I was literally shaking inside as I walked up to the mic, closed my eyes and sang my diary to a room full of strangers watching porn.
I was literally shaking inside as I walked up to the mic, closed my eyes and sang my diary to a room full of strangers watching porn. 1 of the scariest things I’ve ever done was recording my first song. It was terrifying af, but here’s what I learned.
Ever since I was old enough to acknowledge my own thoughts I’ve been in love with music. I always knew I wanted to make people feel the way I did when I had my headphones on and the volume loud af. I couldn’t imagine how someone I’d never met felt like they were reaching into my heart and selling my stories as music.
I decided one day that I’d make it a mission to make others feel like they had someone to share their heartbreaks, loves, happiness and anger with, no matter what. This was my alpha, bad bitch side that didn’t care what people thought but the more dominant me back then? Super shy.
No one on the planet knew I could sing and I wasn’t about to let them know this so…I was stuck for a while. And a while meant years and years. Then some more years after that. I would sing to myself, sing in the shower, wait til everybody would leave to make the whole house my stage and audience. But the minute there was even a breath of life from anywhere it was like #shutitdown mode. I just never believed I could actually get the thing I wanted most, to be a singer. Lol pobresita.
I just never believed I could actually get the thing I wanted most, to be a singer.
In any case, it was a dream I was too afraid to pursue until one night I’ve never forgotten. I had a boyfriend back then who was a DJ and super into music. I told him one night while we were macking on the phone (#teenagerlife), that I wanted to sing for real but I was too nervous to sing for anyone. Of course he demanded I do it. I don’t remember how he convinced me but I remember laying in the dark and getting up to put in my favorite cassette. I had this huge black and red speaker box set with lights and CD-changers in my room and the freedom to play music at 3am. I walked up to it, found Monica’s “For You I Will” and let the song play while I sang over it, beginning to end. Then, there was silence. I knew him pretty well back then so I could tell he was smiling even over the phone. I had to beg him to tell mi what him was thinkin’! Maaaaan, I was so nervous, then he started planning a studio session and I was like high-key excited but low-key like “oh no, what the FXCK did I do!”
Terrified.
There was no Google to pull up “how to write a hit song” either. I had to just suck it up and get her done.
Finally, I went in the first time and got the music plus instructions to write to it. At that point I hated writing anything literary. Short stories, poems, essays like…just, no. I was a straight up math nerd. So this task of writing a song was a huge “OH NO”. Well, I would just like to say thank you to all my prep and high school teachers because let me tell you! I had to draw on some taaactics and all these things to come up with this song. There was no Google to pull up “how to write a hit song” either. I had to just suck it up and get her done. I pulled on what I learned in school but added my own experience in love up to that point and put together a song I’m trying SO HARD to remember the name of while writing this. I also realized that if I didn’t learn then, I wouldn’t have anything to sing ever so. I wrote the song and since no one would forget about this damn studio session I went. High-key excited, low-key “oh no.”
Alright update! First song ever written, first time ever recording, with a producer of current hits on the radio in Jamaica and internationally. No biggy.
Entering the room FULL of guys, it was pitch black except for a TV on one side playing some kinda Dancehall sextape, spliff tails glowing in a line on the other side, the computer monitor glowing on the producer’s face and then there it stood. That damn microphone. Terrifying.
I don’t think I’ve ever been intimidated to walk into a recording studio again.
So I walked up, closed my eyes and sang my pieced-together diary to a room full of strangers watching porn. Now I wouldn’t say I’d broadcast this recording if I could find it but, it was definitely not as bad as I thought! Yay me! Also, the Libra that I am found the greatest lesson I could which was, you can do anything! But even better, I don’t think I’ve ever been intimidated to walk into a recording studio again.