My relationship to genre is non-existent. 
I do not know what exactly genre is or what genre I am absolutely in love with or despise.
My relationship with the music I like or dislike is very fluid as well, I have never been very harsh towards any sort of music because I know it is a form of expression and even if it’s not my personal preference; I realise that someone else has put in their emotions, skills and a part of themselves in it. Having said that the music I have gravitated towards all my life can be classified as popular music. I do not know how much of it was my personal choice and how much of it was because that is all I was predominantly submerged into.

Now that I am studying to be a musician I am being challenged with questions regarding my identity, my preference in genre and the style in which I want to make my own music.
Very early on I was exposed to different types of music, not necessarily different genres of music, but these songs were unique in their own respective ways. My parents from an early age would play popular and classical English and Bengali songs in the house. And growing up in Bangladesh which is a neighbouring country to India through television I got introduced to popular Hindi music as well as classical Hindi music. Growing up I also heard a bit of Disco and at my current age I am also fond of R&B, rap and hiphop. If I was asked to identify which track is made in which genre I do not know if every time I will have the correct answer but I may be able to make a close guess. I thought I was alone in this journey of not being able to classify music by genre but after doing some research I realise there are many others who feel the same way as I do. Before I talk about my confusion in the space of genre I would like to discuss what motivated me to pursue music in the first place. Growing up in a conservative society where academics were the only thing held in high regards especially when it came to young people. I found myself isolated, eccentric and lonely. The only people I could relate to at the time were people on the other side of the screen. These people could wear the clothes they wanted they could dance they could sing and they had beautiful make-up on. I learned early on that I had the ability to sing, alongside my other very strong areas of interest which were fashion, make up and dance; basically any form of artistic expression that was popular, visual, audible and doable. Previously I had talked about my obsession with drag queens but at that time popstars were the only other people I wanted to be like. I do not know if I have the same amount of fascination with popstars like I used to. But whilst doing research for my essay I realised why I wanted to be a popstar in the first place. In one of the articles I read ‘Michael Jackson’s Kingdom: Music, Race and the sound of the mainstream’ proved to me why I wanted and liked what I wanted. ‘Jackson was key in establishing a musical category that was simply pop : a late 1970s originated amalgam of rock, funk, disco, and R&B. Jackson pulled from these genres but did not perform one in particular; he borrowed from them all and mixed them into his own unique musical base’ (Tamara Roberts, 2011). In this article there are many instances where it is shown how Michael Jackson not only through his music and sound but through his music videos and every other artistic choice he changed the media, pop culture and the world forever. Through his performances he conveyed several kinds of messages whether it was about a cross over between races or indexing black urban masculinity or mimicking certain aspects of society. It also shows how he borrowed and mixed genres without withholding himself into limitations of his own race. I want to be able to do that as well, I do not want my geographical location, race or cultural background to stop me from creating what I want to create. ‘Ultimately, as I show, pop and “the mainstream” Jackson helped establish are based not on a specific sonic or racial category but on the tension between realizing and transcending race through sound’ (Tamara Roberts, 2011).

Pop pop culture transcends beyond music. ‘The history of popular music is often seen as a succession of distinct eras’ (Matthias Maunch, 2015). Pop artists through their music videos have the power to showcase fashion and trends, convey messages as well as hidden messages, highlight superficiality, show irony as well as sense of depth. I think that was the power that I craved and this is what made me gravitate towards becoming a pop artist. ‘His kinesthetic  world tour relies on the theatrical display of racial, cultural, geographic and even temporal difference for visual interest and narrative cohesion’ (Tamara Robert, 2011).
I am a fairly new and inexperienced musician. Therefore I was trying to understand genre better and I thought I was succeeding at it. ‘Popular music is classified into genres such as COUNTRY,ROCK AND ROLL,RHYTHM AND BLUES (R‘N’B) as well as a multitude of subgenres (DANCE-POP,SYNTHPOP,HEARTLAND  ROCK,ROOTS  ROCK, etc.)’(Matthias Maunch, 2015).
It made a lot of sense to me for the genres mentioned above to be classified as popular music. ‘Genre was once a practical tool
for organizing record shops and programming radio stations, but it seems unlikely to remain one in an era in which all music feels like a hybrid, and listeners are no longer encouraged (or incentivized) to choose a single area of interest’ (Amanda Petrusich, 2021). Even this classification made a lot of sense to me but there was always a part of me that was not entirely sure how to classify certain sounds I heard. And I was surprised to find out I wasn’t alone in this. Nowadays music is even categorised in terms of the mood of the listener. ‘Since streaming services have mostly supplanted record shops as the simplest way to find or acquire music, the issue of how to organize a musical library has been revisited. Spotify operates from a playlist model, frequently sorting music by vibe—an idea that’s perhaps even more ineffable than genre, but which also seems considerably more in tune with how and why people listen to music’ (Amanda Petrusich, 2021).

