“Things I Never Thought I'd Say” with Sam Crane
Host Sam Crane interviews women in music as her special guests. Each episode focuses on a different woman. Sam delves deep and the guests offer up personal testimonies about the challenges they face, their mindset, how they overcame adversity and reflect on what they learned to tackle future challenges.
“Things I Never Thought I'd Say” with Sam Crane
Episode 6: Michelle Escoffrey, Award-Winning Songwriter and PRS President
Welcome to the sixth and last official episode of Season 1 of the exciting new podcast, 🎵Things I Never Thought I'd Say🎵 with your host - singer, songwriter, performer and producer Sam Crane.
It's all about women in music and their mindset.
On today's episode, Sam is interviewing Michelle Escoffery, an Award-winning Songwriter and President of the Members Council of PRS. Michelle has been heavily involved in every element of songwriting, singing, directing, producing, and vocal coaching and continues to do so. Michelle is also an Ivor Novello Award winner for her song ‘Just A Little’.
Sarah answers these three questions ...
- Who she is?
- What things she never thought she'd say that she is now saying?
- What challenges she is facing now and how she can apply that winning mindset to overcome them?
Listen to this episode to find out more about Michelle and why she does what she does.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[0:05] Michelle Escoffery Introduction
[13:23] Empowering Women in Music Mindset
[17:04] Path to President
[23:23] Navigating the Music Business Challenges
[32:14] Legacy and Self-Care for Next Generation
[42:34] Musical Journey and Inspiration
[49:22] Podcast Season Finale Special Announcement
Check out Michelle’s socials:
https://www.facebook.com/people/Michelle-Escoffery/100063149832794/
https://www.instagram.com/michelleescoffery/
https://x.com/missescoffery
https://www.youtube.com/@mescoffery1
Check out songs written by Michelle:
Think About Me (with Artful Dodger)
Just A Little (by Liberty X)
Complicated Disaster (by Tina Turner)
🎵Things I Never Thought I’d Say🎵
We warmly invite you to subscribe to our website everybirdrecords.uk and join our Facebook Member Group
Donate via Buzzsprout 🎁🚀
Connect with Sam Crane:
www.samcrane.com
www.facebook.com/samcranesoul
www.instagram.com/samcranemusic/
twitter.com/samcranemusic
www.youtube.com/samcranesinger
www.tiktok.com/@samcranemusic
Sponsorship:
🌟 Proudly Commissioned and Sponsored by Every Bird Records CIC:
Things I could've done yesterday. I'm doing them today, things I never thought I'd say, things I could've done yesterday. I'm so excited. You can tell I'm excited, I'm always excited. But we have the most special guest no-transcript Ivor Novello. Thank you, that's the one Ivor Novello award winner. She's performed with and written for some of the most amazing people in music and she's amazing herself, and she's now a PRS president. Oh, my goodness, all in one person. It is Michelle Iscoffrey.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you, thank you, welcome. Oh, thank you so much, sam, and it was such a pleasure to meet you a few weeks ago and thank you for having me. I'm honoured, I'm honoured to be your last in your season, so thank you. We are honoured to have you, so thank you we are honored to have you, so thank you.
Speaker 1:So I've explained to our listeners who I think you are. Now I'd like you, in your own words, to tell us who you are and how you see yourself, and anything to do with music and michelle.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, okay, who am I? That's a big question. Okay, I'm the daughter of George and Millie Escoffery. I'm a sister, an aunt, a niece, a mother, a wife. Those are roles, really. Who I am is, I guess, I'm a seeker. I am somebody who loves to help others, who is very committed to learning and to just always evolving and always reinventing myself and just learning, learning about life, moving through life, and I love creating beautiful environments and I love to create stories. So part of who I am is a storyteller and somebody that creates experiences for myself and for others.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is gorgeous. Oh, I love that that was not the answer I expected, which is great, because this is what all these interviews are about you hear and find out about people that you had no idea, so tell us more about Michelle, the music lady please.
Speaker 2:So I come from a musical family. I was born into a musical family, so I come from from four sisters including myself, and my dad taught us all how to sing. I started singing when I was seven with the group and I trained and did my grades and all kinds of stuff. I found my certificates the other day We've been doing major clear outs and I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot that I actually took exams in voice and also in piano, yeah. So I started singing with my sisters in church when I was seven and then I went semi-professional at nine with my sisters. So that meant I was on the road doing gigs, doing weddings, banquets, everything you name it. And then I went professional at 16. So we were signed to Atlantic Records, the first UK gospel act of the time that was signed to an American label. We were signed to Sylvia Rhone, who is an amazing heavyweight in the game, and she took a chance on us and I've been involved in music my whole life.
