2018 Won’t Suck If We Follow These Musicians’ Advice

Ah, yes. 2017. The year of fidget spinners. Of another series of Stranger Things. Of constant Instagram stories. Of wide-leg ankle grazers. Of Cat Person. Of “this is great” and “no actually this is problematic”. Of Cardi B and Fyre Festival and “New Rules”. Of increasingly bleak and existential memes. Of chaos. Of overdue reckonings. Of disaster and death. These are the things we will remember the year 2017 for – a year which has already been stamped, sealed and stored in the files of history until we’re all incinerated by a meteor that nobody expected.

But 2018: that’s a different story. It still stretches out ahead of us, untouched, like opening the front door and making the first footprints on a fresh blanket of morning snow. 2017 might have been a fucking shitshow in more ways than we have the impetus to list here, but 2018 still has promise. There is still time to focus on new things. But what things? What exactly should we all be putting our finite time and energy into? Instead of trying to make these decisions ourselves, we rang up some of our favourite musicians and mined them for the wisdom we personally don’t possess. Here’s what they said we should care about, from us to you:

REJJIE SNOW: EARTH, SLEEP AND WATER

“First off, the world: We all have these phones on here but we gotta actually be better humans. I’m angry right now that so many people deny global warming. There are farmers in Bangladesh farming on water and having to adapt because of rising sea levels. But fuck it… maybe losing chocolate will really make people believe in climate change, since the natural disasters, rising sea levels, warming oceans, and extinction threats aren’t enough.

Water: this is something i know we all know, but it’s super important! we are losing so much water throughout the day so it’s important to stay hydrated. Drink eight cups a day on the dead homies.

Sleep: Let’s all try to get the correct amount of sleep! Your flow will be sharper and sex life even richer. It’s easy to lose track of our sleep cycles, but seven to eight hours a night and you’ll be ready to fight any battle. Lack of sleep can affect our immune system and so much more.”

BROOKE CANDY: WAKING THE FUCK UP

“I may have read this on the back of a T-shirt, but I feel like it sums up in the best possible way what I think most people should care about in 2018…

If a person is born ignorant, to parents that are ignorant, in a society that is ignorant, lives a life of ignorance and eventually dies in ignorance… ignorance is a norm. So indoctrination can be called education, hypnotism can be called entertainment, criminals can be called leaders, and lies can be called truth because their mind was never truly their own.

In 2018, I think we need to WAKE UP and spread conscious unconditional love. We need to push ourselves to seek truth. We need to TAKE ACTION.”

MABEL: TURNING AWAY FROM THE TL

“2018 should be about being more present. Social media is important for what I do, but this year I want to care more about being in the moment and less on my phone.”

DREAM WIFE: THE BLOCKCHAIN

“So the blockchain is the system that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies operate on. This is revolutionary because it allows for the decentralisation of currency with no third party involvement – but these are just the seeds of this technology right now. It’s hard to explain in just a short amount of time, and I would say Google it… but don’t because they will just harvest your data… maybe check it on Tor? We are the #BitcoinGeneration.”

KWAYE: STAYING EMPATHETIC

“Empathy and perspective. Over the previous year it felt like there’s been a lack of empathy. People get so caught up in their day-to-day lives and struggles that when we’re faced with a dilemma that isn’t directly impacting us we often take a very cold stance against it. A lot of debates on the internet and in society / culture felt very two-dimensional. Even if one side might be wrong, there has to be an understanding of why someone thinks the way they do; how did they get to that conclusion? Without some level of empathy on both sides we start blaming and guilt tripping, which never helps things move forward and instead creates resentment.

Perspective. I think social media has created an internal pressure for young people that they need to “make it” in their twenties and maybe even earlier. I think if you’re rushing to make something of yourself, your short-term behaviour can affect your long-term goals without you realising. Most people reach their peak in their mid-thirties and sometimes a lot later in life. The way we consume, and the speed of things now, means that patience is often forgotten when it really is the most important thing. Take a step back and breath, you’re still so young!”

RINA SAWAYAMA: BEING KIND ONLINE

“We should give a shit about allowing people to make mistakes online. All of us who grew up with the internet know that cyber bullying is an insidious problem that has claimed so many young lives. While its easy to tweet that someone you admire is ‘cancelled’ because of one mistweet, or constantly demean an artist who’s admitted they’re going through a mental health crisis, or send death threats to a band member who’s taking a new creative decision, each and every one of us is responsible for what we put out online. There’s a clear difference between a mistake and someone’s permanent state of being; the former make us human. So if you can (and it’s safe to), consider kindness before vitriol and ask lots of questions.”

NILUFER YANYA: POSITIVE ACTION

“In 2016, someone quite close to me said I shouldn’t be worrying too much about what is going on in the rest of the world because it’s not happening in our world. Two years later and nothing is more apparent to me than the need to fight against this idea; that we can be somewhat safe and protected from other peoples pain and troubles, that we need not worry about the world outside of our own and that we can leave things we to solve themselves. For me, the only way to fight this idea is by thinking positive thoughts that in turn create positive actions. We can not simply tell others what we think they need to do, we need to be the ones to do, and we need to do more. All of the time. We need to focus more on caring about everything. We need to focus more on acting on our caring. We need to focus more.”

OBONGJAYAR: BUNNING PLASTIC

“Bun plastic! It’s hard with this eco-system… there’s so much plastic right now to wrap the world in plastic bags six times over – can you imagine that? How fucked up that is? For the oceans… it’s just dark! It’s something we can easily change. You can easily take a canvas bag to Tesco or whatever and get what you need, and use that bag continuously rather than grab something that’s not biodegradable and will be on the earth for hundreds of years. People should recycle properly, but we’re a lazy species so people just put things in the wrong bins or throw things on the floor and it ends up in the ocean and becoming poison. You go to a club and you ask for a drink and they serve it to you with a plastic straw. That’s every night. And that ends up in the ocean. It’s just peak, bro. We’re just messing up ourselves with something as simple as plastic. So that’s going to be my thing this year: allow plastic.”

LAUREN AUDER: CONSUMING NEW ART

“If I was to recommend something important in 2018, I’d say it’s TTY. Though you might not have heard them yet, in my opinion they are the most exciting network of artists coming out of London. Fusing grime, hip hop and left field experimental music, they operate through various Soundclouds and Bandcamps, sporadically posting consistently exciting work. They have a roster of insanely talented artists such as Jeshi who’s newest EP came out a couple months ago, as well as Ethan P. Flynn who’s few songs on Soundcloud are some of my favourite tracks online right now.”

SORRY: (Y)

“We hope for fewer stomach aches
Less acid reflux
More love and more wall gardens
And we hope there’s enough shrimp for everyone
To go round
More Ballerinas
Stay naughty
But kind
;)”

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