There's a lot of failing. Failure to me is a lot more important than success because the learning from it is so important. You have to be willing to fail, to step outside of yourself and you can't have a comfort zone. I had to learn that and I'm still learning that.
JlinHappy is already a state, so if you create something that's happy... OK, wonderful... but when you're in a place of distress or trauma, there are so many more directions that can go in to me. Something that's happy can only truly go in one direction, whereas with something like distress, anger, trauma, there are so many more interesting possibilities that those emotions can create.
JlinI want the people making this music to stick to what they know in terms of ensuring that they remain true to that and the authenticity. Don't be afraid to be original and explore of course, but don't necessarily abandon certain standards in order to try to appeal to other people.
JlinI like somebody I can consider edgy, because, I also find that when people see me; the first thing they might think about me, musically, is that I rap or make beats, in the sense of trap or hip-hop or whatever, and when they hear what I actually create, they'll often be like, 'Wait a minute, I wasn't expecting this'.
JlinMy comfort zone musically, I wouldn't necessarily say I have one now. But, when I did have one, I can definitely identify that it was sampling. I had to identify it honestly as sampling because I started to become dependent on using samples in order to make a track rather than being dependent on myself to make the track because I maybe didn't trust myself enough then.
JlinIf you create something, it really should mean something more than that to you. I had to grow into all of this though, through a learning process. I didn't wake up one day and just say, 'Yeah, that's Jlin, there it is'. That's why I said it took my entire life to make this album and it comes back to having that comfort zone - if you don't have one, the more progress you make and the more creative you become over time.
Jlin