Balancing Dreams and Reality: A Folk Debate on Ambition

Welcome to another edition of Folk Debate Club, our occasional debate series! To discuss Ambition vs Acceptance, we welcome our panel: music journalist Kim Ruehl, Basic Folk boss Cindy Howes, and yours truly Lizzie No. We would like to extend a very warm welcome to our special guests singer-songwriter Michaela Anne & producer Aaron Shafer-Haiss, also hosts of The Other 22 Hours podcast. In our lively conversation we work through thoughts and feelings about the definition of ambition: a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. We take the approach from a music industry and folk music perspective

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It is no surprise that capitalism gets rung right out as a reason that ambition goes wrong for artists. As Kim says “​Art ​is ​like ​the ​nervous ​system ​of ​humanity” and mixing creation with ambition-gone-wrong is a dangerous game that a lot (most?) professional musicians play with at some point in their careers. This episode has everything: navigating our way out of toxic work environments, messy reactions to unpopular yet important political stances and how to not throw away the people who disagree with you. Listen along and enjoy the ride.