I was very conceptual about what I was doing; I had the first five albums planned out, and all the songs on every album, and the artwork. I always had these ambitious musical projects in mind.
I went to this boy's choir school when I was growing up, and I think that the first time that I consciously started making music was when this one kid joined our class. He was an amazing pianist and would come up with all these ideas. I've always had a really competitive side, so I saw him doing that, and was like, "I have to try writing songs as well."
I've been making music for as long as I can remember. I would, as a kid, just sing little ideas or be making something.
A lot of the people I was writing with think a lot more about lyrics and a lot more about the details from the beginning. That kind of thinking made me a little self-conscious because I was suddenly having to judge what I was doing early on in the process.
Normally when I'm writing, in the beginning I don't think of lyrics at all. I'm just improvising.
I try to not be self-conscious in my writing process.
I decided to create a really good laptop recording situation and to learn how to write that way, rather than have the perfect stuff around.
When I'm writing, those ideas are seldom inspired by music itself. I won't often listen to an artist and come up with an idea.
I had this perfect situation where my studio was a three-minute walk away, and every day I would go to the studio. If I had an idea, I could work on it at the highest level possible.
World music evokes a feeling. You don't have to think about the scene that it comes from.
The music that I listen to the most is probably world music, whether it's from African or South America or all over.
What I love about African-African music is how unselfconscious it is in so many ways.
I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.
When I was growing up, it was still during Apartheid, so the country was very shielded from the outside artistic world. Anything that was too subversive was basically banned. All the music that we got from outside of South Africa was the poppiest, least subversive music that you could get.
I think that layers in music, whether it's layers juxtaposing emotions and feelings or layers of texture, make for a more interesting product.
I'm a huge Hayao Miyazaki fan. He might be my favorite director of all time - the beauty that he sees in the world and the attention to detail. I try and focus on that while making music: trying to use as many real instruments as possible, have it feel as tactile and tangible as possible.
A lot of my ideas come from McNally Jackson bookstore. One of my favorite things to do is just go there and look through architecture books and interior design books. Something about the aesthetics of space and beautiful images works with my brain.
As a visual arts teacher, I have to keep my mind open. I have explores styles from pointillism to cubism.
Unfortunately, there are very few facilities which offer courses in the arts. Not all the secondary schools offer the subject for CXC examinations.
[I] was always my dream to attend the Art Institute. I have always had this zeal to become the best that I can be and I saw that this institution will act as an avenue to me achieving that goal. I applied to the institution and got accepted based on my impressive portfolio.
I am really enjoying media arts and digital painting.
It's sad that some people still believe that artists die poor. This is not the case in this day and age.
I find that I have improved in my craft and I have improved considerably in my ability to critique other people's artwork. I forgot to mention that my course of study at the Art Institute is BSC in Media Arts and Animation.
Like all businesses ACID has its ups and downs. There are actually seasons when business will pick up such as Christmas time and carnival time. There are other times when business will run very slow.
I think that there is always room for improvement so I am seeking to reach as far as I can in my field of art, film and animation.
