We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Acari a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Acari thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I’d say my newest release “Call Me Baby” is the most meaningful so far. It took a long time to be released. I don’t usually use the word “alignment” but it felt like all these separate things aligned to make this song happen. Kenny had this beat a long time ago. It was supposed to be included in his latest instrumental album but it didn’t make the cut. His roommate and close friend Rey told him to hold on to it and save it for a singer. He showed me the beat and we laid down pretty much all of the lyrics and melody that night. It was one of the easiest songs to write. I didn’t overthink it much. And it just felt good. We laid down the scratch track at home, but we had to re-record vocals with our friend Amp Melo.

I remember it clearly because it was Valentine’s Day and I recorded vocals after a fight. For such a sweet song I felt my voice was tense and rough so naturally my over-analytical mind wanted to re-do all the vocals ha ha but we just kept it the way it was. It was also our first release through The Orchard and FAM (Future Asian Music) which is branched out from 88 Rising. It’s a meaningful song for me for sure.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m acari, I was born in the Philippines and I’m a musician from the Bay Area. I sing songs and my dream is for music to take me and my family places we’ve never been. Follow me at @acari.music for music and life updates – let’s connect and grow together :)

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I just want to see how far this vessel will take me and get to as many levels as I can in this lifetime. The main mission driving me is my family being able to eat and share many meaningful experiences together through this music.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Tip your musicians. Anything helps. I see so many musicians who willingly play for free and most times that’s not because they believe they shouldn’t get paid – we just love playing music. The real ones know it does more for us than it does for you. So if you hear someone hit a flow and it made you feel something, please show them it did with a little change. If any other musicians are like me, we are constantly questioning whether or not people like our stuff so honestly even any compliment will do. We’re sensitive and hard on ourselves and we need that “you did good” every once in a while.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/acari.music
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acarisj
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@acarimusic

Image Credits

IG // @nicholasstennet

IG // @xpmichelle via @porehproductions