Healing Through Vibration and Harmony with Kidd Griffey

Seizures that strike in your sleep change the way you think about tomorrow. Music artist Kidd Griffey sits down with us to tell the story of what happened when his life took an unexpected turn at 21, how fear and uncertainty reshaped his priorities, and why music became a dream and then a lifeline. 

We talk about the “out of the blue” moments that defined his path, including a disruptive move to Detroit during high school, the isolation of being forced to learn independently, and the slow rebuild that followed years of health battles. Griffey explains what it’s like to create while you’re still healing and how faith helped him shift from constant stress to a steadier mindset. Along the way, we discuss songwriting choices: uplifting records versus sad songs, how harmony and vibration feel physical, and why live music can feel like church. 

Griffey describes his transition from hip hop into country music and his decision to pull his catalog from streaming platforms. If you care about resilience, spiritual growth, and independent artists, this conversation is for you.

Follow Kidd Griffey: @iamkiddgriffey

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Kid Griffey

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Out of the Blue the Podcast. I'm Vernon West, joined by my son and co-host Vernon West III, a talented singer, songwriter, and artist who's created our show's logo and theme song. Today we're honored to sit down with an artist whose journey is as powerful as his music. Kid Griffey brings real stories to the surface, blending hip-hop, country, and soul with raw emotion and spiritual grip. Raised in Rockford and refined in Detroit, Griffey's voice carries the weight of struggle, survival, and self-belief. He picked up the pen at just 17, fighting through depression and isolation. By 21, he was faced with life-altering seizures. Yet through it all, his faith and his music became lifelines, transforming pain into purpose. Now Kid Griffe stands as a voice of restoration, creativity, and truth. His story is one of resilience, faith, and the unshakable belief that music can heal and inspire. So let's dive into this journey and welcome Kid Griffey to Out of the Blue the Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

What's up, man? Thank you so much. I'm good. How are you feeling today?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Um great. I'm doing great. Great.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

I love that intro.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Oh, it's all it's all true, man. It's all true. And um, you know, it you know, your life, I think Vernon probably has a lot to relate there because at 17 you were at 16 you started doing stuff too, right? Vernon, and and uh it definitely me too. I started at 15 even. I think I wrote my first song. I was about, yeah, about 16. And it was definitely due to getting out of, you know, out of my my I I felt like my my life sucked so bad that if I could just help other people, uh make me better, make me feel better. And I mean, that seems to be a I I found that to be a uh a theme with a lot of artists that I've met, uh comedians as well as musicians, that they get out of their own pain by helping lift other people up. So I mean, let's start at the

The Detroit Move That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 2:35

so let's start at the beginning of this of the like we start every podcast is what is the out-of-the-blue event that happened that started this ball rolling? That if it didn't happen, you wouldn't be sitting here today.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Um my mom making the decision to have me move to Detroit with my father uh right in the middle of my senior year. Uh so yeah, that was kind of a that was my out-of-blue moment. And um, I got up there and I had my stepbrother when I was up there, but then he ended up getting sent to uh military, um not military, was it what's it called? Military camp or boot camp? Boot camp. Boot camp. He got sent to boot camp, and so I was there by myself a lot, and just being by yourself after being around so many people all your life, basically. And it's like you've been in schools with a lot of people and things like that to now come over to a new space, and you're in a school where it's not even actually like an official high school. I was going to a place called Diploma Success Academy, it's like a computer school. Oh so it's like everything that we did was pretty much on a computer. So once I had to get out of the mindset of going to different classes to just sitting in one room with about 10 people and we're just on our laptops doing our work.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

That's a hard adjustment.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So weird. It was it was so weird.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Yeah, a lot less social, it sounds.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

You were self-taught, I would say, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

What do they know? They called that an autodidact. Well, that's like a lot of people, some of the greatest people in the world have been autodidacts, self-taught.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

