Someone asked me today, “why do you sing?”
I sing because my dad me made fall in love with The Beatles when I was 5. I sing to write- songwriting above all else is my greatest joy, it is the single most uplifting activity that I do and it never fails to bring me into alignment with my higher self. I sing because my kids are wild and I want to be like them. I sing to transform pain and anger into love.
We are releasing an album in the strangest of times. And although the uncertainty of these times are hard, they have allowed us to dream into something new. Alongside my “Guardians of Purpose”, we have explored and experimented with an artist led, First Nations, next economy business model that is a re-imagining of the music sector from within and an example of how music can be made and experienced in alignment with people, profit, planet and purpose.
This model demonstrates how art and commerce can come together and enable truly self-determined creative practice, right from how music is being made, through to how we work and our operations- how we manage finances, marketing, impact investment, tensions, our relationships with each other, and constraints that have emerged through a transitionary time of political, environmental and social uncertainty. We acknowledge that the current economy that music operates within is driven by economic principles of market supremacy and deregulation- based on values of competition and growth within a highly individualised, conservative paradigm. This way of working in the world has led to some people experiencing the highest levels of living standards we have ever seen and the rest of the population spinning the wheel, holding onto the hope that they too one day might “achieve” the same (the emphasis on achievement and doing is a large part of the deception). But it has also increased inequality and exclusion. It has upheld white supremacy, masculine, extractive narratives and it has disconnected us from our true selves as creators and made us believe that we are separate from nature and void of God in our lives. Somehow we have believed that an event like climate change is something happen to the world out there, rather than something that is also happening within us as sentient beings.
We are deeply conscious that this economic paradigm is crumbling and that as a species we have transitioned into new economies before and will again. We look to new measures of success; human flourishing, spiritual wellness, caring for country and financial prosperity during this time of birthing and letting go.
I sing because I am free.
