Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: Hi everyone, my name is Tracy Cui and I am a Chinese-Canadian Singer-Songwriter based in Mississauga, Canada. My musical genre is in the area of Pop/Ballad with some R&B influence. Growing up in an Asian family, playing an instrument is definitely a must start for diving into the world of music and I chose Piano for that. Unlike a lot of my other Asian friends where their parents forced them to learn an instrument, I gladly liked learning Piano and I didn’t feel the pressure of being forced into learning an instrument. Because I started with Classical piano, I developed a sense of musicianship ever since I was 4 years old. As I aged into my teens, I saw the first season of Voice of China, which is the Chinese adaptation of the Voice series. I wanted to be a Singer ever since. Later I realized that just being a singer isn’t enough for me as I don’t have the voice of Céline Dion or Adele so just singing the covers won’t get me far. Therefore; I decided to write my own songs and since 2018 I became an independent musician with the release of my first single “Trap”.
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Tracy Cui”?
A: I am asking Bored City to write a blog for me on my music right now haha. I am also currently looking into sync opportunities for my music. With “Serenity” as the most streamed song among my 5 originals at the moment, I think my fan base is growing. Tracy Cui is a very positive and inspiring artist and her music talks about experiences that will connect with you as well.
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
A: Right now, I really like this Chinese artist: Curley Gao, she writes music that really speaks to herself and therefore; I try to always write music that speaks to myself first because if your music cannot even speak to yourself, how is it going to make others connect with your music? I always find inspiration within myself. when finding inspiration within myself, I either experienced a re-awakening, thus the song “Rebirth” was born, or I realized that “You are your own best friend” when I was experiencing some mental health struggles. I write about my past toxic relationship because it is a “Trap” and I had to say “Goodbye” to it as a reason. “Serenity” was born when I wanted to find my serene when I was being forced to say goodbye to an internship that I was in for my program. However, I think my next song will be an inspiration from the crucial world news around us. I think to me it’s like inspiration can comes from anything, I mostly get the inspiration within myself, but sometimes I can get inspired by what my friends are experiencing and what is going on in the world politically, socially and economically. I think if you just willing to open your mind and experience life, you will realize that you can find inspirations just about from anywhere.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the song, “Serenity.”?
A: “Serenity” is about finding serene in your darkest times, like I said in the last question I wrote this song when I just got out of a bad internship experience. I didn’t want to leave myself, due to whatever reasons it was (I’m guessing this is hard to say lol) so I said whatever reasons it was, I was being forced to leave. After that, I was depressed and was literally just watching dramas for an entire week before I was like hold on a sec, what if I write all these feelings of mines into a song? And baam, “Serenity” was born.
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
A: I would say healing because most of my songs’ theme is centered around the theme of “healing”, to heal from a broken heart, to heal from a broken past, to heal from a broken self and etc.
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording “Serenity”?
A: When writing “Serenity”, the rap part is especially challenging as I’ve never written rap before, my music before were all just singing lyrics. When writing rap, you have to make sure you rhyme per every 2 lines and writing singing lyrics, you don’t always have to do that. Writing to the instrumentals was also another challenge as my lyrics sometimes don’t sync well enough with the instrumentals speaking from my past song writing experiences.
Q: What is the message of your music? and what are your goals as an artist?
A: My music often has this uplifting and inspiring message about “You are your own best friend” and “Rebirth”, the beginning intro to both of these songs can already bring you the message. As an artist, I hope to be more well-known as I hope to be a hit songwriter where my songs can be sing by the people walking on the street. I also hope to bring more positivity and abundance to the lives of those people who listen to my music.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
A: I really hope to collaborate with Curley Gao haha, as I said I think our music shares some similar themes of the hopelessness of our growing up stories. How much it might be painful growing up but nonetheless, we still keep growing. Through a broken heart to finally finding our serenity within ourselves, I think we share a lot of similarities in both music and experiences.
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
A: I would say that this industry is VERY challenging. But if you love it, by all means go for it. Just saying, don’t give up though. There will be times where all you get is rejections and you might feel that there is no way out. But being consistent and having the patience to see your hard works turn into fruition is very rewarding in the end.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
A: Don’t give up!!!!! Keep going!!!! There are job opportunities in the music industry as back in high school I didn’t think that I’d make it as an artist and right now I didn’t really “make it” per say haha, but I saw the fruition of my hard works and being consistent throughout the years and that really paid off.
