Diandra Interviews SYNACURE:

¨I Luv NYC¨ is a mesh of sounds that embodies a city that meshes people from all over the world, and SYNACURE has the heart and intelligence to make the perfect blend. When talking about what inspired this ode to NYC, we ended up talking about the sacredness of music, the speed and sounds that inspire art, and the business side that is cutting it. Yet, he has the ¨hopeful pessimism¨ to keep creating and motivating art, despite a business that is not really looking for it anymore. 

Diandra: What about NYC represents your artistry?

SYNACURE: Um, it’s eclectic nature. I was hearing all kinds of different things from inside my house to outside my house, you know, my apartment that I grew up in. I was hearing a lot of things from my parents. And then you’d go out into the street and you’d hear salsa, you’d hear soul. The radio back then was pop radio and was kind of all over the place. It wasn’t just one thing. I mean, from a musical point of view, you heard everything in New York.

Diandra: And it’s also very noisy, like, ¨punch you in the face¨ noisy?

SYNACURE: In New York, you might hear the most beautiful sounds, but there’s a fire truck in the background. Or, you’ll hear someone drumming on the street or something, and— and there’s sirens going off, and people screaming and yelling. On one level, New York is like a nonstop audio assault, but you also learn how to hear through distractions. You also learn that a lot of these things that some people would call noise actually resonate as music, which is kind of what hip-hop was about to begin with.

Diandra: I think you’re touching on New York as a place that— that not only makes you— I think there’s something about, like, if you not just survive New York, but find your rhythm in New York, there is this element of you’re not only just a genius, but you’re super authentic.

SYNACURE: You could live anywhere. You could live in the deepest country and there’s things that are stopping you or getting in your way. I think the gift of New York, is its diversity. That you get so many different ways of dealing with those kinds of issues in New York City, you know? So there’s so many cultures that have come there and have their own response to it, you know, to New York: you’ve got great R&B and great rock has come out of New York,

Diandra: Well, I mean, you have— you have the track and you have the vibe.

SYNACURE: Thanks. I think, for me, the track is about the New York that doesn’t usually get a lot of play. It’s about its diversity. It is about the different people that go to make up New York City, and it’s a celebration of those people. The video is a celebration of diversity. It’s just about everybody, uh, that makes the streets what they are. At least that’s what I hope it’s about, too. That’s how— how I hope to be reaching people.

Do you think how we celebrate diversity is how we keep NYC´s roots?

SYNACURE: If you don’t have a sense of your roots and you don’t have a sense of pride in who you are, and a sense of your own history and knowledge of your own history, you’re going to be lost. So it’s important to have that stuff. It’s about enjoying our differences and appreciating our differences and learning from each other and knowing that no one is better than anybody else. In this moment, the political moment it has been for the last few years, I’m happy to be making that statement.

Diandra: it’s not just enjoying our differences, enjoying our sameness. I think there’s— there’s something that happens to you when you find out that somebody from half around the world, half your age, doesn’t look like you, doesn’t talk like you, and you’re like, “Wait, your mom does that to you too?” You know? Wait a minute, did that happen to you? That happened to my little brother. Like, it— that just clicks into your soul, because— and New York is a testament to that.

SYNACURE: Yeah. What you’re saying is totally true, of course. We are all the same on another level, you know: on a very, very important basic level, of course. But you can’t know that unless you’re you’re rubbing shoulders with people and talking to them. Because people make livings out of political careers separating us. And so you don’t know that unless you can have some kind of community in contact with other communities, which you can de in New York, and that’s a beautiful thing. Then you discover Oh, shoot. We are very, very similar,” you know?

Diandra: Do you think that artists naturally are inclined to discover that?

SYNACURE: Yes, especially music, because music can communicate without words. I mean, you can have words in music, but music is literary, which is why the marketing of music is sometimes so objectionable, because it’s based on niche marketing to people and putting them into categories and inventing all these genres and subgenres that’s meant to tell you what you do as opposed to what you should do,

I think, it’s important to understand things have really, really changed in the last few years in terms of how the business is structured. Outside of a few— really a tiny group of big, big, big artists, um, you’re kind of on your own, and there’s not a lot of infrastructure for supporting early artists and big— and— and mid-career artists or mid-size artists in terms of their audience. That infrastructure is kind of gone. So if you’re not Taylor Swift or a Beyoncé, you’re kind of on your own, and there’s not that many people that can sustain. They really have to do all that themselves for the most part, and for an individual, it’s just— or a band, it’s just impossible.

