because as far as I'm concerned, that's something that I didn't think about
when I wrote this song. That's something I didn't think about when I recorded this.
But to filter out what's good advice and what's not good advice,
(11:15):
it really does depend on what's being said and how they say it.
If you say to me something like, hey, look, your beat was fantastic.
I really vibed with it. I like this. I like that. But your lyrics didn't really do it for me.
Something like that. I know the kind of person that I am.
I was born in the 90s. So a lot of the things that I do tend to put in into
(11:38):
my music, a lot of it is like, you know, very similar,
very adjacent to early 2000s, like everything before 2010 kind of hip hop kind of rap.
So I'm kind of I'm kind of old school when you really think of it or when you
really sit back and listen to what I say or how I say it.
So that in and of itself doesn't really bother me.
(11:59):
But what would bother me would be, you know, you're telling me,
hey, you don't like my songs. You don't like anything about me as an artist,
but you're also not offering me any suggestions or any kind of advice to get better.
Right. You're you're wasting your and my time by telling me that you don't like me.
That's fine that you don't like me, man. There's over eight billion people in this world.
(12:19):
And I'm pretty sure at least 25 percent of that eight billion make music.
Go find someone else to listen to at that point.
Right. But if you're telling me, hey, look, you know, this is what I like the
song, but this is what I would have done different.
I'll listen to that. OK. OK. I see why you say that. that I,
okay, I can look back at the song, keep your thought in mind.
(12:42):
Damn. Okay. I see exactly what they were saying. So my biggest,
my biggest thing is when, you know, whenever I get criticism,
I like to look for it from strangers as opposed to people that know me and know a lot about me.
And just, you know, ultimately to filter out between what's good advice and
what's not good good advice is telling me something because I'm a one man army, so to speak, right?
(13:08):
I do everything myself from writing to mixing, mastering, marketing,
everything that there is to do for music. I do it all myself.
So when you tell me something that I've never thought of before, right?
It's not to be egotistic, but I take that into consideration because,
(13:29):
well, damn, man, I didn't think of that.
Why didn't I do it that way? Why didn't I do it like this?
You know what I mean? And I value that kind of creativity because it's always better.
It's always more fun to be in a session with someone than it is to do it all by yourself.
I value people that think differently
(13:49):
than I do because of how much of
what I do is fueled by just me
and my thoughts and my feelings so i i
take it to heart and i take so much pride in
hearing someone else critique me because as
far as i'm concerned you either like it or you don't and if you don't like it
i would hope that as an artist as a professional that you would tell me how
(14:13):
to get better because i dislike so much in my profession and you know in life
in general i hate keeping being beneficial information from anyone for any reason.
Yeah. And before we started recording, you kind of talked a little bit about
that on the importance of us giving feedback to others and being giving honest feedback.
(14:39):
And sometimes we feel that maybe we're being mean by telling the truth.
But we were talking about kind of the what was the example that you were talking about?
I think it was Adam and Eve or something like that.
I thought that was very interesting. Yeah, no.
So to go off of that,
(14:59):
if I have information or if I have certain keys to success that another artist
in my field or just adjacent to what I'm doing can utilize for the benefit of
their career or whatever it is that they're doing,
I would be a fool and I'd be a criminal, so to speak, if I didn't give them that. Right.
(15:21):
Don't get me wrong. Yes. For all intents and purposes, we treat making music
like it's a competition.
Everyone's got to be the best something. Best songwriter, best rapper,
best singer, best whatever. Right.
My honest opinion is that there's more than enough love.
There's more than enough money. There's more than enough whatever it is that
(15:43):
you're chasing, whatever it is that you want.
There's more than enough success at the top. So why then should we treat this
field as a dog-eat-dog kind of competition?
Why can't we just help each other?
You want the same thing that I want. At the end of the day, and let's call a
(16:03):
spade a spade, you want to be able to utilize your music or whatever it is that
you're doing with your art to pay your bills.
You want to be able to live off of this You want this to be your job You want
to be able to wake up And do nothing else except this Why can't we both help each other get there?
Why do I have to tear you down In order to get to where I want to be?
(16:26):
Why do I need to be torn down So that you can get to where you want to be?
If I can open the door For the next 10 artists to get through Just to speak
with somebody on the other side why would I deny those 10 their opportunity?
