We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sowhatimdead a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sowhatimdead thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
As a kid I would tag along to the radio station with my mom because she was an on air DJ, and actually still is to this day. Being around music, & sometimes musicians who would come to be interviewed or record commercials really made me infatuated with the lifestyle rockstars had. I would record songs on a karaoke machine I had as far back as age 8-9, then I would draw my album cover & have copies of it made on a copy machine at the library that I would cut out by hand & slide them into the case & pass them out to friends
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My first musical influence was my grandfather who was a self taught musician, dude could play any instrument all he had to do was pick it up and within minutes he’d be making a song just freestyling it, but I think he called it adlibbing. I remember he told me “music was in my blood” so I always believed that & started taking guitar lessons and messing around with a Casio keyboard I got as a hand me down. My mom had me when she was 15 so we were pretty poor for awhile growing up, & we lived with my grandma for a long time. But I never knew that because the both of them are strong motivated women who also influenced me in many ways. Essentially I grew up in radio stations because my Mom went to broadcasting college after she graduated, so again everyone I was around always had something to do with music. She worked as a DJ on air during the day and at a factory at night so that’s where I got to spend my time with her at. I’d watch horror movies and do artwork in my freetime. Skated for a little while too, but I really wanted to be the tattooed weirdos on the magazine covers. I had met rockstars occasionally as a kid who would do radio promo or interviews and they always seemed larger than life. Mom even dated the drummer from this one hit wonder 90’s band but I wont put it out there all like that. She still DJ’s on radio to this day and has a weekend show of her own now. When I became an early teen like 13-15 I was in the hood a lot because of some friends I had who’s parents were homies with my Mom. I had already listened to rap but never tried it for myself at this point. My friends always had other kids from the block over in the basement smoking and freestyling. It brought me back to what my grandpa did and I related. I was lowkey nervous to join the basement sessions because I knew I needed to practice. Everyday from then to now Ive probably freestyled. Id record myself to trash Casio beat loops on a kareoke machine, and just kept going until I knew my shit was good. The day I decided to join the boys, I shocked them all. I hadn’t told a soul that I had been practicing daily. They thought my freestyle was written and I took that as a compliment instead of becoming defensive. I fell in love with rap, freestyling, and trying to have the best lyrics. My special ability was the fact I could sing and rap and then combine the two. I listened to a lot of depressive rock music, and had a group of goth kids that I would smoke with when in the suburbs, they put me onto a lot of deathrock and black metal. Then I had my hood group who Id freestyle with etc. and I kind of just turned into this combination of the two. At the time there wasnt any mainstream love for anyone like me, so I didnt think it would ever work blending the genres. I became an adult and put my love for creating music on hold, but I landed a job as a DJ at this nightclub. The owner hired me because when I would go there I always brought an absolute mob of people with me and she probably saw that as good for business, but she told me once “if you performed music, youd have a crowd every show” and that stuck with me. The soundcloud era hit around this time and I was releasing songs for fun like anyone else but I got to the point where I had a lot of material I could work with if I ever chose to do a show. Sure enough I scheduled my first show right at the club where I worked and the owner was right. If everyone’s first time performing went as hard as mine did then they’re meant for this. That’s exactly what happened to me. After I went to a music meet up in 2015 in New York, I met Peep, & a few other artists who ended up becoming huge, that’s when I knew we could be the ones to bring that goth/emo/alt type shit into rap. I knew and became friends with others that felt like me & thats when we all started releasing music and being basically the innovators of this style. I give credit where it’s due and not claiming to be the first of anything, but I am telling you I was apart of it and there in the beginning. With the success of a few tracks going viral that involved me or just are me solo, I keep pushing forward to make something unforgettable for anyone who enjoys what I do, and that’s the plan until I leave earth
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, creating art, music, whatever it may be that I do creatively, is that it brings me peace to my normally overactive mind. For example if Im stressed out, feeling depressed or angry about something going wrong in life, if I resource my focus onto projects I haven’t finished or start something new, all the negativity goes away. That’s what personally keeps me going with music. The most rewarding aspect though has to be when people from allover the world send messages to me saying my music got them through a dark time, or saved them. It’s insane to me that Ive been able to help others, even if it was one person, just by making songs and releasing them. When kids are calling me a legend or telling me I’ve influenced them to do what they do, that is the number 1 reason for me to never stop doing this.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
We live in a society that almost seems to thrive off negativity, hate, or just bringing others down. Now while it doesn’t necessarily bother me to get hate comments, sometimes I do wonder how these people can take time out of their day to say outlandish things to people they don’t know personally, or haven’t given their work a chance. If people would change the way they want to express themselves or give their opinion on something as normal as a song or photo of someone, then I think a lot of great artists wouldn’t give up because they believe these troll comments and feel bad about their music or art or whatever it may be that they do. If I see something online that doesn’t appeal to me, I just choose to not comment on it, or I’ll give constructive criticism to the person on how I think it could be better. But since people can hide behind screens & freely speak their hate rhetoric, things will probably never change.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.sowhatimdead.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/sowhatimdead
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087053012169&mibextid=uzlsIk
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/sowhatimdead
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2naw67cznxs1VBTnTg7Vqg (Spotify) https://music.apple.com/us/artist/sowhatimdead/1325543828 (Apple)
Image Credits