Boston-Born singer-songwriter Dynamyte enthralls with her new release Show Me You. With her powerhouse vocals at the forefront Dynamyte certainly sticks in your mind with her Amy Winehouse inspired sound. Dynamyte brings a fresh, honest tone to her music and uses various influences to “write songs that will impact people“.
We caught up with the talented young LA-based artist to find out more:
You’re a drumming prodigy, vocalist, Tae Kwon Do black belt and a Tik Tok personality. How do you fit it all in?!
I don’t sleep! (Lol just kidding). I just have lots of energy and am always running around doing things! Being a full-time music artist since I was 8 and also being a full-time student made it super normal for me from an early age to juggle lots of things at once. Life’s more fun that way!
What was the inspiration behind Show Me You?
I just wrote it in my bedroom out of frustration at influencer culture and social media in general. One of my friends from childhood in particular got completely sucked into it and created an entire fake life and fake persona and started to believe it herself. This is so sad, because you see that happen to such an awesome person, and it breaks your heart a little. Instagram wasn’t a universal thing until my mid-teens, so when I was younger, they used to say that’s what fashion magazines were. All photoshop and highlights of people’s lives are superficial and confusing when you’re young because of course, you compare yourself to those people when you’re 12 years old. But it was so escapable. The solution was always “just stop reading fashion magazines” and it was a pretty quick fix, but now it’s everywhere. I can’t imagine being a young teen in this world where your social profile with your friends has this theme of keeping up a certain “image” side by side with “influencers” every day and not knowing what’s real and what’s not. It just seems so toxic to me, and I remember trying to explain to my friend that it’s not just me being worried about her, but also about all the young girls that look at her page and think that that’s real and attainable. It’s not, and there is so much beauty in the realness. It makes me sad that pre-teens now are wearing full faces of makeup and clothes like they’re 20 because they are truly seeing themselves side by side online with other people and feeling like they need to live up to that. When I was 12, makeup wasn’t even crossing my mind and I had braces and a school uniform on every day. The pressure kids have on them now is too much and I worry about how it affects their mental health and wellbeing.
Like…what happened to pores?! Seriously! It makes me laugh so much that social media just eliminated the concept of pores. It’s like we are ashamed of being human, and I hate that. Pores are beautiful. #BringBackPores2021 ? Now when you look in the mirror at your face, and you see human, you’re trained to think it’s bad. When you’re sitting with your little cousin and they say “omg my pores are so huge,” it makes you stop and think…wow. That’s what the world has come to. We aren’t poreless airbrushed plastic dolls. We aren’t always smiling and posting a photo in our bikinis on vacation or holding an award in our hand. It’s silly to think that, but it’s so easy to scroll while you’re eating chips on the couch in your PJs and feel like you don’t measure up. Or to see some shine on your forehead and think it’s repulsive because everyone else is filtering theirs out.
Show Me You was me just being at my limits with that, and saying “Look, I know we are all sucked into this super addicting internet world, but it’s not even real.” At this point, we’re so numb to it, but we must take a step back and change that dynamic.
What does a typical day look like for you during lockdown?
Omg caught red-handed because I’m writing this right now at 2 pm in my PJs! Every day is so different, and I’m extremely lucky because I kind of love quarantine. Controversial opinion, I know! I’m at this weird point in my life where I’m officially an “adult,” but I just feel like a kid trying on my mom’s clothes for the day, and this kind of put that feeling on pause. Right before the quarantine, I moved out to LA after being at college for 4 years, so I hadn’t been living with my parents for a fairly long time. I ended up travelling home to take my friend in NYC to her first concert ever (to see Billie Eilish!) and decided to stop home for a couple of days to see the fam. And strangely enough, the day I came home was the exact day the whole world shut down. The concert was cancelled, unfortunately (my friend was so excited to go and I feel so bad?), but besides that, the lockdown started pretty instantly, so I just stayed here. I’m really careful and want to make sure I play it super safe. I’m not a risk-taker when it comes to health, and I’d rather lose a year in the quarantine than get sick and lose the rest of my life! So I stayed here in Boston for the entire year, which I didn’t expect to be so long, but I’m happy and don’t mind it. My mom is the cutest because every day she comes up to me and goes “I love quarantine!” and gives me a big squeeze. She’s SO happy to have the whole family here together. It’s honestly a treat, because my brother and I have a rehearsal space/recording studio in the basement, and we can do everything from there as far as writing, recording, etc. It’s a nice break, but I’m excited to be back in LA and to perform when the world is open again! I’m vaccinated now (woohoo!) so within the next month or so, I’ll probably head back out to LA. All of my stuff is there, so I’ve been rotating the same 5 shirts I left in Boston on a loop for the last year haha.
Show Me You is out now.