And it worked for me because I graduated. Uh, I got finished with everything two months early.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Well, that's pretty cool. Nice. So then what happened next as it unfolded? Does your life unfolded?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Once I graduated, I uh was pretty much in the mindset of okay, I've been here long enough. And I was there for about six months, and I was like, Okay, I just feel like I need to go back to where I feel home is. And so I moved back to uh pretty much my hometown, Rockford, Illinois, even though I was raised in Chicago, I was pretty much raised, I mean uh raised in Rockford. And so uh I moved back to here and I was pretty much I was doing good for the uh for the first three years when I was here. I was just building up and things like that, uh, not being taught that much growing up to like be a man or things like that. So you're learning things on the fly as things go and things. Um, so by the age of 20, um, right before I was gonna turn 21, I was pretty much planning on moving out of Rockford. But on my birthday, April 30th, um I ended up starting the day after I started having seizures. And they only happened in my sleep. Um, they didn't really happen when I was awake. It only happened like maybe three or four times when I was awake out of four out of five and a half years. So um, and the doctors couldn't really explain what was going on with me because it started out the blue, and seizures don't run in my family. So it was just something that was like really weird and just out the blue. And so um I had to deal with that for about five and a half years, and the doctors tried to put me on medication. Um, but the way that it was making me feel, I just really did not like it. It made me feel very lazy, like I just didn't want to do anything and just be stuck in the bed, and it made me feel sick sometimes. So I was like, Yeah, this is just not for me. I self-took myself off medication.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

And did you get any more seizures?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, I dealt with seizures throughout the the whole time from the age of 21 to 26.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

I dealt with seizures and they stopped eventually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

They stopped literally December of uh right before 2023 New Year's, December is when they stopped. And to be honest, I can't tell you what it was. Uh, I pretty much just got a closer relationship to God. Um, I stopped stressing over a lot of things and really just started focusing on the things that I felt like I needed to. And there were days where it was very scary because it's like you never know if you're gonna wake up, especially at the beginning, like when you first start having them, because it's like it's out of nowhere. You've never dealt with anything like this, and to know that you can go to sleep and not wake up is terrifying, very traumatic. So it was like, um I don't know, I guess I was just strong enough to get through it with all the statistics that I seen with people dying in their sleep from seizures and people even dying awake while they're having seizures. And to be able to make it through five and a half years of that is definitely a blessing.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

I'd say so. I had a younger brother, uh Vernon's uncle, uh Paul, and he had seizures, started having them at a at a young age, like about I think it was like 15 or 16. And he was in he played in the band, you know, and he he would he would have a seizure, and they the first time he had one, they didn't know what was going on and scared the shit out of everybody. And um he went on that medicine that you're probably talking about, and it's either it's one of the uh Dalantin or uh Lantin, that was it? Yep and that stuff he hated it so much because it made him lethargic and he gained a lot of weight. It was terrible. He went from being a nice slim fit guy to like blowing up because of that medicine. But he kept taking it. I wish, you know, I hear you doing this. I I wish Paul was alive. I have a feeling he's watching this with us right now because you have such a great example of what you made it, you didn't have to take the medicine, and now they've stopped happening. Like I I don't, you know, who knows why healings happen. It's sort of like um combination of um the your will and your connection to God or higher power. These things combine somehow it changes your uh harmonically, uh healthy wise, and and you've you're a beautiful example of something like you turned a what we would call a uh bad out of the blue moment to uh a positive. You made you made it you seemed like you from that you grew in such a way you said you became more go you got more god conscious, you got and I believe you probably started writing as a result of all going through this, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

I mean, yeah, I was actually um still writing while I was going through it. Um I was so afraid um just to like release music at some point uh while I was going through it, because I I felt like if I released something and I didn't make it to see what it could actually be, that would suck a lot more than like a lot of things. So it was like some I was writing in between the times, and I feel like my music and just music in general is something that truly helped me out of that situation. Because me knowing that if I can make it out of this, I'm I'm possibly still able to chase my passion and write music and do this music and stuff, like that's something that I can push for. So if I can work on getting myself healthy to the point where I'm able to drop music and become an artist and at least do this before I'm taken away, I can I let me try to do that. And to be able to come out of that healthy and being able to move forward, even though I've lost some of my memory. Um, I had to relearn a lot of things over uh the first like year and a half, two years to really get myself back into a position where I was able to work how I wanted to, and have the energy and the strength to do all the things and a mental capacity to just handle the world. And so it was it was hard to like get it all together, but I felt like with patience and just God and trust in myself, like I felt like that helped me through. And then like to be able to drop my music after it was done and people actually attract to it, and it's actually making a name for me and it's actually doing good, and

