Dave Shah

Humans of YJA: May 9, 2021

“I went through some pretty rough patches of depression myself when I was in school. I’d see everyone around me, and it would seem that they had a path, a certainty that they created their days out of — but I had no idea what I was doing. When you’re floating around like that, you find yourself spiraling into something pretty bad. You collapse, and then you have to rebuild. You’ll think you’re on the right path, and then something will break you again.

There has to be something you do in your life that takes you away from yourself. For me, that was music. There came a point when I had the privilege of meeting an artist, and he asked me if I had ever thought about producing music. Even though I’m not exactly the most tech-savvy person, I started messing around with it. But after a few years of just producing, I felt like I had a lot more to say. I’m someone who journals every day, and I constantly have thoughts flowing out of me that I need to let out. So rap, and lyrics, are a great outlet.

I put out my first song when I was in school. I was super nervous about the response it would get, but when I shared a part of me like that, it was so therapeutic. It just happened within me — I was working on some music and I pressed stop, took a step back, pushed play, and let the sound just drown me out. There was a moment when I realized: I’m never going to stop doing this.

There are a lot of people who reach out and say, ‘it’s cool to see you’re so passionate about music, but I just haven’t found that thing for me.’ It’s totally okay to look like a fool, it’s totally okay to not know what you want, but if you’re not actively trying to find the thing that really clicks in your life, I have a problem with that. We really do only have one life. So with the time that we’re blessed with, go out there, try new things — what’s the worst that could happen?”

— #HumansofYJA, 7: Dave Shah

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