© Szopa
Audio-visual artist Szopa won’t conform to the shackles of the music industry and society's expectations. He’s doing it his way and has never been happier.
Digital musician and musical artist Szopa, real name Damian Malecki, knows what it means to struggle in every which way, but has turned those obstacles into audio gold. Born in a small town in Western Poland, music was his passion from a young age. An anomaly in the music industry, Szopa doesn’t perform live and refuses to conform to the standards society expects from modern musicians. With his new album “The Prayerbook” out now, the 31-year-old talks to Injection Mag about how his past affected his mental health, his stubborn perseverance, and why he’d only consider playing live under strict conditions.
Please tell us a little about your younger self and the impact on your life now.
Like most families [in Poland] in the 90s, we struggled financially and lived in a very small space. There was a lot of shame surrounding the subject of poverty, and my parents didn’t talk about it but we also didn’t have a lot of people we could compare ourselves to in that regard. It was a tiny community, and everyone was facing similar issues. I don’t think I realised that until I was a teenager and visited one of my friends whose parents were successful photographers and lived in a huge house. It blew my mind that people could live like that. I think realising and processing that became a big part of my identity as an adult - accepting the struggle we faced and making peace with it, and drawing conclusions about the current state of the world and the wealth gap. Remembering where I come from is important and I always stand on the side of those who are less fortunate.
What role did music play in your life growing up?
Growing up, I was very much drawn to the arts - I wrote, sang, and painted. To an extent, it must’ve been a form of escapism, as I don’t consider myself to have had a happy childhood, but again, it’s one of those things we only see in retrospect. I started playing the piano around the age of 14 when one of my friends tutored me. After a few weeks though she confessed her feelings for me, which ended our sessions. This was a problem because I couldn’t really ask my parents to buy me a digital piano as they were pretty expensive. So I started working in a holiday resort as a kitchen porter. I spent two months riding my bike to a nearby village, working double shifts, sometimes 10, or 11 days in a row, so that I could afford my own piano. Over the next couple of years, I taught myself how to play - I get a lot of satisfaction from mastering things on my own, be it music, art, cooking, or sports.
That requires a lot of determination, perseverance, and hard work. Do you apply this to everything you do?
I attended singing classes as a kid but I couldn’t hit a single note, and didn’t even understand how it’s supposed to “feel” when you eventually do. The teacher got very frustrated with me and said that I would never be able to sing and that he didn’t wish to continue our classes. Thankfully, I’m very stubborn, although to this day I still need to practise my pitch regularly. This was two years before I left my hometown to live in the UK. At that point, I was quite unhappy as a person and had pretty low self-esteem. All I had was listening to my favourite music, closing my eyes, and imagining that one day it was going to be me singing these songs. And therefore I couldn’t accept [the teacher’s] judgment. In my head, I was either going to make this happen or die trying. My attitude towards that hasn’t ever changed.
How would you define yourself as a creative?
I create out of my need for self-expression - I think it’s a valuable tool to connect with other people, but also to materialise my feelings and fully submerge myself in what I’m currently processing. I try to avoid feeding my ego with my own ideas of what it means to be an artist. There is a lot of societal pressure to be successful at what we do and capitalise on our skills and talents. It’s great when that happens naturally, and one can sustain themselves from their craft, but often creatives end up turning themselves into products, and that’s something I am trying to avoid heavily. With my music being difficult to define in terms of genre, I don’t really fit anywhere easily.
Do you work with other musicians to create your sound or do you work mostly by yourself? What instruments do you play?
I have a small gang, but for the most part, I work on the overall sound and compositions myself - I think that it could be a very satisfying experience to form a band and work with other musicians, especially knowing they might have some invaluable experience and knowledge I lack in certain areas. As for myself, I mostly play piano and synthesizers, but I also have tabla and erhu, which I can’t play very well, but it’s good enough for sampling. My house is scattered with weird things that make sounds - which is something any producer should be able to proudly say.
You’re studio-based-only at the moment. Are there any plans for your fans to see you at live gigs?
