my first influence

It’s often your parents or carers can have a huge influence on your choices, hobbies, beliefs and morals, even when you’re grown enough to establish your own personal identity. The subtle effect of their voices will always linger in your brain when pondering on your own creative choices and lifestyle decisions. Personally, I blame half of my widespread love for music on my own parents, by introducing me to a huge culture of quirky music genres helping me to discover a broader, more alternative and genius community of music.

Raised in 1980’s North London into low income families and working as hairdressers in their early lives, my parents had the freedom and imagination to adventure into a culture and lifestyle of music, infecting their daily lives and influencing their fashion interests and career choices. If I could create a timeline of my parents and their evolution of music interests, it would look like this:

teens: Punk/New Romantic      

20's: Rockabilly/Mod         

30's: metal/Rock        

beyond: ska/northern Soul      

today: mod/2 tone

Whether it was Japan that had my dad in ruffled shirts and headbands or The Clash that saw my mum in bondage trousers and fishnets, there is a culture in music that can affect the way in which you want to appear, your own image, reflecting on your personal identity, and my parents’, where their current influence of mod culture sees them in doc martens and Trojan polo shirts.

This influential variation has had me keeping an open mind when delving into music and has allowed me to learn about and become obsessed with new and creative genres like cloud-rap, neo-soul and contemporary R&B. By being unselective and opening your heart to the different styles of music the industry offers, your emotional connection with music can grow (you’re probably reading this thinking I’m insane) but take my word for it…

Back to my parents, though. Not only did their interests influence me, but my sister too, but is probably what forced my brother into grime and bashment (lol). Nonetheless, we all lived raised around vintage records and a car drawer filled with every genre of CD’s, which has ultimately made music my main career goal and a central part of our lives, forever. So, thank you mum & dad.