Welcome to my very first paid subscription episode. I wanted to start here with Self-Made.
This whole project began with one song. I had the lyrics finished. I had the singers and the music chosen. It was strong, it was powerful. But something about it kept bugging me. I would add to it, take away from it, rework it, and still it wouldn’t let me rest.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but deep down I knew what it was. Because here’s the truth: everything I’ve done up until now, every step forward, every door I’ve walked through it was me. No one helped me get to these places. Not even the person closest to me, the one who was supposed to love and support me fully.
And yet, I kept showing up. I kept creating. I kept walking this path alone.
So when I think about the stages I will stand on, the important people I will speak with, the hands I will shake, even the lady president I will one day sit across from what I know for certain is this: I made it here by myself. The wounds and the people in my path may have shaped me, but no one took my hand and built this with me. I am self-made.
That’s why this song felt so powerful, and also why it wouldn’t let me release it as just one single. Because it wasn’t just a song. It was a story. A whole journey.
And that’s when it hit me: Self-Made wasn’t meant to stand alone. It needed a bigger canvas. That’s when I decided to turn it into a full album.
And let me tell you when I leaned into that vision, the songs poured out like they had been waiting for this moment. One by one, each track started telling its own chapter of my story. Not just the hard parts, not just the proving, but the becoming. The remembering. Every lyric carried a piece of what I’ve walked through and what I’ve claimed.
This album is more than music it’s a clap back, it’s a declaration, it’s my truth stamped into sound. When people hear it, I don’t just want them to hear me, I want them to hear themselves. To feel that same fire: I did this. I survived this. I created this. I am self-made.
And here’s the deeper thing: this project is not about bitterness. It’s not about dragging anyone from the past. It’s about freedom. It’s about finally stepping into my own power, owning my scars and my story, and saying, this is who I am, and this is what I built.
I wanted to make this my very first paid episode because it sets the tone for everything that’s coming. If you’re here listening, you’re not just an audience you’re part of this unfolding. You’re walking with me at the ground level of something bigger than me. And I wanted to give you more than a surface explanation. I wanted to pull back the curtain and let you feel what I felt when this song demanded to become something greater.
So this episode is me letting you into that process how the song that wouldn’t sit still became the heartbeat of a whole project. And maybe, just maybe, the reminder that you, too, are more powerful than you’ve been told.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Self-Made, it’s this: nobody else gets the final word on your life. Not the doubters, not the gatekeepers, not even the closest ones who couldn’t see you. The final word is yours. And the story you’re writing with your life it matters.
In closing, I want to say this: you are part of something that’s just beginning. You’re not just a subscriber you’re the foundation. You’re the ones who believed first, who said yes to being here with me at the start.
I don’t take that lightly. I feel it. And I bless you for it. I believe that as you pour into me, something in your own life is going to pour back into you double, triple, beyond what you can imagine.
So thank you for being here. Thank you for saying yes. This journey is only going higher, and I’m so grateful you’re on the ground floor with me.
