# prologue

By [Omotayo](https://paragraph.com/@omotayo) · 2023-01-21

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### My name is Omotayo.

After just over a year in the web3 space as a creator, it feels finally time to properly introduce - or at this point, re-introduce - myself.

2023\. A new year begins. Whilst to some it can seem arbitrary, I personally always welcome the opportunity to reset, recalibrate and recenter my intentions and direction. This post is a part of this process. I have always loved long-form writing. It’s something that I’ve missed in web3 where most of us have only 140 characters or the occasional Space to tell our stories. Twitter no longer feels sufficient as the sole place for me to exist as an artist in web3. My intention is for Mirror to be the place where I can dive more deeply into my reflections, inspirations and the long-term vision for my work. Before I begin to share where I am at and where I am going, it feels important to share where I have been.

![the tribe of Omotayo](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/fd8951d6874b5c87d01ac191a32f9daf276064b64ec85ab6395dec77ca7fe694.png)

the tribe of Omotayo

### Like all of us, there are many facets of my being.

I believe we are not just one person but a whole tribe of different selves. I am a [musician](https://www.instagram.com/tv/Ca13nOIIFqC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a [healer](https://www.instagram.com/p/B3X0NDZAbr5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a [mother](https://www.instagram.com/p/CP6dfCLAcNl/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a [lover](https://www.instagram.com/p/B7B4bDHAvtk/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a [wife](https://www.instagram.com/p/CCdj1utlxct/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a [dancer](https://www.instagram.com/p/CO2-NfyAfrS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a dream weaver. I am a student of the stars. I am a [child of the moon](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bde_8WUhOXn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am a devoted initiate to the magic and mysteries of the universe. I am a [woman](https://www.instagram.com/p/CBbcLIGAkWo/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link). I am an ancient Soul. I am stardust.

### Music is in my blood.

My Yoruba ancestors were travelling performers. My great-grandmother’s family would journey through Yorubaland (now known as Nigeria) making their living singing the songs of the noble houses of the villages they visited. On my mother’s side, my great-grandfather’s fiddle still sits pride of place on her bookcase and I listen avidly as she tells me again the story of how his musical talent saved him from the front lines of WWII and swept a country boy from Northern England into the company of a group of Black-American jazz musicians performing for the soldiers all over Europe to boost morale. My father is a musician. Deep in his bones. Growing up, music soaked our home and the songs that he played again and again on vinyl still set my feet dancing to this day.

![stages of childhood](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/3d76ffcab6ccf43a2a8f459ddd4a60a2421ab526c99d1a319e42def12fd13209.png)

stages of childhood

### In truth, I have written songs and have been singing for as long as I can remember.

As a child I would write them down on A4 paper in shaky handwriting, perform them for my family, sing them into my mum’s portable tape recorder. I learned piano and guitar, was in all the musicals throughout high school and would always team up with other girls from my class to pull together choreographed song and dance routines for the school talent shows. Going to a posh private girls school with a strong focus on academic prowess rather than creative exploration, I didn’t pursue my dreams after leaving school. _In fact, at that time, I think I barely had the space to acknowledge them as that._ But the music stayed with me. I tried being in bands but never found my own creative expression within them. Nonetheless, my voice notes app was always filled with hundreds of snippets of lyrics and melodies that I would record as they came into my head.

### The first full song I wrote and composed alone was when I was 24.

My ex had moved out of our flat and left his electric piano until he found a new place. For the first few weeks I resented it taking up space (I hadn’t played piano since giving up lessons aged 16) but during a brief relationship with an avid musician, my own musicality was sparked and one day I simply sat down at the piano and a song spilled out of me. Then another. Then another. As life brought me blessings and challenges, I found myself again and again pulled back to the piano to give form and melody to my experiences.

The first time I sang my own music in front of an audience was in one of my now favourite places in the world - The Sanctuary on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand at an open mic in early 2015. I had no instruments so I simply sang acapella. I remember being so nervous that my voice shook and yet there was something exhilarating and uplifting being up on that stage sharing my music with a captive audience. Songs that were written from such a personal place seemed to resonate with people deeply and I received a lot of wonderful feedback. I was also approached by an A&R guy from Columbia Records who gave me his details and told me to reach out to him when I’d recorded some of my music properly.

That trip carried a lot of learning and growth for me in many, many ways. I returned from it with a little spark that would eventually grow into the roaring blaze that is now my desire to fully step into my truth as a musician. I remember sitting in a cafe with my friend days after returning to London, excitedly telling her about the developments and us brainstorming ideas for a stage name - already naïvely dreaming of record deals with XL Records.

