My name is Terri Walker, and the inspiration behind my new album My Love Story was a simple one, it has literally been my life.
It’s all the experiences and the journeys I’ve taken to find my own voice and lane, and I wanted the album to be an intimate letter to myself and something listeners can take away. It’s a message about being comfortable in your own skin no matter where you are currently. “Comfortable” is a thing you can only become when you have been through some stuff, where vulnerability has no time or place to hide.
There were a few people and experiences in mind when creating the album. For some of them, after a while, it was a revelation of patterns – I saw me in all the situations I found myself in, after a while I realised that I was common denominator in it all – me – and I’d be the only one to change my story.
It was important for me to release this album at this point in my life and career simply because I finally learned the lessons, now it was time to pay it forward and share them with whoever needed to hear it, and when they found it, or found me, it would always be on their own terms, just like how this is on mine.
The creative process behind My Love Story was the easiest one in the world this time around, only because I had been there before, but now, I understood it was under my control. The moment I trusted the process – which I was guided through by force way bigger than myself, I understood the intention and purpose.
If I could only be honest and consistent; those were the only two things that mattered, and it wasn’t a stress for me, I try to only do things my spirit connects and is happy with. All in all, the whole album process took two weeks from beginning to end (when just counting the days of work), if counting the time it took to pull completely together, then two years.
Myself, Tyler and Konny, and Drs put this together in the middle of COVID so there were a lot of restrictions in place, which meant being patient and mindful of others, but I wouldn’t have done this with anyone else. Having Children of Zeus produce this was simple for me, they were my first and only choice.
After hearing their album Travel Light – which I am humbled and honoured to be on – they really inspired me to want to grow and evolve as a creative and artist, at a time where I wasn’t feeling motivated or inspired to be either.
It’s hard to put into words exactly what this album means to me, and I struggled to pick a favourite track; the whole album feels like one long single and in the way it moves and tells my story, I’d actually love for it to be interpreted like that.
However, if I had to choose, right now, just based on how I feel I would say “Rhythm Of Change”, as it reminds me of the moments where I trusted myself and trusted the process.
I decided to open the album with “Finally Over You” as the first song to make a statement, it was the first one myself Tyler and Konny wrote together, and it literally spoke to me and let me know that I was ready to make this album no matter how long it would take.
It also flipped convention, leading with a song that had the word “finally” right at the beginning showed I would be doing things my way, and not the way people would expect.
I’m really humbled after 26 years to still be able to do what I love in an industry I’ve had the pleasure to watch evolve and grow. I think when we look at music, we always have to see it from the past, present and future, and in terms of the future for the world of R&B, and also for myself, I’d like to remind everyone who’s been in contact with me and heard my album to never forget where it came from.
People, artists, and visionaries came before me so that I could do what I’m doing now, and same with the artists to come. The history of the genre and space we occupy as R&B, Soul, Jazz artists can never be a erased or forgotten about, and that’s what we must protect and continue to respect.
Listen to My Love Story below, and stream it everywhere else here.