Throughout my teenage years and youth I only listened to pop songs my favourite artists were Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne and most singers that sang the hits from 2009 and 2010. As a little girl I would be more than happy to be singing my heart out and wear the prettiest of dresses. I didn’t think I had it in me to write songs at that time but over the years I feel like I have become better at songwriting. But now throughout life and life experiences and just the way I was brought up I feel like I have a very unique perspective to share and that can be done through music.

I’m not entirely sure where I stand with how exactly I want to make music but currently I have been gravitating towards music from artists like Grimes, FKA Twigs, Reyko, CUT_, Bad Gyal, Lexie Liu, Björk etc. Their music can be cast as alternative pop, r&b, hip hop, soul and electronic dance music. Before I was only into pop but now I find myself liking music that can be classified as a popular music but is different to a traditional pop song. ‘Genre is a reductive, old-fashioned, and inherently problematic idea, and we should all be eager to see it rendered moot, but I remain curious about the contours of a post-genre world—what that might open up for the future, and what might be sacrificed. Anyone who believes too strongly in genre as inflexible or absolute is, by nature, already somewhat behind the times’ ( Amanda Petrusich, 2021). This idea right now makes the most sense to me and was my initial opinion before I ever bothered to think about genre. It didn’t matter to me what category a sound was under as long as I was gravitating towards it. I understand how labelling makes everything easier and how it might be necessary for other people to do so but for me when it comes to music I feel like it is absolutely not needed. Music is an expression for freedom to me and I am very privileged as a South Asian woman to be pursuing music as a career, therefore it is absolutely unnecessary for me to think about genre to a point that leaves me perplexed. For my own music I would like to borrow from the genres and create something completely of my own. Because of where I was born and brought up I want to create a lot of fusion music. Most of South Asia has been brought up on the western culture intentionally or unintentionally. But we also have our own cultures and traditions which are equally beautiful and significant. So I would like to create something that strikes a perfect balance between these cultures we were brought up in and showcase the beautiful chaos that the world is today. I personally have a loud and clear voice which I can easily project when I sing but like I mentioned above some of the artists I have been listening to lately, have a very soft approach to singing, it’s almost like they’re whispering. But it sounds just as powerful and beautiful. Like Lana Del Rey I would like to be able to write powerful lyrics but serve it in a delicate manner. I want to be able to moderate my voice and experiment with different styles of singing. Much like our mood which is sometimes high and sometimes low. 

So far UEL has taught me a lot. Especially it got me thinking about things I never thought about before, it introduced me to a lot of new genres or at least put a label on the sounds I have been hearing all my life but never bothered to categorise in terms of genre. This course is making me look into my own musical taste. It’s making me have a better relationship with my craft. I am learning every day from my peers and my teachers. I would definitely consider myself post genre or I could be considered as a pop artist but either way it does not affect me or what I want to create. 
I find myself being attracted to different types of artists who do not belong to one particular genre. I want to work with existing genres and innovate within them and create a lot of fusion music. ‘On those rare occasions when a recording became popular in more than one market, it was said to crossover’ (Tamara Roberts, 2011).