Right. I'm the one who got a chance to open the door in the first place.
(16:48):
So as far as I'm concerned, if I'm going to be the one who gets the door first,
well, I'm going to hold it open for as many people as I possibly can,
because that's just right.
If they reciprocated or not, that's on them.
But it's I feel like it's my job as an artist, it's my job as a human being
to help as many people on this planet as I possibly can before I'm gone. on.
(17:08):
So when it comes to music, I'm not going to deny anyone the opportunity to make
something of themselves if that's what they really want to do.
You've got to prove to me at some point that you deserve it,
but we'll cross that bridge when we get there, right?
And until we do get there, like I said, I'm not going to stop you from being great.
(17:28):
I'm going to root for you. I'm going to give you everything that I possibly can to be great.
Even if it means being greater than me, I'm going to give you that for as much as I can.
So that way, when you do make it, I will only hope that you don't forget about
me. And if you do, that's fine, because I'm still doing my thing.
But big ups to you and congrats to you for taking yourself right where you need
(17:52):
to be at, despite what I am or am not able to do for it. I love that mentality.
And I think we need more of that because in some communities,
like it gets bad, just this, this jealousy, the tearing each other down.
How do you not get jealous or compare when you realize that you are,
(18:15):
you do have a lot more to work on and you see these other people who,
you know, they, their music, their art, whatever.
It's just, you feel it's so much ahead of you.
What are some ways that you could keep that confidence and not be scared of
the honest criticism that you're receiving?
The first thing that I have to remember in every situation is that regardless
(18:40):
of what I think, regardless of how I feel, there are always going to be people
that are just better than me.
It is just an inevitable fact. There are going to be people that rap better
than I do, write better than I do, mix, produce, master, whatever it is.
There are going to be people in this world that exist that are just way better than I am.
(19:01):
I am not always going to be the smartest person in the room.
I'm not always going to be the most talented.
But knowing that and keeping that humility allows me to do the things that I
do and move in the ways that I do.
Because Because again, I want to get better.
So when I run into someone who is better than me, I'm going to shut up and I'm going to take notes.
(19:25):
I'm going to start doing my homework because, oh my God, this person has it going on.
They know what they're doing. They were ready two, three hours before they even got here.
And here I am just now getting ready. I'm in the room.
I need to stop what I'm doing, put the phone down and pay attention.
You know what I mean? I don't care if it's the cadence. I don't care if it's
(19:46):
a technique. I don't care whatever it is that they're doing.
I need to make sure that I walk out of here smarter and better than I was when I walked in.
I have to. It is not, you know, it's mandatory that I do.
Right. So dealing with feelings of like inadequacy or jealousy or anything like
(20:06):
that, there's no way to avoid it. But there's just in 14 years of doing music,
there's just no way to avoid it at all.
What I will tell you is that for as for as envious or as jealous as you can
be of someone doing what you do better than you.
Don't look at it like they're better than you and they think they're better
(20:29):
than you. Well, pick their brain.
Pick their brain. See what makes them better. See what makes them do what they
do differently than you.
Because for all you know, they'll give it to you. They're waiting for someone
to ask them, how do you do this? How do you do that?
They're waiting for someone like that the same way you're waiting to be the
one to tell somebody, to give someone the keys to success.
(20:53):
Success they're waiting just like you are so pick
their brain make them feel good you don't gotta you know
necessarily stroke their ego or kiss ass so to speak but it's
more beneficial for everyone involved if you choose to learn from your peers
learn from whom you're around learn from the opportunities that you're graced
(21:13):
with as opposed to sitting there being upset being you know envious being a sore loser.
I have no problem whenever I invite someone to feature on a song or collaborate with.
I have no problem, man, if you are the better artist on this song.
I'm going to give you your props in the studio and also when we put it out,
(21:38):
because that's just how good you are to me.
You're so much better than me that you've waxed me on my own song.
I'm not going to not put that that out, man.
It's a dope song. It's great. It's wonderful.
And again, I'd be a criminal if I tried to hide this from someone because of my own insecurities.
My own insecurities will hit me so hard that'll tell me, hey,
(22:00):
listen, if we have the opportunity to, at the very least, you can go back and redo your verse.
