We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zay! a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Zay!, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I actually started making music when I was in college. I was making these goofy rap songs for fun, and then this guy I knew told me he produces and asked me to get in the studio sometime. And by studio I mean the closet in his dorm room haha. I didn’t really know if he’d be any good, so I reluctantly said yes. I ended up being really wrong, and he ended up being really good, so we had a lot of fun just creating different tracks. The turning point was when we made this one song called “It’s All Luv”, which is released by the way. After we finished that song, I knew we made something really special, and for the first time I felt like an artist and not like I was just messing around making songs. Even before we made the track, my new love for making music was growing much faster than I could’ve imagined. Around the same time, there was a lot was going on around me, and I was really struggling mentally and spiritually. This lead to the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had in my life. This is probably gonna sound like a Disney movie or something, but I was really going through it one night, so I sat by the doors of the church we have on campus and prayed to God. It was raining, and for around 3 minutes the rain stopped out of nowhere, and I felt a warm embrace around me, just like a hug. The morning after that experience, I woke up feeling more clear than I’ve ever felt in my life. I felt that it was a sign for me to stop resisting and take myself and my music seriously, and so going into that summer I did. I started learning how to produce for myself and then started learning how to sing a little while after that. The rest is history, even though I’m still just getting started.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
So I’m a pop/pop funk artist originally from the Chicago area and now based in Milwaukee. I sing and produce the large majority of my songs, with my main instrument being piano. To me, the main point of music is to make you feel good or to make a listener feel whatever emotion you’re putting out, and I always aim to do just that. I’m a huge fan of older music and productions from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, so I implement a lot of elements from that music into mine. You hear this mostly in the kinds of drums I tend to use in my music, the kind that make you want to move around and dance. Bringing back some of the old styles and mixing it with the new, along with the fun and authentic brand that I have allows me to reach and appeal to so many different people. I’ve always said that with whatever I wanted to do in my life, I wanted it to help others. So the main thing I’d want a fan to know is that outside of making music to help express myself, I do it also to help y’all. If one of my songs connects with even one person and their day improves because of it, then I’m happy. I want people to feel good, so that’s what I try to do.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Whenever I release a song, from my first release up until now, I always think it’s so crazy that I’ve put something out into the world that can really affect people. It’s such a good feeling. In college, I was actually studying engineering (not the music kind) and I had a professor who said something along the lines of “Don’t make fun of your friends that are in these creative or artsy majors because they’re the ones that give color to the world, and we need them.” That really stuck with me because, even though I wasn’t studying anything creative like that, I wanted to be one of the those people that gives color to the world. So for me this is the most rewarding part, being able to paint the world and touch people’s lives. Hopefully for the better haha.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
As a smaller creator, I’m definitely no social media expert as of right now, but the one piece of advice I’m confident in saying is that you have to be able to sell yourself well. I believe the best way to do this is to be as authentic as you can. If the image of yourself that you’re putting out is fake, people can sniff that out and it’ll also be a lot harder to keep up if that’s not really who you are. If you really want to build an audience that’s long lasting and cares about you and what you’re doing, then you have to be as authentic as possible. It’ll make building your audience more fun, less of a chore, and it’ll draw in more people that are actually interested in you and not the image you’re putting out. We as people aren’t stagnant, and we change over time. I too am always learning new things about myself which can make it hard, but with whatever I’m doing in music I try to be as real as I can to my audience. You owe it to them, and doing so has definitely helped me a lot.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onetoothwonderrr/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ZayProductions.
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/officialzayproductions?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
- Other: https://linktr.ee/zaymakesmusic?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaav6W7JxpBLHeiofr8rctkDdH-Nkgksa3UhSGmoyZ81wN0CkvhnWqiUi-M_aem_HmbbdVYAgSQ0JCB4DVHd6A
Image Credits
Yeltawart