I get asked this a LOT.
Why did I (a regular guy from West Yorkshire) defy the stereotype, & set out to become a lyricist? 🤷🏼♂️ Good question, but one that needs a bit more explaining to fully answer.
See – to understand that, you need to understand young me.
Don’t let 1st impressions fool you…
No – NOT the ostentatious loudmouth who causes steam to gush from a teacher’s ears like an agitated cartoon character 😤 I was WAY too shy for all of that!!
Call me the inverse of the Class Clown.
The one you’d find huddled at the back of every lesson – quiet, head down, usually absorbed in a book. The type to BLUSH BRIGHT RED should a member of the opposite sex ask to borrow his pencil sharper 😳
The most daring act young me had to his name was confronting the school bully. Granted, I’d put him on crutches – but even that wasn’t planned. More just proof that karma really does come back around.
A thought that I’d never really taken seriously…
Until I found myself slumped behind a desk in an office – head down – staring blankly into a computer screen, confronted with a list of yet more of my boss’ growing expectations 🙄 All of which I’d have to somehow adhere to if I wanted to go another week without being fired.
Glancing around, it was clear Mr Big’d be paying a visit.
Sales were hammering the phones, managers were summoning stragglers into their office & Marketing were desperately trying to find a way of presenting their data that actually made it look favourable.
A quick glance outside confirmed a noisy red blur was heading straight for the office car park; the moment the exhaust note wafted in through the open windows 🔥 the office lit up!! 🔥 People’s strolls turned into a light jog, the queue for the printer began to grow & the kitchen area became impassible. Those who’d had a bad month sat hunched over in their seats, fingers crossed under the desk, trying to subdue their inevitable panic attack 🥵
And it was in this moment – amidst all this chaos – I asked myself a simple question…
I…
I didn’t have an answer.
& yet at first, I wasn’t really that phased 😎 In fact, my immediate reaction was to chuckle to myself – laugh it off – assuming that a logical answer to this very simple opened-ended question, would spring to mind in the next couple of seconds.
But it didn’t 😧
It was only then that reality started to sink in.
My heartbeat quickened – & shortly after, my throat tightened, forcing me to take loooonnnng heeeeaaaavy breaths. Anxious, I started probing my brain – cupping my head in my hands, in hope that somehow it’d allow me to extract the answer from my skull.
It didn’t.
With that, I upped & left to the men’s room (without authorisation from management) – throat hollow – eyes bloodshot – stomach churning. At one point I thought I was going to be sick 🤢
Guess that’s what it feels like when you realise you’re suddenly more lost than you ever thought.
And it was in that moment – perched on a toilet seat in the middle of office armageddon – that I began to realise that perhaps I didn’t know myself quite as well as I thought 🤯
In fact, the more I cast my mind back, the more I spotted a distinct pattern.
Much like everyone in that office, the thought of ‘stepping out of line’ TERRIFIED me to the core; virtually every decision I’d EVER made was off the back of what was ‘deemed to be sensible’, or what someone else had told me to do.
Me & convention – we’d become best bros 👊🏼
Upto that point, I’d played by the rules… because everyone else did. Kept my opinions to myself… because everyone else did. Settled for a stable (but not very exciting) office job… because everyone else did. And accepted crap I should never have taken… because everyone else did.
And as a result, I’d become this… this… this…
‘Yes Man’ 🫡
A dude SO spooked by the thought of not ‘fitting in’, that he couldn’t even justify why he was spending 40+ hours every week, training his fingers to dance across a keyboard.
All the while staring aimlessly into a computer screen!! 😵💫
A switch somewhere inside me… had flicked.
The mental jolt was SO sudden, that upon returning to my desk, I began to rummage through my bag in search of an envelope 📨
Given its age, it looked like it’d been sifted out of a waste-paper bin 🗑️ The corners were dog-eared, & the biro on the front had began to smudge, making my boss’ name look like it’d been calligraphied in some ‘overly-abstract’ font.
Once written, I’d meant to get rid of it – I’d just had never found the right time.
All the while, my manager – struck by my abrupt return – had begun reciting his usual gobbledygook. You know the talk – that sort of bland management rhetoric 😴 which can be easily dismissed with a few nods + the occasional “yes” & “ahhh okay“. Buuuut on that occasion…
I left him hanging.