Seizures In Sleep And Fear

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I'm not even at my full potential shows me that I came out of that for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Absolutely. I love that. That that's the purpose, you know. We we've got to have a purpose. We can passion is great, but if you don't have a purpose, it's sort of misdirected, you know, it's it's scattered, you know. But having that focus now, that's brilliant, you know, and it's well really inspiring. I I I think my I Vernon, you definitely went through a stage where you just devoted yourself to your music because you were going through a lot of shit yourself. I remember, you know. Do you remember Vernon? He was down in the studio all night long. I'd go down and bring him some food. You gonna come up? I'm doing this, you know.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Oh yeah, which which phase? I'm thinking multiple. Uh yeah, because when I was in high school, it was like, you know, kind of being either like bullied or like feeling you like you don't fit in. And so then I just spent like a summer, sort of like they'll all see kind of thing. A little sort of sort of that like like I got I'm I'll make a name for myself, but like feeling like this was the this was my like saving grace, like music. Um and then again later I fell into like yes, uh a like pretty dark depression where I just like couldn't like leave the house and all I had was the music, and it really is like a I don't know, it's it's a very healing thing, not only because it gives you like a purpose, but because like making music is really yeah, it's like it's like a meditation. So I imagine for you that was also connecting you closer to like your higher power, like getting in that place. And then um, did you did you like write about? I'm sure you must have like, did you write about like what this feeling of like having to be so present in every day because you're not sure if you'll like wake up the next morning?

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Was that I it's not something that I've fully talked about yet in my music, okay. Um, but it is a project that I've said that I would work on because I I don't know, sometimes I don't want to get stuck on that. It's like God brought me through it, and like it's like now it's just speaking about the things that I like have been through, but at the same time the things that I'm working on right now, and so it's like some, but I do want to uh make a project because my I feel like my story is very impactful, and it's a lot of people who go through the things that I go through, and people who know people who go through the things that I go through and they couldn't make it out of it. And so to see someone actually go through the things that you're going through or see the things that you're someone you're close to go through, and they were able to get out of that and push their self and really move forward and grow, it will give other people motivation to be like some okay, I'm dealing with this right now, but if I can really just focus in on what my true purpose is and really just give it my all and at the same time really building a spiritual connection with you and God, I feel like that'll really help motivate people to really just try something.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

But it's definitely there, you know. Like if you're afraid to, you know, of your losing your life, there's no way, like, I mean, clearly it brought you to God, which is like the ultimate sign of like, nah, I'm just grateful to be here. Yeah, like and I really respect the not, you know, I tend to like I only write about like my sadness, which is kind of it's it's kind of become a crutch, you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah, I've had people ask me about that, like, because my the people around me will see me, and I I won't write in times when I'm sad. Like, I I won't write in those times, like, and it's because I've always wanted like inspirational like music, like even though like I'm dealing with the worst, I still want to give you the most uplifting song or something that'll make you just move a little bit and really just groove. And so it's like some those are the things that help me get out of that because sometimes I feel like when you write sad songs, they are good because I have one or two, they are good, but it's like some when you hear those things, it brings you back to those times, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Sure, it's like it's more for if someone's going through a sad moment that that's when you like appreciate that or like it feels right, but if you are uplifted in the moment, you're not gonna be like looking for the sad song to like make you cry, you know? Yeah, uh yeah, you wanna you wanna be like reminded of how good life can be if you shift your perspective?

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Oh wow, that bring that brings me back to when I was in my twenties. You know, we used to we were coming up during the punk scene, and we we used to say, why do these people just want to complain all the time in their songs? Don't you isn't life tough enough? Why do we need to be reminded that everything sucks? Like I that's very true.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

It's like man, but it's good for moments like when you're going through certain things and you have an artist that you can attach to who uh has also gone through those things and they can speak on those things when you're going through it. It's definitely helpful to have those songs around because I definitely have my playlist of songs where I just know if I'm going through something, I can just put this on and they can speak through my pain. Like the things that I can't word and voice, they've been through the same thing, and they're so well with their words, it can help me feel like I'm getting it out.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah, that's great. And and and I think for me, those those songs mean a lot to me. I've written my share of them, believe me. But I do think the best ones are the ones that, yeah, you're talking about that darkness and that that depression or whatever it is you're talking about, but you have a resolution. Yeah, I felt like that was the challenge as an artist was to not just go and write a song that just complains about it, but talk about the experience of finding my way forward, you know, getting out of it. And here I am now, but I was that. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

