SANANDA MAITREYA
Sananda
Maitreya
formerly Terence Trent D'Arby
A truly wild, defiant and fascinating story — the fast-paced life and the interference of industry figures led him to abandon the 80s rock star life and disappear from the public eye as he battled with PTSD. Nevertheless the soul continues to manifest and transform. Today we speak to him about his new album and inspirations.
Artist, composer, arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur and Post Millennium Rocker. He can never remember a time when music wasn't playing in his head. From the beginning of his professional career he has personally written, arranged and produced all his music.
His light was switched on at the age of 2 by the music of the Beatles — and he has been a fool for music ever since. Raised in America, in his high school years he played in the band "Modernaires" in Florida. He was trained as a boxer in Orlando and won the Florida Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship in 1980. He served in the U.S. Army for three years, one spent in Germany where he also became the lead singer of the band "The Touch."
Greatest inspirations or influences?
I've been fortunate to have been inspired by a great many wonderful artists — and would like to think that somewhere within me, all of those artists exist.
The new album — in your own words?
Pandora's PlayHouse is about returning home to our truth and claiming your space within the House of Transformation that the PlayHouse represents. A place where all things become known and integrated within ourselves. So that we come to see more freedom in the moments that exist in the life around us.
This album represents "we are who we are." Without shame, without too much explanation. Accepting that by embracing ourselves we embrace our peace and the keys to the gates of a better world.
"Pandora's PlayHouse — returning home to our truth."
— Sananda Maitreya · New Album
How has this year changed you creatively — and how do you see the world moving forward?
The past year has not changed me creatively at all. I live at the edge of creativity's blade as a matter of survival and my emotional well being. What this past year has done is provide a better focus on the things that needed to be taken care of. As even governments and corporations know, crisis is always a good time for reinvention — for clearing out the dead weight while making more clear what matters.
As for how I see the world changing — we must strive to remember that we are the world, we are the children. So as we change, so does the world. The world will not change once we all agree. The world will change once we realise that it doesn't matter if we all agree — we still deserve to live in the communities we are willing to work for.
The change comes from within us, each determined that they are willing to see past their judgment of another and instead see the cross that every one of us has been asked to carry. We are all flawed — and the more honest we are about it, the more we can turn the situation to our advantage. Compassion is merely the willingness to understand that every man has earned his wounds and does what he can to live with them.
"We are all flawed — and the more honest we are about it, the more we can turn the situation to our advantage."
"Thank you Leila from my heart for the positive atmosphere you've provided for my work which is my passion. I am very grateful. In one of my songs on Pandora's PlayHouse — The Ballad Of Rod Steiger — the gist of the moral of the tale is 'play stupid games, win stupid prizes.' The world is ours to mold into the shapes we wish to inhabit."
PlayHouse
sanandamaitreya.com
Antakly Projects / Ninu Nina