Meet Kaleb Moten

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kaleb Moten a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kaleb, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
As both a solo musical artist and as a producer for other artists, my work ethic is driven by the level of work I know goes into making something beautiful. The more time you spend honing your craft, the more aware you become of little details that you wouldn’t have noticed before, and the more willing you become to take the time to hone those details and make them what you want them to be. I think those fine details are what separate good art from great art, and the more willing you are to engage with them, the more satisfied you are with the end product.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a singer, songwriter, producer, and composer. I love painting vivid pictures with my sound, and pushing into new sonic territory. I have released four studio albums under my name (and am hard at work on a fifth), and have also done production work for artists like Victory Boyd and Abbie Gamboa to name a few. My inspiration for my work mainly flows from my faith; there’s plenty of hardship in the world and I have experienced sounds that have given me life and hope, and I want to recreate that experiences for the folks who listen to the things I create. I also love the experience of wonder, so I’m always looking to push the envelope and make things that people haven’t heard before.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. The journey is where the fun is. Don’t look for fulfillment in reaching the end product. If you can enjoy the process of crafting whatever it is you’re creating, your end product will be much better because you won’t close it out prematurely. The best projects take time to make them great.

2. Trust your instincts when you’re in the creative process. You can analyze after the fact, but if you bring too much analysis into the creative flow, you’ll end up paralyzing yourself. A lot of folks stop making music because they analyze and critique themselves at the very beginning of the process. Every artistic gem is covered in rock when you first unearth it, so be careful not to judge the initial appearance before you’ve had a chance to chip away at it and see if there’s anything more beneath the surface.

3. Don’t box yourself in, and don’t let anyone else box you in either. No one can make what you can make, because the things you make flow from your experience, and no one else has lived your life. Look for opportunities to uplift and encourage in everything you create.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
In music, I think being well-rounded and being specialized are both important. As an artist, it’s crucial for you to know what separates you from everyone else, and it’s important for you to hone in on that. However, being well-rounded allows you to take what makes you special in put it in a ton of different contexts so that people have reasons to keep coming back and engaging with your material. In my own work, there are many unique skills that I have that I’ve been honing in on for years, from my approach to harmony and rhythm, to my poetic voice, to my sonic palette. But in all of that, I’ve also studied different styles of music so that I can take what is uniquely “me” and plug it into those contexts. I think that same rationale applies to many different fields and expressions.

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