What’s “next”?

Where will you be next year? What are your summer plans? What’s next for you? Any regular person (not insinuating that artists aren’t regular people) probably sees three very normal questions that require very normal answers. If you are a young artist, however, you probably cringed looking at the first one and don’t even want to touch on the second or third without notice or time to develop an adequate response. Anyone think that there is something wrong with that? I do. The need to know what’s next haunts every young artist immediately after your institution-based development is finished. So I’m done school, what’s next? My summer program is coming to an end, what’s next for fall? What’s more is that what’s next is almost never a positive even if “next” is a socially acceptable response because the question then will be…well what’s next after that? The saddest thing about “next” as a concept is that it literally has no answer, and this, therefore, impossible question of “next” cannot only be extremely discouraging, I think it can also be very dangerous to the young artist’s humanity. 

What do I mean by this? When I am forced to think of what will be happening next it immediately encourages self-doubt and insecurity. Even if you have gigs coming up, engagements that, up until the topic of next was brought about, you were very proud of, doubt rears its ugly head before you can formulate a response. “Will my next match their next” is the inevitable result no matter how secure you are in yourself. Personally, I have asked the question many times if this has to do with my idea of my own worth as a singer, as if I am not adequate enough, and never will be, to answer the daunting question of next. I want to entertain the notion here that these sentiments have nothing to do with your security of self, and everything to do with what society has told you is acceptable. From programs, to repertoire, to contracts, your development has given you insight into what a successful “next” looks like, and what does not. It is time to dismantle the societal pressure and return to an internal reality surrounding this issue.

This reality has no better example than where we find ourselves now. If I asked you what was next in January, the socially acceptable list of summer activities, contracts, and engagements in the new year would be your response. If I asked you last month however, what would it be then? Who would have been prepared for next to be a pandemic and a revolution? I can say that this is the first time I have thought of this concept of next as something separate from my life as an artist. Next for me is building up enough character and will to be affirmed in my identity as a black man, and not be scared of any of it. Next for me is practising the safest measures possible to ensure I can protect my family and loved ones from a deadly virus. Has next ever been this real, this…human? Have you taken a step back during the past days to realize that the space that you are allowing oppressed voices right now could dictate what is next in your own life? Perhaps the societal pressure you have felt all these years needs to be replaced with humanity once more, and not humanity of an artist, but humanity of the person behind the art.

So what can be done? The first thing is that it must be clear that projects are not your validation as a human being. I’ve touched on this before but you are not the industry of your art. What’s next, is a young person growing with the experiences they will have. What’s next, is spending time with people you care about. If your “next” is something that you fear is insignificant, I invite you to realize that that very seemingly insignificant thing is going to play a role in forming your humanity, and your humanity is what forms your art. Summer programs, institutions, contracts, and engagements are all well and good, but they are simply moments in time that you hope will result in what you are really looking for in next. What you are looking for is the life experience, this is the next that actually grows you as a person. Genuine life experience can be found in every avenue of just existing, and who is to say that doesn’t also form your next? As we learn more about the world we are trying to form, allow your next to be space for you to breathe, space for you to process, and spend less time trying to be socially acceptable, because society is a construct, and that construct is being dismantled right now. You get to decide what your next will mean. I hope that it can have more roots in you as a person first, and in you as everything else you are, second.