Creativity + Productivity Update #4

It wasn’t too long ago I that I had my last productivity update but I feel a lot has changed in a month. I’ve gone from not working on much music to having 4 collaborations in progress at the same time and one of my own tracks, too. I had a surge of inspiration and drive a few weeks ago that I’ve never felt before. The only way I can describe it is that I felt alive. And despite a dip in this energy that occurred around the time of the break-up, it’s been pretty consistent ever since then.

YesterdayYe woke up after 4 hours of sleep (because I had been out the night before) and was too excited about music to go back to sleep again. I was going over lyrics in my head and thinking about all the things that are happening with my music at the moment. I’m brimming with excitement and I’m probably driving people mad by talking about it so much. There’s a quote that goes something like: “You know someone is in love when they can’t stop talking about them”. That’s how I am with music at the moment. I have this sense of urgency I’ve never had before.

I have collaborations with two fantastic producers in the works at the moment. One of which is muppy – an incredibly talented artist from the UK who I’ve worked with on one occasion already:

Another collaboration is with stimachine (previously Stew Stim), a producer I became aware of through one of my favourite music collectives Anti-World. It’s an underground hip hop collective comprised of rappers – one of which is Sybyr who I recently covered on my SoundCloud account – and producers that have a distinctively dark and industrial sound. Stimachine produced a song for some members of Anti-World called Milly Gang which I fell in love with immediately.

From following him on his socials and commenting on the song, he discovered my music and then decided to make an instrumental for me. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t and I’m so excited about it. I’ve already written lyrics for the song and it’s called Fantasy Material. The production is so beautiful and I can’t wait to get the vocals recorded.

I have another two collaborations on the way – one is a rap feature and another is an instrumental which I’ve written lyrics to. And then the song I’m working on myself is Conversations In My Head, which I mentioned in my last productivity update. I found a great hip hop instrumental online by CashMoneyAP – a production heavyweight – that I’m using because the chord structure fits and I love the feel of it. It’s free for not-for-profit use and I’m really excited to use it.

How many times have I said “excited” so far? 😂

Aside from the tracks I’m working on, I saw an advertisement for an opening for performers at a bar the other day which I’m going to apply for. Getting paid for performing in that way would be amazing. The closing date is 30th June and by that point I’ll have more tracks in line with the sort of sound I’m aiming towards so I’ll feel more comfortable auditioning. I’m trying to manifest my ambitions by imagining the best case scenario for situations like these and really feeling what it would be like if it were to happen. I think spending so much time thinking about music has been beneficial for me because it’s given me a welcome distraction from other things and also has set the ball rolling on multiple projects. I have faith that I will be able to keep this momentum up. Dedicating the amount of time that I have to increasing my self-esteem has been incredibly beneficial and this – the music – is what it’s all been about. I feel ready now to write about the last two steps on my journey to self-esteem growth – self forgiveness and self permission – so look out for those in the near future.

Thank you for reading!

– SMUT. ❤ xxxx

Art by John O’Grady