“I think I want to share knowledge, by running experiments and recording the process. I want my music to have an emotional impact and resonate. I want to create art that is meaningful to people, and sound tracks their lives. And yes, I want to earn enough money to create on my own terms and build a financially stable life for me and my family.”

I’m not sure I want to be an entertainer at any cost, and especially not at the cost of my artistic identity and what feels authentic to me. Maybe, in fact yes, this is a privilege that is offered to me by the fact I have created a foundation of some sort over the years based on my skills .. I’ve had to do all different types of work, and had to create music on demand and bend my style and taste to satisfy those that pay me, or give me status in a commercial industry. I managed that through the satisfaction of execution. As a producer there is satisfaction in executing a style, and there is undoubtedly a skill in perfecting a song… or winning a game. In my work that was often impressing a label or exec who has status. It’s a game I played for so long, making the right friends, enjoying the game of the music industry, getting to make music everyday, but also bending to the tastes of those in control of the reins.. and when it was working yes it felt good, and I felt purpose and satisfaction. Was it deep, or was it because I felt I was proving to my peers I could do this, that I was ‘good’? That these things were signifiers of being ‘good’ to the world around me, and those who had doubted me. There was always a constant theme of music being the thing that made me me, where the making made me feel the happiest and most comfortable in my own skin I have ever felt.. lost in the moment, emoting, being present. If I’m honest it’s hard to remember how many of those pure moments were also the ones where I was seen as successful externally, or whether the pure stuff was more often in the moments of graft, when music was my escape. At the end of the day so little of my creative output saw the light of day, and that for me was in the end why I left that career behind to build a new world for myself.

I don’t think seeking approval is something unique to early career musicians, I have heard this said that when you have played the game for years you start to question why you are doing the dance (perhaps literally on TikTok). I think it’s too early to say if going hard to be an influencer or content creator is worth it for those who would rather choose to be artists in a more traditional form if they could be. It definitely works, and is the quickest way to gain attention right now, but are we dancing to our own music for our benefit, or the platforms? Is it the attention we want? Is it leading to the dream career we envisaged? Does this even matter? Maybe a new form of creative career is fine, especially when music lacks financial viability as a source of income. Of course, many will say that being purely a musician is not viable anymore. I would counter this though with the point that the ‘other’ things you do around music, don’t have to be things you are told you have to do, it can be many other things, and maybe we are starting to see they can be an equally valuable partner in making a music career a reality. Part of an ecosystem with music at its heart. Forming a network that is interrelated and interconnected, all bringing value in ways that as a whole matter.

I’ve come to embrace the mental gymnastics that are understating my passion for being creative, for the creative life. It’s why I’ve started to write when these things are bouncing around my head. I, (as I think many of us are) am trying to find meaning and purpose in a platformised world, driven by ad sales, and metrics. How do we fit in this, and how do we make sense of wanting success in the way it is understood in this system. I have this week been trying to understand my reluctance to enter competitions, to justify not fighting for an opportunity to win life changing amounts of money. So, I’ve had to revisit yet again why I do this, to make sense of how anyone could not do whatever it takes to win. I found myself back at the expectations of us to entertain beyond music, to create entertainment, and even though I enjoy marketing and reaching out to find listeners, I’m starting to understand that is because it has been largely on my own terms. Yes, I play the game still, twist a trend to fit me, flip an idea that I see… but what do I really want to do, why do I do this?

This is my current answer:

I want to share knowledge, by running experiments and recording the process. I want my music to have an emotional impact and resonate. I want to create art that is meaningful to people, and sound tracks their lives. I want to earn enough money to create on my own terms and build a financially stable life for me and my family.

Are You Not Entertained?