“Part Of Me Knows” came out 20 minutes ago. I’m really excited about this song, and even if it feels a humble beginning still, I feel like this was a big feat for me personally. I just can’t wait for people to hear it. I’m going to eat a grapefruit and here is the link to the new song.
My new project begins rolling out in just a few weeks. I wanted to premiere the full artwork right here on my website. So take a moment and take in this beautiful illustration created by Arielle Zottneck. There will be more revealed about this artwork in due time. But to the song: The song I will be releasing is titled “Part Of Me Knows.” I’ll also do a little write up on what it’s about alter, but I think I want you guys to decide what it means for you without explanations this time. Mark your calendars, this bop will be dropping on October 9th! If you are a Spotify member, would you consider taking a few minutes to follow this link to pre-save the song? Doing this really helps the song have more reach with it drops, and costs you nothing! If you pre-save the music, I’ll promise to keep trying to make the most beautiful and most dope art I can possibly make. Deallll? :) And while we’re here, you can keep scrolling down to get lost in my random thoughts in my not so secret online journal called Dear Diarya. til next time :)
Okay today was an amazing day. Like extraordinary. I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time. First, spent an incredible time at HeyHey Studios with producers Ryan Wilson and Zach Epps working on Mary Michael’s new record. I had never met Ryan before in person, but had been wanting to for a while. The hang was amazing. The day flew by. I felt like the spirit of everything was right. During this same day I got an invite from a hip-hop producer who lives in Atlanta to come meet him at his studio. I played some of my music for him. I was more nervous playing music this time than any other time in my life. I think I was intimidated by this producer’s success in music. I was in a situation where I could fail. It’s one of those moments as an artist where you think to yourself, “is my music good or have all my friends just been being polite for a long time?” It felt like song played for an hour. But he said encouraged me. There’s no more details here but I felt so encouraged. It was one of those moments where I felt like I was going in the right direction. Anyways. I’m pretty tired and don’t want to explain what all this meant to me. Just know that it was truly, an amazing day. AND, it’s nice out tonight.
I’m releasing new music in October. Last night I had one of the worst dreams I had ever had. In the dream I found out I had cancer - and everything about it felt so real. All the emotions were there, all my fears and shock. It felt really real. I had never experienced anything like that. When I woke up, I remember thanking God for the life I have now. My problems, for a moment, seemed so marginal. Then I remember saying to myself as I got up, “you better go out and live.”
There are some times where I live through life with this undeniable but subtle pressure that I need to be more. Like there’s this little voice following me around telling me that I’m never going to make it, whatever that means. This pressure invades almost every area of my life. I oscillate between feeling like I’ve figured somethings out and feeling like I am a giant child. Today I thought about grace and what it really is apart from its cliche’s and oversimplifications. I was trying to understand it within the context of my life. Does this grace thing really exist? Does it work? And I felt this deep sense of, “its okay.” Like, all that pressure you feel, maybe you can let yourself out of it. Maybe you don’t have to listen to it. And maybe it’s okay to, you know… see yourself as okay. To many this may be an elementary practice that you have mastered long ago. But to me, it’s still a critical thing that I need to learn. It’s funny how we convince ourselves that we’ve learned things. Even things as simple as “you don’t have to earn love.” I would have told you that I knew that. But until I actually believe it, do I really know anything? Why do we feel like we have so much to prove? And to who?
Today was, what I would mean to be, successful.
There’s a quote from Batman: The Dark Night Rises from a scene where the Joker asks Batman, “What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?” I’ve been thinking about this a lot. When it has come to pursuing what I want to do artistically, as well as ways I wanted to grow as a person, I have found myself stuck in this paradox. Where my desires and my dreams meet my fears and inabilities. Both sides seem so strong. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve been dormant. Asleep. Running. From a lot of things I want to see happen in my life. But, somehow I found myself at an impasse. I felt so stuck… so far from where I wanted to be and so far from who I wanted to become. But, then another truth emerged. One so “duh” that I feel like we overlook it most of the time - but the simple fact is, nothing changes until it changes. That’s it. You want to try to learn something? You want to get out of certain habits? You want to change? Yes… it’s all complex and and nuanced yes yes yes. But after a certain point, you just have to decide right? I’ve been putting off so much in my life. I want to be free. And I’m realizing that I can be free, I just have to choose to get out of where I’m in. To walk towards the light. I think I understand now more than ever what it meant when we’d say, “Let Go.” It’s starting to make more sense to me now. Somethings is changing in the winds of my soul and my life. I feel alive for the first time in a long time. In other news. I was at a brewery yesterday and this woman walks straight up to me, in the middle of this brewery and asked me to take a photo of her and her partner. Come to find out they are hip hop artists looking to work with someone in the city. A big part of my dream for Atlanta is to work in hip hop, and it literally came knocking on my door yesterday. Things are happening. Also this week I met an artist that goes by Randissimo. This will be a very important person in my life.
