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

Kennedy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

If I could go back in time, I would have definitely started earlier. Even simple things like doing musical theatre or voice lessons, I have only really “started my career” last year. I’ve sung since I was little but just around the house, never outside for performances, extra-curricular activities, or voice lessons. I took piano lessons from around 6 years old to 12 years old and although it has helped to an extent, voice lessons would have been more beneficial to me first and then learning piano later. I rarely use piano now, just to write songs, and even when I am writing songs, I mainly use guitar. The piano has helped a lot with my music theory abilities, but I think having that sense of knowledge of my voice and how to use it properly would have been more beneficial in the stage of my career that I am in currently. Also performing as a child would have been very helpful for me now. My parents tried to get me to perform in front of family members and at events but I was terrified of singing in front of people. I kind of wish they would’ve forced me to do a musical theatre program nearby because even though I am not a huge musical theatre fan, I think it would have helped tremendously with my performance abilities. Confidence and looking natural on stage are some of the main things I need to work on right now and performing as a child would have helped make this process now not so hard for me.

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

I am a 17-year-old singer-songwriter, born and raised in Los Angeles. I love singing and about two years ago now, I started posting my singing videos on social media, which after a year started going viral pretty frequently. Posting on social has helped me “get into the industry” because it has pushed my videos out to some amazing people in the music industry who have contacted me and asked to work with me. I have just recently started recording my own music for the first time last year with incredible songwriters and producers, and I am very excited for everyone to hear them, although it might take a while. Social has given me incredible opportunities. I have been recognized by some of my favorite artists and inspirations growing up: SZA, Missy Elliot, Jhene Aiko, Yebba, Renee Rapp, and JoJo, to name a few! I am most proud of putting myself out there on the internet honestly. I may not seem like a big accomplishment to many people but I have always been a very shy person and the internet can be a very scary thing. Having hundreds of thousands, even millions of people watching and sometimes judging you can be hard at times but I haven’t given up or let it bother me and that’s a big thing to be proud of. When people watch me or listen to my music, I want them to know that I see, feel, and understand them. I want my viewers to know that I can relate to them and sympathize with what they’re going through. I want people to feel safe when they watch my videos and maybe give them a few minutes to decompress, not worry, and listen to my voice.

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

One of my main goals is to release music that people can relate to and feel something with. Whatever emotion, whether sad, happy, or angry, I want my music to evoke an emotion. I’ve wanted to release music for a long time now as I have always connected with music in a certain way that only some people can understand. Music is a part of me and I want to evoke those emotions that other people’s music brings out in me to my listeners. I don’t care about being famous, that’s not my main goal, and if you are a musician for the music, being famous shouldn’t matter. I just want to be able to connect with my fans through my music, having something we can all go to when we are feeling a certain type of way and relate that way.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I started posting videos and building an audience my freshman year of high school, in 2022. I am a routine person so if knew that if I created a posting schedule, I would be able to maintain it. At first, I decided that I would post every day, and it worked for a little bit, but it quickly stopped working because of school and just life in general, so I switched my posting schedule to 2-3 days a week, usually every other day. This schedule worked for me and I pretty much use this schedule till this day, two years later. Of course, you have those days where you are too tired to post or just simply do not want to, so my advice to those just starting to build their social media presence would be this: create a schedule, something that is maintainable. Do not do what I do and try to post every day as it gets tiring fast. If you really do want to post a day, choose one day a week to be a “film day”, preferably on the weekend if you are very busy and spend as much as that day as you can filming as much content as you can, and then post those videos throughout the week. My main advice to anyone just starting would be, if you feel like you need a break, take that break! You deserve it. Do not feel obligated to post, it’s okay to give yourself a breather. It took me a long time to figure this out myself. I felt so horrible for missing a day, but to be honest, no one cared. It’s okay to give yourself that time. If it’s missing one day of posting, one week, or a month, however long you need, take it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: kennedymichellemusic
• Youtube: kennedymichellemusic
• Other: tiktok: kennedymichellemusic

Image Credits

Santiago Orellana