Diandra Interviews Rayvon Owen; Being Your Own Love Story

I recently told my friend that the perk of being an artist, especially for times like this pandemic, is that you don’t need employment to be an artist. In fact, you will probably spend a lot of time unemployed if you are an artist. In perspective, being an entertainer is the only job that you are whether paid or unpaid. Heck! You are not a factory worker if you are not working in a factory and you are not a lawyer if you don’t go to court or get cases, but, artist is something you always are 24/7. It is a truth that artists like, Rayvon Owen, acknowledge and embody. When you make your passion your profession, work becomes life because you have made what gives you life your literal livelihood, which is why our interview is about gaining and keeping your heart in the music, despite all that goes into making it a career.

Diandra: How do you feel the pandemic has changed life for artists?

Rayvon: I have become a technician. I am an audio engineer now, too. (he laughs) We have already been in that age of that, social media and DIY, but the time has really amplified that. It is a very strange time. If you weren’t running a reality show, you are definitely doing that now. I have a love/ hate relationship with social media. Some days, I love it and it goes great and it connects me with someone like, my fans. Yet, the pressure can be a lot, and I got a little of that experience being in American Idol with a camera in your face all the time. I got used to it, but I am a musician first.

Shaka y Dres x Rayvon Owen – La Locura (Video Oficial)

Diandra: You are such a positive guy, how do you deal with the highs and lows of making an artist’s career?

Rayvon: The whole, Idol experience was an up and down rollercoaster, but that, in some ways, is an artist’s career. You go to different projects and places, and going through that, even before Idol, I was always trying to stay positive. Now, I have to be real, and not always shove my feelings down. Yet, I really do get so much joy from making music and that keeps me looking  on the brighter side, but I do have my limits. I’m not going to do a cooking series when the only thing I can make is a PB&J. So I have to see what is me needing to make adjustments and what is pushing me out of my comfort zone. I am not going torture myself. 

Diandra: So is that how you keep hope and peace throughout your career?

Rayvon: Sometimes, good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people, but, at the end of the day, we will be alight. I have always been aware that, no matter how bad a day I am having, to be kind to people. Also, I am doing music. There is a natural lightness to doing what you love and doing music, even when I am sad.

Diandra: How do you see you have grown through your music? 

Rayvon: My personal journey and growth have caught up to my music. I was never really comfortable about singing to guys or singing about the personal stuff I was going through. With Las Virginias, I was able to embrace that people are complex; I am complex. I am from Virginia and I also had a “situationship” going on in Las Vegas. So the album, was like an unearthing. It was me coming out and letting myself put my life into my music.

By the time song a comes out, and people hear it, I am passed the situation. I have moved on to loving myself more; so the record feels like a stamp in time. It is a record of my journey to love the way I want to love. It was very much a realization.

Diandra: What have you learned about real love through your music?

Rayvon: Love feels real to me when I am completely free. When I am with my fiancé, I am in complete freedom and I am safe. Freedom and safety are the words that comes to me, and also friendship. You like the person and their is a feeling of mutuality. There is power to that, and it all feel interchangeable to me: love, freedom, safety, God, etc.

Diandra: Authenticity is a word that a lot of artists use: trying to be genuine and trying to see genuine in others. What does authenticity mean to you? 

Rayvon: I never want to be something I am not. I never want to share what is not me; so deciding to share my experiences made feel like I was being more honest. There is power to sharing your experiences because there are people that relate and reach back. It is empowering.

Rayvon Owen – Honesty [Official Music Video]

Confidence is seeing the potential of who you can be rather than trying to see who you are going to be. It is about having the strength to get up, look, and take a risk. I don’t ever want to fail because I didn’t take a risk or I wasn’t myself. I feel like people can tell the difference, at least, I have. You can’t knock someone for trying to be a better person or be more of who they should be, but you can tell when someone is tripping up or trying to be what they think they should be. You judge the tree by the fruit or rather you just a person by what they make. When you stay aware and open to yourself, it helps you bear good fruit and learn how to be better.

Diandra: So what is the vibe you feel you emanate today?

Rayvon: Sometimes, I feel like I am a little different, but not so different. I have grown, and the vibe I show now, is very “go with the flow” and “let’s talk, be open.” I am not going to tell anyone what they should feel: happy, sad, angry… My vibe is open, and I like to sing about darkness in a hopeful way. I want to take people through an experience and the only way I can do that is by telling my story.

Music has been able to take me around the world, and has shown me that, at the end of the day, we are all so similar. We are taught like, “Be different. Be unique. Be you!” We are taught to focus on our differences, but in every country I have been, I have seen it takes a village. We all have a family, friend, and a passion, and it takes a team to build a person up to build themselves. I want people to see that, through my songs, that if I build myself, they can build themselves.

Diandra: I think about that. Does our desperation to be “special” cut off our ability to enjoy the sameness we could share with others?

Rayvon: Yeah!

Diandra: So final question what is a love story that really inspires music in you?

Rayvon: Hmmmmmm…. I don’t know. I saw something about Romeo & Juliet last night. That is such a famous, classic love story, but it is also very disturbing the way it plays out. It is beautiful and, obviously, beautifully written but, it is weird.

Rayvon Owen & Selfie Kid – Flexin’ My Vibe

Diandra: Totally! They are 15 year old gang-members that fall in love and kill themselves, for each other, within 5 days. It’s a lot. (we laugh)

Rayvon: If that story had come out now, it would not have been a classic. People would have gone CRAZY! It would have gone down like the Tiger King Phenomenon.

Diandra: Totally! It would been massive for how wrong it was. (we laugh)

Rayvon: I think the story of how I grew to love myself is my love story. That is so cliche. That is a copout, but, growing up, I never had examples of a love story. I can’t think of a famous gay, love story growing up that inspired me like, some Disney classic. There was nothing like that, even though I was moved by hetero-love stories, but I have to be my own prince. I need to see my love story and see that as a possibility for me to be inspired by the art to make more art like it. Now, there are more powerful films like, Call Me By Your Name and Moonlight. Twenty years from now, someone is going to cite those films as making them more comfortable with their love story.

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