They said dance.

I danced.

They said stop dancing.

So I stopped.

They said you’re no good.

So I never tried again.

-

They said dance.

“But I can’t.”

Well then you’re weird.

“But you said...”

Ya you can’t dance.

“That’s what I thought.”

-

Dance!

“I don’t know how.”

But you have to!

“I’m scared.”

Do it any ways, we won’t laugh.

So now I dance.

- “dance” by riley q -

Don’t underestimate how much your words can effect people.

Be the person who brings light to someone's eyes and clears away the shadows that have haunted them.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=126552861139010801

I wrote this song a few weeks ago in the midst of a spell of anxiety & depression. When my mental health is acting up, I tend to become a very honest introvert. I have no shame in calling out the BS in the world- including my own. This is a song of self-reflection, but also an honest cry of “I have to act fake when I don't want ANYTHING to do with the outside world.”

Let me know what you think, do you find yourself doing the same thing? Do you get anxious when you have to be around people? Do you find yourself acting fake on social media, to make up for it?

Tweet me & let me know what you think about the song! – @riley_quin

✔️ Saved by the Bell vibes

✔️ Clean, sleek platform

✔️ Hype buttons (LOVE that positivity)

I have had the privilege of being enrolled into the Cinnamon Early Access program & man, I love it! What a fun & exciting platform that they have created.

Here's the deal, I know what we're all thinking.

“Who's got the balls to compete against YouTube?”

Cinnamon. That's who.

And I could NOT be more excited to support them! Finally, a video platform that I get PAID to be a part of without all the annoying ads! Why oh why has it taken us this long to realize creators' worth?!

A few thoughts on my first day of use...

1. It's a SUPER easy platform to navigate.
2. I LOVE the Search Bar at the top! Legit my favorite thing that I can't wait for @coil to have!
3. I love the fact that you can personalize the color scheme of your profile & you've got *4200* characters to talk about yourself!
4. They've got an awesome sidebar where you can easily check out new creators. Plus the “newsfeed” is super easy to navigate, just like the Coil feed.

A few problems I've run into..

(FYI, I have reached out to Cinnamon about all of these and they've either fixed them ALREADY within 24 hours or they've assured me they're working on it! #winning)

1. I have had a few problems with uploading videos. Unless I turn my hotspot on it wouldn't upload- which none of my other video platforms have caused me problems. Not sure if this is just a problem with my wifi or not, but just in case this happens to you- you're not alone.
2. The video uploading process is pretty quick, but the last video I tried to upload has been stuck in the “processing” step for over a day now and I'm not sure what's happening. I assume it's a glitch??
3. At first there were a few little things like my profile picture was squished, the description had a bug in it, and you couldn't add two word tags. BUT they got all of this fixed and now you can use two word tags, your profile photo can be any size and the descriptions are working flawlessly!
4. I wish – as does @aaa that it had a comment section and/or the ability to be able to DM other users directly on the platform! (lowkey, @Coil, I wish we could DM here as well!) Not sure if this is in the works or not yet, but I'd love to know if this will ever be an option or not?

I am SO excited to switch my video hosting to Cinnamon, it's a very promising and exciting platform. I encourage you to hang in there during the growth process, it's truly going to change the video game! Who else is pumped?!

Tweet me how you think Cinnamon is going to change the game! @riley_quin

I started singing when I was 2 years old.

I started playing piano when I was 4.

I started writing song when I was 11.

I started recording music when I was 16.

Over the span of almost 20 years, 18 of them have revolved in some way around music. I have jumped from project to project, genre to genre, trying to figure out the one thing that every musician is trying to figure out: what the heck they're doing.

What is my sound?

What is my style?

Do I stick with what the general population likes or do I try and go out of the box?

Am I even capable of going out of the box?

Ya'll. Writing music is freaking hard. It's fun and it's liberating and it's life changing and it's depressing and it's hard all in one. But I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

Writing songs that people love & can relate to & feel deeply is what makes all of the crap worth it.

Like the crap when I first started recording music.

I was 16 & I was working with someone who did not only not know what they were doing, but they were very arrogant and rude. They didn't understand how to take a concept of a song and turn it into an incredible song.

That left me working in uncomfortable situations with tight deadlines, zero room for mistakes and little to no guidance in the actual process of writing the song- I'll talk more about this another time. Anyways, it lead me to release a song that was

1. Not finished
2. Not the style I actually needed to go towards
3. Under-produced
4. I am now quite bitter towards.

Now yes, it's still available on iTunes & Spotify because I think it's important to show how far you've come, but for all of you musicians out there, a word of warning:

If you don't absolutely LOVE the song, do not release it.

You will regret it. Period.

In October of 2016 I released my first original song: “Fly Back” and oh how I regret it. Not only was the song DEFINITELY NOT finished, but I sound 12. Now yes, I was 16- but it still makes me cringe.

https://youtu.be/GdFxoeXqyyI

After I released that song I released “Boy” from the same producer. Same outcome- bad song, underproduced, young Riley, should've never happened. But it did and I learned from that song as well. I'm not even linking that one because it made me cringe so hard- go stalk me and you'll easily find it. 😂

Fast forward 2 years of writing music, focusing on life experiences and not releasing a single original, I, on a whim, released my single “Didn't Let You Go”.