Speaker 2:I kind of started writing songs when I was 16 and just kept going and was headhunted for a group called Truce, which I joined. What year was that? I think 93, I think and we trained for about a year, rehearsed and just really got our sound down. We were signed to Big Life Records, an independent label, and I was in that group for about six years and my experience of the group I guess I got to a stage where I didn't want to be on the road anymore. I felt like I was missing out so much on life and my friends and my family and people getting married and having children and all kinds of things happening, and I was never over here. So I decided to take a step back and fully launch myself into songwriting.
Speaker 2:I signed to EMI Music Publishing in, I think, 2000. The rest is history. I've been writing songs ever since and then got involved in education as well, and that kind of happened by chance because I was asked to come and do a masterclass at Westminster University, which then turned into them inviting me back again and again and again and then saying would you consider being a visiting lecturer? And I'm like me, really. So yeah, I taught there for quite some time. I think about 10 years. I was there and have done loads of educating in my time. So I'm a postgraduate lecturer in commercial songwriting and, yeah, like I said, it's really for me about imparting tools and skills to the next generation.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense to me to be doing something and you're not passing it on. So that's kind of where I've been, yeah, and I'm still loving life, loving music, loving creating music and loving learning. You know, the industry's changed so much within that time span, and just learning about that and making sure that I'm kind of tapped into what's happening so that I can still pass on gems and cheat codes.
Speaker 1:Wow, there's so much in there what you've just said, so I'm going to ask you what's been. It's going to be hard for you to think, because it's been a career that's spanned so many years. What comes to mind is a highlight for you. Well, there's so many, there's so many years. What comes to?
Speaker 2:mind, is a highlight for you. Well, there's so many. There's so many, let me think, always singing with my sisters, because it's just a different frequency. I can't explain it, but I think when people that are related sing together, there's almost a phasing that happens. The harmonies are so close and I guess because we had sung together most of our lives, it just locks in. So I think, definitely singing with my sisters and learning from my sisters as well, and definitely writing a song for Tina Turner, or having Tina Turner sing one of my songs and being able to actually still have my vocals on the record, which was I was like what um?
Speaker 2:Traveling and writing with people, building relationships, has been a highlight. There are lots of people that I've written with that I'm still friends with to this day. Building those relationships. That's definitely been a highlight and it's enriched my life. And then, obviously, liberty X them having that number one and winning an Ivor for that and a Brit Award has been great too. There's many, many highlights, also educating, when you're imparting with young songwriters, young artists, and then you see them go and do their thing. There's a singer called Celine Love who I taught on the MA course at Toll Yard. My husband showed me yesterday she just did a gig with Trevor Horn at the Roundhouse and I was like oh, I'm so proud of her.
Speaker 2:So things like that are highlights for me. When you see people out there doing it and you're just like amazing, amazing, I love it oh, there's sound like great memories there for you.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I've had.
Speaker 2:I have had a lot of fun over the years and I've got to see many, many different countries and experience different cultures, and that's really what life's about, I think.
Speaker 1:Did you always know you were going to go into music? Would you sing with the sisters?
Speaker 2:What? No, I never wanted to do music.
Speaker 1:How's that working out for you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not interested. It's really not working out for me. Yeah, I wasn't interested in music at all. It's something that you did because you're a part of a musical family. It's like, no, you will sing. I was like, oh okay, I wanted to do either fashion or interior design. I was really interested in art, really interested in graphics. I really love doing internal drawings and looking at spaces and how to make spaces functional and beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that didn't work out for me at all but in some ways you've scratched your creative itch by finding ways of making audio spaces beautiful and functional yeah, it's not the same, but I'll take it with that amount of success, I think that's an okay trade-off. So do you think there's any chance of you ever going back to doing interior?
Speaker 2:I did do a foundation course in interior design and I do have an eye for interior stuff. I would never call myself an interior designer, but I do like aesthetic and I like things to look lovely and I love for people to have an experience. So whether that is a show that I'm curating or a wellness space that I'm curating, it always has to be beautiful. People have to leave feeling way better than they did when they came in. That's always my thing, okay and feel comfortable and feel safe as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're good things to feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of makes the world go round, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes we don't get to have that in our own personal spaces. So to be able to go somewhere and feel nourished and feel, oh wow, this is so beautiful, it's luxurious or it's opulent or it's healing, that's something that people can take away with them Nice.
Speaker 1:Well, we're getting back to the lady in music that you are. How would you actually describe yourself? What role do you think you play? So you're at a party and somebody who doesn't know you and they say I always say I'm a songwriter.
