Meet Cherise Michelle

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cherise Michelle. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cherise, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

I like to think of my creativity in terms of the projects I work on. Each concept truly feels like a child to me. I remember helping my mother care for my youngest brother when he was first born, and there was so much work that went into it. We’d be up all hours of the day and night changing diapers and trying so hard to calm all the screaming. It never mattered how tired we were. I think some of the earlier years really taught me about the importance of commitment–even when you aren’t feeling it.

Since my creative projects are my babies, I’m often thinking about what I need to do to keep them alive and help them go on to thrive. I feel like it can look like a few different things. For example, I am good at knowing when I need to take a break and let my projects rest. I am also good at sensing when I have been neglecting a project or an idea for too long.

I’m not sure specifically how the quote goes, but I believe someone said something along the lines of creativity taking “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration”. I’m not usually sitting around waiting for the spark or the lyric to jumpstart my creativity. You’ll probably find me posting the good, bad, and ugly poetry I force myself to create when I need to get back into my rhythm.

If I could offer a piece of advice to other creatives, I would suggest finding ways to incorporate a piece of your creativity throughout the day. That way it never gets lost in the shuffle. That can look like a bunch of different things. I personally love starting with the clothes I decide to wear for the day or setting a new homescreen based on my vibe for the week.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Oh wow, I used to be able to answer this question so easily. It was either something along the lines of “I’m a vocalist, or I work in music supervision.” These days, I would say it’s a bit more complex. The label I’ll give myself for now is artist and scholar, but I’ve been recently thinking through a phrase that can bring together all the many hats I’ve been wearing since our last conversation.

As of today, I’d throw all the work I’m doing under the label of being an Independent Creative. I feel like that’s the only label that can unite all my projects. On the artistic side, I’m so excited to release my new single, Flatline, this September. This entire project has been such an amazing experience, and I finally feel ready to start sharing it with the world. I’ve also been busy on the scholarly side.

I am happy to be examining Black micro-festival culture here in LA this summer and see if I can tease out any connections to what I’ve been studying about the Black Creative Process (BCP). I also have a new mini-essay coming out in Black Joy Archives Vol.iii where I discuss how my Black joy will persevere during times of uncertainty.

I also co-founded a reading group called the Sound Space with my friend Isaiah Blake. The Sound Space is essentially working to understand the intersections between Ethnomusicology and Black Geographies, and we recently hosted our inaugural discussion on the movie Sinners. This talk was beautiful because it allowed space for community members to dissect and discuss this instant cultural phenomenon.

If you needed me to give you a straight answer for what I do, let’s go with curation. I seriously enjoy making connections between music, archives, reading, writing, and the African diaspora.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Hmmm, let’s go with three qualities. I’d say the top three things that helped me get to where I am now would be integrity, discipline, and delusion. Let me explain a little.

So when it comes to integrity, I feel like many people take it for granted or probably believe you can’t survive in the world if you have too much of it. I laugh right along with y’all when the memes about finessing and scamming come up, and maybe nice people do finish last. However, for some reason, my life has been quite the opposite. I really believe that people being able to trust my words and my actions, and know that I’ll always choose to do what’s right–even when no one is around is why I’ve been given the opportunities I have. I can think back to so many examples in my childhood where my reputation for being honest and doing right by people helped me get to the next step in my journey.

One of my favorites would probably be being recommended by my guidance counselors to attend a summer leadership program at Princeton. I was known in high school for being a singer and a kind, quiet girl I think. If my counselor hadn’t seen my integrity throughout my time at school, she wouldn’t have recommended me for the leadership program. If I didn’t attend the program, I would not have made it out of Indiana, graduated from college, or ended up in LA to begin with.

Discipline is probably the most important quality to me, personally. I feel like I developed my discipline out of desperation, but it helped me nonetheless. I had no choice but to strive for excellence every day because if I didn’t, no one was coming to save me. No one goes back to Gary or the Midwest to give back, donate funds, or circulate mutual aid. People truly consider it flyover country, and they believe there’s nothing special about it. I leaned into discipline to keep me motivated for my goals.

You also need some level of delusion for whatever dream or goal you are working on. People make fun of me for it, but I really am my biggest cheerleader. I believe that I can do it because I give my best effort day in and day out.

I’ll just add one piece of advice for anybody looking to use some of these things on their own journey. I feel like these work for me because I am not afraid of failure. I’m pretty good at acknowledging that something didn’t work out, and getting back on the horse for round two. For me, nothing is truly over until I decide it’s over, and it’s only a failure to me if I didn’t put in 100% effort. I hope that makes sense.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Oh, for sure! I’m looking for collaborations in quite a few different capacities. Music-wise, I’d love to get in touch with some bassists and guitarists for my next project. I’m also interested in connecting with anyone who has a strong passion for archives or collecting historical pieces from any time period. I would also add that I love talking about Blackness, Black people, music, and creative projects in general. So for for people wanting to collaborate or just chat about being creative, feel free to shoot me an email 🙂

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Image Credits

📸 : Mars LeGrand

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