![exploring the web2 landscape](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/97991b39485dfad7bac875ab2b85f60990474efc3580e5eea0ce42204f67cc90.png)

exploring the web2 landscape

### At first, I tried to find a way to realise my re-discovered dream within the web2 industry landscape.

Being ‘only’ a singer with rudimentary skill at the piano and guitar, I felt that I needed compatible producers or instrumentalists who were committed to helping me with my music to succeed. Despite [some promising beginnings](https://www.instagram.com/p/1V0hFfw-Jx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link), I never did find anyone were there was a lasting connection. _In hindsight, the lack of success in that area tells me as much about where my own level of commitment was at that time than anything else._ The idea had been sparked in my mind but I wasn’t yet really anywhere near embodying it fully in my heart.

The next time I was back in The Bay at The Sanctuary singing my songs in 2016, the same A&R guy was there and he once again reiterated that if I produced a demo he would help me get it in front of the right people. [I rose to this opportunity](https://www.instagram.com/p/BcSyUvwBfko/) towards the end of 2017, however, in the end nothing came of it. I remember speaking with my dad at one time when I was feeling particularly despondent and him asking me ‘if I really wanted it’. If I was prepared to go the distance with a record company that really wanted to back me - and do what needed to be done to become a ‘success’. Deep down, I knew that the answer was no - I wasn’t ready for that. Would I ever be ready for that? To sign a multi-year contract with a massive corporate machine? To create on their timeline? To their brief? Signing huge chunks of my creative output away? Nothing about that resonated with me on a soul-level. I also already had an intuitive sense that I would be ready for motherhood in the near future and I knew that launching a signed-artist career alongside that lifelong adventure very rarely went hand-in-hand.

_Something just wasn’t connecting. My own inner drive was not yet coming from a place of true alignment.There was more internal work to be done before I was truly ready to begin to claim what was mine - in the way that was right for me._

### For a while, I gave up the dream.

At the time, there didn’t seem to exist a world in which I would fully be able to realise myself as an artist in a way that was aligned with how I wanted to live my life. I turned my focus away from outer worldly success towards inner alignment. I dived deeply into my spiritual practices - dance meditation, plant medicine, Tarot, astrology, dreamwork, a psychotherapy training. Tools that helped me navigate my inner landscape, heal what was broken, truly begin to open my heart and come more fully into alignment with who I was born to be.

It was in that space of complete surrender that I finally found the seeds of a sound that would grow to feel truly, authentically mine.

### I identify as a deeply spiritual person.

> _“Spirituality is neither a means of escape nor a pedestal from which to judge others, but instead an aspect of the human experience available to each and every one of us. It requires deep commitment, searing honesty and a willingness to face the most challenging aspects of ourselves, other people and life itself in order to know the very nature of existence from the inside, with visceral immediacy, not as a comforting platitude or a mystical equation.. We awaken to everything, not just the bits we choose, it must be an indiscriminate process which insists that we look the whole of life in the eye and know it as ourselves." -_ Unknown

I do not subscribe to any religion but I feel a deep reverence for and relationship with the Universe as the Divine Source of all things. Over the past 12 years, I have explored countless tools and practices on my path towards wholeness. One of the practices that I have found to be incredibly powerful is devotional singing.

![fire ceremonies and heart healing](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f06d10e96ff4895ab69f1151dc10a664a9a7aa30cba79966ea8a5ce38cc1f52f.png)

fire ceremonies and heart healing

In yoga, there is something called ‘_bhakti yoga_’ - the practice of selfless devotion. Part of this form of yoga is something called ‘_kirtan_’. A kirtan is where people come together to sing Sanskrit mantras accompanied by live musicians. It is easy to get lost in the music, the melodies and harmonies, the vibration of the voice in the chest opening up the heartspace, the simple rhythm of the mantra. Similarly, in fact even more so, singing around the fires of [plant medicine ceremonies](https://www.instagram.com/p/BUrIni2BGk1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) such as Peyote and Ayahuasca (known as ‘medicine songs’) I have found to be profoundly healing. Singing not to tell a story. Singing as a form of prayer. Singing to the Universe. _For_ the Universe. Singing as a ceremony in itself. _(My next post will explore this topic and how it inspires my own music in much more depth)_. I fell back in love with singing in these kinds of spaces.

