A few weeks ago I wrote about an encounter I had at a social event and how it got me to re-evaluate the concept of identity. In the wake of last week's post and my subsequent announcements on social media about my new album release, I figured a follow up post on identity was due.
If you've followed my work for a while, you'd know that I've straddled the creative and corporate worlds for years, and in a world that prizes results and metrics above all else, I’ve found it challenging to ground myself and stay rooted in my identity as a creative when I'm not filling stadiums and selling out arenas. Ever so often, I hear a voice in my head filling me with doubt and casting aspersions on the value of my creative outputs. This voice never ceases to remind me my impact is miniscule, nonexistent even. Except, I know better than to pay attention to this voice, because I know I'm making an impact, one listener at a time. And now do I know? I know, because the metrics that amplify the voice of doubt are the very same metrics that show I'm making an impact.
Case in point, every weekend Apple Music sends me an email, a weekly report which summarises the engagement my music has had with listeners. These weekly emails tell me what I already know, that I have a handful of listeners spread across the globe. But what's interesting is a section tucked away towards the bottom, which I only started to notice a few weeks ago, that tells me about radio spins. I've recently learned from this section that there's a radio station in Italy that consistently plays my music. They played one of my songs – Thankful –15 times in the past week. It was 14 the week before, and these sorts of numbers have been consistent since I started paying attention to the section a few weeks ago. I don't know anyone in Italy, I don't have any connections to the radio station as far as I know, and I have no idea how they came across my music. Also, I don't know how many people they reach, or how prominent they are as a station. What I do know, by virtue of these weekly reports, is that somewhere in a foreign land I've never set foot on, someone, more likely a group of people listen to my music on repeat week in week out, and as far as these people know, I'm an artist.
The weekly reports I get also reveal little nuggets of information, like the fact that I have listeners in places I'd least expect, like South Korea, The Philippines, and India, as well as places that are less surprising to me, like countries in North America and Western Europe, which have cultural and geographical proximity to my home. It blows my mind that people in various towns and cities, big and small, all across the world, know the sound of my voice and keep coming back to my music. It isn't lost on me that these aren’t big numbers, and are by no means an impressive feat by any quantitative measure, but it warms my heart to know that amidst the sea of AI slop and all the other music in the world, people are choosing to listen to my music across the globe.
For what it’s worth, I have no idea who these people are, or how they are coming across my music, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is the very real impact I’m having on people's lives, one listener, one reader, one person at a time. This, alone, makes it all worth it. And whenever I have doubts about who I am, I need only remember that to the listener in Seoul, or Manila, or Lagos, or Detroit, or Milan, or London, I'm an artist.
My new album, Hope on the Horizon, is out on all streaming platforms on April 17th. Not a fan of streaming and want to support my music? You can download a digital version or buy a CD now here.
P.S.: My debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, and my middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.