Tea for Creatives: Vinx
Meet Vinx. He is a vocalist, master percussionist, songwriter and visual artist. Although he is a band unto himself; name an artist and Vinx has probably collaborated or toured with them. This master percussionist and vocalist has worked with such luminaries as Taj Mahal, Herbie Hancock, Sting, Cassandra Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Zap Mama, B.B. King, Brenda Russell, Cher, Omar, Branford Marsalis, Sheryl Crow and the list goes on and on.
Since his 1991 debut album In My Fatha’s House, which gave us the seminal songs “Tell My Feet,” and “Captain’s Song,” Vinx has released 12 albums. Vinx continues to tour the world playing in India, Taipei, all over Africa and Europe.
In 2006 seeing a need for a space for up and coming, and seasoned songwriters to create, collaborate and learn the art of songwriting, he started the Songwriters Soul Kitchen out of his home in Georgia. Since then there have been over 20 Soul Kitchen weekends and starting this year Vinx is taking the Kitchen to Ghana, Taipei and Los Angeles.
Vinx is releasing his 13th album 50 Memoirs of a Hip Ole Black Man Vol. 3 in the spring and is back doing a few dates with one of his former bands Jungle Funk featuring Doug Wimish (of Living Colour) and Keith Lablac.
To find out more information on Vinx check out www.vinx.com. If you are a songwriter or had a closet desire to write music for others, check out the Songwriters Soul Kitchen at www.songwriterssoulkitchen.com.
What does creativity mean to you and how has it defined your career?
Creativity is everything in my career. I have based my entire career on being creative, being honest, giving my perspective, my opinion, my views of the reflective pool of experiences. That’s the only thing that any of us have as artists that is unique special and different from each other is our process and our creative filters that allow us to pick up things in our lives that although my be a shared experience, we see them completely, uniquely different in our own way. My career has been about focusing in on things that may be slightly askew from the average regular person.
How do you navigate the creative process?
I identify a creative idea. I don’t always use it in the same medium because I’m also a painter, a writer, a storyteller and a bunch of other things in addition to being a musician. So just because I have a creative idea doesn’t mean that it necessarily for me makes it a musical idea.
As an expert liar/storyteller, which is not much different (LOL), I don’t know. The challenge for me is turning my creativity into a craft. The craft of what I do allows me to take my creative impulses, ideas and perspectives and create a product with it. That’s he craft of it. As a creative person lying naked on the beach somewhere daydreaming and engaging the creative process of looking at things differently, most of the time, that’s practicing so that when it’s time to do my craft I’m already familiar and fluent in that process.
It’s not that the creativity is wasted because it’s not a product. I practice the process of creativity as much as I do turning it into a product.
What is one of the greatest creative obstacles that you have faced and how did you hurdle it?
My audience didn’t care about me until I stopped caring about them. So once I stopped trying to service what I thought they wanted to hear, and what they wanted to eat, see, smell, do and be, then my creativity was honest and true and it was actually much easier because I only had to map it and mark it; I didn’t have to change it or shift it to someone else’s opinion. So once I stopped caring about someone else’s opinion or how they were going to take it or if they were going to play it on the radio, or if they were going to make the film or if they were going to hang this picture in the living room vs. the bathroom; once I stopped caring about that, my audience in fact embraced me more as true.
It’s like lover. You may tell her what she wants to hear so you can get your desired result, but once you stop caring about that, they trust you. He might be crazy, but that’s actually he is. (LOL)
So you know what you’re walking in to and there is nothing wrong with that. It took me a long time to realize that that’s absolutely okay. Everyone is not supposed to get what you do. It’s absolutely okay.
Who is one of your favorite creative figures and how they inspired you and your creativity?
As far as my career it’s not really musicians. It’s experiences, it’s life, it’s being in the world, traveling, doing, being, athletics, as an athlete, as a self-proclaimed loner, this is what my influences come from. At least the strength of my convictions comes from those places.
My father was a great singer; big influence in a sense that my voice is not necessarily the message that I give or present or reach or disclose. So that’s been a bit of a mystery, my influences, so all my senses and all my experiences and challenges of process. My influence is my process.
If you could choose one quote or life mantra what would it be?
“You can’t sing of life unless you live it.” ~ Vinx
“Silence is a note.” ~ Vinx
The Tea for Creatives series celebrates the creative minds that Possibiliteas seeks to serve with its brews. We aim to bring the creative community insightful and eye-opening profiles of the best and brightest creative professionals across various industries. Join us on Facebook and Twitter for more conversations on creativity.
Tags: artist, blues, Creativitea, creativity, jazz, music, percussion, possibliteas, songwriter, Soul Kitchen, Stevie Wonder, Vinx, vocalist
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