We recently connected with Anais Owens and have shared our conversation below.

Anais, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

Being misunderstood is nothing new to me. Early on, as a shy, yet ambitious kid from Brooklyn, I realized that I had many talents. Writing, drawing, music making. Reading was my pastime and favorite thing to do when I was not playing dolls or video games. But school was a different monster. I enjoyed learning, but the kids did not understand me, nor did they try to. I started being bullied the moment I went to public school. I went from being a little outgoing to being completely reserved and quiet. My urge to become some kind of Broadway performer started to dissipate. The bullying changed me for the worst, and even when we moved to Georgia, I was still bullied in many ways. Being quiet became the only safe haven for me, because the moment I opened my mouth, I would get laughed at for no real reason. Then I began being molested at home, and that made things all the worse for the next five years. As an adult, I am still misunderstood in many ways. As a black woman, I am expected to be like everyone else… the traditional ratchet loud, angry, and uncontrollable woman that everyone disrespects. I am far from that, and sometimes, people still do not understand that about me. I do stand up for myself now, so I have learned some assertiveness, but I am still not accepted within the normal cliches that exist where I live. I am hippie minded, silly, and introverted, and I enjoy playing video games with my family and hanging with plants and animals rather than hanging out all night, drinking. I give off an aura that somehow intimidates people, and I already expect it now. Either way, it makes me lonely, just the same way I was as a child.

Anais, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I consider myself multitalented, because I am great at many forms of artwork. But music is one of my main ones! I am a huge piano connoisseur. I started playing my grandmother’s organ at a very young age for the fun of it, and I had no lessons. It was just fun. Everyone around me noticed that I was actually good at it. When we moved from NY to GA, I lost the means to play that organ because my grandmother still lived in NY, and I was a little sad. But when I was 10, I told my parents that I wanted a piano for my birthday! So they got me a keyboard and I was super ecstatic! I played that thing religiously. I was able to play simple tunes straight off the top of my head. I remember having a lit of nursery rhymes and kiddie songs that I knew how to play the full tunes to, and I didn’t stop until I mastered every song on my list. There was over 100 songs. From then on, playing the piano by ear was my outlet. Besides drawing and writing books, making music was my go to. It calmed me and had me making tunes in my head all the time within 5 minutes. I started to make my own songs and write lyrics to them in notebooks… random songs, silly songs, variations and remixes to rap and hip hop songs, gospel songs, etc. That is how I started. As a teen, you would always catch me sitting at the grand piano that my parents eventually bought when we got a house, jamming away, perfecting my latest tunes. My music brand that I have started now is still new. My second album releases as KaeOnyx will be out on May 16, 2023 on all platforms! I am super excited. I believe that this album is way better than my first one, and it will include my 2 singles on it.
I am not totally new to this digital music thing, though. I have been using DAWs (digital audio workshops) since college when I first discovered Garageband back in 2006-2007ish. I didn’t even go for a music degree. I was there for graphic design, and I came across the program on my own by fiddling around on a Mac for the first time… falling oh so massively in love with Mac AND Garageband. I made some songs back then, but I didn’t know anything about publishing or refining them, and quite frankly, I don’t think publishing your music digitally was even a widespread thing in those times yet. But as a child who played piano by ear with no prior lessons and loved all kinds of music dearly, I eventually got my own Mac two years ago and started to learn this program all over again. It’s been fun so far!
I don’t plan on creating any services for people because I still have so much to learn about this industry, and way more musical equipment to attain. But if I do in the future, I’m sure that I will figure it out!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I believe the best thing people can do to support creative people is to be there morally. Often times, artists come from broken families, such as myself. The dysfunction in homes can decimate someone’s creativity, and artists need more places they can go to find and bond with other creatives. It’s hard to actually find those kinds of people without a major fee or committing yourself to something on a set schedule in between working to maintain their lifestyles. A lot of times, artists do not have any support from their families or friends. They are misunderstood, misread, misjudged. They are looked at as weirdos, and they get shoved into a corner for how they draw, write, or portray themselves. What we need are creative areas where we can just go and sit, and talk with other artists. I don’t mean on the internet, because even that is being phased out these days. Newgrounds and Deviantart are not the same welcoming communities as they once were. Things have become more toxic with the rise of the internet, and not only are artists still being shunned with bullying comments, but also artificial intelligence is making a drastic entrance. This new form of false creativity is especially demeaning to artists who put their heart and soul into a project. The fact that AI can create great looking art with the tap of a button is forever baffling to me. It’s devaluing the artists ability to create. So we need more events in cities where people come to hang, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to just sit and paint or draw or even make music. We need genuine hang out areas where artists can come with no judgement and no fees, and just open up and be free.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goals are to have my little set of people that enjoy when I release music and hold me accountable for my creations. My other main goal is to touch people’s souls through my instrumentals and make them travel to other realms. Spiritually speaking, I want my music to be fun, yet meditative in nature. I also plan to release an album every year and maybe a few singles. I already released 2 singles, just to try out how things flow when you do singles frequently vs a whole album. I am still experimenting with which route is more beneficial for me. In 5 years, I hope to have an actual fanbase that I can find and communicate with, and I hope to be making a generally decent income from my music every month. Maybe one or two songs will go viral one day. Whatever that entails, I do not know yet. We shall see!

Contact Info:

• Website: epicrealist.com
• Instagram: kaeonyxmusic
• Facebook: kaeonyxmusic
• Twitter: kaeonyxmusic
• Youtube: Epic Realist TV
• Other: Music by KaeOnyx is available on all streaming platforms… iTunes, Google Music, Tidal, Amazon, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc. Take your pick!