There’s a Pharcyde song that’s been looping in my head lately.
The hook goes:
“I gotta kick something that means something.”
It’s simple, but it’s been leaving me reassessing how I view life.
I met up with my mate Billy this weekend — one of my best friends and one of the few people I’d still call a kindred spirit. He’s a musician, and right now he’s charting in the top 50 in six countries with his song Rose Tint (and I’m super proud of him). Please feel free to check his music out!
We were celebrating, talking about how life moves, how people drift, how you can go from seeing each other every other day to once every few months.
As you get older, you become more of a loner. It sounds sad to those who’ve not lived it, but it’s not. It’s selective. You protect your time, your focus, your peace… I’m the worst for it, and I have done it for years, maybe even decades. But even with that distance, the need to connect doesn’t fade. It just changes shape.
That thought’s been sitting heavier than usual this week, I guess. The great, beautiful “musician’s musician” D’Angelo has passed, and everyone I know in music (people who, like me, never met him) has felt a huge loss.
It’s like we’ve all lost someone close. Someone whose music meant more than just something.
His work transcended moments in time. It threaded through people’s lives, soundtracking breakups, comebacks, quiet nights, and loud rooms. It’s proof that connection doesn’t always need proximity — that a song can link strangers more powerfully than conversation ever could.
Even this interview is simply beautiful:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNd7TuL61/
And I suppose that’s what I’m chasing too. Not fame, money, or noise — just meaning. Through the things I build, the words I write, the ideas I put out into the world.
For me, connection has never been about small talk or pub nights. It’s in the things I build.
Businesses, products, websites, software. All of it is just an excuse to connect.
I want to make something that matters. Something that helps someone, even one singular person, feel seen, understood, or a little more in control of their own world.
Even this blog, Spinning Plates, is my way of reaching out… here’s what I’m thinking without needing a crowd to hear it.
I suppose it’s the purest definition of an artist. Putting your creative output into the world so that like-minded individuals can connect.
Whatever I do has to be something that means something.
Speak soon,
Jordan