Shamir: A Raw Diamond, Placed
“After my first album cycle, I had seen it all,” Shamir says. “It was kind of a new renaissance of something that I had already been through.”
In those few words, Shamir connects, and cuts deep. The correlation to the way the 26-year-old recording artist speaks of music is acutely parallel to the way many relate to the ebb and flow of mental health disorders. His durable resilience against the forceful infiltration of negativity that is rampant in the music industry is reminiscent of the steadfast toughness that resides in anyone who deviates from “perfect mental health.”
Yet, we haven’t even started to discuss that parallel. Instead, we remain close to the conversation of art, life, creativity, and self-trust.
“I think the part that made it different is I did literally everything myself: self-release, self-manage, did all the videos myself, did the photography … like, literally everything myself. That was kind of challenging, but we stuck the landing,” Shamir explains. “I’ve always been a very DIY-or-die kind of person, but this was really put to the test.”
The low-fi, eclectic, indie-rock artist touches on his latest record, the self-titled, full-length that was released in the fall of 2020. While the music may have been surrounded by a new venture of art and creation, it was the usual beast of album rollout: a vigorous cycle of promotion, press, and performance.
Shamir has truly been through the seasons of the entertainment business. He originally emerged in 2014 with the release of Northtown, a curious EP that blends his now-signature, honeyed, and silvery vocal tonality paired with upbeat, raw, and grimy rhythms, immediately grabbing the attention of audiences and music critics.
Since his debut, Shamir has released six albums, a plethora of limited-release singles and remixes, and has collaborated with mainstream and underground artists. He has also worked under a variety of record labels, management teams, and released music in every format possible. He has garnered both commercial recognition and seen DIY success, and through it all, his pace of production has been relentless and unwavering.
Reflecting back over the last year, and specifically the album cycle that surrounded Shamir, he explains how his self-titled release was a different, albeit familiar experience.
“I just write all the time. It is honestly, like, yes, that’s my job, and it’s something I do, but at this point, it’s a routine because it’s one of the few things that keeps me sane. It is my only really healthy, productive release,” he says.
With a trust in himself, Shamir does what Shamir does, and that has carved out a unique space where his art morphs and contorts, shifts and changes, and shapes both current space and future direction. Yet, it hasn’t always been this way.
“I don’t have any fear within trying; I’ve never been the type of person who has fear around trying things at all, actually. That’s why I’m such a jack of all trades. When I left my last management team, it wasn’t because of anything bad; it was because it was gonna be really hard for me to verbalize my vision, what I needed, and what I wanted. It’s much easier for me to execute,” Shamir explains.
While there may not be a fear of trying things and taking a vision and turning it into a reality, there is something innately distinctive of which this skill was born.
“I think it also is honestly just, like, trauma as well because being a Black, queer, nonbinary artist, there aren’t a bunch of people bowing down at your feet trying to help you see your vision through,” he shares.
“I spent a lot of time just doing things on my own because no one cares to help.”
The queer experience is complex; it’s nuanced; it’s unique, and so is the experience of folks who experience deviations from mental health ideality. There is no one way to be, and for a person like Shamir who has developed a craft-like approach in navigating both realms of queerness and mental wellness, there has been a process in discovering what works, and the ways in which to work it.
“I am bipolar and I have to really think about my mental health and completely restructure my own life for my health. After I got diagnosed and started seeing my therapist, I realized that music is really therapeutic for me and kind of the only way I am able to work through my emotions,” Shamir says. “Naturally, I’m not really an emotional person; it’s really hard for me to verbalize and express my emotions, but it’s very easy for me to do it through my music, and through my art.”
Shamir is a prolific songwriter, and he credits that to how integral writing has been in expressing those thoughts, feelings, and emotions that he is unable to verbalize. However, the vampiric nature of the music industry commodified and exploited what once was a healthy outlet, thus putting a strain on the relationship Shamir had with his art. It no longer held therapeutic value and instead became an industry venture.
After a few short years in music, Shamir had a falling out with his management team, was dropped from his record label, and was hospitalized. This is when Shamir was given the bipolar diagnosis and had to reexamine that therapeutic and necessary connection to art.
“I think coming out of that, I started doing my art just for me, for my own mental health. That rewiring and restructuring of my brain and how I approach my art, my music, and my life was very, very important to me. Had I not realized that, and started using my and my music in that way, I’m not sure where I would be,” Shamir admits.
Shamir holds nothing back; putting pen to paper, ink to canvas, frame to photograph, he makes what he needs when he needs it, and the fear of criticism is not a deterrent for the young, copious creator. It is only in working with executives and decision makers who decide what art is deemed worthy that Shamir holds issue with sharing his work.
“I don’t mind releasing it and having people pick it apart; at the end of the day, I got what I needed out of it. But in the process of me making said art, to have ANR, management, label, all these people picking it apart even before it’s out, potentially morphing it into something that I hadn’t even imagined it to be, then that takes more of a mental toll than me releasing something so true to me and having people rip it apart,” he says.
“This is how I wanted it, and this is how it made me feel, so you can hate it; I don’t care; it wasn’t for you to begin with.”
With the 2020 release of Shamir, creating that reignited that passion for music again and was an empowering pursuit that just happened to find him a new kind of success. He considers this album to be something that awarded him his life back, and the fact that it is resonating with people is a cool, and unique, consolation prize.
Shamir exudes confidence, self-trust, awareness, empathy, and a sense of humor. Yes, he has an uncanny ability in creating art that is moving, but even more so in sharing his experience authentically, making him even more relatable. If his art is for you, then take it, and if not, then there is someone out there who is for you. Unwavering in the pursuit of health and wellbeing, Shamir now fully understands that he is only willing to leverage his art in the ways that work for him.
“I have more confidence now than I did, just because of the realization of a lot of these things. It’s one thing to possess something, and then it’s another thing to know what you possess: it’s two different things. You can have a raw diamond rate, but do you know how to shine it? Do you know how to cut it? Do you know how to place it? That’s kind of like how I look at my confidence and my strength,” Shamir says.
“It’s one thing to possess something, and then it’s another thing to know what you possess.”- Shamir
*Feature image by Marcus Maddox
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