You can go back and redo this. So that way, at the very least,
you're not greater than them on the song, but at the very least,
you're up to par. and I look for people, I look for other artists to be better
than me. So that way, again, I learn.
The way I get better. You know what I mean? You can wax me on a song. I don't care, man.
(22:24):
As long as you do me a favor and teach me rather than ridicule me,
educate me instead of making fun of me, I'm going to do everything in my power
to learn as much as I can from you in this one session.
And then who knows, we may have five or 10 sessions after this.
And I keep, and I continue to learn from you until I surpass you or at the very
(22:45):
least get on the same level as you. you.
There's more than enough room at the top or wherever it is that we're trying
to go to get, you know, to have love for each other, to have respect for each
other, to share the money, to do everything that we need to do.
I don't need to tear you down.
I don't need to have this crabs in a barrel mentality.
You know what I mean? Just to have a career. I don't care if you make it before I do.
(23:10):
The fact that I know you, the fact that I've had the opportunity opportunity
to be graced in your presence,
to be honored by you featuring on one of my songs where I'm just in this room
making it by myself is enough for me to say that, hey, this person has respect
for me and I'm going to give them that respect back no matter what.
I want it to always be a thing of love and camaraderie whenever I'm working
(23:34):
with anybody, whether it be a stranger or someone I've known for the last decade.
I need you to know I'm always going to be the same person on camera as I am off camera.
So I've got to show you that I can't just tell you.
That was powerful. That was powerful, dude.
Like if everybody in the arts had that mentality, like this world would be a different place.
(23:57):
We wouldn't be, we wouldn't be scared of AI.
We wouldn't be scared of not being respected because we would be actually supporting each other.
So I'm so glad that you talked about that. And I love it so much.
And I know you do quite a bit of collaborations. The song that I did listen
to from you, I believe your wife was collaborating with you, right?
(24:21):
How does that work? Do you give feedback to each other?
I know feedback from my spouse is very uncomfortable because he's like really blunt.
But how is that working with your wife?
So it actually works the same way that it does with strangers.
Me and my wife, we have this connection. We have this kind of communication.
(24:45):
One, it just didn't happen overnight. Right. It took years to build.
But we we both agree to refuse to not educate the other one. Right.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you what you think you want here.
I'm going to tell you what I actually hear.
I'm going to be objective with it because, hey, look, you're trying to do this.
(25:07):
And for as much as I respect that you're trying to do this, what you're right now is not cutting it.
I'm not sorry. It's not cutting it. You need to do better because what you're
going for and what you're doing right now are two totally different things.
And let me tell you something, if you're going to put this out like this,
it's not going to work. And I'm telling you now it's not going to work.
(25:27):
So don't be surprised that if you do put it out in this state, that it doesn't work.
So the song in particular, for those out there listening, it's called Some of That.
That song came about, I was, admittedly, I was under the influence,
you know, and I was playing around with some samples,
(25:48):
royalty free, by the way, just in case anyone wants to get their copyright knickers
in a bunch, playing around with some samples and, you know, and I'm doing the,
I'm making the beat and everything.
And I've heard my wife just like casually sing some of her favorite songs.
And I tell her, I said, babe, you have an amazing voice and I really want to
(26:12):
harness that for what I'm trying to do here.
And I know that you're shy. I know that you don't do this in the depth that
I do, but I'm going to be honest with you.
I don't think this song will be as great as it possibly can be without your voice.
It's just not going to happen. I'll put this song out and it'll flop.
(26:33):
But you, on the other hand, you'll take this song to higher heights than I ever could.
But to piggyback off of what you said earlier, when it comes to using AI in music,
the way that I look at things nowadays is I respect every and all kinds of resources
that I'm able to put my hands on.
(26:54):
In some ways, using AI to create music is extremely disrespectful to the art funding.
However, when you're utilizing it in a sense where it's only,
you know, helping you, you know, create or paint the picture of whatever your
vision is for this song, I don't see a problem, right? Right.
(27:16):
If if you're like me, if you're anything like me. Right.
Everything that I do is basically by myself until I work up the courage to go
ask somebody, hey, can you help me with this?
Once I get past my little inadequacies or once I get past my little insecurities
about asking someone to be on a song with me. Right.
In any case, like, listen, as far as I'm concerned, this is just a working demo.