Today I decided to make a change in my life. When things break it’s often a chance to take a look at where you’re going. It’s important to ask, “how did I get here? And is this where I want to be? Is this what I wanted to become?” And if the answer is no, you are left with a choice. What I needed to understand was that I am no exception to the rule. The rule being the universal design of the universe, of human life. It’s just how things work. If we live for ourselves, we are powerless to transcend. Live for love, and you can live forever.
Remember that every single person you interact with deals with some form of rejection or the feeling of not being enough. Adjust attitude towards others accordingly.
Has this idea of dreaming of another life cost me living in and appreciating the real moments that are actually my real life? Has the idea of “becoming everything I ever dreamed” actually disillusioned me to how life really works? Dreaming is a privilege, and comes at a cost. What a terrifying thought to think that my whole life I have been chasing something that was sold to me. A counterfeit promise telling me that if only I had this or became that I would be happy. When you live in that you treat things and people as inconsequential because you’re always wanting to be on the next biggest thing. Have I missed out on my own life by always wanting another?
Just got off a week producing two songs for Peter Larsen. It was a great week of creating, talking dreams, and busting a mad hang. It is encouraging to feel like you’re craft is growing with each attempt. I feel like my ear is improving, my senses are heightening, and I cam growing stronger and more efficient. I’ve been mixing music for 10 years now, and feel only now might I feel confident in what I can do. It is such a mind game. Sometimes I wonder if I might be better off just believing that I’m amazing at this, but at the same time, the wondering if I’m any good at this at all is what keeps me hungry to keep learning and to keep improving. My goal with each thing I create is to do something I’ve never done before, and to learn one new concept. Today I met a poet in Stone Mountain named Janette Ikz. Such a hilarious and amazing spirit. It just so happened she was looking for a studio to work out of near here. It feels like random things are happening for a reason. This week I was sad for the first time about leaving Athens. I have busied myself so much with the move that I’ve been able to escape some of these emotions. But the thing with emotions is that they’ll catch up to you… at some point. I just haven’t processed how much that place meant to me and how much it was my home. It’s weird, the whole time I lived there I never 100% said it was my home, and the moment I moved I realized that it was. What they say is true - you don’t ever know what you’ve got til it’s gone. This will be a slow burn. For the last half a year or so I’ve wanted to live like there were no rules. I’ve been questioning a lot of things. What is religion? What is God? Is my religion just a prison cell keeping me from a free life? I wanted to be free - just like the freedom portrayed in the media in the world. I wanted to be inconsequential. I demagnetized my moral compass. I started writing my own rules. But I think I’m being moved out of that. I think I’ve come to the end of this way of living, at least in this iteration. Basically I’ve learned that doing whatever you want is fun and feels good for a moment, but it also feels totally meaningless. I was happier when I cared.
My first diarya! Well I’ve had this idea for a while now, and if you are deep on this blog, you know I’ve sort of been doing this already. But basically, I just thought it would be fun to do these small little off the cuff posts to document the process of my little life, like little diarya entries. These little diarya entries could be funny things that I see or hear, ventures I attempt, breakthroughs, failures… all that stuff. Serious thoughts, funny moments, frustrations, joys. The internet is the land of calculated and directed messages - carefully crafted to create a voice or a brand and to present a version of ourselves that isn’t quite representative of real life, and that bothers me. So I think it would be interesting later on down the road to see all of these little unfiltered thoughts and events that presented themselves to me over the course of my diarya. My plan is to just leave these posts here, without telling people to read them. I may share a couple down the road on my other social media stuff, but ultimately I want these posts to be for two parties. 1. ME, so I can read them later and remember all the little steps that happened and 2. for anyone out there that is interested in the process of things, not necessarily the outcome. I have always enjoyed reading and seeing other people’s behind the scenes type stuff, so I thought it would be enjoyable to create my own, and this is how I want to do it. So, wherever I end up later in life, it would be interesting to see how they got there. A great first diarya post.