Speaker 2:I always I'm a songwriter, so I produce vocals. Yeah, I'm a songwriter, I create stories. That's what I say. First, before being a singer, I would always say I'm a songwriter. The voice carries the song, the voice carries the story and the delivery of that story. It's poignant when the delivery is right, the vocal delivery is right, but you are delivering that lyric, You're delivering the story and the melody, so it's a full package. But I love to write lyric and melody.
Speaker 1:You said you wrote your first song at 16. Is that right? Yeah, I'm interested to know how it goes from. Oh, I'm just singing with my sisters, don't really want to do music to just getting into this world where you've stayed for such a long time and had success for such a long time, how does that?
Speaker 2:happen. You know, the thing I love about music and about creativity is that you start with nothing. You literally start with absolutely nothing and at the end of a day or two days, or three days or two months or whatever it is, you have something and it's tangible, and then other people experience it and it takes on a life of its own. And I think I got addicted to that experience, to the experience of I'm going to go today and I'm going to meet this person and we're going to sit down in a room together. We don't even know each other, but we're going to create something. We don't know what it's going to be, we don know if it'll be great, if it will be terrible, we don't know, but we're willing to take that chance. I think that that's really what's kept me there. I mean, I don't really know any other industry where you can meet so many people from so many different walks of life and you have a commonality yeah so I think that's the thing for me I find it really interesting.
Speaker 2:You meet people and you think, wow, we would never have looked at each other and thought, oh yeah, I want to write a song with you. It would never have happened. But you're put into a situation and you find common ground. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so cool. So this podcast is all about women and mindset in music, which you are absolutely, I was going to say, the master of, but then that's a masculine thing You're the mistress of, but then that doesn't sound right. But you know, you're the queen of. I think it's fair to say yeah Very soon into the part where it's things you never thought you'd say For our listeners, about the women and music and mindset. It was a little gem about how they could apply you know what you said about being there and writing with other people and creating something, and if they haven't even started yet on the journey, but nowhere near where you started or where you are, have you got some words of wisdom to give them hope or help them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I would say never define yourself by boundaries. Never define yourself by boundaries. You know people will always say, oh, you can't do that or you should do this. It's not true. You do what you want to do and you explore and you experiment and you try things out. A lot of the success I've had in my career is just because I've tried things and where people have said, oh well, that's not your style of music or this isn't really where we see you, that's great that you don't see me there, but I see myself there and at least I want to try. So I've always had the mantra of try at least once. If you're good at it, do it again, and if you enjoy it, do it again, and if you don't, don't love that.
Speaker 1:So, listeners, try at least once yeah, at least once.
Speaker 2:I think that we're now in a place where people expect people to be great instantly, and that is absolutely not true with everything. If you think about a baby, a baby doesn't just get up and walk and start running. They just don't. They crawl, they get up, they fall, they get up, they fall, they walk a little bit. They, they get up, they fall, they get up, they fall, they walk a little bit, they fall, they get tired. It's a process and it's the same thing with any craft, any skill that you're honing. It takes time and it takes practice. It takes actually committing those hours to do it. To discover to go oh that's really good. It to discover to go oh that's really good. I'm going to use that again finding your little trademarks and things that people identify as what you do. I think that's really important and that exploration of that, because where you start is never where you're going to finish yes, love that.
Speaker 1:That is so true, it really is. All of us have got examples of that, but certainly you have. You know, you started out I love the story Singing with your sisters. Didn't really want to do music and you just yeah, it's incredible. Well done. So let's go to the second part of this podcast. So things I never thought I'd say, and now I'd like for you to give us some examples I mean, you've talked about things you've done already, but some examples of things that you never thought you'd say about yourself, whether it's personal or about music, and things that you're now doing, and maybe tell us a bit more about the mindset that got you there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I never thought I'd say I'm an educator. Ever, never thought that, definitely never thought I'd say I'm a lecturer. Never thought I'd say that. I never thought I'd say I've worked with people like Tina Turner. I've never thought I'd say something like that. I never thought I'd say I'm a producer, never really thought about it for a long time until people started saying it to me and I'm thinking oh really, is that what we're doing here? I just thought I was recording some vocals. So, yeah, there's lots of things I think I would not put it in my mind. I definitely never thought I'd say I would be a director, a board member or a trustee or the president of PRS members council. Never thought that I'd say any of those things how did they come about which?
Speaker 2:one.
Speaker 1:I met you at the PRS event. Yes, that's one of your roles at the moment. So how did that come about?