& darted straight across the sales floor, sights set on the desk of Mr Big – who’s rather ‘spirited’ phone conversation was giving the entire office it’s daily serving of noise pollution 🤬 Turns out red supercars & reliability may not be the most common combo.
In the spirit of cliche, both his legs were up on his desk, his facial expression was sour & his complexion was pretty much identical to his car’s paintwork. So once within touching distance, I wasted NO time about it – & wedged the envelope in-between the lid of his laptop. Before doing a swift 180, & walking out.
A ballsy move, especially for a timid guy like me.
And yet… you know what?! It felt good.
REAL GOOD!! 🥳
The type of good that has you SO psyched that you do a little dance with both your 🖕🏼 middle fingers 🖕🏼 pointed to the sky. Not sure if they caught my moves on CCTV, but if they did, I’m sure it gave them a good giggle.
Looking back, it was here (at 20 years old) – stood on the curb, outside the office that had once been my prison – hands shaking – forehead dripping 💦 – that I finally became a man.
It was then that I understood my destiny lay outside the status quo. No amount of fear could convince me otherwise.
This was it!
The end… of the beginning.
And how it too appears to be another one of these ‘all-telling’ patterns.
See, that day I walked out, I genuinely had NO plan.
Zero – nil – nada 😱
The whole thing was one GIANT impulse decision; the 1st time I’d ever followed my heart, instead of the masses! And yet (to my surprise) I was strangely calm. I guess the sheer certainty of knowing ‘office-life’ wasn’t for me, had prevented self doubt from even taking hold.
As for what was – that remained a mystery…
Until (sure enough) a week later, I found myself on the receiving end of my Dad’s pep talk on “Why you should NEVER leave a stable job“. A classic that I’m pretty sure all parents have rehearsed in case of emergency.
Must be a 🚨 CODE RED 🚨 in the parental handbook.
o
But it was a good job he did it. Because while explaining the whole pattern of me not making decisions for myself, I spotted another.
See, as far back as I can remember – music has just… been there 🙊
Whether it be being spun around the living room by my ankles to ‘Perfect Day’..
Jamming in Dad’s whip to an all-time classic Westlife EP…
Or developing a love for lyricism listening to Lloyd Banks…
I’ve never once gone without it.
In our house the radio was always on. Turn
It’s been the backbone behind everything I’d ever done.
And to put the cherry on the cake, a career in music is about as uncovnetional as can be. No strict brand guidelines. No corporate agendas. No right & wrong.
It’s a creative soul’s wet dream
It’s as uncoventional as careers can be. A chance to write as me, without being held back by brand guidelines, corporate restrictions or any other
For any businessman wanting to know why creatives often get pissed off & leave – this is the reason.
And as far as careers go, music itself is hardly conventional.
It’s
But that’s not even the most convincing part. See, as far as creative careers go, music
And what’s more, music’s pretty much as unconventional as you can get.
It knows no boundaries.
There’s no boundaries, corporate restrictions,
all of which plague modern day careers & leave creatives like myself feel restricted. Frustrated. Annoyed. Because they can’t fully express themselves.
& not only that, but during my entire spint in the working world, I’ve never once felt like I could be authentically myself. Brand guidelines, corporate restrictions & snotty-nosed managers have always gotten in the way.
100%
being a writer by trade who’s always felt restricted or creativly limited by others restrictions, it’s one of the few forms of writing where I can just be free.
Nobody imposing guidelines. No one telling me I’m too informal
for a creative soul like me it’s pretty much the epitome of creativity
And yet (being a writer) who doesn’t align with convention, I
You might say I’m crazy, but I see that as a sign.
Sounds corny, but it was like a backing track to my life
team that with the fact, I’m very much a writer at heart & music is the miost expressive you can be, & something just seemed to click.
It felt r
I’ve never once gone without it; it’s always there,
being doing ‘it’s thang’… quietly in the background.
Which is why I physically kicked myself when I realised this.
OUCH! 🤕
See – for me, becoming a lyrical MC, is beyond ironic. Pretty much the career equivalent of dating 100s of people, only to realise ‘the one’ has been hiding under your nose this entire time. & while that does feel a bit frustrating, it also doubles as proof.
Proof that some of the best things in life come from the most unlikely of places 🙊 My advice to you – trust your gut.
Hence my slogan & now motto for life…
See you in the next one,
X
