Nola Baldwin
Completed November 23, 2020
Nola Baldwin appears on FaceTime as she sits in her apartment in Boston, Massachusetts wearing a black turtleneck, silver chain jewelry, and her light brown hair pulled back into a low bun. In contrast to her dark clothes, she has a warm and energetic personality. As an up and coming musician, Baldwin, 21, is taking the success of her new single Human Connections and continuing to pursue new music.
Baldwin grew up surrounded by music. Her parents, both in the music industry, played Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles, and Bon Iver throughout their home. The smooth voices and poetic lyrics behind each artist's songs intrigued her. Her father, who dreamed of becoming a musician in his early 20's, wrote and played songs for his wife throughout Baldwin's childhood. She frequently watched her parents sing and dance to different music. “I was in awe,” she says.
Although they greatly wanted to push for her pursuit of music, Baldwin says her parents knew the best way for their daughter to enter the music world would be at her own will. A true and genuine interest in music is what they knew she needed in order to make it in this competitive industry.
Baldwin often sat at her parents piano, playing different keys as a young girl. But as the young headstrong girls she was, she refused to take piano lessons and insisted on teaching herself. “I kick myself now,” she says, “cause I could be so fucking good but I think them trying to let me find that for myself worked cause I wanted to create my own sound and figure out my own relationship with it.”
In the end, it worked. Over the past few years Baldwin has been pursuing her musical career in her own way. She is attending Berklee College of Music where she is learning how to incorporate topics she finds important, such as mental health, in her music. She as well is prioritizing honest lyric writing, and acknowledging the history of musical genres. Having been introduced to different artists all throughout her life, she takes inspiration from almost all styles of music. Although a southern gal from Raleigh, North Carolina, she loathes country music. She says “I'm from the south but I hate country music. I won't write it, don't even put me near it. People are like `are you considering moving to Nashville after you graduate’ and I’m like “nooo” hard pass hard pass.”
A few musicians she is greatly inspired by are Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, Billie Eillish, and Yebba. She explains each of these artists bring powerful and honest lyrics to their audience. Sufjan Stevens, who’s most famously known for his song Mystery of Love from the Oscar nominated movie Call Me By Your Name, is an artist who Baldwin says “ knows who he is in his career. He's put out so many things and just writes from the heart and like is able to do that and it’s sort of up to the audience to come up with their own interpretation.”
Right now, Baldwin has noticed the shift in listeners’ opinions over the meanings behind songs. Compared to the early 2000’s, as she explains, songs were not completely being looked at for the message they were sending but instead the catchiness of the song lyrics. Now lyrics are being looked at more than ever. “It's a lot more focused on telling the stories,” she says, “now people are more concerned with what artists are saying.”
As part of her interest in music, Baldwin has emphasized the importance of recognizing the roots of different genres of music and how they play a large part in the meaning of songs.
Over the summer, the Black Lives Matter movement, brought about by the death of George Floyed, created important conversations for Baldwin and other musicians. As a young white artist, she says “I think it is so important now that musicians are recognizing the roots of their music and being able to recognize certain genres coming from other cultures.”
As she continues to study music at Berklee, she notices a common notion of ‘This is American’ that many people have regarding music. Take jazz, for example, this music genre is rooted in West African rhythm/blues and European chords/instruments which connects back to the African slave trade. There is a deep history to his genre of music, she explains, which is why it is important for people to talk about the history and in turn will give them a better appreciation for it.
“I think people should have already been talking about it and it should have been part of the dialogue but I’m glad that it’s sort of coming back and it should be talked about” she says.
In her own music, Baldwin shares her personal experiences as she is a firm believer of focusing on storytelling. Whether she is writing a dark pop piece similar to artist Billie Eilish or writing a catchy pop song called Bitch Can’t Spell February, she makes sure to share her life with her audience.
Lyrics don’t have to be sad or deep, as Baldwin says, but keeping them “honest in what I’m going through has helped me be self-aware as I can,” she says. With a song like Bitch Can’t Spell February, Baldwin was writing about a bad relationship her friend was in and the negative impacts it had. Writing about both the good and the bad, she continuously is learning to recognize everything that comes her way and learning to have a good relationship with herself.
Ultimately, Baldwin would love to get to the point in her career where she isn't worried about how her audience will perceive her music. “Even though I am putting out stuff that is authentic and current with my life, obviously there is still a part of me that is like ok how is this going to be received and how am I going to make this a little more approachable from the pop side or another side,” she says
Her lyrics, as well, speak of the impact mental health has on her life. In April 2019, Baldwin released her EP Medicine which speaks about the antidepressant she was prescribed but not taking. The meaning behind Medicine comes from a question she asked herself. “Can I really say that I’m really upset with everything that’s happening if I’m not taking my meds?” she says.
She wants her audience to be able to connect with her music and create their own interpretation of the meaning; which is why she is open to sharing her life. Being able to see the impact her music has on people keeps her inspired to write honest lyrics. “It was really cool for me to hear other people attach their own sort of thing to it,” she says.
Moving forward with her music, mental health will continue to be an important topic in her music. As Baldwin says,“Mental health is such a large part of my life that I feel it would be dishonest not to talk about that.”