I’m Upper Reality, producer and artist, and I have been developing myself for 10 years. As a longtime creator, I have grown and changed immensely and watched the industry do the same. “Rise,” is a reimagining of the exhilaration, appreciation, joy, pain, and ultimately, exhaustion, that I have garnered following this life path. I have an Economics degree from the University of Texas at Austin. I used to not mention it, because it didn’t seem “cool,” but the more I traversed my journey, the more I began to see how cliques, identities, buzzwords, and other superficial considerations go into valuation of a person and what they do. This understanding has led me to have a more active, intellectual role in my work, just in time for the intersection of music and fintech to make a place for it. There is a sociological and spiritual revolution happening with my work that I seek for all listeners to feel and understand when they listen to what I’m creating. This is all my production, all my music theory understanding, all my vocal training, all my Ableton practice, and all of the closed doors that have never recognized what I have felt to be a gift that I have. See, “Rise,” is not just about a vacant, toxic-positive chant to peace and love—it is a proverbial snatching of the goalpost—a declaration of “sleep on me, I’ll sleep on you,” to all of the times that I have had my core wounds invoked by organizations, groups, systems, and people, that I wanted to value me, accept me, etc. only to be rejected, humiliated, abandoned for superficial reasons, yet told it’s something that I’m lacking. “Rise” says “Nope, I was never the problem. And now, with the joys I reach on my own terms, you all will see that, from afar.” I am at a point of detachment to the outcome, as to whether or not I will be heard, recognized, celebrated, or valued. As of now, this is just a special piece, that means a lot to me, and means a lot that the Sound audience would be keen to listen. I enjoy the piece very deeply, but I have left it in it’s raw, early stages, before tweaking it to see whether DSP’s will bite. So this is a special, limited edition, that won’t be released anywhere else. For more information of the entire context of what I’m wanting to do in Web3, please check out my proposal video: https://youtu.be/Xxp1Y8iKaI8