We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful F’iona Mesha’. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with F’iona below.

Alright, F’iona thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us 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?

I think it’s easy to be misunderstood or mischaracterized. There are an influx of people in the music industry who look and sound the same, so when someone comes around who is the total opposite of that it can go either way. I do think there is a standard to some extent of what people are looking for when it comes to being a female artist, but I don’t think that should prevent someone from being who they authentically are. As an artist that creates soulful music that focuses on real life situations, giving glory to God and overcoming generational traumas, I’m thrown into a box of what people feel I should resemble all the time. So many people feel like gospel should look and feel a certain way, when all that matters is the personal relationship you have with God.Without knowing my story its hard to characterize me, because I don’t fall into any specific category. I still love creating love songs, and I still love a good beat with heavy 808’s.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is F’iona Mesha’, pronounced Fee-on-nah Ma-shay, and I’m a singer songwriter from Detroit, Michigan creatively working in Atlanta, Georgia. I love the creative process of making music so much that I also vocal produce and engineer to be as involved in my music as possible. I don’t just work on my own music, I work with other artists as well. I’m so grateful that God blessed me with the gift of melody, any time I hear a beat, endless melodies run through my mind. I really want to share my gifts with the world in hopes that it will positively inspire them.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The resource I wish I knew about early in my creative journey was to take the advice from those who have walked further in the sand on this musical journey than I have. From jump, I was blessed to have several people in my life that believed in me enough to invest in my talents and guide me in the right direction, however, that was also a crutch. I thought I needed certain physical resources in order to succeed. I was accustomed to having certain luxuries that I had when I was signed, without those things I was reluctant to move forward. In reality the only resource that I needed were intangible things like commitment, focus, character and drive. Don’t get me wrong, you definitely need a stream of income to advance your career, but what most people don’t mention is the consistency that is needed when following your dreams, or how to confidently bounce back after hearing repeated no after no. I knew music wasn’t going to be easy, but I wish I wouldn’t have let the ups and downs of life derail me from my music goals when things got tough and held onto the advice of others.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn is to always stay true to myself and not the opinions of others. I’ve been doing music for years and have always felt like my true potential was never seen. I would always compromise myself and what made me feel comfortable for the opinions of others. I had a do whatever it takes attitude up until about two years ago when I realized that trying to be liked by others for the sake of an image or what’s popular was a waste of time. If I were to die today, what will I have done to be at peace with the successes of my life? What will I have done to have positively impacted someone else? Life is too short to be willing to do whatever it takes to be seen. We live in a world full of people who want to be seen for many of the wrong reasons. I just want to spend my life making beautiful music; whether I’m acknowledged or not. When I changed my mindset to appreciate the small wins and the progress that I’ve made I felt like I was unstoppable. People are always going to have opinions or say this and that, if you’re always trying to fit the mold, you will lose sight of who you are.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: fionamesha
• Youtube: fionamesha