Unfortunately, there are no plans. I tried organising a live performance in 2020 for the launch of my debut album, but covid happened. I thought about it again last year and had some studio rehearsals with a great violinist and a drummer, but it didn’t feel right, and I find performing in front of others to be very stressful and upsetting. I imagine that if I performed live, it would be on a big stage with a full band and a great show so that I could deliver a satisfying performance, and that’s just not the reality of starting out as an independent musician. Another reason is disability - having autism and a lot of sensory issues, it feels very unnatural and complicated to perform. When I record in the studio, there’s only one thing I have to think about, which is my voice. Performing live, there is a lot you have to manage and control, and the autopilot just switches off the second I know I’m being watched or recorded. It makes it impossible to play and sing simultaneously, and even with just singing, it feels like I have to manually control my gestures, facial expressions, my pitch - it all must sound absolutely ridiculous to someone who doesn’t face those issues. I don’t think I’ll be able to perform live. I would need a lot of support and monitoring equipment, and I would need to know there are people out there I can trust, so that if I make a mistake or start struggling, they will understand the reason behind it. Perhaps in the future things will change, and I will have both the budget and a trusted band to create a show like the ones I envision in my head. Who knows.
© Szopa
Your Spotify Profile reads that you make “sad songs” - if you feel comfortable sharing, what events and experiences inspire those songs?
The first 20 years of my life were pretty traumatic, and I don’t often speak about it in detail, even with friends. It’s something I had a chance to process and make peace with, and there is very little sadness left in my body regarding those events, so it just doesn’t come up anymore. It’s also something very draining to discuss - I found that a lot of people can’t relate to my experiences, so explaining something this personal can be difficult.
I grew up not knowing that I have a disability and it made me into an easy target for bullies. Polish public schools are brutal as well. My teenage years were full of homophobia, physical assaults, and suicide attempts. It’s hard to describe just how often these bad situations happened. I’d be walking to the local shop and some guy who “heard I was gay” would just come up and beat me up. And you can’t tell anyone about it either, cause it would make the situation much worse. Sometimes when I was at home and nobody was there I would just burst into tears. I didn’t understand why I was being so heavily punished for just being me.
Now, I don’t recognize the person I was 10 years ago. I turned all this evil that happened to me into good stuff, and now I feel like the only purpose of my existence is to make sure I am a kind human being. Because I know some people must’ve gone through life experiences just as, if not more traumatic, and they don’t deserve that.
What challenges have you faced within the music industry and as a creative person and how do you overcome them?
Existing as a commercially successful musician is a near-impossible task. You’re competing against thousands of other artists, trying to make yourself visible in a very big crowd, or fighting for attention on social media. I just stopped participating in all of it. I stopped sending out emails to record labels when I release new albums, I stopped begging for attention. My genre is very non-conforming when it comes to expectations from music outlets, and it would be very limiting to focus on doing what is considered successful, or desired in the music market.
My debut album was released through a small, independent record label from Poland, Requiem Records, and it was a much different experience to what I hear from my musician friends - they did a great job honouring my ideas, and album design, organised some great coverage and interviews in Poland. It was a very fun and positive experience. But I can’t imagine working with a big label and having deadlines and expectations.
This year I just decided to release everything myself and self-fund it. I saved up money like you would for any other life goal, and designed and printed everything. It’s fun, I worked really hard for it and did it my way, and I’ll be chuffed with myself regardless of whether any copies sell once the album is out. I did what was right, and only that is relevant.
© Szopa
What are your inspirations and aspirations for the future?
To keep creating. That’s it. It’s as simple as that. To keep making art, whatever it may be. I just started working on a poetry project, I’m simultaneously working on my 4th album. I want to connect with people. I want to talk to people. Not just musicians and creatives, but individuals who are as obsessed with music and self-expression as myself, and hopefully my upcoming album release will allow me to do just that.
In terms of style and the direction in which my music is going, I will be heavily focusing on classical Hindustani music and instruments, and some Turkish and Middle Eastern influences. That’s where my heart is and always was, and I want to explore that further, this time around, hopefully, with other musicians who will want to collaborate on my projects.
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