Wednesday 12 August sees the world join hands to celebrate International Youth Day 2015 - in a year when it's organizers, UNESCO, mark a momentous 70 years since it's creation. Days of international and world interest seem to have become the 'norm', with the calendar constantly bursting with a celebration of some sort; so much so that it's easy to become complacent and blind to what's going on. But in these times where the world is under such immense trauma from war, terrorism and climate change, it's vital that we take time to invest in the youth - they're the future generation of our planet and they need to be nurtured.
My debut single, 'Moving On' is dedicated solely to International Youth Day 2015 - it's not only a message to the youth of the world, but also a musical demonstration to world leaders that we need to find relevant ways to connect with the young people on our planet. World summits and conferences help to make change, but the power of a grass roots pop song can shifts perceptions and change behaviours in a single beat. A 3-minute radio edit can hold greater influence than any other form of communication.
'Moving On' is my message to every young person on this planet to be who and what you want to be. School, education, family and cultural expectations all play a part in escalating 'pressure' on how a young person should mould their lives. At a time when they should be experiencing the excitement and anticipation of a new and exciting world, kids are leaving school anxious about whether their exam results will please will deliver a future path that will live up to a life time of family expectations.
To a degree, this is necessary - we need to listen to the wisdom of our elders and add that advice into the mix of our life-time decisions. But at that stage of 'moving on' where you're making your life decisions, the choice needs to be
YOURS - you need to live your own dreams and become the person that you want to be, not the person that others around you hoped you'd become. My parents would have loved for me to pursue an academic education and become a lawyer, for no other reason than to give me a good solid career and a firm founding in my life that allowed me to stand on my own two feet.
These are incredible aspirations, but my heart and soul yearned for something more. Passion, excitement and an outright desire to feel that I was 'living every moment to the max' overpowered anything else in my life. I've known for a long time that I have a greater purpose in life than just to follow the norm and to some degree, conform! Music was my calling, but when my parents had a legal career in their sights, I had a fight on my hands when I told them that I wanted to be a pop star. You know where I'm coming from here right!
But I fought that fight and I don't regret a moment. I'm living the life that I want to live and I'm loving every moment of it.
So my debut track is for you guys, an anthem for every young person who's at the point of 'moving on' to the next stage in their lives (whether that's leaving school, university or maybe even making career choices). Believe me, when you do start to achieve dreams that people thought would be impossible, the more fulfilling thing is gaining the respect of those people, not necessarily being right. You can't move on until you know 'where' you want to go, so listen to your heart and move on in your own groove - life is for living so LIVE IT, BE PRESENT!!!
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