Kevin Bronson on September 21st, 2020

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The new single “Start With You” offers a warm-hearted but not heavy-handed reminder that, surrounded by vitriol, divisiveness and injustice, the best way to start a revolution is to look in the mirror.

The tune is the work of L.A. singer-songwriter-producer Blaire Michael and San Diego rapper Lew Salem and the first single from Michael’s forthcoming debut album, which will feature a host of guest vocalists as well as her own. The song’s message is pretty straightforward but always worth repeating: “When the world is overwhelming and you feel powerless to create meaningful change, the best place to start is with yourself,” the duo says. “We hope it inspires people to kindness, compassion and understanding.”

The pair began collaborating when Michael was living in San Diego and continued after she moved to L.A. During quarantine, she revisited a beat she’d had stashed away (the working title was “Happy Vibes”). “I finally picked it up again during quarantine as a sort of escape from the anxiety and uncertainty I was feeling around life,” Michael said. “I arranged it with a piano reminiscent of the one in ‘Just A Friend’ by Biz Markie, sent it to Lew and asked him to write something inspirational and uplifting.”

Salem picks up the story: “She gave me her vision for the song: an upbeat song with inspirational lyrics, as the world was in full-blown quarantine at the time. I wrote the pre-chorus and chorus first based on the melody of the song, and drew inspiration from Kid Cudi in stacking the vocals. I take walks in the neighborhood on my lunch break, and I honed in on the feeling of being in the same routine and feeling the need to break out, something that we all were feeling at the time. The theme of changing habits was all drawn from personal experience and books I was reading at the time that were inspiring growth and change in myself.”

For the video, they turned to visual artist/musician Nico Turner, who co-directed with Michael. “I was seeing a lot of parallels between the 1970s and the modern era, especially around issues of racial injustice,” Michael says. “I wanted to make that connection apparent by setting the video in both of these eras, as well as give a nod to the monotony we all face in self-isolation because of COVID-19.” Adds Salem: “Blaire and Nico absolutely crushed the concept and direction, and it’s the biggest production I’ve been a part of in my career thus far. Overall, I’m hoping that the song just inspires people to look inside themselves for the change that we want to create, and to take action in becoming educated on worldly issues/ideas.”

Start bouncing here:

||| Watch: The video for “Start With You”