(27:39):
And I want to get this working demo as great as I can before I go show it to
someone else who will really deliver on this song.
So in some cases, using AI, I mean, it is what it is, man, whether you're using
it for chord progression or using it to change a voice or do whatever. Right.
(28:00):
As long as you're respecting the resource and as long as you're respecting the
art form when you do it and not just like having a I write a song,
create a song and then you putting it out like, yeah, you did it all yourself.
Right. I don't I don't see a problem.
But to to put a button on on your question, getting getting my wife to do the song with me.
(28:21):
She's actually on a few songs throughout the album, but getting her to get her
voice, you know, on some of the tracks that are on there, you know,
it was an uphill battle because she's a lot shyer than I am.
Again, I've been doing this for so long and she's only got so much exposure and experience to it.
(28:41):
So trying to get her to look past her own insecurities and her own inadequacies
that she feels just to, you know, deliver, you know, grandstanding performance on the track.
Again, a lot of it was trying to help her build up her self-esteem,
build up her confidence, and just telling her, look, babe, I'm going to be honest with you.
(29:03):
Again, if I don't get you on this song, I'm going to have to go cheat.
I'm going to have to go do something else to get this song to where it needs
to be at. And then in that process, I'll probably make the song sound like trash,
whereas you're right here.
And I, you know, I can just I know how to mix and master.
I know how to do all of the whatevers to your voice or whatever to give you
(29:28):
the vocal presence that this track needs.
And I can't hear anybody else's voice and hear anybody else's work on this other than yours.
So if if you don't help me and it's the ultimatum, but if you don't help me,
it's that this song is not going out.
It'll just be on the cutting room floor and it just is what it is.
And, you know, because you're so honest, like this is how I think of my husband.
(29:51):
My husband's very honest.
He'll tell me if what I make sucks. He'll tell me if I'm boring.
He'll tell me whatever. But when he gives me a compliment, like you gave her
a compliment, you know that it's sincere because you're not just flowery,
you know, giving what they want to hear.
How can we, what's just as important, in my opinion, as giving this criticism
(30:15):
is really boosting each other up when we deserve to be boosted,
especially in the beginning.
I know I really needed some, maybe not, oh, you're such a great artist,
but maybe, hey, I love your work ethic or your consistency or something.
What are some ways that we can encourage each other without giving false uplifting
(30:38):
feedback, if that makes sense?
No, absolutely. It makes it makes a lot of sense. The first thing that the first
step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one. Number one. Right.
If you if if my wife decided, you know, hey, babe, I want to make music,
I want to do an album, I want to do something. something, right?
(31:01):
I can only take what you're telling me at face value until you show me that you're serious.
If you show me that you're oh so serious just as I am or beyond what I do for
my own stuff, if you show me that you're serious, I will back you no doubt 100%.
(31:21):
I will give you everything that you need.
I will give you all of my time, all of my attention.
I will make sure that this is the best thing that we both put our names on at the time.
If you are just telling me that you want to do this, it'd be cool.
It'd be nice. It'd be whatever.
If you're finicky with me, I'm going to be finicky with you and I'm not going to take you serious.
(31:44):
I'm only going to take you serious when you show me that you're serious.
So that's what lets me know how to give advice, how to support somebody when
you show me that you're serious about what you're doing, right?
I'm not, and I refuse to waste your time or waste your energy or waste giving
attention to something that you're not serious about.
(32:06):
So that way we can both come together as a partnership.
We can both come together as two individuals and figure out what's going to
work and what's going to satisfy us both.
If for whatever reason, you know, we can't at the very least compromise on,
you know, something to do, well, then we'll just agree to disagree.
Hey, look, this is the way that I feel about it. This is what I think.
(32:30):
You feel and think differently.
So we'll just, we'll table this for another time if you'd like to come back
to it. And if you don't want to, well, that's fine, but it's on the table.
The offer is still there.
I can still do this for you if you want to, but I'm not going to waste my time
and I'm not going to let you waste my time just in the same question.
(32:51):
I'm not going to waste your time and I'm not going to want to waste your time.
I'm not going to want to waste your energy when it comes to this.
I'm very, I'm a very passionate person when it comes to music.
If I did not have my wife, if I did not have my kids, if I didn't have anything
going for me except music, and then I lost music, I would be a show of a person.