Speaker 2:so I came on to what was then the board, which is now the members council, in 2018 and I'd actually been broached about three years before then but I just felt like it wasn't relevant to me and at the time, you know, you're looking at the makeup of the board and you're seeing lots of middle-aged white men and going that does not relate, it doesn't compute. Why would I want to put myself in that space? Imogen Heap left, so they had a casual vacancy, so I was asked to just take the meeting with the deputy chair and I'm like, okay, I'll take the meeting. I'm still not interested, but I'll take the meeting and he was a very nice man. His name's Simon Darlow and we had a great conversation about music, copyright, songwriters rights, why it's important for songwriters to be in the room, all of the things and it really gave me a lot of food for thought and I started thinking about okay, if you want to be part of the solution, you can't be on the periphery, you can't be on the outside trying to make change. That doesn't really work. So that's why I took the casual vacancy.
Speaker 2:So that was October 2018 and then I ran for my seat 2019, and then that got on, which was a massive shock, because they always prep you and say you know you normally don't get your seat the first year, so I fully expected not to be elected. And then I was and I'm like, oh, what do I do now? And it's been great. It's been a very steep learning curve because it's a different language, it's a different landscape, but it allows you to work from the inside and also to have a voice in that room, around that table, for people who either make music like you, look like you, have experiences like you, have a similar background to you and just a different perspective. So that's how that came about.
Speaker 2:And then, I guess, because I've been quite vocal about that and about diversity and inclusion and the fact that it's important and representation is important and if we are serving a broad membership, then really we should have a broad representation within that space I was recommended to go for president, which I had no intentions again, no intentions of going for president. It wasn wasn't even in my mind, on my radar, until people started approaching me saying you should go for this, and I'm like, why? Really? It was really my husband and my family that was like no, you should go for this, michelle, and then I went for it and, yeah, I'm here, fantastic.
Speaker 1:And how long can you actually stay on as president? As long as you want no, no, no, four years.
Speaker 2:So I'm coming to the end of my term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's been great, been amazing, to be the first president, so I've been able to shape the role and to create initiatives, to be able to listen to the membership and what they're saying, that they want and need, and be able to take that back to management, to the members council, and say this is the direction we really should be going in in order to support our members and then create initiatives that can support, so that for me, it's about regionality, it's about hitting as many spaces as we possibly can and not being London centric.
Speaker 2:It's about global reach as well, because we have members all over the world.
Speaker 2:And it's about sometimes I don't like using the word education because the kind of perception of education is academia, but what I mean when I say education is informed to make sure that our membership are informed informed about the changes, informed about things that are happening in the industry, things they should be plugged into, what opportunities are out there for them and where they could possibly go in their career outside of either writing songs or composing other things as well, plugging into things like sync, into things like the community and collaborating with others and just really understanding and knowing their rights.
Speaker 2:And it's been quite eye-opening to really understand that a lot of members they might sign up to PRS but they don't necessarily register their songs. So it's like, well, you have to register your works in order to get paid, so they know where it's played, when it's played and then you can get paid those royalties. So it's just getting people to really understand what their rights are, understand that they shouldn't be just giving away their rights or signing buyouts willy-nilly, yeah, and just empowering our members to grow and to get the most out of their careers wow, and getting back to the whole prs thing, and before you got involved in being on the council and then becoming president, you were already in the industry.
Speaker 1:Did you understand the difference or did you have to learn all of this? Is it something that, being in the industry, I know this? Or did you learn more being on the board?
Speaker 2:I definitely feel like I've learned more about the industry, being on the board and the intricacies and complexities of the industry. However, I think, because I was signed from such an early age and all my sisters are older than me I was exposed to executives and producers in the business, so I got to learn a lot about the business from quite a young age. I've been a member of PRS since 1992. I've been registering my work since 1992. And things like that and just being really on top of those kinds of things and understanding that I am the business.
Speaker 2:Nothing's going to come to me unless I put myself forward and been really really clear on that. So I think that that's also why I'm so passionate about imparting that with young writers, producers, composers, performers coming up, that if you're sitting down waiting for people to do that for you, nearly 100% you're going to get ripped off. First of all, if you're ill-informed, you're going to get ripped off. It's your responsibility and your duty to be informed, and especially now there's so much information out there that you can tap into to understand. Okay, what does copyright mean? What do these terms mean? If I sign this contract, etc. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:yeah, you can imagine. Obviously, you've been doing it since you were 16, so you probably understand it a lot more than most people will do. But it is quite a difficult industry to navigate, isn't it? Because, as creatives, we just want to play, we just want to sing, we want to party, we wanted this.
