We recently connected with Meka and have shared our conversation below.

Meka, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learn by doing. A lot of times, when first starting out at something, there’s the urge to wait until the “right time” or until you have every piece of equipment that you’ve seen the pros use. Luckily, I learned early that making do with what you have available to you can lead to a deeper learning experience. I like to refer to it as “ankle weights”. One of the toughest challenges of learning to be the artist I am today was learning how to mix. If you can learn to mix with a cheap microphone in a non-ideal recording space, you’ll build the skills necessary to mix anything, anywhere. To this day, I still record most of my music in my untreated bedroom on a $100 USB microphone. I’m still learning how to be more consistent in my creation, which is a skill in itself. Something that helps me with this is creating things in ways I’ve never done before. Taking on new challenges always keeps me locked in on the process. I like to say that creators moonlight as explorers. I feel like I have a responsibility to venture into new experiences and mental spaces to truly push myself as a creative.

Meka, 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’m a music artist from the 703. I learned how to record my own music in 2016 with nothing but a cheap laptop and earbuds. Ever since, I’ve been in love with making music. What sets me apart from other artists in my opinion is that most artists aren’t doing much to push themselves creatively. In today’s world, many artists I come across are caught up in their public image and making content that’s accepted by the public. A lot are comfortable hopping in the studio and pumping out a basic track with a hard beat that might get peoples heads nodding. No knock to them, but that’s a different type of artist than I want to be. My motivation comes from a drive deep inside of me to expand my mind and express myself fully. That’s why I put myself in situations that not many people would put themselves in. I believe that’s the only way I can create art that not many people would create. I also produce, write, record, and mix most of my music, so my fans are getting all of me when they listen. I figure a painter wouldn’t pass the brush to someone else who is “better” at detailing to complete their work, so why should I? At the end of the day, it’s my expression.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

To me, there’s no particular goal that I’m trying to attain with my music, past having the freedom to create whenever I want. I look at my relationship with music as a practice. There’s no end to my creative journey; I’ll just keep getting better at expressing myself while I’m learning new things and growing by exploring the world as well as my own mind. That excites me. The music created along the way is what most people will be checking for. The beautiful thing is that the music is an offshoot of my journey. If I stay true to myself creatively, then at the end of the line we’ll be able to look back at the expression of my experience in this life.

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

The most rewarding part of being a creative is experiencing my work when it’s done. Taking in my art always brings to mind the thought that this would not exist without me. It’s a tangible footprint that I made in the universe. This is all the validation that I need and it’s the source of a lot of my confidence in life. It’s surprisingly noticeable too. I’m not the same person when I’m not creating.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/mekafromthe703
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mekafromthe703/?hl=en
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mekafromthe703?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKznzGdkyaxCe28AtEHjKA