Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Appotee. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Appotee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Ever since I was very young, I wanted to do something meaningful. Music has always been the tool I wanted to use to change the world. When my parents noticed I had natural ability for music, they signed me up for piano lessons. I was around 6 years old. I could hear something and play it for my teacher. She encouraged me to keep listening and playing what I heard. It was my second piano teacher who taught me to play what I felt. She taught me to listen to how I felt, and start playing that. She taught me not to only listen to other music and mimic it, but create something new. This was the start of something special. I had permission now to begin feeling music and not just playing the sheet music. I began teaching myself how to play different instruments and writing songs to express how I felt. This was around age 10.

When we moved to South Carolina, this all changed. People started bullying me and making fun of me because I was different than what they were used to. I wasn’t a blonde haired, petite girl with a sweet southern drawl. I was an athletic, tom-boy, with a hard to pronounce last name and a South Florida accent (or “Yankee” accent, as they called it). On top of these differences, I was dealing with a lot of trauma and even puberty at the time.
These glaring differences between my peers and I made me feel so completely ostracized, and I only wanted to fit in. Through middle school and high school, I tried to fit in with different cliques by mimicking their behavior and trying to adopt their interests as my own. When I would play music for others, I would play the things the popular kids liked to hear. I joined bands that I thought would help me become more popular or liked. Nothing ever felt meaningful anymore. I stopped writing music that felt like a part of me, and tried to write music that sounded like the music all my so-called “friends” wanted to hear.

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school, and even early college years, that I started listening to and playing music that I actually enjoyed.
I started to fall in love with music again. I kept picking up new instruments and learned how to play them. I wrote music that I heard in my heart. At this time, however, I went through quite a few more traumatic experiences and was suicidal and depressed for quite a few years. Music definitely helped keep me going.

When I was 21, I found real meaningful love and began my healing process. Through this love, I learned that who I was made to be didn’t need to change into what others expected me to be. Our differences don’t mean we have to fall in line with some agenda. We don’t have to accept these labels in order to fit in. I started to believe that I was made unique for a unique purpose. I learned to accept that I wasn’t some raging extrovert who wanted attention. I found peace in who I was. I enjoyed being outside by myself. I enjoyed playing music that only I would listen to.

Through my marriage, and the many challenges my husband and I have been through together, and through parenting our children, I have learned so much about real love. I guess that’s where everything changed for me. I didn’t understand real love until I had an encounter with the One who loves unconditionally, in spite of my shortcomings and bad decisions. My life was changed, and I was able to do something meaningful. I finished my first album that actually meant something. I didn’t try to make it sound like something the masses would listen to. I just wrote what I heard in my soul. It’s very sad at times, but also very hopeful. There was a shift that happened as I wrote and recorded that album in my basement. I wasn’t only sad. I felt fully loved, and able to be seen. That’s where the album’s name came from.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Jordan, but my solo music project is called “Appotee”. I started writing and playing music from a very young age and grew up doing piano competitions and other competitive music events. I never enjoyed competing, because music was my escape from difficult life situations, and I wanted to make music that I wrote instead of playing music that others wrote.

I now create music to cultivate safe spaces for others to listen and feel all their emotions safely. I write a lot about traumatic events, not because I wish to relive them; but because it has always helped me heal to let it out creatively instead of letting it torment me while hidden inside. The space that I try to create in music is meant to help others process and come to a place of healing. That healing is so necessary and so wonderful to walk in. It’s found through the most real love I have ever known. I hope others come to that place through listening to my music too.

I’ll continue writing and playing this healing music, even if I’m the only one listening. It’s my passion.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It’s the most rewarding thing when people have reached out and tell me how they are healing by listening to my music and allowing themselves to feel deeply. Any time this has happened, it makes me realize, all over again, why I keep making music.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I think my main goal is simply to connect with others and help them connect with themselves. I love seeing people grow and become who they were meant to be. It’s so wonderful.  

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/appotee_music
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/appotee?mibextid=ZbWKwL
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@Appotee