With some artists, it’s easy to nail down a genre and, more often than not, pigeonhole them for the rest of their career. Ceesar, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. It was artists similar to himself that pushed the Ottawa-based artist to create and release his debut album, Hustle & Passion and think, “if someone’s music can have this positive impact on me, I want to share that same good feeling with as many people across the world as I can.”
The sound of Hustle & Passionis such a rad mish-mash of genres; R&B, electronic, hip-hop, and even some reggae, to name a few. Is this something that came naturally as the creation process progressed or was a multi-genre release always your goal?
To be honest a few factors played into this mish-mash. Since this is my first project, I wanted to find myself as an artist. Therefore, I incorporated a few genres to see how I felt in different genres, which is helping me shape my sound and what direction I want to take my music.
Since this is your debut release, was there anything surprising about the creation process that you weren’t expecting?
I wouldn’t necessarily say surprising, more so the appreciation and respect I have gained towards the process of putting together a project because I went through the process myself, so now I can start to understand the work that goes into creating a project from a recording standpoint.
Who would you say are the top 5 artists/bands that made you want to get into creating music yourself?
That’s tough! I like a lot of artists and appreciate their music. I can tell you which artist and song got me into creating music myself … Post Malone – White Iverson was the one. I heard that song and it made me feel some type of way … in a good way to the point where I was shocked and thought to myself, “wow if someone’s music can have this positive impact on me, I want to share that same good feeling with as many people across the world as I can.” That was back in 2018 and since then I never looked back!
As with so many other recording artists/performers, you must have seen everything put on hold over the past few months! What did you fill your time with?
Definitely lots of things got put on hold but I did my best to stay productive and improve myself as an artist and person. I would do vocal training at home, planning my next project that I am currently working on and actually take concrete steps towards my goals when appropriate given the situation we are in.
What are your plans for the next six months?
I got the release of my first project Hustle & Passion so I have to support that and I’m proud to announce I have already started working on my second project! My goals are to keep improving my music, building relationships and most importantly having people get to know me more as a person and artist.