Speaker 2:That's the thing, and the thing about that is you also need to eat. Yeah, we also need to eat, and if we're going into a business, then we should understand what the rules of engagement are. We should understand how long am I going to be in this thing? What do I need to deliver? What does that mean? When I signed my first deal, I didn't understand what 300% songs mean and how long that really takes. Didn't get it. So, oh, that's easy. Yeah, I could do that. Two years later, still haven't done it because we haven't released in any major territories. Okay, this is harder than I thought it was. It is that thing of, yes, we're creative, but we're also multifaceted, so we need to be that in this industry too.
Speaker 1:We need to do that in music that's fascinating, I think for a lot of people, including myself, it's that creative part of the brain, but using the logical part of the brain, and we all have the ability to do it. But I think that's one of the reasons we do music is we love doing the fun, creative part yeah, if you're not getting paid and you're not being supported, you can't be creative.
Speaker 2:It's very hard to be creative when you're struggling yeah, very hard when you're worrying about oh my, I've got to pay this bill or this is coming in and I can't get to that meeting. You know, when I first started, I was having one travel card a week and making sure on that day because that's what I could afford to go into London, to go into town and take meetings. So you'd plan everything on that one day and try to hit everything in one day. But that's what it was. If you're stressed and you're worrying about, oh my gosh, how do I make ends meet, it's hard to be creative, really hard.
Speaker 2:So we have to take responsibility for our own wellbeing but also sustaining our income. You know, and I always always say to people, treat this like a business. Work until you're at that tipping point where you don't have to have a day job, but don't give up your day job and you don't have a backup. It doesn't make sense. Anybody in business will tell you not to do that. So I like to think of people in music writers, artists. We're entrepreneurs and we have to see it that way. So if we are entrepreneurs, creativity is one side of our business, but what about the rest? It has to be holistic?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so would that be the advice you'd give to? Well, yeah, it's the advice you're giving to me and to our listeners. So, as part of the things I never thought I'd say, you're talking about being the president of prs, which is just that's mind-blowing to me. It really is, and I don't know how it feels for you, but it's mind-blowing to me too.
Speaker 2:It definitely isn't something that was on my trajectory at all, never thought about that, but you know it's a way to, it's a way to give back and it's a way to be part of the change.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's how I see it.
Speaker 2:True, yeah, you have to be in the room you have to be in the room, man, you've got to be in the room. You've got to be on the dance floor so we are here with Michelle Iscoffrey.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic to be speaking with her. She's sharing her thoughts and ideas about all things music and the business side of things, because it is a music business, isn't it, michelle?
Speaker 2:exactly and we are the business never forget.
Speaker 1:We are the business and it is like a masterclass. We are getting a masterclass from the woman herself, president at prs. But even before that, the reason you've got to be this is because of everything you've done up until this point. Anyway, you haven't just gone. Do you know what? I'll wake up this morning and I'll become president. No, I can imagine. You've worked very, very hard.
Speaker 2:It's been a lot of fun, no doubt, but you put the time in, you put the effort in yeah, I've done my ten thousand hours, and then some I can imagine, yes, wow, brilliant, but it's been great.
Speaker 1:I don't think I would change anything that's lovely to hear, because you do hear about other situations where it's difficult for women in music and I'm sure you've come across that, whether it's your own personal story or you've been around other women that have had situations happen to them. So for you to say that is really heartening for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course there's been challenges, of course, but, as I said earlier, I don't really subscribe to boundaries and I don't subscribe to ceilings, walls, any of that stuff. I just go for it and just at least try, at least try. And that's how I've always been. I guess that comes from my parents, you know. They both came from Jamaica in the late fifties and they came and they had to re-educate because, oh, we don't recognise your qualifications here, all of that stuff. Yeah, so we've come from very tenacious parents and people that don't give up and that reinvent and recreate themselves and knew that they wanted to provide a good life for their family and that's what they did. So that's what I've always grown up seeing of. Oh, okay, so there are obstacles, but we can circumnavigate, or we get over them or we find a way.
Speaker 2:When I was born, my dad was studying a degree in psychology and then he ended up being the director of mental health services for Hackney. So I've always seen progression and growth. That's's what I know. So that's what I do. Yeah, good role model yeah, and my mum also. My mum was a nurse and so she cared for other people and she always put herself out and she dressed us as the Escoffreys. A lot of our clothes were made by my mum. She was an amazing seamstress and she knitted and she cooked, then she did all kinds of things. So we always had that support system. And really clear on what other people think of you or what other people think you're capable of does not define you. It only defines you if you believe them that is a gem there itself.
