Valerie Teicher better known by her stage name Tei Shi (pronounced “Tay-Shee”) is a Colombian-Canadian singer/songwriter and producer. Growing up between Bogotá, Colombia, and Vancouver, she draws inspiration from her cross-cultural identity and dynamic background.
Having broken out of a toxic exchange with her label followed by pandemic complications in 2020, Tei Shi took a hiatus from her music to reflect on herself, organize her priorities, and redefine herself as a musician and a person. Her latest EP “Bad Premonition” establishes Tei Shi as a fully independent musician with a ion to express her self-fulfillment in overcoming the pain of being restrained as an artist.
In advance of her concert on Sunday at Soda Bar, Tei Shi spoke to the San Diego Union-Tribune:
Q: For those unfamiliar with the system and politics of the music industry, what kind of detrimental situations did you find yourself in?
A: When I first started putting music out and performing as Tei Shi, it started from a really very, very D.I.Y. place where I just threw some music online. I was living in New York and I kind of ended up unexpectedly having these opportunities come my way and starting to like, build my project as Tei Shi out.
Once I signed my first label deal and entered that reality, I definitely experienced a lot of obstacles just in getting my music out and having to fight a lot for the music that I wanted to make and what I wanted to put out and how I wanted to do it. I had to kind of learn to navigate the realities of being tied to a company that has its own changes and its own inner workings and stuff that you have no control over as an artist.
I had to explain myself and convince people to believe in what I wanted to do. I experienced a lot of questioning of whether it made sense for me to have put out music in Spanish and music in English and have it live within the same project and a lot of pushing up against kind of outdated ideas of how artists should be and how female artists should be.
So definitely kind of had my share of frustrations and disappointments with that and once I was able to get myself to kind of finish out my initial record deal and get myself into a new situation, I unfortunately ended up in another very similar situation where there was a lot of hope and a lot of promises made at the beginning and and eventually kind of realized that I was basically in the same situation where I just couldn’t release music without somebody else’s approval. I ended up stuck in my career a few times because of that.
Having to really explain myself, really fight for what I wanted to do and not be heard created this situation for me where I had several kinds of starts and stops in my career instead of being able to really move forward and keep building what I had already built myself on. I ended up in these standstills for several years because I just wasn’t really given the freedom to do what I wanted to do.
Q: What do they offer you that would convince you to allow yourself to go through such toxicity?
A: I definitely spent a lot of time asking myself those questions and I think the thing is as artists we’re sensitive, right? We’re tapped into our emotions and we put our heart on our sleeves in a lot of ways. That’s a very easy thing to take advantage of and not even necessarily in an outwardly malicious way. I think it’s just something that’s really easy for people to kind of swoop in and use to a particular goal. I think there’s also just so many things about the music industry and the culture and the way that it works that are built off like these outdated (values).
There are so many things that are already working against you as an artist that are working to strip you a little bit of your own agency and of your own certainty and yourself. Because in doing that, it makes you as an artist feel like you need all these other people in your life. You need the stamp of approval, you need this label deal. You need these things to complete you or to make you like a real “artist.” There’s a lot of us who have insecurities. There’s a lot of things at play already in an industry like the music industry that kind of contribute to artists’ feeling insecure or like they need these certain other things in order to succeed.
So when you have that and then you are somebody that’s trying to get out there and succeed with something that’s so personal to you and you’re sensitive. Then there’s it’s very easy for people who come in and it’s very easy for people to make promises and come in and take over.
I think as artists, it’s quite easy to relinquish that control to other people because it’s convenient. It’s like we just want to be in the studio making our music, making our art. We want to be artists. We don’t want to be worrying about all these other things. We already feel like maybe we can’t handle those things or we don’t understand them, or there’s so much that’s not transparent already in the industry that we get overwhelmed and it’s very easy to hand off control to somebody else.
Maybe you’re lucky and you end up with people around you that are really the right fit and you have your best intentions at heart, but a lot of the time you don’t. So (in) asking myself those questions, I kind of beat myself up a lot over time. Like, why did I do this? How did I end up here? But at the end of the day, I think it’s really easy for you as an artist to lose control over your work at the snap of a finger. And you are quick to do that a lot of the time because you want help and people are excited about you, which makes you excited. You think people are going to bring all these things to the table and sometimes that doesn’t happen. I think it’s just kind of like a recipe for disaster in a lot of ways.
Q: Having gone through such an ordeal must leave you emotionally and creatively exhausted. How do you stay focused?
A: For me, whenever I write something new or create something new that I’m excited about; that’s always the point that I need to keep coming back to. That’s the only way of managing all the other stuff. (For example in the) early process of making this EP and these songs, I was writing them and trying to finish them and not getting the that I needed in order to do that. The only relief I would get from that would be when I was working on the music and that’s the ([solution). Coming back to the source. It’s easier said than done because I think you lose touch with [being excited about what you’re working on the more that you have to deal with all this other (expletive), right?
Writing these songs was my way of getting that control that I could get back. Getting confidence back in myself because it’s a reminder of “Oh yeah, like I’ve got this. Like, this is what I do, this is why I do it.” To me it’s always just going back to the creative place. That’s the way of managing and navigating and eventually that’s what drives you to work your way out of those situations. I knew I had to find my way back to being independent because I had these songs that I loved and I needed to get them out and I wasn’t going to be able to get them out otherwise.
Q: How do you get over creative blocks?
A: I think before I could even do anything about my situation or be proactive I really did spend a good amount of time being creatively depleted, being emotionally and physically, not in a good place, having to take a step back like from everything. I actually had to take three months off in fall of 2021, just focusing completely on my health and my mental health and literally not doing any work related things. It was really hard, but I needed to totally step away and get myself to a good enough place where I could come back and say, “okay, let’s go.”
I think sometimes not doing anything and not being “proactive” is actually the best thing you can do for yourself. I know it’s really uncomfortable to take time and to feel like you’re doing nothing. But for me, it was really necessary. And I think just learning to be OK with that and to know that even downtime or time’s not spent creating or putting work out like is actually time that’s still contributing to something that you’re going to make. So yeah, I think it’s really important, taking care of yourself.
Q: What do you do to recollect yourself?
A: I like to chill. I like to be in nature. I like to be in the outdoors like I did a lot of that when I was kind of “healing” when I was taking that time, that really helped me. Meditation really helped me a lot. Mind-body things like exploring meditation and yoga and all these things for me have been really helpful. I like to figure out my human balance before I can be an active artist. I just like being with friends and family. I enjoy reading, watching movies, going to see other forms of art, just taking things in. That’s the biggest part of being an artist that you lose or it gets kind of taken for granted. Once it becomes your job, it’s like you lose it. The fact that you actually need a chunk of time to like, gather inspiration and to live life and have things to write about and read about.
Dancing is another thing I enjoy. I danced when I was younger and it’s something I really love to do. I’ve kind of come back to exploring again and it’s brought me a lot of joy. I think just kind of going back to things that brought me joy when I was young or that I kind of have lost. I’ve just found a lot of fulfillment doing stuff.
Tei Shi with Loyal Lobos
When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego
Tickets: $25.24
Online: sodabarmusic.com
