Meet Chudi

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chudi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chudi below.

Hi Chudi, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

When it comes to confidence, there’s a certain amount of a “fake it till you make it” spirit that I embody. When I was younger, I was bullied for everything: my name, my skin tone, my glasses and engaged in a lot of negative self-talk. For better or worse, I ended up using that as fuel to work hard. It was a “I’ll train hard and become the best” type of attitude that comes from watching too much anime. With the work, came achievements: sports teams, good grades, mixtape placements, muscles, leadership positions, awards. I was a teenager getting looked at by record labels and on popular blogs with artists that made it. It wasn’t until I was 19 though that it truly stuck. College was going rough for me: familial deaths, worse grades, injuries and heartbreak combined to drive me to a very low point. It was only after hitting this point and talking through it did I realize something: I wasn’t great because of my achievements. I was great because I developed the ability to achieve. Since then, I’ve believed in myself to an almost delusional extent. I don’t plan for failure because I believe that if I execute the way I planned, it will work. If it doesn’t, I didn’t execute to the best of my ability or there was some other factor. Even though I feel this way, confidence something that I still struggle with honestly. There are definitely low periods-periods of rejection and cancelation. I try my hardest to live in la-la land though. Why wouldn’t I believe in my music? That’s realistic, I believe way more outlandish things. I can fight a cheetah, I can run a marathon without training, I can score a point on Steph Curry. I choose to be the person who believes wholeheartedly in myself; I’ll let the world humble me if I’m wrong.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I make music and throw an event series for unsigned artists to perform in front of large crowds and for my friends to meet friends of friends called My Friend’s Show. I’m shifting focus to my own music though. My music combines the experiences I’ve had throughout life with the rose-colored lens I view it all with now, and that’s why it’s special. My favorite compliment I’ve gotten was my friend saying “I believe every single word you say truly happened to you and damn that’s wild”. At a show, I introduced a story of heartbreak with the Mr. Krabs “World’s Smallest Violin” bit from SpongeBob. I’ve rapped about getting jumped, yearning, nights out; all with a joke thrown in and a smile on my face because every story has led me here; and right here is good. It always ends well till it doesn’t.
Coming up, we got another My Friend’s Show to wrap up the fall and a 2000’s inspired mixtape coming out. I’m talking Neptunes beats, 50 Cent type of vocals, flip phones, stuff you can dance to, all that.

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

The most important qualities and skills that have gotten me to this point would have to be: the combination of confidence, resilience and delusional optimism. Confidence in myself and my abilities was cultivated through years of practice and experimentation. I’m naturally a perfectionist when it comes to things that I’m passionate about so for me to even release music or put on a show, things have to be at a level that I’m proud of putting my name on. Even so, I always look to improve, saying things could have been better in retrospect. That’s where the resilience comes in. In the spaces I’m in, everyone has an opinion and a lot of people will try to harm your confidence and minimize your achievements. How do you keep going when nothing has gone your way so far? That’s where the delusional optimism comes along and everything ties together. I feel confident in myself because of the work I’ve put in, it’s not shaken because I have been resilient in the face of all my problems and I (justified or not) genuinely believe that things will go well for me at all times.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Yeah I’m always looking for new artists and producers to collaborate with, or people in the industry that see the vision! I’m really looking for people that genuinely love this music thing though. I think it’s fairly obvious when people aren’t actually fans of or appreciative of music (especially hip hop) as an art form and it’s not the energy I want to surround myself with. I want people that will spend an hour discussing the state of music, people that will give unique artists a chance even if they’re outside your favorite genres, people that are subtle perfectionists and need that push to actually drop. If that’s you, the best way to reach out is on Instagram: @chudi.wav or @my.friends.show

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Image Credits

David Payne

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