Method Writing

They say if you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I've been working hard to do what I love for some time now. My personal margin of success is just around the corner. Soon, the activity that brings me joy when the kids go to bed, will also be how I spend my days while they are at school and daycare, and I can not wait. To write music full time has always been the goal, and my daffy writing routine will be the way I get there.

As I sit down to write, I never realized how much interviews with some of my favorite artists influenced my way of thinking. The television was always on in my room after school, and one afternoon when I as eleven years old, I caught Eminem explaining how you can rhyme anything with anything in an interview on MTV. "It all depends on how you say it." I remember hearing. I recall learning that nothing rhymed with orange, and wouldn't you believe that is the exact word he used to prove his theory. He goes on to rhyme several words with orange and my elementary mind was blown. Remembering this when stuck writhing a song is a key part of my process.

I've never had to put into words the way that I write my songs, but I remember the day I heard the words that gave me the idea for my method. I was flipping channels one afternoon my freshmen year of high school, and caught the tail end of an interview with Jamie Foxx. It was shortly after the release of "Ray", and the question was about how intense the preparation was for this role. He went on to say that he is a method actor, and how he had prosthetic eyelids glued over his eyes so he would not be able to see. I immediately became curious about how to mentally transform into a person for the sake of creating art, but it would be four years later before I would implement this technique into my writing style.

After high school, I attended the Art Institute of Atlanta to study Audio Production with a plan. The plan was to get familiar with the studio world, so pushing my songs to artists would be a walk in the park. Between classes, two jobs, and a friend or two, I had very little time to myself. Whenever I did find time to relax, I would spend some of it trying to write songs. I believe the music comes first when writing songs, and the lyrics come faster when you have an idea of who's going to sing them. To get a verse or two on paper, I would close my eyes and pretend to be whoever I wanted to write for.

I would spend an hour or so trying to mimic their dialect, habits, and mannerisms before I even bothered to pick up a pen. After a moment of really embracing my new character, I would jot down words I believe could only come from the artist I was impersonating. If I were writing for Nelly, my accent suddenly came from St. Louis. I switched to trap muzik and referred to females as "shawty" when T.I. was the artist of the hour. My favorite artist to impersonate is Babyface. This is because he is the master of rhythm and blues songwriting. Whenever I get to a bridge I have to think to myself, "What would Babyface do?"

After my artist is chosen, and I've practiced rhyming words as the artist would, I begin the fun part of storytelling. I pick a track and envision a story as the music repeats multiple times. I choose a scenario, and make up the parts of a story through song. The exposition is the intro. The rising action is the first verse. The climax is the hook or chorus, and the falling action is the second verse. The resolution can be the bridge or the chorus. It depends on the night, artist, and emotion in the room. This is the process that turns my me-time into wonderful songs, and one day, the way I will make a living.