(33:11):
I would 100% not, I would feel like I don't have anything else in the world tying me to the world.
That being said, for as passionate as I am, for as much as I want music to work for me and my family,
I refuse to treat it as anything like a hobby or anything less than someone
(33:34):
serious until they give me reason not to believe that they're serious about it.
You know what I mean? But I will say that when it comes to supporting her and
the things that she wants to do,
it takes a level of communication that you have to foster over some time to
(33:54):
execute and communicate properly what they need to hear versus what they want to hear. hear.
You want to hear that the person that you're with supports you.
You want to hear that they like what you're doing.
But if they're anything like your husband or like me, I'm going to tell you
(34:17):
what you need to hear because as far as I'm concerned, you're serious about
this and I want you to get better.
And if you're asking me from a fan's perspective, from just a viewer perspective,
no, this is boring. I'm going to tell you right now, it's boring.
This is not the best that you can do. And I think you can do better.
So before you put this out, I would revisit this point, this, this, this, and this.
(34:40):
And then if you don't, that's on you. It's your, it's still your,
it's still your call. It's still your choice.
But if you're asking me and for all intents and purposes, you are,
this is what you need to do to get better. If you want to get better.
But then I got to put the ball, I got to leave the ball in your court because
at the end of the day, it's your choice.
It's your prerogative to do or not to do what I'm advising or suggesting that
(35:05):
you do to get better or to, you know, master your craft.
Yeah. And when going back to what you said about what someone needs,
something I had to learn because I come from a very, very sugarcoat family where
we just, oh, it's so great. great.
You know, we, we are not confrontational. And then again, my husband's family, they're very blunt.
(35:25):
And it's been it was very difficult for us for a long time.
But something that we we had to be really honest with each other.
And he had to be like, Okay, do you want this a hobby? Or do you want this a business?
And then he would ask me, Okay, now do you want constructive feedback?
Or do you want a confidence boost? Because if you just want a confidence boost,
(35:47):
and this is just just a hobby for you, then I'll give that to you.
But if you you know, and so the person asking for feedback, I'm realizing has
a responsibility to tell them, hey, I'm just feeling nervous,
and I just need a confidence boost.
That's what I need. But if you want feedback, you have to be open to that honest
(36:08):
feedback and have that communication, that honest communication, communication, right?
Absolutely. Absolutely. There's nothing, for me, there's nothing more disrespectful,
regardless of your craft.
There's nothing more disrespectful than being facetious.
Nothing more disrespectful. I don't care what you think I want to hear.
(36:29):
I need you to tell me, especially because I'm trying to be better.
I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to do more than than what I'm doing now.
I need you to tell me what I need to hear, especially if it's something that
you think I don't want to hear.
That's what I need to hear the most. I want you to tell me, hey,
(36:51):
babe, listen to me. I love you so much, but this song is garbage.
This song is not going to get you to where you think it's going to put you.
It's not going to happen.
I'm going to be honest with you. Babe, we listen to music all the time. We do this. We do that.
I've heard every song that you've ever worked on, every song you've ever put
out before it got put out.
I'm telling you right now, this is not you. This is not the direction you need
(37:12):
to go in for this project. This is not what you need to do.
If you do this, I need you to understand that I do understand why you did this.
I understand where you were trying to go, but I need you to know that I'm not
going to support you because I don't like it. I don't agree with it.
I don't think this is you.
(37:34):
I think This is something completely far beyond your scope or something completely
beyond, you know, your identity as an artist that I can't rock with this.
I just can't. And I'm not going to. So don't ask me to pretend.
Don't ask me to like it. Don't ask me to share it or anything like that,
because I don't agree with it. I don't like it.
(37:54):
And I will take conversations like that too hard.
I won't take it personal like it's an attack, but I will take it to where,
you know, if she feels so strongly about this and what I'm trying to do,
song title, lyrics, chorus, beat selection, whatever.
If she doesn't like it and she's telling me all of this in depth,
(38:16):
in detail, damn, it really must be that bad.
I must really be in my own zone and I'm so far gone that I am so far removed
from objectivity that this is my wake-up call.
This is what I need to hear right now because otherwise, no,
babe, it's great. No, I like it. You could do this. You could do that.
(38:38):
You could do this for the chords.