So that was to me the goal of of those kind of songs. But um definitely. Yeah, I could I can feel you though. I see, I see you do it. I love what you're doing. I mean, I really do. I I love music, period. I think music is something very spiritual. I wouldn't even doubt if if someday I have a fantasy, because I've been through the medical world. Oh my gosh, it's no fun. And they it's very brutal, you know, the between the machines, the wires, and the chemo, whatever you gotta do, it's hurtful, it's painful. Sometimes, like it always hit me how the nurses had a gob up before they came near me to put a chemo in my arm. And I said, Well, why do you gotta wear all that? Because if one drop of this hits my skin, and I'm going, you're putting it in my vein?

unknown 18:04

What the hell?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

That makes no sense. You know what I mean?

Faith, Healing, And Creating Anyway

SPEAKER_00 18:10

So I think like what I think really got me through cancer was my music and the harmony of that permeating my body whenever I did it and thought about it, or wrote it, or sang it. It to me, that's the that's the stuff that heals me.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, I don't feel like I don't think people realize how much vibrations and music really heal a soul. You're right, and really just help you out for real, like do a lot, like it can really change things.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

You're absolutely right. Vibrations really, that's kind of it.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Harmony to dissonance being the kind of sadness, yes, and then the harmony being like the something balance.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, there's a if you find a great good balance, you know, you have a little dissonance maybe, but it resolves into something powerful and and harmonic, you know, that harmonious, and it it gets there in a very real, unexpected way, and that is really to me some of the greatest music that I love. Does that I mean um it could be any kind of style of music, but if it does that, I'm I'm there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Have you ever been to like uh seeing a like a symphony or anything?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

No, I've always wanted to, though. I love live instruments.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

It's a trip, they yeah, there will be like a ton of dissonance go out going throughout, but sometimes they'll hit. I've only been like one or two, maybe, but I I just remember these moments where they hit these massive chords, like everyone's playing in harmony. There's so much dissonance going on the whole thing. When they hit those chords in harmony, you weep.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

You like will literally feel the presence of through your like and you will feel it through your body, like and I trust me, I know the feeling. Oh that's why I want to see something like that in person so bad. Just like I've I've literally, as an artist, like because I never got to experience like really much before my seizures, I've only been to one concert. Oh yeah, you gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Like, I was I've never really got to experience like a lot of things, so it's like I really want to get into those experiences of seeing a lot of things and going to concerts and things like that, and that's what I'm working towards now for next year.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, so you haven't been to concerts, but have you performed much live?

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Yeah, I performed a lot live and had to get very used to it because I'm such an introvert. Um, I've been an introvert all my life. Um, so it's like I never really like being in front of people or being around a lot of people or anything like that. And people who know me from school know this. And so to see me as an artist and being able to be in front of people is like very shocking to them, but they don't know at the same time. I'm just as shocked as y'all are because I never thought that I would do this way.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I love it. I love it. I think uh relate. I know Vernon does, and I I know my daughter does the same way. But my my oldest daughter, Vernon's older sister, she was the shyest kid in school. I mean, I mean, we just take her to school, and the and the teachers would say, Well, she sits by herself. Can you you know? And then one day she says to me, Dad, I want to do music and I want to perform like some club, and I and I want to work on these songs you know. I'm going, What? Oh my goodness. I was like, Ford, but what a thing it is, right? Music breaking out of the shell with music. That's sort of like being born into your true self through music.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Music helped me find out who I was.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

So uh it's a teacher. It's a teacher, and it takes us on it takes us on a journey. That's kind of like what what out of the blue is about, because we I talk about the idea of out of the blue is things that out there, we don't know where they come from, these random events that That causes seizures, anything, even that's a bad out of the blue. But everything out of the blue, I'm I wanna I I think from my experience of talking about it a lot and then my life is that everything coming from out of the blue has some sort of benevolent motive behind it. Like it's like a it might be a direction change for your mind or your life, and it might suck, be a bad out of the blue event, but it did an invaluable thing to your soul's uh purpose. You found something that you needed to do as a result of that, and then you push on that path, and then more out-of-the-blue things happen. That's what I want to hear with next. What are the next out-of-the-blue? Did you find like beautiful out of the blues and say write a certain song? Is there anything you've written that's been that you want to talk about right now?

