Selah Premiers New Single Entitled “Safety”

I actually had a plan to drop 4 EP’s last year but I ended up only dropping one because visuals are expensive. I wanted to do multiple visual albums and a short film type of experience for each project. So I jumped into it but the budget was too crazy. I’m also an independent artist, and I am still building my team so there was a lot I had to do by myself. Plus, there’s the burnout element.It’s like you still want to be taken seriously to the level of someone who might be signed to a major record label or might have a multimillion-dollar budget. I tried to run myself like a fucking label. Now I realize a label has like three hundred people that work for them and seventy departments.

That EP was about letting loose and me stepping in and talking my shit. I take a lot of music classes so I take every song as an opportunity to apply what I learned. So it’s almost like the grade or the test of my classes. I took what I learned in my music theory, vocal and songwriting classes and applied to the EP. That EP was really fun for me. Making the song is the easy part but releasing it is the hardest part.

I can’t. I love them all for different reasons! It bounces between different sounds and genres. It’s electronic, it’s rap, it’s alternative rap a little bit, in certain areas, but it’s really just me expressing myself. I had to let go of perfectionism to a certain degree, I had to let go of grandiosity, and I had to let go of every moment being this super big moment because that was a big thing for me. When I was younger, I felt like everything had to be huge! I guess I was just used to that based on the life that I grew up in. But, I am only 23, back then I was 22/21 and now I am realizing it's okay to not have these CGI videos, with effects, a script that is thirty mins long, and a sound director. It’s ok to not have that all the time! I learn a lot of things on the job and through life. Life is my teacher. It’s been humbling.

I learned about how much goes into it. I can create anything in three seconds but then there is the marketing, the PR and I want to say, unfortunately, it gives the music more value. Like as an artist, you don't want to think about all that, you just want to tell people this is what I am doing, this is what I am creating, but then I would go to people and they would ask how are you going to market this song? and I would say what do you mean, I am going to post it on Instagram. I never took public relations or marketing into account.

It’s not something I really consider so another part of creating music is just building a team of people that will support you. There is a business element to it, and even when you’re thinking, how is ‘so and so's face on Spotify when I open it?” It’s because a lot of them have a label behind them, and when you’re independent, you just don’t know these things so you have to go through trial and error.

Well, finding yourself, are we ever really found? That’s one. I’ve come to realize that’s a journey. You know, it’s really not over until you are dead. It’s really not. There’s always going to be a new trial, new tribulation, a new blissful moment, a new opportunity, etc. I think that’s just something I had to learn — life is a journey. I think with our generation and the social media thing, there’s this pressure to keep up. And it’s exhausting and it has people doing things for the sake of social media. I really had to step away from that because I had social media since I was eleven. I just want to cut off all the noise. They make these apps to be extremely addictive so we don't realize we are on a hamster wheel. I just want to take a second to think about what I really want to put out there and use my platform for the right reason.

Something I really struggled with is whether or not I mattered. I just really struggled with it, I always struggled with it. I can easily slip into this place of questioning what is the point. My family of course keeps me going and my friends, but outside of the external things, my artistic expression matters so much to me because if I don’t have that then what else? What do I really have? This concept is a little cliche but you can have everything, but if you are not fulfilled with yourself, the cars don’t matter, the house doesn’t matter, the hoes do not matter. It doesn't matter and all of that ends up just filling this void. I want to feel like I am having a positive impact on the world and I need what positively fulfills me to have a positive impact on the world — it’s a symbiotic connection.

This song is a little ambient and not as lyrical as my other songs. It’s so crazy that last night happened, I finally broke through the spell I was under. During my interview with Paper, I told her I wrote this song because I could not express it to that person. I do not have that safety. I am crying out for safety. First, it was external, I need you (the person) to make me feel safe. How come I cannot talk to you? How come I cannot just call you at 3 AM like I can with some of my friends or the other people in my life that I have this high frequency with where I can talk on the phone with them for hours. Why do I feel reluctant and hesitant with a particular person? This song was created from the fact that I met someone who really inspired me and the way they inspired me was so cool. I really wanted to connect with them. But because they inspired me so much, it made me nervous. They became like a God almost like a figure and I just wanted them to come off their pedestal and fuck with me. They made me nervous and I didn’t feel safe talking to them.

I was talking about the concept of limerence and I almost called the song that because it’s the idea of falling in love with the potential of what something can be. So you have expectations for a thing so you put it on a pedestal. You really want this to be a thing but it’s not what it is. So I started to look within myself, and tried to figure out what security means in a relationship dynamic, what does it look like, what does it feel like for me? It took us having that time apart, for me to dig deep, and do the shadow work, to now have the confidence to show up for myself. You need to have confidence within yourself to even reveal who you are to someone.

I had to develop a relationship with spirit. There are so many different words: God, Allah, Creator, The Source, TMH. And there’s a different type of safety there, knowing that your creator would never put you in a situation that you cannot handle. I always feel protected. I am always protected. When you externalize that faith into other people, we have to understand that people are people, and we are flawed. They must have a relationship with their creator because that same level of faith that you both have will allow you to be in a relationship together. When you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you can have a healthy relationship with others. You have to heal that pattern within yourself, really clear out your baggage and energy field before you go to someone else. You have to heal.