It's a people skill as well… trying to work with people to get the best out of them…
I released I Am Experienced on June 20th. Now that it's six months old, I figured I'd like to reflect on this project a little here on my podcast. The gentleman you are seeing in the picture is Rizo, and his studio is The Dreamcatchers Recording Studio in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. I knew that I wanted all of the creatives on this project to be Black, and Rizo came highly recommended by my favorite Dayton rapper. That was key, but there's more to making music than merely recommendations.
If you've listened to I Am Experienced, you already know this, but these are vulnerable songs. The lyrics are open and honest and some of them were emotionally difficult to sing. The music itself ventured to places outside of my comfort zone, as I intentionally expressed each song in a different genre. When you don't have a band, you spend more time during the tracking process with your engineer / producer than with anyone else. You need this person to understand your creative vision. You need to be comfortable talking and singing about your feelings around this person. You are trusting this person to grab hold of you and the music, and take the project where it needs to go. Rizo was that person for me.
A year ago, back in December 2022, we had a listening session in the studio. We listened to all of the final mixes, whilst sipping on Armagnac, which is my celebratory beverage of choice when I finish a project. After that, we had the conversation that I am making available to you now as Episode 110. Here's your chance to hear someone other than me talk about what I Am Experienced means to them, and get a glimpse of some of the things that went into making this music.
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