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Uh an experience writing a new song or something like that, or um, I mean, my out of the my after my seizures, my I feel like dropping music was pretty good, but my most recent out-of-the-blue moment was me getting into country music. Cool, I love it. And it's something that I've always loved. I've always loved country music. I just never thought that I would actually be able to write it. And so uh to go through an experience where it was like some I was pretty much just sitting in my car earlier this year, and um, I don't know, like I was just listening to music, and like for some reason I was really in my head, and I like broke down, and I was just asking God, like, just show me why I'm here. Like, is this really what I'm supposed to be doing? Like, am I going the right direction? Like, what am I doing wrong? Like, I was in one of those states, and like the next day after I got out of that, I was like in such a good mood. And it was like I sat down and I started just listening to beats that my producer had sent to me, and I was just like, okay, I really like this one, but this doesn't seem like a regular type of beat that I would like really write something on. It seems like kind of like country, like, and I was like, okay, so let me try something as an artist and just see what I can do with it and still be able to get my my point across and get my like vibe on it in. Like, I don't want to sound like anyone or try to do anything that anybody else is doing, like I just want to try it in my way, and so I wrote my first country song, and now I'm five songs in.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Oh cool, so cool. Oh man, that's great.

Writing Uplifting Music Without Denial

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I um I gotta relate to that a lot on a lot of levels. I mean, I've always appreciated country. I was not a country music fan per se. I mean, I appreciated it. And my my uncles and my father were they were jazz musicians. And the first inspiration for music for me came from Louis Armstrong. Because I you know, I was a little kid, I was probably five, really five years old, and I was sitting in front of the TV, and Louis Armstrong comes on playing When the Saints Come on today, and I'm watching his fingers go down and his cheeks burn up. And I'm going, I'm like, oh my god, I was transfixed, mesmerized. I said, I want to be that, I want to do that. And and I didn't know it, but all of a sudden my uncles and my they all appeared behind me and they go, Look, it's the doctor. And they went, I said, Oh shit, I want to be a doctor. And I told my mother that that night when she's put me to bed. I said, Mommy, I want to be a doctor. And you know, a month, oh sweet. An Italian mother, either a doctor or a priest. That's all that's what they want.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

So I said that, and she was like, Oh, this is great. And then she found out later that it was the wrong kind of doctor.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

A little surgical with the instruments, Mom.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Different type of doctor.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Less to pay for sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

But I've always felt the same way about music, that it is like being a doctor. Yeah, you don't, you do, you're in the business of healing. You know, and you know what? What does it say? Physician, heal thyself. Well, you did that. You did that, Vernon. And I think I did it. I'm still doing it. Like you said, you had that feeling this morning the other day on your skin in your car that time. I had one of those the other day, too. I mean, I God give me my purpose. What is this going on? You know, we always, I think, yeah, I think that's kind of life, you know. It's a sort of a wave, you know. Sometimes your peaks and valleys, but as you get better at life and staying in touch with your higher power, those peaks and valleys don't get as high or whole or low. So you can you know, you can handle the valley a little bit better and maybe get more out of it, you know. Because learning, I think that what it is to me is that we learn more from the bad out of the blues. And sometimes sometimes the good out of the blues we take for granted.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah, I was about to say you won't even appreciate them. That's what I mean. It's like you'll be like, and it just happened, and then you'll just kind of overlook it a little bit, and that's what I'm starting to catch myself on. I have to start congratulating myself and actually being more appreciative of the small things that I accomplish and the small things that are coming into my life and the little blessings because I will overlook certain things, and it's like some I shouldn't be overlooking this because this is getting ready, this is getting me ready for my bigger blessing. And so I need to appreciate and accept every single one of these little accomplishments, accomplishments that I make, whether it's checking something off my checklist or making a new song or dropping something, or me getting the opportunity, and somebody didn't have to reach out to me, they just decided to think about me, and it's not something that's given, it's just something that it's a blessing that someone thought of you at that moment, and you'll take it for granted sometimes. Like, oh yeah, this person was supposed to hit me up. I was supposed to be on this show, and it's like, no, you're what you wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