You could do this for the hook. But if she's telling me in so many words that
this is not the right move to make in my heart of hearts as an artist and as
a person and as a husband,
I'm going to make sure that I take the criticism in stride and run with it because
(39:00):
she knows I want to get better.
She knows that I want to do this for the rest of my life.
And as far as I'm concerned, there's nobody else that I run music by demo or
otherwise before I put it out saying, hey, does it sound OK?
You listen to everything that I do literally all the time.
If no one knows better about what to do, what not to do other than me, it's you.
(39:24):
So if you're telling me no shit, it must be no. Fuck it. We're going back to the drawing board.
Absolutely. That completely makes sense. And I just I love how how you have
such a great, honest relationship with yourself and the people that you work with.
And before I go into my last question, which I think is probably the most important
(39:45):
question about this, I want to hear a little bit about your album.
What inspired your album, where people can find you? Again, the album's called Underground Heart.
It's on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music,
wherever it is. People stream, you know, their favorite songs and favorite artists.
It came out February 2nd this year, 2024.
(40:09):
It is a project that it took form and it took shape over the course of a year and a half.
At first, it was just a mix-match of songs that, you know, hey,
I'm just now getting into, you know, producing my own music.
I'm just now getting into trying to do everything in-house.
(40:30):
And then, unfortunately, excuse me, a year ago on the 2nd, February 2nd,
2023, my mom passed away.
And my wife and one of my older brothers actually found her.
So over the second course of the year and a half,
(40:50):
a lot of it was spent being under the influence, drinking every night,
smoking, and just doing something to feel anything other than depression and despair of, damn,
I really don't want to do this anymore. more.
But then at the same time, I also know my mom, before she passed away,
(41:11):
she was actually one of my biggest fans because everything that I made,
every song, everything, she's like, okay, I see what you did there.
And she would critique me. She would give me the notes like,
hey, listen, I understand what you're trying to do.
And it sounds good, but baby, I don't think you could get that on the radio.
Baby, I don't think anyone's going to listen to that because you're you're doing this, right?
(41:35):
So the whole gist of the project is really a journey.
It's a journey through someone's mental health.
It's a day in the life of someone who's trying to make it and also juggle their
feelings, their thoughts, their emotions, just on an everyday level.
(42:00):
My goal with the music that I make and with everything that I do is I want people
to resonate with what I'm talking about.
I grew up in a house. I grew up being a person that felt like he never had a voice.
He never really had a say in what happened to him or what happened with the stuff that he did.
So now that I don't have those limitations anymore, now that I don't have anything
(42:26):
or anyone necessarily holding me back, I can't help but write about what I think.
I can't help but write about what I feel and hope that somebody somewhere listens to it.
And you know even if they
even if i'm not someone's favorite artist they understand
where i'm coming from they understand what i feel they
(42:48):
understand what i think and they agree like damn man
you know sometimes i do feel like that too and i'm glad that you're confident
enough and have enough courage to put a song or put a a project out and be as
vulnerable about it as you are and hands down Now, in the 14 years I've been doing this,
(43:08):
underground heart is the most vulnerable I've ever been.
I'm usually the kind of person who clams up a lot and doesn't really speak to.
You know, the things that I feel or the things that I think about because I'm
afraid of being judged by people.
But then that's also why I take the position of not judging anyone and not,
(43:31):
you know, putting people through the things that I'm afraid of,
because I don't want that to happen to me.
I want even if you don't listen to the whole project, even if you don't care about what I'm doing,
the fact that you took time out of your day to listen to a couple of songs on
it is enough for me, you know, and coming from a place of not being able to speak.
(43:54):
Not being able to say anything, not being able to have a say in a thing.
It's kind of why I made this. You know what I mean? It's, it's showing people
that it is okay to not be okay with the things that have happened to you.
As long as you do it in a way that,
you know, you're addressing your traumas, you're addressing everything that's
(44:18):
happened to you in a healthy manner so that you You can move forward so that
you can be better if you want to be.
I really connected with that and I'm excited to listen.
I sort of I I follow you on Spotify, so I should have, you know, I'll be. No, it's OK.
(44:40):
No, the beautiful part about, you know, telling people my side of the story
before they go listen to the music.
I find that once you hear it from me and then you go listen to the music,
it makes it connect that much more.
But it's okay if it's the other way around, you know what I mean?