I do not recommend this. Releasing music on a “whim”. Why? Three reasons.

1. Advertising and promotion are a VITAL aspect of a successful release. This on average should take 2 weeks to plan and 2 weeks to execute, pre-release.

2. Your distributor doesn't have enough time to get it out to all platforms and the day of the release, half of your audience can't even access it. Yup. That happened. #fail

3. The song needs to be done, done. Not like third draft done, like 123rd draft done.

After that song I had a wonderful and loving mentor come along who didn't want to see me “fail” again. This lead to a month and a half whirlwind of writing a song, re-writing a song, re-re-writing a song, pushing myself as hard as I ever had lyrically and emotionally, recording the song – see the bts video for an inside look into the studio - and creating promo content.

On top of “Stitched” being an incredibly emotional song to write and record, it was very emotional to take photographs for & to put my story out there so vividly. You can watch the Stitched video below to see just how much I've grown. I'm so proud of myself- and that, is something I never thought I would say.

https://cinnamon.video/watch?v=122479330604353298

But ya know, that's what being an artist is about. Looking through this article I see SO much growth not only as a lyricist, musician and artist, but as a human. Being an artist about creating within yourself and outside of yourself- finding new ways to impact people. For instance @Coil – an incredible way to share my craft, I had to jump on it. It's out of the box, it introduced me to an entirely new demographic, people like me are few and far between and the community is incredibly engaging. Coil truly jumpstarted me and gave me the kick to start releasing music again!

I really encourage you to look back on your past and appreciate both the triumphs and the fails because they both shape you into who you are. I have a feeling I will look back on this article in a few months or a few years and laugh about where I thought I was now. I'm not done growing. I'm not done writing. I'm not done. That being said... keep an eye out for new music dropping September 6th. 😉

For those of you who aren't in the music industry, I would like to shed a little bit of light on the subject of payouts.

Believe it or not, the starving artist mentality can apply regardless of if you have had any success or not. For a lot of independent artists we are at the mercy of our PRO's (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC) and distributors payout dates. We are confined to sitting around and waiting for all of the systems to go through and process correctly. We have to wait for the streams to register, for the companies to talk to each other and hope that nothing gets lost in translation. Getting paid for our music is literally dependent on outdated computer systems and strangers. This process takes about 3 months, if you're lucky.

Why in the world, in this technological age that information flows so quickly and freely from person to person should we have to wait 3 months to get paid for our hard work and labor?

Why when we (independent artists) are dishing out money for:

+ studio space

+ sound engineers

+ producers

+ mixing & mastering

+ photoshoots

+ promo art

+ promotion

+ rehearsal space

+ band members

+ sound technicians

+ merchandise

+ gas & food & hotels for touring

+ flat rates just to PLAY venues

+ door charges to get in to network with other musicians

+ conference charges to grow and try to connect with the

“right” people

... and we are getting paid 3 MONTHS from when we receive our very first stream on a song?

So what can we do about this?

Of course my first thought is XRP and Interledger. If we implemented technology like Interledger using XRP, that was connected to the distributors, that paid artists instantly for the streams that they acquired and paid the artist as the song was played, (like coil) not only would it help artists to live off of their artistry, but it would cut out the middle man and enable artists to get more of the money that they worked for. Whoo.. that was a run-on sentence. But you get the point.

Now I get that this would not solve all of the problems that artists have as we cannot survive off of streams alone, but it would significantly help the overarching problem of the “middle man” and the delay in payment.

What do you think? Do you think implementing the Interledger technology in the music industry would help or hurt it? Tweet me what you think – @riley_quin

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=122479330604353298

A HUGE thank you to the 19 beautiful, strong, brave women who contributed to this video. If you are a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, or harassment, we stand with you. You are brave and you are strong.

You can stream the song here:

https://lnkfi.re/stitched

You can use this # to share your story & stand with us: #stitchedtogetherme

4 year old me stood at the bottom of a staircase and looked up at the piano that she had to play in front of 40 of her closest friends and family members, could she do it?

11 year old me stood at the edge of the stage and looked out at 100 of her peers, ready to sing for the first time in front of all of them. Would they like her?

14 year old me sat in the back row of her church, balling. She had been told to get off the stage, she wasn't going to go anywhere. Would she ever get back on the stage?

18 year old me randomly did an open mic at a dive bar in a small town she had never been to. Would she even turn their heads?

19 year old me is sitting here, typing this post, shaking in her boots- she just shared the biggest story of her life with the whole world. How are they going to react?

Download & Stream “Stitched” NOW on all major platforms!

https://lnkfi.re/stitched

Apple Music

Spotify

The goal is 1k streams in the first week, think we can do it?

*UPDATE* We blew past 1k in a day!

Thank you for all your support! 💕

How can you help?

• Share! Share! Share!
• Download the song- save it to your profile if you stream!
• Follow me on the platform.
• Add the song to your playlists!
• Listen, listen, listen!

As a thank you for being one of my Coil fans, here's a quick look inside the studio session where I recorded my new single: “Stitched”. It will be available to stream on July 19th at 12 am your time on ALL platforms!