In the old days there were gatekeepers with substantial power and money. There was an infrastructure in place that could support early and mid-term artists to the point where they had viable careers. It’s very, very different now. What’s happened, basically, is the people who control the business of it, meaning the infrastructure, the distributors, the major labels, the DSPs, these people realize that, actually, they don’t function as gatekeepers anymore. Anyone can get their music out on any platform instantly. They don’t function the same, as in the old days, to make a record was prohibitively expensive. You needed help.

I’m time-jumping here, but basically the infrastructure now is set up so that it controls the highway itself, right? The music business, they don’t care what kind of car you’re driving now. They don’t care if you’re in a Rolls-Royce or in a Volkswagen or whatever, or on a motorcycle, as long as you pay the toll on the highway. And that goes for both the artist and for the consumer. So the consumer is paying on this end, the artists are paying on this end, and the people who will control the highway they make their money on either end, and they don’t really care what’s going up and all this other talk. And if depending on an artist to drive their own car, in terms of everything else, t aside from going into the studio, playing a gig, if you’re depending on these artists to do all this stuff you’re going to have a very, certain kind of artist that’s able to succeed at that.

You’re not going to have a lot of the artists in the past who only were able to succeed because they had the assistance of a record company. Now, granted, a lot of these artists were not very good at life. They died young or from drug overdoses. They flamed out or burned out, but they did what they were meant to do, which is make their art. Now, I mean, do you really think someone like, John Coltrane would have been a marketing genius or something like that when had serious drug problems.

Diandra: That is so difficult. All of it, it is just so difficult.

SYNACURE: It’s really difficult. It’s really difficult. I think the answer we the people somehow must pull together in some way and insist on an ecosystem for art and for music; that gives us for real what we need, and that is supportive of those people who have the most to give, artistically, not as marketers or influencers or whatever. We got to connect with those people and make sure that they’re heard and make sure that they’re supported, and that’s why it’s up to community. We are the people, and we have to figure this out.

Music is sacred, and if it’s not treated that way, then there’s something wrong. You know, good music is sacred; it’s what feeds our souls more than just about anything.

Diandra: I think that is why people are so against AI? It depletes the nature of music, which is actual humanity?

SYNACURE: Yeah, that’s a whole other beast, but I think there’s a sacredness to music that I also think protects it, to end it on a really positive note. I think it does— there’s something immovable about it.

Diandra: I hope you’re right. I don’t know.

SYNACURE: I mean, when you have little kids bombarded by sounds that they’re told are, you know, it’s great music or something, and they’re bombarded with it, and they’re seeing, you know, tens of thousands of commercials a year, I’m not so sure that these souls can’t get corrupted and stop understanding and lose their way, you know? I’m not sure. And I want to give grace to how cheap children are in terms of entertainment. Like, they just really do ride the wave. And I think you start, as you get older and you start having personal experiences, personal stories, that’s where music’s importance comes in, because it’s the soundtrack to that car ride where you had your first breakup. You know, it’s the soundtrack to when you were watching the stars. Whether or not it’s good music, you’ll decide by how you feel.I’m a hopeful pessimist. You know?

Diandra: I actually think that’s your next single, “Hopeful Pessimist.” There’s something about that that I want to hear. Like, what do you mean? Because I think that describes a lot of people now, this kind of super pessimistic, but also like, “Nah,” like, “Things can’t end like this¨ feeling.

SYNACURE: I think a lot of people feel that way. This is way too stupid and fucked up to last. So, I mean, you know, but people surprise you. Hopeful pessimism is like the idea and the concept of it, is kind of goes along with toxic positivity, like, as its opposite. I think people— you can’t be so happy that you don’t see what’s happening; you have to acknowledge negative so that your joy can route through it.

For More Information and to listen to ¨I Luv NYC¨ Click Here.