(45:01):
You hear the music first and then you get the explanation afterwards.
Again, my whole goal, at least with Underground Heart, is just to have it resonate with somebody.
I don't care if you're just driving along somewhere and it comes on and you're
just vibing to it, or you're in your feels and fuck it, you know what I mean? This is what's going on.
(45:24):
And he's saying exactly what I feel in this moment. That's great.
I'm glad that I can give you something that you relate to. I'm glad that you
have something or you feel enough about to feel like you're not alone in what
you feel because honest to God, you know, for,
for the year and a half that it took me to, to make this album,
(45:46):
when I admittedly, when I tell you the feelings of depression,
the feelings of despair, bear, all of the pressure that it took to get through this album.
There were several times where I wanted to quit music as a whole.
And I had to keep thinking, I had to keep pushing through, what would my family think if I gave up?
(46:09):
What would my mom think if I gave up? What would my dad think if I gave up?
If I give up now, I'm giving up on everything I've worked for,
everything I've worked up to up to this point and
do I really want to be known as a I've already dropped out of
college twice like let's just put let's just call a spade
a spade if I quit on music the one thing
(46:29):
that I've had literally all my life at that
point I'm not anything I can't be anything I don't deserve
it I'm a quitter and I refuse at this
point to be a quitter when
it comes to explaining and expounding on what
I feel on what I think and spreading the message of it's okay to not be okay
(46:51):
it's fine to be fucked up because a lot of us are but a lot of us are afraid
of being judged and a lot of us are afraid of what other people are gonna think
because of how fucked up we got.
And I want to be the catalyst for those artists, those people,
those whatever, you know, they identify themselves as.
(47:13):
I want to be the person that you look to and get the inspiration of.
It's OK to not have it all together. I didn't have it all together for a year and a fucking half.
And then before that, my father died in 2010.
I didn't have it together for eight whole years. years.
So as far as I'm concerned, music be damned, you know, career aside,
(47:37):
it is okay to be messed up.
It is okay to not have everything together.
It's okay to not have everything figured out as long as you're trying to figure it out.
If you've just given up, that's not okay.
If you're trying and you're trying your damnedest, that's all I need from you.
(48:00):
I just need to know that you're trying because then at that point,
I will support you with whatever you need.
I will give you whatever you need. I will make the time. I will be there. I will answer the phone.
I will answer a text, an email, whatever.
And I will make sure that you don't feel as alone as I do or as I did when I was making this album.
That was so powerful. And it kind
(48:23):
of goes along with my last question that I
find very important that you talked a little bit on
the live last night and that is why
did you make this album and
what is it for you or is it for your fans i know you want to inspire your fans
you want to you know you're talking about you want people to listen and be you
(48:47):
know uplifted and relate to your message but it was also a healing thing for
you what would you say is the number one purpose of the album.
Creating your album and why you want it to be the best it could possibly be?
In all totality, everything that I put my hands on when it comes to music,
(49:09):
it has to be the absolute best that it can be for the simple purpose of it being
the best that it could possibly be.
I need to exhaust every and all resources that I have at my disposal for making
music because I don't want to stagnate.
(49:30):
I don't want to just kind of bottom out.
I don't want to peak. I have to get better, right?
For making this album for the fans.
When I make music, I have to remind myself a lot.
And actually my wife said it best when I was making the album,
because for a while there, like I said, I was under the influence.
(49:51):
For a while there, it really did sound like the songs were, you know, just a pity party.
She told me, listen to me, I love you, but it really sounds like you just want
people to feel sorry for you.
And I don't because of who you are. I'm here, baby.
I know, I see everything that's going on and I don't feel sorry for you because
(50:15):
we, baby, we still got to do shit.
We still have to get up. We still have to go and do this.
We still have to take care of everything and neither one of us have the time
To sit around and mope around and oh, what was me kind of, you know kind of
attitude for From making the album for fans.
I wanted to give them something, you know that It's not.
(50:39):
Too personal, but just personal enough to show them and invite them into,
hey, this is where I've been for the last year and a half.
This is where I've been mentally for the past, I don't know how long.
I want you guys to know where I'm at. I want you to know why I haven't been
doing anything, why everything's been going on the way it has and everything like that.
