Zoë Modiga - Live in Concert (with Interview)

“I think music is life because it is a reflection of life,” says Zoë Modiga at her Red Bull Music presents Beyond the Sound performance. The singer and songwriter shared her source of inspiration, her debut album, her creative process, what she’s trying to achieve with her music and what she hopes her legacy to be.
Sharing her creative process Zoë says that “I think the easiest way for me to describe what the creative process was is an itch. I cannot even owe it to self-belief. It’s like this needs to come out. I suppose the belief comes from the fact that it’s this panging thing. This panging urge to bring something out into the world or a message into the world. I think that’s definitely the best way to describe what that is.”
Zoë aims to express people’s realities back to them. “The biggest fear that I have is invisibility. I was teased growing up, I was the weird person, I wasn’t the cutest girl in class, so I really relate with the feeling of invisibility. When I’m on stage I’m trying to make them feel like they are something, but outside of their titles. So if you’re a janitor or a CEO, you’re the same person in the same space but you feel like you’re not invisible in the truest sense. I hope that I give that away. But I hope that I give something that is completely your own as an audience member.”
Although she has collaborated with others in songwriting, Zoë undertook the writing, composition and arrangement of her debut album, “Yellow the Novel”, by herself. “For me, it was so important because it is my debut album, it’s important to come out exactly the way that I am without any fingerprints of anything else. So that I can really document what that is and have people grow with me.”
An emotionally charged answer to the question of what kind of legacy she wishes to leave, Zoë explained that people and their stories are very important to her. “I want to help people to be, you existing is absolutely fine, I want to justify them. I want to live out people’s stories. I just want them to know it’s okay. I really feel the presence of everyone in the room and I just want them to constantly feel themselves. Because I battle with that a lot myself, so I can really feel it and recognise it in other people.“