Speaker 1:I love that. Yeah, you should get a t-shirt with that written on it only defines you if you believe it's true, it's so true, it really is. Yeah, well, that takes us nicely into the last part of this podcast. I can't believe it's coming to an end. It's been such a wonderful, wonderful talking with you, michelle. Yeah, it's been good talking to you too. So the last part is about what challenges are you facing now, if there are any, and how can you apply that mindset to those challenges oh, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:There's always challenges, I think. Whenever you are on the frontier, there are challenges. Whenever you are pushing for change, there are always challenges, and I think sometimes it's really mindset of how dare you be too successful? How dare you, you know, stand out too much, don't stand out too much, oh, no, no, no, don't, don't be successful in it. They always um, worship the underdog, yes, and I was never raised that way. So that will always be a challenge.
Speaker 2:I think that it's a challenge for the next generation, but I'm really encouraged that they seem to like not let that really bother them. They don't seem to be concerned with red tape, which is fantastic. They have their own tape, and their tape seems to be gold or platinum and the systems that can be in place to, I guess, hold you back. They've just totally ripped that up. I just think it's amazing. So I guess one of the challenges is learning from the generation. Then, how did you do that? Teach me how you did that, please. I think it's more shifting mindsets in that way and just being freer. I think that they have a freeness that we don't necessarily have I'll speak for myself that I don't necessarily have, or my generation doesn't necessarily have, which I just admire and just think that's amazing, and they're good at saying no, I'm not doing that, I don't want to do that, which I again applaud and think is amazing. And why not? We've worked really hard so that they could have those choices. But when they are exercising those choices and we're going, oh, they're so spoiled, they're so this, they're, they're so that. No, we worked for that, we worked for them to have that. What I want to make sure is what are they now passing on? What are they going to pass on to the next generation? That's what I'm really interested in and making sure that we leave a solid legacy.
Speaker 1:What will you be most proud of as part of your legacy?
Speaker 2:There's a question for you. I mean, you don't ask the easy ones, do you, sam? Seeing more people from diverse backgrounds, more people from different walks of life in spaces that you do not expect them to be, in spaces that you do not expect them to be in? Last summer I went to the V&A around carnival time. We were in the courtyard and gosh, what's his name? Is it Norman Jay? I think it was. I could be getting that wrong, but basically the whole courtyard was filled with just an array of different cultures beautiful black people, asian, white people, all there listening to the music of the 1950s, 60s that made up the Windrush, and it was multi-generational. And I stood there and just thought, wow, that would never have happened 10 years ago, this would never have happened 20 years ago. And for the younger generation in the next 10 years, this will be a norm. Yes, they won't know anything else. That's what I'm excited about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you're smashing through things. Keep going back to it. Being president at PRS, that will become the norm. Someone who's not the typical old school.
Speaker 2:That's why we put ourselves in those spaces right, even if it feels uncomfortable, even if, you know sometimes you're like, oh, should I really be there? Yes, you should and yes, you must. Yeah yeah yeah because, it's not for us, it's for what's coming next. Do you know what I mean? It is for us, but it's also for what's coming next. We need to be able to see and go. Oh, that's possible, and if it's not, let's create it is there anything still that you want to do?
Speaker 1:Oh?
Speaker 2:there's loads. There's loads of things I want to do. Still there's loads. I want to get back in the studio.
Speaker 2:I have an initiative called Pause. I do think eventually it will encompass men as well, but at the moment it's for women in the creative industries or in professional spaces that find themselves either burning out or not knowing how to create that balance in their life. So I do workshops, retreats, day retreats, weekend retreats, et cetera, and it's called pause and that's literally what it is. You come and you take a pause and you take care of yourself. And I always say you can do as much or as little in that space as you want.
Speaker 2:If you want to just lie down and sleep for 24 hours, that's, you Do what you need to do. But it's a space where you can recharge, regenerate, figure out, ok, what is it that's going on with me, or what do I want to do next? And then go back into your life, into the world, just feeling supported, feeling heard, held and recharged. So that's definitely something that I'm looking to do more of in the future and I guess really, as I said before, just supporting the next generation of creatives and not just creatives executives too yes, because a lot of us are navigating this space for the first time. Maybe being able to support in that way too, that's important to me oh, that's so cool, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:And I've got one. Maybe one final one. You'll notice there might be a few more, but I just wanted to ask you what do you do to relax because you've had such a busy life. So what do you do to pause?