(51:04):
I don't want to keep you guys in the dark for me it was a healing process when
you know when we finalized the album when we you know sent everything off to
distribution it was a healing process because now.
Okay all of the trauma's gone all of
the everything all of the ends all of the loose ends are tied all
(51:26):
of the everything that we wanted to say everything we wanted to
address everything that I had bottled
up inside of me since my mom's passing or before I got
to say it and no one told me that I couldn't so
for me it's for me it's therapeutic in the sense that I got to say everything
that I wanted to about everything that was going on whether or not people caught
(51:51):
it or you know whether or not people caught it for the fans I wanted to give
them something new because,
you know, before Underground Heart, I had never really done a project, you know, all by myself.
I never really believed in my own ability that I could do it.
So halfway through, it was more like a challenge of, you know,
(52:11):
don't use anybody else's production, make your own, just do it all yourself.
And then once we get through this, we can revisit someone else,
you know, someone else's production, we can revisit someone else's whatever. Right.
That being said, it's for the fans because I want to give them something that they can resonate to.
I want to give them something that they can connect with each other over or
(52:35):
connect with me over because you guys aren't alone.
We're all fucked up in our own ways, and there's nothing to be ashamed of.
For me, it's therapeutic in that me putting this out means that I no longer
have to hold on to it. I can send it off and be a better person now. I can let it go.
(52:59):
For all intents and purposes,
this album, it means the world to me because it's the culmination of 14 years
worth of holding on to feelings and thoughts and emotions that I never got to talk about.
And I never got to be as personal about everything as I wanted to.
(53:20):
It was always like very subliminal message. It was always very,
you know, kind of walking around on eggshells with subjects and with people.
And I finally get to say what I want to say.
And it doesn't really matter to me whether people agree with it or disagree
with it, don't like it, do like it, are indifferent, I get to heal. I get to heal.
(53:45):
And that's the most important thing to me about this album.
I get to heal and hopefully I inspire others to heal from what they've gone through as well.
And I'm so excited that I was able to talk with you before I listened to the
whole album, because listening to what it's about and how much it meant to you,
(54:10):
like that, this idea of feeling silenced for so long, that's,
that's something so many of us can relate to.
So I really, really appreciate you sharing that with me. I know there are a
ton of different places you could be late on a Saturday night.
So I, I appreciate it so much.
And I know this message will relate to a
(54:31):
a lot of my listeners and i'm excited to share it
out and you know share your music
and just your message it
was really really beautiful so thanks again k7 and i if there's any last things
you want to say before we end i'd love to hear them yeah first and foremost
you know just thank you so much for the opportunity you know or for all intents
(54:56):
and purposes just like you said you you know, on your own accord,
so many different things you could have been doing on a Saturday night.
And here you are talking with me. So one, you know, I just, I appreciate the
hell out of you for allowing me to say my piece.
And then for, for all of your listeners and all of my listeners tuning in,
you know, we live in a day and age where it's extremely easy to be acceptable or.
(55:20):
To all of the vices, all of the negative influence that, you know,
that there can be on our lives.
And I want, I want everyone to remember that as long as you like yourself,
as long as you are in a place where you can like yourself, improvement,
(55:42):
you know, betterment, any kind of upgrading, creating adaptability that you
can do for yourself, it is possible.
It does not have to be the end of the road for you. It doesn't have to be the end of the world.
If you want to get better, seek out those who want to get better right with
(56:03):
you so that you can support them and they can support you just off the strength
of everybody needs somebody.
And for everyone everyone under the sound of my voice, I do have just a little
saying that I want to impart on everyone.
If you don't feel loved, if you don't feel anyone cares about you,
(56:25):
if you haven't heard in the last 24 to 48 hours, I love you. I love you.
I love everything about you. I love everything that you do.
I love the fact that you are here at this point. I love the fact that you exist.
You may not know who I am I don't
know who you are but that doesn't stop me from loving you and I
want to make sure that you understand that I do love you
(56:46):
and I don't care if I don't know your name I don't care if I don't
know where you come from or where you're trying to go I love you I will do everything
in my power as a human being on this planet to support you and everything that
you do as long as you continue to try to be better but thank you so much for
having me I really do I do appreciate the time that you've taken out of your
(57:07):
day, out of your life to let me speak.
And I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity. So thank you so much.
Music.
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