The Journey Of Me

I started writing poetry of my own back in 2021, during when COVID-19 was still raging and I was in 10th grade doing online school. I was influence by poets like Walt Whitman and I love how you can use so much expression in poems. Ever since then, I have loved writing poetry for myself and it's almost like journaling for me. Some of the techniques that I've used was recording myself reading my poem and then imputing it into the sound studio and then I found soft music that represents my headspace when I write poems. To make it cohesive, I had to align them together and lower some of the volumes so that one track doesn't sound louder than the other. One of the things we learned in class that helped me achieve this is by using the resources to my advantage like using clips on youtube to find the song. I really enjoyed using writing the poem and recording myself reading it which I've never done before. I also used some beats on the website soundtrap that I used to create this artwork I think the way that is came out was impressive in my opinion since this is my first time creating soundtracks.   

I love my Nigerian culture, and any chance I get, I will represent my country to the best of my ability. Today, Nigerian culture has been popular around the world whether it be music, food, and fashion. Creating this piece was tricky because on the soundtrap site, I couldn't find any beats that truly represented was Nigerian music sounded like. I had to use other resources to my advantage and it turned out well. What I learned in class was that if we are going to use other people's work we have to give them credit, which I have done. I have also learned to change the pitch in one of the track to make them sound natural. My process for creating this piece was finding the sounds of Nigerian culture, I searched up background sounds of what happens in Nigerian culture and found sounds that happens of the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. Then I searched afrobeats that I enjoy listening to. I had to transition the songs so that I can be cohesive. This has to be one of my favorite things that I have created and I enjoyed mixing the songs together and it felt like I traveled back to Lagos.

During spring break while I was scrolling on Tiktok, I saw a funeral for a 18 year old girl who passed away from a murder-suicide by her ex-boyfriend. This story shook me to my core and this has never happened to me before. Her name was Kelvi McCray and she was so young and had a lot going for her. She was an influencer and makeup artist as well and she did hair. She was also in college just like me and her life a unfortunately cut short due to violence by her ex. This is not something that is new because there are women who have lost their lives due to domestic violence. My mom and I have went through DV and we were able to get out. I wanted to create this sound because I wanted to spread awareness that many women are still fighting this issue. My process for creating this piece was finding women chanting in a domestic violence protest and then I created beats and sound effects and represent the mind of a women going through something traumatic as DV while also making it soft to make it feminine and to make it known that many women are fighting for them. I enjoyed creating this because I loved to make awareness of a huge topic like this. I enjoyed making the sounds and making beauty out of it.