Inspired #0065 - Kwamie Liv
Photo Credit: Rasmus Weng
Singer-songwriter Kwamie Liv has released her new single ‘All The Other Boys’, a taster of her second album that is to be released in 2020. She took a moment to talk to us about all the things that inspire her.
Who are your top three musical inspirations?
It’s impossible for me to boil it down to just three, it is such a shifting size all depending on my mood and where I’m at in any given moment. I would say in general I have been drawn to singer/songwriters from a very young age, probably because of the storytelling aspect. I have been making up stories for as long as I remember and growing up listening to songwriters like Tracy Chapman, Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and many more, especially from generations of songwriting before mine, has definitely helped shape and inspire me as a writer.
Is there a certain film that inspires you?
I remember watching Abderrahmane Sissako’s ‘Timbuktu’ in a small cinema in Copenhagen and sitting there as the credits rolled with tears in my eyes. It moved me deeply. The film is brutally raw, it goes straight to the heart of things in the least judgemental yet hardcore way. It’s beautiful, a complete must watch.
What city do you find the most inspiring?
I will forever have a soft spot for New York, the city that never sleeps with it’s grid of streets and a new adventure being lived around every corner. It is bursting with diversity and dreams on so many levels, but in all the fastness there is also this loneliness. Everybody’s just trying to hold on. It’s a contrast I find interesting, it intoxicates me every time I’m there.
Who is the most inspiring person to you?
The first thing that comes to mind is women, the women in my family- my sisters, my grandmother, my aunt, my mother. They are such forces, each in their own way and I wouldn’t be who I am without them. More broadly speaking I am inspired by fearlessness, imagination, love, honesty and kindness. I am very drawn to people with these qualities.
How would you like to inspire people?
I don’t think of it in that way. The most important thing to me is that I live and create as authentically as possible from wherever I am, with the goal of expanding and using/giving as much of myself as I can. I don’t like to waste time, I want to eat life with both hands.