I love it, I love it. Bring me in. I needed to put you on your mind. I'm telling you right now, you have no idea how much I needed to hear that. Thank you for I really come. I'm not kidding. That is something I need to hear because I myself am guilty of not appreciating those things. I found that I was taking things that were good and thinking, well, I deserve that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

I'm supposed to get it and I was doing that same thing, and I was like, Man, I gotta stop doing that.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

You gotta thank you so much. I that's exactly what I need to do. I mean, it's like I was talking about just this the other day with somebody saying, saying that to me, exactly that. You know, run you're too hard on yourself, then you don't appreciate the little things.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

I have people tell me that all the time, like, bro, you gotta cut a little slack on yourself, man. Like it's like you appreciate what you're doing, bro. You went through five and a half years of seizures, bro, and you're still pushing to try to do better and be better, you're still making music. Be appreciative, and I'm I sit back and I'll be like, So, oh, I kind of have took this for granted. Yeah, it's like even though I'm very appreciative, the way that I've been kind of acting with it is yeah, I've took it for granted a little bit. I need to hone back in and be more appreciative because I'm not supposed to be here, I'm here because God wants me to be here and He's giving me these opportunities that I need to be a hundred percent grateful for instead of making it seem like, oh, yeah, I do this music and my music is good. I'm supposed to be on this stage. This is like, no, no, no, because things can be a totally different way, but things are the way that they are because of what God wants you to do and where he wants you to be. And I have to be way more appreciative of that because I've definitely fallen victim to just feeling like, okay, yeah, I feel like I'm like, I'm slipping a little bit. Like, I feel like I'm like, like this shit, this is supposed to happen to me. Like I'm supposed to be getting this stuff because of what I went through.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Right, right, right, right. It's almost like, yeah, that's how we do it. That's how we take it for granted because of I don't know, it's some trick of the mind that we fall into.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Taking that moment, just like being strong enough to take a moment and be like, all right, all right, ego. Maybe, maybe relax for a second. Oh, yeah, I need to I need to look at this situation from like a step back. And like that practice, too. It's hard, man, to get yourself out of whatever. Maybe maybe you're dwelling on something.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

That's one thing, but that's another thing, too. I like I like that that you just said that we have to stop living in the past. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Big one.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Oh my goodness, I hate it so much. Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

I've been reading about the fact that it isn't real. Like a lot of stuff that I've been into lately

Vibration, Live Sound, And Stage Nerves

SPEAKER_03 31:05

has been about like the now being all that really exists.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

That's all that matters. Like, it's all that matters. We went through it, it's gone now.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

We've learned from it, now we have to grow from it. It's like some I'd be I'd be having to catch myself like, why are you so stuck on the past? Why are you so stuck on yesterday? Yesterday is over, it's not coming back. I can't get that day back, I can't rewind what I did or nothing like that. All I can do is try to be better today, but I can't be better today if I'm steady focused on what I didn't do right yesterday, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Like, and and letting it define how you view yourself. Oh man, it's such a trap.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

And and then there's the other trap is the future.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

So that's where that's like the anxiety. Like, what's gonna happen? What's it gonna be like? Am I gonna make it? Am I gonna be proud of where I've learned planning too much?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Is not good. Oh gosh. Oh, it's so stressful. Planning yourself too much ahead, you will put so much stress on yourself because you cannot control everything that's in your future. You just have to naturally let things flow and have your mindset of okay, this is the path I'm on, and this is what I'm gonna do. But planning your future so far to the point where it's like, yeah, I'm gonna be good about 31, I'm gonna have this together, I'm gonna have this together. When you get to those points and you're not where you want, like saying you're gonna oh, you will disappoint yourself, and that will make a person quit.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it it's like how you were presented with a uh like a country music beat, and instead of having like a rigid plan for your future, you were like, Well, this isn't really something I do. But let's see, let's see how this path goes. Like that just reminds me of like not having such a such a strict plan, but being open because you you close yourself off to opportunities if you're like, No, it's supposed to go this way.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

You'll be stuck, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

You get stuck, and then you lose and then you end up disappointing yourself because you're you're you know what's the saying? If you want to make God laugh, show him your plans.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Yeah, man, man, plans and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

