March is finally here but, last month I decided to do something that I had never done before. At the beginning of February, I stumbled across Freelance Journalist and music critic, Gary Suarez' Twitter profile @noyokono after one of my followers shared a tweet of his. In the tweet, he re-sparked his music writer exercise he created back in 2015! The challenge? Simple.
Each day for the entire month of February music writers, lovers, and critics all around were challenged to listen to an album they had never listened to, from start to finish, and then basically review it in one tweet (or more if you really needed to go over one tweet).
I'll be honest, I did miss a few days. I was actually really irritated with myself about that, but I didn't give up and I just continued the challenge. From it I really gained so much insight about different artists that I had either never heard of or heard of but never had listened to.
From doing this challenge, I learned much about myself as a writer. I saw that I could indeed listen to something one time and formulate a well though, articulate representation of what I received from the project that I listened to. Also, from doing this challenge I received attention from several of the artists that I reviewed. I was retweeted by some, I even received a reply and a DM from one and that was super cool!
The challenge really opened my eyes and showed me that as a writer, you have to be able to adapt (which I feel is a great quality I have) regardless of the platform you use as a writer. Sometimes you will not have a long period of time to create an opinion or piece on a specific body of work, but that should not scare you out of attempting to do so.
It felt very natural because I literally had to share my thoughts on something I played immediately. I had to create these tweets based off your immediate perception and thoughts of the records you chose to engage with. I loved every moment of the challenge and I even had some of my friend engage with it as well.
Here are the projects that I decided to listen to throughout the month of February for the MWE (again, i missed some days, bare with me):
Feb. 1: Russ - "Shake The Snow Globe"
Feb. 2: Missy Elliott - "This is Not A Test"
Feb. 3: Baby Keem - "Die For My B*tch"
Feb. 4: Missed
Feb. 5: Missed
Feb. 6: Missed
Feb. 7: Noname - "Room 25"
Feb. 8: Smino - "Noir"
Feb. 9: Mick Jenkins - "Pieces of a Man"
Feb. 10: Ambré - "Pulp" (Ambre, retweeted and liked my tweet, replied to me, and DM'd me back on Instagram!)
Feb. 11: Doja Cat - "Hot Pink"
Feb. 12: Xavier Omär & Sango - "Moments Spent Loving You"
Feb. 13: Saba - "Care For Me"
Feb. 14: J.I.D - "DiCaprio 2"
Feb. 15: Billie Eilish - "Don’t Smile At Me"
Feb. 16: Arin Ray - "Platinum Fire"
Feb. 17: SiR - "November"
Feb. 18: UMI - "Interlude - EP"
Feb. 19: Yeek - "IDK WHERE"
Feb. 20: Tierra Whack - "Whack World"
Feb. 21: Snoh Aalegra- "Feels"
Feb. 22: Sabrina Claudio - "Truth Is"
Feb. 23: Kiana Ledé - "Selfless"
Feb. 24: PJ Morton - "The Piano Album" (PJ Morton retweeted and liked my tweet!)
Feb. 25: JoJo - "JoJo (2018)" (JoJo liked my tweet!)
Feb. 26: D Smoke - "Inglewood High"
Feb. 27: Jacob Banks - "Village"
Feb. 28: EARTHGANG - "Mirrorland"
Feb. 29: Missed (who misses the last day?... smh)