Speaker 2:I switch off. I actually set time out. So there's a couple of things that I do at the weekend. On a Sunday, I I do absolutely nothing, like nothing. I give myself permission to lay in my bed all day if I want to, or go for a long walk, have a bath, just totally empty my brain. I'm not even on my phone, really. If I am, I'm speaking to family or very close friends, something that's gonna feed me. I do that.
Speaker 2:I do have a spiritual practice, so I meditate, I pray a lot, I journal and I do a lot of breathing. Sometimes it's really just one of my mentors calls it a two-minute vacation, where you just literally take a pause in the day and go. Okay, you know what? I'm just gonna go and stand outside for two minutes, I'm gonna put my feet on the ground and I'm just gonna breathe, and I find that when I do that, things that didn't make sense suddenly make sense, or something that I thought was insurmountable, it's like it's not that bad. It's actually not that bad. I just need to just relax for a minute. So I do a lot of that.
Speaker 2:My husband and I have a ritual of going away at the end of the year, so, as early in December as we can, we go off to the Caribbean and just switch off for nearly two months and just go swimming in the sea, go for long, long walks, soak in the sunshine, drink lots of coconut water and just really recharge and replenish and come back ready for the new year ahead. And those are some of the things that I do. I take a lot of salt baths. We're in stressful environment, we can absorb a lot of stuff. So salt, pink, himalayan or Epsom they're really good at detoxifying the body, so I do that as well.
Speaker 2:I'll take a bath every week without fail. You'll find me having a bath somewhere and just trying to take care. And I like to sleep. I try to make sure that I rest properly, because when you're giving a lot of energy, you have to replenish and you have to rest. So I'm really strict on myself in that way. If I'm tired, go to sleep, go to bed, you know. So, yeah, I, um, I do a lot of work in the wellness space and I'm a firm believer that you cannot coach someone or mentor somebody if you are not doing it yourself. So I like to lead by example and do it myself, so I know what the benefits are and what the effects are, and I can share that great advice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I feel very peaceful now.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you oh, yes, that's how it should be. Yeah, it's that thing. You know, the gift of breath. It's the first thing we come in with and it's the last thing that we leave with. And when we focus on our breath, we can change our mood. We can change how our blood pressure is. We can change that. We are in control of that, and a lot of life we feel like we're not in control, but when we return to the breath, we can come back to ourselves, come back to center, and then things just seem a little bit more manageable, a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:There's a guy he's on instagram. Actually, his instagram is the and during COVID I did that every morning, 7.30 to 8. And, it's amazing, changed my life and it's really helped. Just, oh, yeah, come back to centre, breathe. How do you breathe? Again, most of us don't breathe. We breathe so shallowly, so we're anxious. We're always here. Just take a deep breath and really tune in with yourself when you need to make a decision and you're like, oh, what should I do? Stop, take a deep breath, tune in. What's going on here? We'll scan your body. What's happening right now?
Speaker 1:wow, yes, exactly, that's so wonderful.
Speaker 2:The inhale and the exhale, and it's in that cause, between the inhale and the exhale, we often find peace and we often find clarity.
Speaker 1:Fantastic advice. Thank you so much, Michelle. So we're coming towards the end of the podcast and I've had such a wonderful time talking with you and listening to you. It's been great talking with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's been fantastic. You asked me some really difficult questions.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry, but I thought while I'm talking to you, you were just giving so much information. I thought, ooh, I want to know more. Tell me more. Yeah, totally, it's great. Great For our listeners. If they haven't heard your music yet, what would you suggest that they go and listen to of your music?
Speaker 2:That's a hard one because I haven't written anything really new in a little while. I guess the old favourites think about me Artful Dodger 24-7, artful Dodger Liberty X, just a Little. And, if you want to go a little bit deeper, tina Turner Greatest Hits. The song I wrote for her was called Complicated Disaster. Yeah, I'm on Spotify but I've got hardly any listeners because I'm just not active at all. I'm so bad, but I'm hoping to improve this year. I used to promote a show. I'll tell you the story of how it came about. So my sister she basically taught me how to write songs.
Speaker 2:My sister passed away in 1999 and she passed on flight coming back off tour with Vanessa May. She had a pulmonary embolism which was caused by deep vein thrombosis and one of the things that she always wanted to do. She was an avid poet, she loved words and an amazing, prolific songwriter and she always wanted to own a cafe or something where people could come do live music and spoken word and be really cool. So in 2000, it was supposed to be a one-off event did an event for her called Kindred Spirit, and people kept asking me when are you going to do it again? I think we started doing it like every two months, and then the demand for it was strong so we ended up doing it every month. So we ran an event every month.
