Every week, dozens of up-and-coming artists submit to our Mezz Music Mondays playlist on Spotify and Soundcloud. One of those talented artists featured on this week’s playlist is Blake Shimoda.
Blake Shimoda is an R&B/Pop artist from the Midwest, currently based in LA. He never really thought he could be an artist because he felt he never had meaningful observations about the world or important things to say. Blake actually started making music at the age of 17 as a producer, messing around with EDM beats. As his skills grew, he began to produce for other Pop and Hip-Pop artists, creating tracks that aligned with their personal sound. In 2018, Blake decided to dive more into his own artistry, teaching himself how to sing, learning more about writing music, and finding his own, individual sound. Four years later, after working on this project for two consecutive years, Blake released his debut album, Waiting For Tomorrow, based on these years of sonic discovery.
This week’s Mezz Music Mondays playlist features the song “Habits” from the album. “Habits” is a Pop-style track with Hip-hop influences reflecting on his constant need to work harder and achieve more as he struggles to balance the demands of his personal and professional life. He describes this song as being written in a transitional period of his life during the beginning of the pandemic. He went from living in a house full of his friends in Denver, Colorado, planning to move to LA to propel his music career to living alone and struggling to figure out what his next steps were as an artist. As a result, he says, “I was feeling really hopeless about the overall direction of my life and I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to get to where I need to be as soon as possible…I was having a really hard time doing that and staying happy in my personal life”. As he struggled to balance both, he reflected on these feelings with “Habits” and hopes that more people can relate to these same feelings of internal conflict.
As many artists do, Blake found Mezz Entertainment while posting on Tiktok, trying to promote his music. While he tends to try and stay away from social media, he saw the necessity to promote himself on Tiktok to attract more people to his music. Earlier on in his career, he thought, “‘l’ll just make really good music and people will find it somehow.” as he says a lot of artists think. Blake quickly realized how vital promoting on social media platforms can be when one of his Tiktoks promoting Waiting for Tomorrow blew up overnight, as seen here.
We’re happy to have Blake featured on our playlist and blog this week! If you’re an independent artist looking to promote your music for free, submit to the Mezz Music Mondays playlist on Spotify and Soundcloud here! Follow us @mezzentertainment on Tiktok and Instagram to see more amazing artists like Blake. Make sure to check out the Mezz Music Mondays playlist featuring “Habits” off of Blake Shimoda’s debut album here!
Written by: Bria Whitaker (@bribrisw on Instagram)