Whilst back in Thailand for a dance meditation practitioner training, my first medicine song came to me during an all-night fire ceremony. Shortly after this, a friend introduced me to the Boss RC-505 loop station and I began my first experiments with recording my own medicine songs. Non-linear compositions composed solely of percussion and my vocal layers and harmonies.

### I was in heaven. Suddenly I felt incredibly empowered.

I had found a way to create music by myself that felt like something all of my own. And it began to pour out of me. At the time, I didn’t think too much about how or if I would release it into the world. It was something that I did just for me. In challenging times, I would channel through these medicine songs with affirmations that I myself needed to hear to heal. I began to share them at ceremonies, at the end of my own workshops and classes and people often asked me where they could listen back to them again.

![looping with my Boss RC-505](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/029531d4f904e889376ddced8895752902ef8d6c5fc4d87c701d08ef89c3810d.png)

looping with my Boss RC-505

In 2018, I started to put live looping videos up on [my Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/B2w5IVeA3r2/) and one day a producer reached out to me asking if I would be interested in working with him to record them professionally. In late 2021 _(after_ [_pregnancy_](https://www.instagram.com/p/B_k7uz7gxXo/)_, a_ [_global pandemic_](https://www.instagram.com/p/B-FyiB2AZDz/) _and_ [_new motherhood_](https://www.instagram.com/p/CECIEHagTGw/) _delayed the possibility of saying yes to this invitation straight away)_, we finally recorded the first medicine song that ever came to me - ‘[Roots](https://open.spotify.com/track/4t0Jyww0obXZtOQRVhFiqD?si=0a9d894c65264a1f)’.

By this time, I had been in web3 for over a year purely as an investor/collector. I was already a firm believer in the paradigm-shifting technology that was becoming more and more accessible and after seeing the renaissance that was unfolding for visual artists at the time I was excited to see how things would play out for musicians. It felt like the perfect time to dip my toe into the web3 creator space with this first track and at the beginning of 2022 (11.11am on 02/22/22 to be exact!) I minted ‘Roots’ as my [genesis NFT](https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/20993651601168530950489316184609204131779329886140587451908141529413927829515). _(At the time of writing, 2 editions are still waiting to be collected.)_

[https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749Ce646f68AC8c248420045cb7b5e/20993651601168530950489316184609204131779329886140587451908141529413927829515](https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749Ce646f68AC8c248420045cb7b5e/20993651601168530950489316184609204131779329886140587451908141529413927829515)

### And here we are 1 year later.

After many years of seeking, I have finally found a place to call home musically. The web3 space has welcomed me, challenged me, inspired me, nurtured me and kickstarted my growth as an artist. Since being in web3, I’ve recorded to completion more songs than I ever have in my life _(much of these still yet to be released in the coming year)_. I have made life-long friendships with other musicians who continually inspire my creativity in new ways. I have performed my own music live in [London](https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckf2lINIlkE/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link), [New York](https://www.instagram.com/p/CfUkTVRucd2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link), [Miami](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnKuZBDKgd6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) (and of course in the metaverse!) Along the way, I have constantly been invited and challenged by the Universe to step up, level up, refine, hone, optimise and evolve my songwriting, my production, my rollout strategies, my live set, my artistry.

![web3 beginnings](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/7c2a0f8cfd64e735382ee68df424999a952623bc8d06220cd19ab6bb2a5df0cd.png)

web3 beginnings

### For all this I am eternally grateful.

This experience of fully immersing myself in the process has helped me to gain more and more clarity around which direction I want to move forward in in the year to come. Not just as an artist but also as a community builder. The Holy Grail of finding one’s own ‘sound’ is an ongoing unfolding for a musician and I feel that I am finally on this path. The question has evolved from ‘_am I a musician?_’ into ‘_who am I as a musician_?’ It is this question that I plan to use my Mirror articles to dive into and explore as the odyssey unfolds, as well as deeper storytelling around my musical inspiration, rundowns of upcoming collector utility and more.

If you’re still reading, I thank you deeply for giving me the gift of your time and attention.

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_This post can be minted for free. I want to offer people an opportunity to join my collector community in a fully accessible way, so that as I start to build out my regular token-gated offerings which will weave my healing offerings into my role in this space in a more meaningful way (more on this second aspect in a future post), anyone and everyone who feels called to take part in these has the option to do so._

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*Originally published on [Omotayo](https://paragraph.com/@omotayo/prologue)*