And that's a good saying, though. So yeah, you you pivoted to like a country sort of vibe. Oh yeah. How how how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Uh to be honest, I love it, and it's crazy because it comes just as if not more natural to me than my hip-hop does. It makes it it makes me know that it's something that I like I I should be doing. Because if it was hard and it was something I was challenging with and things like that, then I would probably have a second guess on it. But the fact that it's so natural and it sounds so good to me, like it's like, okay, this was supposed to be something that I got into. It just took me to grow up as an artist a little bit, find my voice a little bit more, and really have more things to talk about in order to get to this phase. Um, so I'm working on my project. It's called uh Cowboy Griffey, and um, it'll have six to seven songs on there. Right now I have five, and I'm planning on writing one or two more.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

Where do you where do you upload your music? I looked you up on Spotify and I didn't see you on there, which I respect.

A Sudden Turn Into Country

SPEAKER_01 34:40

I took everything off. I took everything off of streaming platforms. Uh I personally want to create my own website to where if my fans want to listen to my music, they can just pay a simple $3.99 and have access to my full category of music and things like that. But I also drop on YouTube just because I love YouTube. Um, but I took all my music off streaming platforms at the moment just to figure out exactly how I'm gonna make that work.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

I respect it. I totally respect that too.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Spotify is it's an upsetting business.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

Man, it's really it's the most stupid thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

I was on Spotify, you know, when it started, and I think I had I got one time I got a check for 250,000 plays, and I got 250 dollars.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

That's even that's even better than it is now. I was just about to say that's that's better than what I would get now if I had 250,000 plays.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

Yeah, I think a million streams gets you like four grand, and that's not shit.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

They've gone down, they've gone less, they've got less.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

That was that that was the rate of one cent a stream.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah, it's less. It's like yeah, I was about to say it's like 0.3, something like that. Something, yeah, it's something. Is I know it's lower than a cent though.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Yes, it and and now they have they just updated the terms of like agreement. Now they have every right to use everything as much as they want, except the music. So your visuals, your bio, it's all stuff that they can uh don't get me started.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

I'm like, well, you know, it's a canonic for sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

That's why I'm happy. I took that look, I took all my stuff off, and I was like, I gotta find a better way to distribute my music because that's smart.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

I'm inspired by you, kid. I'm gonna probably try to take my stuff off Spotify and do something just like you're saying, yes, and just because it's like some it's our fans, it's our people.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

It's like some why are we sending everybody to you and you're barely even paying us anything, and we're the one who's keeping y'all alive. And that's common sense, kid. That's common sense. It's like I would rather just make my own website to where people can buy merch, people can watch my videos, people can download my songs, people can do anything they want to with my music and the things that I have going on for a simple price that you're gonna pay for all of these other apps, anyways. And it's like if you're a true fan and somebody who really loves me and somebody who really wants to see me make it, $3.99 isn't gonna be much for somebody who actually wants to show support.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

That's right, that's right. Yeah, that's right. I love that idea. I think you're really got you're right, the right idea. I mean, Prince did the same thing, he took all his stuff off streaming service for a while for a long right away. He was he's one of the first guys that that went public about that. Always respected it. Um it's good to have you know a great you're building your platform, you're building your own um platform by by gigging. And see how how often do you gig?

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Um I was I've been out a lot this year. Um, I've done like maybe 15 to 20 podcasts, and I think I've done like 30 shows so far this year. That's not bad. That's pretty good. You're pretty busy. Nice. I can do I'm supposed to be doing a lot more. It's just I've dealt with it's like I I've been in this little storm, right?

Leaving Streaming For Direct Support

SPEAKER_01 38:20

And it's like God got me in this vice to where like he just working on me. So I ain't going down, but it don't feel like I'm going up right now. So he just he just I'm in the middle of him working on me. So like things keep messing up and things keep going. So it's like my missed out on opportunities, haven't been able to pay for certain things because I'm trying to get caught up with other things in real life, and then it's like not having people who I don't have people who invest in me or like people who will put money behind me or believe in me like that. I've never had that. So me, I've just always everything that I've done and as far as I've gotten out has come from literally just my hard work since my seizures.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

