No one consents to fit in their box anymore.
Renee Fleming records jazz. Bobby McFerrin conducts symphony orchestras. Jim Carrey paints.
We, the audience, like boxes – genres – because they help us decide what we think of art. When we say “I don’t listen to jazz,” or “every music but Country,” or, “I’m just not a show tune person,” we are using genre as a tool to reduce the judgements we have to make. However, listen for very long and you find a favorite artist working in a genre you don’t do, or vice versa.
Guess what? No one has ever fit perfectly in a simple box. Or rather, our boxes are all uniquely shaped by a vast number of interests that are not easily consolidated to one thing.
We are none of us a single genre. We are all capable of many, and different, arts. Make them all.
Don’t force yourself into a box. You contain multitudes.