“You know when you think you’re doing something altruistic but really you’re doing something for yourself?!”

HUTL’s mission is to ‘curate spaces to inspire creatives’. I’m your podcast host Matshidiso - a musician, singer-songwriter, teacher, producer and lover of processes. I’ll be using this space to share things that are on mind, things I’ve been watching, reading, ideas I’ve been thinking about, music I’ve been listening to, exhibitions I’ve attended, in the hopes that you’ll be creatively inspired. I also hope that you’ll share some of the things you’ve been doing/watching/reading/listening to with me.

But before we do that, let’s go back to how this all started…

You know when you think you’re doing something altruistic but really you’re doing something for yourself?! That’s HUTL for me. Writer Toni Morrison said something along the lines of, if there’s a book you need to read that doesn’t exist, then you be the one to write it. I think I’m trying to create the creative support space I wish I’d had when I was starting out as an independent musician some 10/15 years ago.

Perhaps you’re like me, you find the creative part of your work- in my case making the music, writing and performing the songs part - the easy (well maybe not easy, but definitely fulfilling) part. It’s all the other things: the admin; generating opportunities; trying to earn a living; the social media presence, all while trying to grow in your artistic practice that I often find tedious but necessary. In hindsight, I understand why people have record labels and agents and a PR team to take charge of all of the, let’s call it…creative infrastructure.

I could’ve signed to a major record label when I first started out but I was adamant about ownership of my music and steering the trajectory of my career.

With all I know now I think I’d still do what I did but it does make everything that much harder. Yes you forfeit a degree of control, money and even ownership but done strategically with the help of social media, I think the scope for building and sustaining a career in the arts is much wider than before. There’s a lot to say on the pros and cons of this new model, a model that still leaves the artist/creative worse off than the [insert name of company/streaming service, conglomerate here] but maybe that’s a conversation for another time…

“What if the person who has a certain level of creative confidence can support the person who may be prone to self-sabotage and getting in their own way? ”

So, a few significant things happened:

First, it was off the back of doing a fancy black-tie music festival, unpaid that I realised I didn’t know what the heck I was doing and most of my scrappy creative friends didn’t either - if you want to hear the full hilarious story behind that listen to the podcast episode.

Second, I realised I needed to learn some some things quickly. I also made a commitment to myself that anything I learned I would endeavour to share it with other independents. I figured, if one wins we all win right?

Third, I had a broad circle of creative friends who talked about the same challenges. How could we come together, galvanise our resources and support each other. We gave ourselves a name, the ‘Make It Happen Crew’(or MIH - a corny 90s reference I know!) but we did what we set out to do. We were in music, fashion, photography, art, graphic design, film, TV, the hospitality industry, women’s rights, business, the sciences and in many instances a hybrid of multiple industries. We would meet once a month, discover the strengths and weaknesses of each group member believing that someone in that room could be a solution for another person’s problem and/or be able to meet a need:

What if the person who was incredibly organised could help the person who is good at starting multiple ideas but not finishing them?

What if the person who has left their day job to pursue their dream could help the person who is still working full-time but longs to make their passion their career?
What if the person who needs to network in new circles as they shift career can be connected to new people by someone in the group who has a broad network?
What if the person who has a certain level of creative confidence can support the person who may be prone to self-sabotage and getting in their own way? Of course it took a level of personal responsibility, no one could do the work for us, but collective support creates a kind of buoyancy or momentum that I believe we’re not always meant to self generate - we’re designed to need each other.

We’ve been going for nearly 9 years and in that time we’ve seen people start new careers, set up art galleries, become directors of companies, start podcasts (that’s me over here!) move country, have children (to my mind the ultimate creative expression, making a human being!) start their own fashion brands, win awards, change career entirely, it’s been nothing short of inspiring. I have personally felt the benefits of this targeted and collective intentionality: the person responsible for the podcast branding and website design, Carolyne Hill of Chillcreate a part of MIH; some of my early podcast guests are in the group; I’ve got work got work through our network and made new connections, the list goes on.

And sometimes…you just need a pep talk. Someone whose words reminds you why you do what you do, gives you a proverbial kick up the backside and gets you out of that creative funk. It. really.does.work!

It’s the amalgamation of this journey that lead me to start the podcast. An idea that I had written on paper about 5/6 years ago but thought I didn’t have the infrastructure - the producer, the platform, the equipment, the money…But then the pandemic happened and I remember watching all these big US talk shows with celebrities interviewed online with terrible sound that cut out or staggered because of intermittent internet connection and thought to myself - if they can do it, so can I!

I already had the format, so I reached out to potential interviewees - some said no, some didn’t reply but many said yes. I wrote the theme music. I didn’t have a proper microphone, I used a sound recorder that I normally use for field recording, but it had an inbuilt mic so it worked as a temporary measure. I conducted all the interviews in my bedroom ( I still do - soft furnishings make for good sound!). I chose to use Acast as a platform because the podcasts that I liked listening to were on there, it was easy to use and most importantly, it was free! I created a HUTL Instagram and Twitter page. I was doing the social media myself until I found someone to help me.

I cut the episodes together, usually taking days to edit and form into an episode. I would record the voiceovers curled up in the cupboard with the boiler to try and deaden the external sound.

I learned the power of simply asking, people could say no and that’s fine! When I sent an unsolicited email to neuroscientist Dr Susan Rogers, Prince’s former sound engineer and all round fantastic person and she said yes, it felt like anything was possible. And then when I approached Airbnb who sponsored the Season 3, a first for the hosting platform, it was not only really encouraging on a personal level, it also meant I could buy some proper microphones! I now have a producer (more on that later) and we’re working on Season 4 - S04 has taken a while to do, but I’ll tell you more on that another time.

Like everything, I learn as I go - getting feedback from people who know what they’re talking about, always seeking to improve, collaborating with new people - that’s how the filmed episode of the podcast came about. That buoyancy and forward momentum I mentioned earlier has not only come from MIH, it’s also come from seeing something I had in mind all these years come to life and just doing it, even if it’s not perfect.

I’ve got so many plans for this platform that I hope to share with you along the way. Because, I need to be inspired, to learn and experience new things in order to create new things and flourish as a person. But also because I know none of this happens in a vacuum, the arts are designed to be shared.

And we go further and hopefully create something long lasting if we share this knowledge, ‘holding up the ladder’ for each other.