And so it's just like it's it takes a lot, but it's a it's it's worth it.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Yeah, I I believe you're right. I mean, I my my experiences in the music business have taught me that explicitly, that um you definitely should be the one taking charge of your own music and your own image, and and you should definitely um not everything like if an investor comes along, it it might be great, you never know, but it it always comes with a price, you know. There is a give you gonna pay something, you're gonna pay something for that.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

I'm gonna I'm dealing with something right now, kind of like that. I have a 50-50 deal where I get access to a studio, um, but they get 50% of the ownership of like the masters.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Of a game that you record.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Yeah, and that is that's the lifeblood of the musician, is the master. That's the thing. And I'm I'm sort of there's a pressure to get it done. There's a sort of different motivation behind the finished products between me and them. And I think I'm I'm super grateful for this opportunity because like you, I'm I'm not really, I've never really had like a label or like an investor back me, but definitely take like having full authority over your own art is always the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Definitely. I turned down the deal because they wanted to um pretty much own everything that I recorded for the full year and six months, and they were pretty much saying that they would have to, they would be picking the people that I worked with, and um, if they liked an idea, and even if I didn't like the idea because I'm signed to them, I would still have to do the idea. Oh, yeah. So it was like one of those like 360, let me fuck you. I'll give you, I'll give you some quick money, right? But it I'm gonna fuck you in the end, and that's pretty much what it was. So I had to deny that, even though it hurt my heart to deny it. It was

Owning Masters And Rejecting Bad Deals

SPEAKER_01 41:25

just like, oh, I can't do it to myself. Like, I feel like if I denied it, something better gonna come.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

But you know dude, you just saying that, I just got like goosebumps because that's the oh, that's like the selling out that you hear about growing up, and like that I feel like it's impossible to prove, but that kind of thing is rewarded. It is because it's because you're not letting go of what actually you're doing it for. So, you know, I I commend you, man, because anyone anyone dangles money in front of me, like I just did some I just did some gigs for Disney, dude. I was like, and I'm sitting there thinking like Disney's such a messed up conglomerate company of I'm just getting paid by the movie. I know I need to survive. So, you know, I respect it. If you keep thinking like that, the right people will will gravitate toward you for sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

So as we get ready to say uh bye-bye to everybody who's just tuned into this wonderful, amazing podcast with featuring Kid Griffey. Kid, what kind of what would you like to leave people with to think about about your odd whole experience of out of the blue coming on the show with us and uh talking about everything and your life in general? What statement do you think you would think would sum it all up that you could leave our audience?

SPEAKER_03 42:53

This is such a hard question.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

It's not supposed to be easy, but it is this is this is that homework.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Um I think the one thing that I would say, like if I had to put it into one sentence, just never quit on yourself. Like, no matter what you're facing, no matter what you're going through, there's always an outcome, like in every situation. And to not figure out that outcome, it feels like everything that you went through is wasted. So it's like some just never quit. You never know when you would step away. Like you never know when you're two steps away, you never know when your blessing is right around the corner. And the moment that you give up, you might be missing out on that blessing. So never quit on yourself, never give up, and then just always believe in your passion, like just believe in yourself. That's the number one thing.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Like, well, thank you so much, Kid Griffey. The Kid Griffey.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

I appreciate you guys for having me.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

We appreciate I appreciate you so much. And um, thank you, Vernon. Um, the third. Of course, in LA to meet you, my man.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Nice to meet you, man. So good. Let me know. Oh, I'll definitely be out there.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

And you know, like, I I always want to leave you

Never Quit And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_00 44:05

one thing. You're now in the out of the blue family. So you got us for life, man. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

I appreciate that so much. Thank you guys so much. This was one of the best interviews I've had in a long time. I needed this.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Oh, we needed to be. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody. Thanks for joining us on Out of the Blue. Keep rocking, keep countrying, keep music alive. Do it up, man. Never quit. That's the definite big, big statement. Yeah, right here. You never know that miracle might be right around the corner. All right. Thanks, everybody. See you later. Bye bye. Bye. Out of the Blue the Podcast. Hosted by me, Vernon West. Co-hosted by Vernon West III, edited by Joe Gallo. Music and logo by Vernon West III. Have an out-of-the-blue story of your own you'd like to share? Reach us at info at out of the blue-thepodcast.org. Subscribe to Out of the Blue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And on our website, out of the blue-thepodcast.org.