I’ve faced a lot of rejection in my time. I’ve played a lot of empty rooms. I know, everyone has. I know, there’ll be more rejection and empty rooms to come, and it only gets harder from here. I know music is subjective! I know it’s hard to create stuff that appeals to lots of different people. I’m okay with all of this, but I still complain a lot. So why am I still here? I can point to a few things–

1. There is so much good music out there.

There really is! Despite the opinion of most baby boomers, it’s a wild-ass party, and I want to be invited. I want to be in the good circle of that Venn diagram, rather than the intersection of good and bad known as popular. I don’t think I’ll ever get there, but that’s also why I’ll never stop trying. I can always do better. Nothing I make will ever be perfect to me. There are so many musical skills that I want to improve, and there aren’t enough years left in my life to become an expert at all of them, but I want to try anyway. Most of the time, it’s fun. Sometimes, it’s cleaning a window with nothing but spit and an open palm. As I’m smearing grime across the glass, I begin to see dull shapes of improvement through thin translucent streaks. It’s better than not being able to see through it at all.

When my musical friends make good music, I talk to them about it. It’s like a soaped up sponge-squeegee combo coming to rescue my dirty window. They tell me how they’re on the same quest for merit, and that I’m not alone. Suddenly I’m on the other side of the glass, reminded that it isn’t only my ability that makes my music unique, but my inability too–similar to how the basis of a good film photo lies equally upon its content and its exclusions. The result is often a combination of accident and deliberation. That note I can’t hit because it’s out of my range might just be the one that prevents my melody from being predictable and boring. I’m aware of the possibility that it might just sound bad too. That being said…

2. There is so much bad music out there.

Nothing inspires me more than seeing a band or hearing a song that is both super popular and super terrible. Afterwards, I can’t wait to pick up an instrument and start writing and playing with sounds, because I think I can do better. We live in an era where a person sweating behind a laptop or an ironic voice over open chords can be interpreted as good musicianship. Throw projections of random anime on the wall. Add a loop pedal, a cajón player and some reverb. Now watch the crowd go wild. I’ve been the sweaty person behind a laptop, and it is dead-shit boring to me. I’ve also tried serving irony on a bed of acoustic guitar with three chords, a capo and the truth. It doesn’t work in my great southern land if you have eyelids that look like mine. People say things like, “wow, I didn’t expect that voice to come from him.” On that note, let’s pause for a quick reminder to everyone including myself: music is subjective.

Now that’s out of the way, I’m going to come out and say it. It’s easy for white artists in my country. Don’t confuse my readiness to pull the race card with tall poppy syndrome. I’ll admit to both, but they present differently. I’m sick of people listening with their eyes and not their ears, of nonsensical categorization by award associations, of the extra hoops that musicians of colour have to jump through to get recognition; of the low and easy bar that white musicians always have luxuriously set for them by white gatekeepers. This breeds laziness and stagnation in our arts culture. I could get deeper and angrier, but I’ll save it for another article.

I’m not in this for a medal or social justice. I’m really out here to reach other musicians of colour with my music. It might be thankless, but I’m a true masochist. I’m in it to get my ass kicked by life and to get high. Every time I try to give up, something feels wrong. I’m addicted to smart chord progressions, ingenious voice leading, elusive rhythmic flair, deep wordplay, mind-bending production and cheeky flashes of furtive virtuosity. Until I can brandish all of the above and convince my people that they can be musicians if they want to be, I’m not calling it a day.