Grammy Nominated Artist Carolyn Malachi On the Power of Social and Her Blerd Appeal

Even songs like ‘Finally,’ which is a letter that I wrote to my fears. I decided to address them because I was tired of them controlling me. I made a decision based on the things that I had and I wrote a song about it. The song was my solution and this song was my freedom for folks like Black girl nerds who have heard the song and really taken to it. I think that speaks to the power of their ingenuity, and their ability to create solutions to the challenges that surround us.

For you, what does it mean to be a blerd today?

Being a blerd today means, for me, accessing the tools to create real-time solutions to challenges I see in my immediate environment and not waiting for somebody else to create those things for me. I think that’s so meaningful and so powerful to folks.

You’ve hit a social milestone as the first black person to be featured in the Flipboard Creator Spotlight. How did it feel to be recognized for your efforts not only as a musician and a creator, but as social savvy artist?

I think Flipboard has a capacity to be like the next huge social media hit because none of the other social media platforms do this where it aggregates all of them, and that’s a need that those of us in the interwebs–we really have that need now and they’re the answer to that. They’re young; I don’t know whether they’ve decided to do this consciously, or if this was just an easy thing for them to do what they did, include diversity quite early on. I’m proud of them. I’m proud to be the first. It’s a very cool thing.

What are some tips you would give to an independent artist looking to promote their brand and music via social media?

Be a good listener. Listen to what’s important to the people who enjoy your music. Before that, you have to know who those people are, right? Get your Google Analytics going, review your data, [and] know where your following is. Those tools are key. You need those technological tools. You can use those as a basis for your research. You’ve gotta do that, you’ve gotta do the numbers.

To purchase Malachi’s latest album, or follow her on the road, click here to visit her website.