Poet and Songwriter Kata Gives Advice to Young Writers
Joshua Nkhata (Kata) is a young poet who began sharing his poetry on Tiktok a few months ago. After some time, he began experimenting by putting his poetry to music. By doing this, he created a seemingly new genre that has captivated the attention of millions of people online. In an interview with Kata, he spoke about his songwriting process and gave his advice for other young creatives.
The Gaia Zine: What does your songwriting process look like?
Kata: It doesn’t even start with me sitting down with a guitar ready to write a song. It all starts with a moment. A moment where I am someplace and look around and think this is poetry, this is music, this is a song. For example, I was in a parking garage saying goodbye to friends that are leaving for college and I realized “this is a poem, I am living and breathing poetry right now.” Another time I was making mac and cheese and didn’t have milk. As I’m putting the cream cheese in the mac and cheese, I think: “Wait a minute. This is a poem.” So when I sit down to write, I take that moment and see if it’s possible to express it. And sometimes it’s not always possible to express it. Sometimes you’ll have a moment that you know is poetic and beautiful but can’t be expressed because it’s too personal or too niche. So when I find an idea that is expressible, I find that the process goes quite quickly for me. Once I track the idea, I mark it down then block out a set time. I almost always write the base lyrics with some lines that I want with general phrasing. So then I take a basic chord structure, decide on a tempo, and then fuse the lyrics into the music.
TGZ: What advice would you give to aspiring songwriters?
Kata: The best piece of advice I’d give is to just ignore the imposter syndrome. There’s going to be that little voice in your head that tells you can’t do it but I feel that I am living proof that you can do it anyways. I can barely sing, I still make music. I’m bad at producing music, I still make music. I only know like eight guitar chords, I still make music. People don’t really care about those small things. If you have something that you want to say and you have a way to say it, I find that people will listen if what you have to say is good. You’re never an imposter in music. You are just doing things differently.