A little under four years from the day of her viral graduation speech, LHHS Class of 2021 Valedictorian Paxton Smith released the first song from her new EP (more tracks than a single, less than an album) last weekend.
Photo courtesy of Paxton Smith.
Smith, who gained nationwide attention for her impassioned, unplanned (as far as RISD was concerned) graduation speech in defiance of Texas’s “Heartbeat Bill” in 2021, released “Belong Here” on May 16. It is the first publicly-released single from her six-track EP, But I Love It, which will come out via “waterfall release” (one single released monthly) over the next few months.
“It’s all about my coming of age,” Smith recently told the Advocate. “And the first song is actually about some of the imposter syndrome that I felt during my time (in the public eye). So that’s fun.”
The single, which begins with a chorus of “I don’t belong here,” is full of the funky alternative pop beats Smith has built her musical style around. “Belong Here” is a collaborative project between Smith and mixing engineer Matt Wolach, who has worked with the likes of Kesha, 070 Shake and Peter McPoland in the past, according to a press release.
A music video for the single, filmed with a 17-person crew back in October, was released to YouTube Friday. In three days, the video has accrued a little over five thousand views.
Smith graduated earlier in May from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in advertising. She says she plans to pursue a career in music and will soon move to Los Angeles to focus on recording.
Links to Smith’s previously released music can be found here.
