Last week I finished Questlove’s book, Creative Quest.
I borrowed the audio version of the book from my library. I highly suggest it; Questlove has a variety of sounds, transitions, and funny moments that add to the experience. The one thing that stuck with me is a section where he talks about finding your audience. He uses an analogy of someone performing in front of 10 people at their school cafeteria. The people-watching are engaged, laughing, and supportive of the performer. He goes on to say that, that is their audience but then asks what happens as our performer ages and gets older.
He states that just like anything artists are allowed to change. In turn, their audience will change as well. It goes much more in-depth, but I’m biased that you should read or listen to his book.
What I love here is the idea of change.
People go to great lengths to start over, but who is to say you have to run away to a far off land to do that? It takes years for people to figure out exactly what their thing is and what they want to do. In those years you’re always going to have an audience, it may be close friends and a few strangers, but it is still a dedicated audience. You get to test out all this material while working away in obscurity - which is a good thing. As you evolve you become more refined, your work is elevated, and soon you have a new audience you did not even know was there.
Then, you choose to pivot again. Opening yourself up to an entirely new audience and bringing the old one along for the ride. It’s a wonderful cycle.
Big shout out to Spotify user Nikhil Karmarkar for making this playlist that features every song mentioned in Creative Quest.
