How Do You Find Your Authentic Voice When Society Expects You to Be Someone Else?

Man, this is the question, isn't it? This is the real struggle. Because from the moment I was born, society had ideas about who I was supposed to be. A poor kid from Seattle. A Black kid. A guitar player who was supposed to play blues a certain way, back a certain way, stay in a lane.

When I came up on the chitlin circuit, the expectation was clear: play what they want, don't ask questions, be grateful for the work. And I was grateful — I learned everything I could from Little Richard, from the Isley Brothers. But inside, I was hearing something else. I was hearing what the guitar could become if you stopped being afraid of it.

The thing nobody tells you is that finding your voice is painful. It means disappointing people. It means taking risks that might fail. When I first started experimenting with feedback, with playing with my teeth, with all the things that became part of my sound, people thought I was crazy. Some still do. But I had to follow what I was hearing inside, or I would have been dead anyway — just walking around with a body.

I think about this a lot with young musicians who reach out. They're caught between what they love and what they think they should do. What I always tell them is: the only person who can tell if you're being authentic is you. You feel it in your chest. You know when you're faking. You know when you're just trying to please someone or fit into what's expected.

Finding your voice means being willing to be alone sometimes. It means trusting that whisper inside you that says, 'No, this is what I need to do, even if nobody understands.' When I burned that guitar, when I played the Star-Spangled Banner the way I did, I was risking everything people said I was. But I couldn't not do it. It was coming out of me whether I liked it or not.

Start by listening to yourself more than you listen to everyone else. Not in a selfish way — listen to the people you admire, learn from them. But then sit alone with your instrument, your craft, whatever it is. Listen to what wants to come through you. That's your voice. That's where the truth lives. Everything else is just noise.