WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO PUT ME IN A BOX?

Do genre labels and categories lessen us? Do they reduce our work to one or two words, an archetype, a cliché, a thumbnail? Do they corral, trap, reduce and ultimately minimize us? Yes. They do. Of course, some work is more classical in form, it does not suffer so deeply from the fallout of bent genres, of straying outside these lines that are drawn. Sometimes gospel music is just straight up gospel music. But if you make gospel music and then suddenly get inspired to incorporate non-western scales — and what if you have some big idea to bring in an Indian harmonium, maybe little sitar — guess what, there is suddenly no good name for what you are up to, even if it is pure inspired genius. So, you throw your arms up and call it “world music” which is a lot like saying water is wet. All of this categorizing is not just a nuisance, and far greater a burden than explaining “what kind of art you make” at a dinner party. The entire means for distribution, for allowing strangers to stumble upon, to discoveryour work requires it to pass through a maddening series of blind gates, all driven by this insanity. Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google and the rest — they dogmatically reinforce these labels with reckless 20thcentury abandon.

How do we align ourselves with those time-honored plums — “Write what you know!” and “Just be yourself” and of course “Let your freak flag fly!” These adages…