Since the release of Bigger Than Your Box (2018) my work has been largely project-based. On this page I share more about each endeavor - the making of each project, the inspiration behind the songs, and lesser known facts that are all part of the creative process.

photo credit: Stephanie Lope

Wearing Love
All the Time in the World
Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Wearing Love

I am not a dancer...obviously :)
But as the vision for this project became clearer over the last few months, it was apparent to me that this would need to be a dance video...and that I would need to be the one doing the dancing. Hehe. Yikes!

Enter the last 3 months of my life

• Polishing a song that took a whole year to embody

• Recording and working across cities with my producer, bassist, and electric guitarist

• Vision-casting and storyboarding w/ Creative Director Michael Rothermel

• Interpreting and choreographing a dance and working out the song through my body

• ooohh and repeated attempts at creating a golden globe 
  

Wearing Love is my response to 2020. In the blackhole of identity politics, social media wars, and our country's polarizing responses to racial injustice, this song is a response and a challenge to come up higher and do better...to wear love better than we wear our pride...or our political affiliations. 

About the Song

(LYRICS)

There’s no way to talk about this song without talking about the pangs of learning how to love the people closest to you. Wearing Love was the outworking of a painful 2019 - being on the road less and being around loved ones more. Constant head-butting, re-evaluating, and recalibrating were my defaults and I kept having to ask myself, “do I really wanna do this?” And yet, even when I said “no”, the answer always eventually returned to “yes”.  Learning to love has been and will continue to be life’s greatest battle. 

Which brings me to this song’s other influence: super-hero movies.

Yeah...i know :)

The image of fighting for love was a vivid one for me. I kept thinking of a verse in scripture where Peter asks Jesus, “How many times do I have to forgive my brother or sister when he hurts me? Like seven?” And Jesus answers “Seven? Try 70x7”...meaning “you’ll eventually lose count.”

And so I realized I had begun to think of love as a covering - something that you have to wear like skin. Something you can’t leave home without. Love as a cloak and love as a weapon. A superpower. Strong enough to protect from offense and even stronger in its ability to transform an atmosphere and change everything and everyone around it.

everyone will wonder
you did not go under.
you were undercover
wearing love

Zoom out to January 2020. I had just finished writing the song and had no idea what the year would bring. As the months began to unfold, I realized Wearing Love was no longer about my personal life but a reflection on a world in chaos. 

In a time when fear has never been so palpable and offense is just a flavor of the day, the bridge of this song has taken on a whole new meaning...

slow your breathing
no more scheming
quit competing
just love

Breathing.

With all of its many vantage points breathing has become quite controversial: from choosing how we use our breath to speak to each other in conflict, to dealing with a virus that attacks the lungs, to watching George Floyd’s very breath slip away.

If love could be used as a weapon instead of fear, 2020 would have no doubt played out differently. I know, it’s a lofty idea. But 2020 has not necessarily brought conflict, it’s only unearthed what was already there. And so the question moving forward is (and has always been) how do we approach the world we encounter every time we step out our front door?

About the Video

Working with Michael Rothermel & Cursive Films was the highlight of this project. I have appreciated Michael’s eye for color, light, and storytelling from a distance and knew reaching out to him was the right call.

I was certain that this video would have to be about light breaking through darkness, hope overcoming hopelessness, and strength in the midst of weakness. With those themes we fleshed out the visuals of the song. He deserves all the credit for every bit of creative and aesthetic finesse.

Why dancing?

“The cure for grief is motion”. 

I mean, i read it in a fortune cookie a few years ago, hehe, but that slip of paper has been glued to my wall ever since.  I wholeheartedly believe movement changes things - inside you and around you. No doubt we all feel the difference when we choose a hike in the woods over another day glued to the television. 

So, interpreting Wearing Love had to be in dance and because of it’s original backstory, it had to be me.

The positives? I got some serious muscle tone out of it!
The negatives? October was an all-consuming physically grueling month of scripting out the words interpretively...and ultimately not everything could make the final cut.

There’s a bunch more to share but that will be for the future. For now, here are all the people who made this thing possible.

PRODUCED BY 
Cursive Films x INGOMA

FILMED AT 
Triode Media Group  

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Evan Scudner, Andrew Bilindabagabo, Sebastian Nieves, Jonathan Rothermel, Michael Rothermel

PRODUCERS
Andrew Bilindabagabo, Carly Bilindabagabo