Why the Best Artists Ignore Genre Until the End
You sit with a finished track open on your screen.
The song feels honest, but one question stalls your hand over the release button. What genre does this fit? You picture playlists, tags, and expectations.
You consider changing the hook or softening a line to help the song land safely.
In that moment, the work stops serving expression and starts negotiating for permission.
Most artists think genre comes first.
That you have to pick a lane, learn the rules, and stay inside the lines. But reality runs in the opposite direction.
Artists act first, and genres show up later.
Genre feels prescriptive. A label arrives only after patterns repeat long enough for outsiders to notice.
Artists Move, Labels Follow
No artist wakes up and invents a genre. Artists follow taste. Artists follow constraints. Artists follow obsession. Over time, observers need a filing system. A name appears.
Prince did not wake up trying to blend genres. Prince chased sound, feeling, and impulse. Listeners later argued over categories.
Frank Ocean did not aim to redefine R&B. Frank Ocean wrote honest records about distance, desire, and confusion. Writers later added labels.
Genre names work as retrospectives, never as roadmaps.
Creation Never Starts With a Map
A roadmap suggests direction before movement.
Creation never works like that. Movement comes first. Direction gets named afterward.
This misunderstanding traps artists.
When genre feels primary, artists optimize for acceptance. Artists write toward playlists. Artists bend work toward expectations. The work loses tension. Identity flattens.
When genre feels secondary, artists optimize for truth. Patterns emerge through repetition. A signature forms without force.
Consistency creates category. Intention does not.
This pattern shows up everywhere.
The Pattern Repeats Everywhere
Writers do not choose genres.
Writers choose questions. Obsession with power leads to political fiction. Obsession with intimacy leads to romance. Repetition shapes classification.
Programmers do not build products. Programmers solve problems. Tools and platforms follow later. A product name appears after behavior stabilizes.
In every field, labels trail action.
Genre Signals Identity And Should Not Confine
Genre works as evidence of identity. Genre never works as a cage unless artists step inside willingly.
The paradox sits here.
The more artists chase genre, the less personal the work feels. The more artists chase personal truth, the clearer the genre signal becomes.
Identity creates genre. Genre never creates identity.
The Practical Shift
Stop asking where the work fits.
Start asking what keeps pulling attention back. Follow patterns of curiosity across months and years. Notice repetition. Let outsiders name the result.
Freedom lives on the other side of this shift.
Genres serve libraries. Artists serve expression.
Let the filing system arrive later.
Even though this is framed around music, it clicked immediately for writing. I’ve caught myself shaping pieces around “what kind of story is this?” instead of staying with the question that got me started. The idea that labels only show up after the fact really stuck with me and yet I forget that every time. This made me want to follow the obsession a little longer and stop naming things before they’ve finished becoming themselves. Another helpful and enjoyable read Idris Elijah!
This felt really freeing to read. I’m so quick to explain my work before it’s even done (style, influences, where it fits) when none of that exists while I’m actually painting. It’s just color, tension, repetition, mood. This helped me see that the explaining is something that comes after, not during. I want to let the work stack up for a while before I try to define it. Thank you Idris Elijah for naming something I’ve felt for a long time but couldn’t quite say!