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

Slayvannah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

The first time I knew I wanted to pursue music was when I was about 6 or 7. One of my friends who lived on my block (and whose family was rich as hell) had this keyboard in his bedroom and I’d never seen one that wasn’t a kids toy– this was like…a big kids toy. I would always go over to his house to hang out with him (his keyboard) and we would experiment with different sounds and beats. I remember there was this one sound that I thought sounded like outer space and we would f*ck around with that and put it over some of the pre-programmed beats and it was one of the coolest things to me at the time. Soon enough we decided we were ready to take the stage and be the next Blink182. Our first (and only) “gig” was at a restaurant my dad owned at the time and we played before opening hours for the staff. So rock n roll. About a year later, my parent’s bought me my first keyboard– around that time, The Naked Brother’s Band had just premiered and inspired my sister and I to start our own band like them; we called ourselves The Underdogs. Not long after that, Lady Gaga popped onto the scene and I knew that that’s what I wanted to be– a popstar. Just like Gaga.

Slayvannah, 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?

Getting into the scene, I took a page from the book of Gaga and decided to create my own show and perform it wherever I could. I put together what I called “The Slayvannah Live Tour” and played a run of local bars, clubs and arts spaces. I didn’t really know what networking was but I guess I was doing it. I met lots of other local singer/songwriters, instrumentalists, producers, etc…and made genuine connections. But the more eyes that are on you, the more people that want to take advantage of your talents. Over these past six years that I’ve been actively in the scene, I’ve been used and taken advantage of in many ways by different people I’ve worked with. These experiences inspired me to take on learning new skills and advancing the ones I already possessed. Like Prince, I wanted to be able to do everything on my own as far as the creative process goes. The less hands on your art, the more it represents you. I don’t believe anyone should walk into a studio to work with someone who is more driven by money than the art itself. My goal as a performer is to make every performance one hell of a show and leave people feeling understood and heard. My goal as a producer, however, is to create that safe space where people can come to me with their ideas and expand on them without every single move being determined by how much I can empty your pockets. Don’t get it twisted– it’s very important to pay and get paid for any service you’re providing. Never sell yourself short. But understand that your drive shows through what you create. So if your drive is money, your audience is going to see that.

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

SHOW UP. One of my biggest challenges booking my own shows has always been filling a room. Personally, I put hundreds of dollars into each one of my shows and so much time and effort only to have 6 people show up and that shit hurts your soul as an artist. I think the Minneapolis music scene especially has a hard time showing up for local artists unless it’s the super popular indie bands with a million friends and followers. I see so much of the same people telling everyone to show up for their local musicians not showing up themselves. If more people showed up for the underdogs, the local scene could be thriving.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think people struggle to understand that as young artists, this is prime time for us to put all of our focus into our art. It gets difficult to keep up any momentum I’ve built when I have people telling me I’m not making smart decisions putting it all on the line to pursue something I fully believe in. These are the same people who care about me more than anyone but they don’t understand just how much I believe in myself– even though they believe in me as well– they can’t fully understand the depth of what I can do. So I think hearing the whole “I definitely support your music career buuuuuuut….” is very discouraging to a young artist. I get the argument that this is how the real world works or whatever but I fully believe it’s about playing smarter– not harder. Yeah, making a lot of money is great. But what’s it worth if your day job is exhausting you so much that you can’t create? I think the most important thing for people to do is to trust your artist friends/family members. Trust that they know what they are doing. Don’t put doubts in their head just because you can’t control their situation. We are all on our own journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.slayvannah.com

Image Credits
Photographed and edited by Rachel Kite!