Been off the blog for about a week following the Tamworth Country Music Festival. I was able to post a slide show of the trip with 'Sugar Honey Pie' as the music, but a stomach bug put me out of commission for the rest of the week.
Some time in bed gave me the opportunity to watch two very special music documentaries, ‘We Are the Word' on Netflix and ‘Ed Sheeran The Sum Of It All’ on Disney+. They are very different, but both are so rewarding and insightful to watch. I will do a separate post for 'We Are the World,' but I feel like the Ed Sheeran doco is so relevant to me right now.
In the film, you can see footage of Ed getting started, from a small boy to a teenager and then to the rocking pop superstar. He is quite generous in sharing many aspects of his personal life. There are also moments when we can see parts of the creative process. My favourite one of these is him on the couch, coming up with the words and melody for his hit song, Bad Habit.
Included in those personal moments is how Ed deals with the death of a friend, Jamal Edwards, who founded a music platform, SBTV, and helped launch the careers of others in the British music industry. In the doco, they don’t detail how Jamal passed away, likely out of Ed's respect for Jamal. However, for this blog, I think it is important to note that Jamal, only 31 years old, with so much success in business, could make a mistake. A report on Yahoo detailed that Jamal died of a cardiac arrest following a late night involving alcohol and cocaine.
With the success of Sheeran and other artists and his SBTV platform, the legacy of Jamal is established. But how did he have such success in his life? Something that appeared in the doco and you can also hear Jamal speaking about on his SBTV channel is his view of the most important thing: Self-Belief. I believe this is where the letters SB come from in his channel. When you think about it, it makes sense. Helping Ed Sheeran have self-belief in himself would have been the most important part of his success as an artist. Ed could have doubted himself for so many reasons, which he mentions in the doco. He was red-haired, from a small rural town in England, and had a stutter as a child and a birthmark on his face. But as Ed developed his music and writing, Jamal helped him find the belief in himself as a performer, writer and artist.
We won’t all have a Jamal in our lives, particularly at the beginning of our artistic journeys. In fact, nearly all of us will have just the opposite: family and friends who cannot grasp the other part of our lives as music artists. Ed speaks about everyone needing that one person, and Jamal was it for him. And since that person may not come right away, so many music dreams of artists and bands die before they take flight. I want to be that person for artists, but right now, I have to be that person for myself. I know I have a few who believe in me now, and I am so grateful for them showing their support on the various social media platforms. I hope that until you find that person who helps you develop your self-belief, you believe a few things.
1. The art inside you was not created by accident; you are meant to share it.
2. The art inside you will bring joy to the lives of so many, so share it.
3. The art inside you is not for everyone, but it is for some, so allow them to experience the joy that comes from your art and share it.
I hope this post helps all of us achieve a higher level of self-belief. I also hope you find that person who can champion you and your art. Thank you, Johnny Clark, for always encouraging me to share my art!
Comments