What
You AreFROM A 2017 LOOP TO MY FIRST RELEASE

A guitar loop, an unfinished dream, and four years of waiting.

In 2017, I found a guitar loop and played it over and over while the melody and lyrics began to form. It became one of the songs I wanted to take further, even though I was still teaching myself how to build music in FL Studio.

By 2019, I had the guitar ready and was still working on the production. At the same time, I was working full-time, raising my daughter as a single mother and running a busy household. Sometimes Friday night was the only space I had for music.

I finished the music for many songs in FL Studio, but recording vocals was another obstacle. I thought that one day I would take my backtracks to a professional producer and have the songs remade properly. That would have taken money and time I did not have, so the songs waited.

Then life changed the route.

In 2021, I was going through a hectic time. My mom had to move in with me even though I could barely afford it, and the little space and time I had for music became even smaller. I needed an escape, so for the first time in about six years I went out with a friend to a restaurant opening.

That evening, Namibian artist Livinge Dennis was performing. Earlier she had sung one of her own Afrikaans songs, Kalvoet Kind, and it moved me to tears. During her break she joined our table, and I asked whether she would come to my house after the show and play it for my mom.

She did. We spent a beautiful evening playing music, and eventually I played her some of my backtracks. Her reaction changed something in me. She told me I was sitting on a gold mine and encouraged me to believe in the songs I had been making quietly at home. She asked if she could sing one of them and record it in a studio.

The memory stick went into the studio.

I still remember the date. I arrived at the studio with the backtrack on a memory stick, thinking the producer was going to rebuild the whole song. To my surprise, they used the backtrack I had created. Livinge sang the song three times — and it was done.

That moment meant more than simply recording a song. The music I had built at home while learning as I went was good enough to become the foundation of a real recording.

I only received the finished song back from the studio in November. On 21 November 2021, I uploaded What You Are to YouTube. It became my first released song.

I have often thought about the strange route that led there. If my mom had not moved in, I might never have gone out that evening, never met Livinge, and never had that experience that made me believe I could take my music further. I am still thankful that I met her.

Life interrupted the music again after that. Then, in 2024, I began finishing and sharing my own songs again. The Light became part of that return. Today, the songs are being reimagined across genres — but their message remains at the centre.