Well as a singer songwriter of now 15 plus years, I have the experience to share my views and experiences with you. I always say if you don't love what you do, well then stop wasting time and figure out what it is you should be putting your efforts towards. Maybe the fact that my life was different from many, yet similar to some, my choices came quickly with the narrowing time ahead of me at 18. I was pregnant and had a huge responsibility to prepare for. Fresh out of grade 12 with still 4 credits left to finish I saw my life through different eyes then that of an 18 year old who was looking to travel and experience life. I was 18 engaged to marry, was expecting a child, living on my own as I had from the age of 16. Though now I had to grow up and REAL FAST! August rolled around and I gave birth to my Daughter Revee (Dream in French) Decisions had to be made. Do I go back to school and finish? Get OSAP to pay? Can I pay them back? Geeze... do I know what I want to do? Yes I wanted to sing as I had for the past 3 years. I realized that I needed to do what I always dreamed, an show my daughter, she too could be anything she wanted. The story is quite long and only gets more interesting from here, but I'll come back and touch on that another time. ( Sorry for the ramble but you had to understand the mind frame here)
So back to music. I started to focus on doing what I loved... Music. For me it was always therapy through out my life, some say I'm a jack of all trades but I really believe " Do what you have to, to do what you love" if that means you need to down size your home, or work 2 part times and go to school, work as a hairdresser and make up artist to pay the bills... so be it. The point is work towards doing what you love. I was an artist and wrote song after song and show after show but was like, how do I get my music to the world? I wanted to be big! Yet had no clue of the industry. I had seen the Industry change rapidly while I was looking for my pot of gold, so getting to know the industry as it was changing in front of me was even more challenging. So what did I do you ask? Well I got a manager to bring me to the next level. Ha ha, well he help to shape my mind frame and helped me grow as an artist but this Industry was so much bigger than all that. So what happened was I started to write with other people and got my name out in Toronto through working with the right industry folks but Canada is one tough market. As my name was mentioned in conversations, opportunities started to come in like residual payments. So it was 2004 and Next thing I had done a collaboration with Shaun Boothe ( Rikoshay ) which was really suppose to be an album track. Next thing I hear it's gonna be released as a single, I thought Great! At the same time Canadian Idol was kicking off on it's 2nd year and I, yes little ol me had my chance to write in the camp. Thanks to my manager at the time who made sure I had my paper work and 500 dollars in. What an experience and I ended up landing 3 songs on Kalan Porters album. So I was thinking at this time, Wow this is it!!! lol it's just a matter of time. So long story shorter...lol I ended up continuing to write with other writers and the vibe for my album was created. BMG and Universal were both interested, BMG had offered a Development deal and Universal saw my vision. Only problem was I was starting to see how the labels were crumbling and saw my project getting held up ( an artist worse nightmare ) and possibly being used as a tax write off. So I bailed on the idea and kept it moving. Yes some would think are you crazy .... so on and so forth. Truly I seen that this was not in anyone's real interest as it was of mine.
So Now it was time to get the album done... thanks to factor and the grant process, the project got the funding. Along came many changes, I no longer had a manager due to unfortunate circumstances and I had to pick up the pieces. If you have read this far than I will give you the next part. Just comment and let me know I have caught your attention.
