This past summer, Lauryn Hill showed up late to a show in Chicago. Someone in the crowd made note of it during her performance. She responded that she didn’t “owe” him anything and that, instead she “did this for love.”
The encounter stirred up some very interesting conversation about the relationship between an artist and her audience. And while I’m not entirely sure what I think about an artist “owing” anything to an audience, here’s an angle on the same conversation I am a bit clearer on: I think an artist greatly benefits from a relationship with her audience.
In my experience nothing has drawn out the best out of me like other people. Whether it’s CrossFit culture, which pairs me up with others to work out, or it’s fatherhood, it is the responsibility and privilege of passing myself onto others and sharing my life that often calls the best of me forward. I am simply not motivated sufficiently within myself to do my best work. It is always been that I get to offer my gift to listeners or viewers and readers that has drawn the better artistic work out of me
Friends in Alcoholics Anonymous tell me that, at some point, it’s not so much having a sponsor that keeps them sober so much as it is that they sponsor someone else. I believe the privilege and responsibility of relationship draws out the best in us. And I think an artist’s relationship to her audience not only helps to keep her on the rails at times, but also helps draw out the best in her, artistically.
I look a bit longer at this idea in my book “Title Pending,” which is available for pre-order now.