Speaker 2:It started off in Brixton. Well, it started off in the West End, actually a place called Jamaica Blue, and then we went to the Crypt in Brixton and we ended up at a place called the Rhythm Factory in Whitechapel and then we had the main night, which was Kindred Spirit, with a full live band, and the ethos of the night is it's non-elitism and it's giving people a platform that maybe not always get a platform, but they're excellent. It's a house band. Everybody uses the same band, doesn't matter what stage you are, and it just was great and spoken word and over the years people keep saying when are you going to bring kindred back? And the ceo of jazz refresh sat me down about maybe about a year or so ago and was like okay, what's it going to take? And I was like um, so we have collaborated, jazz refreshed and myself, and then on the 12th of April we're having the Kindred reunion at the Purcell Room at Southbank and I'm super excited. I'm so excited. I'm like inside myself and on Instagram the pause page is pausetheinnercircle.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Okay, well, we'll make sure that all that information is on the show notes. It might be after the event, but even that's fine. That's fine. You're telling us about this fantastic well, michelle, what an absolute treat for me and an absolute honor to speak with you and for our listeners to hear about you and what you've done and everything you bring into the world. It's so exciting and it's so fresh and wonderful for people like myself, women of colour, whatever I want to call myself, diversity, anyone who understands where you're coming from. You're sharing so much and that's so important, so, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I try. I feel very blessed and I feel, like you know, when we have gifts that we should share them. It's my obligation to do that. I understand how challenging it can be and how hard it can be, and sometimes, when people are telling me you can't do something or you're not really good enough, how many times have we heard about albums that were never, ever supposed to come out because labels wouldn't sign it, and then somebody took a chance and it became a worldwide smash?
Speaker 2:I'm always advocating for believe. Believe in your gift, believe in your skill, believe in your ideas and just keep chipping away it, keep working at it, keep getting better at it. And nine times out of ten, we're never satisfied. We work on something, but that line, oh, but. But when the world says we love it, that's you, you've put that out into the world. That's a light.
Speaker 2:I'm always so touched when people come up to me and say that song took me through a hard time. Or, oh, my God, I love that song and, wow, it's done what it needed to do. All I was was the vessel, all I was was the conduit. It came through me, that's it. So that's kind of how I see it. But, like we said already, we're in a business and it is a skill and it is a craft, and we do have to work at it to make sure that we are giving the world the best that we can give, because that's what stays and, where long gone, that's what will stay, that's what will remain. Look at the greats we remember their music and we remember how it made us feel. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, brilliant words, how it made us feel. Yes, absolutely wonderful, brilliant words. And yes, for those of you that are listening to this, I don't know how you're feeling right now, but right now I'm feeling so much peace and calm and love and happiness.
Speaker 2:It's so much joy, and that's what it's about. Music should be emotive. It should spark an emotion, whatever that is, whether it's about, music should be emotive, it should spark an emotion, whatever that is. Whether it's protest, love, sad, it should be something joy, celebration. That's what it's supposed to do and all of us can attest. We all went through a pandemic together and one of the things that really took us through that was music, music. We can never doubt the power that music has. I would just say to anybody that's creating or thinking about it just go for it. You don't know what you're going to come out with and you could write a song that could change somebody's life literally so go for it.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, go for it. Yes, well, thank you, it's been fantastic, wonderful podcast, wonderful interview. Michelle, you're amazing.
Speaker 2:I knew you were before, but speaking to you I'm like as I said, it was so lovely to meet you at the members day. You're such a ray of sunshine. It was just really nice and it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you and thank you, thank you, thank you for thinking of me.
Speaker 1:For this, it's been lovely lovely thank you, a massive thank you to our final guest of this season, michelle scoffrey. How great is she. It was wonderful to hear what it takes to not only be an artist but also to become an executive who then helps other artists. I learned so much from her. I'm interested to know if you did too. Please get in touch with us and let us know your thoughts, and we actually have a surprise for you.
Speaker 1:There will be a bonus episode of the podcast, and the guest on that is someone that you've heard on all of these episodes. Yes, I will be interviewed and sharing my story for the first time, and Anita Abram, our guest on episode one and CEO of Every Bird Records that sponsors this podcast, will be interviewing me me and if you are a member of the podcast facebook group, then you can join us on the wrap party on june the 6th, when the bonus episode drops. This podcast has been sponsored by. I'm your host, sam crane. Enjoy the rest of your day. Things I could do yesterday I'm doing them today. Things I never thought I'd say. I never thought I'd say hey, hey, hey. Things I couldn't do yesterday I do them today. Things I never thought I'd say hey, hey, hey.