Jenny C. Chalk

I question that every day because I don't see myself the way others see me - I never feel like I'm doing enough or that I could always be improving. But honestly, I've been really blessed with being raised by a supportive family that helped me do well. My parents were both professors who made education and values a central part of our lives, and my sister did well too, so I had people around me who helped get me through the tough challenges of life. I do think academics has a lot to do with it - I know it's a luxury that not everybody gets a chance to go to college, but having that foundation made a difference. The truth is, I just happened to be lucky. People just saw something in me that I didn't see, and they just kept pushing me higher, higher, higher. I don't know how else to put it - I just happen to be lucky in that way.

The best advice I've carried with me is that I should listen intently and have no assumptions. This hasn't been advice given to me so much as feedback from my experience working in law for decades at major firms. Honestly, probably 95% of the time that people get into legal trouble, whatever the subject matter or situation, it's because they assumed. People love to see what they want to see, or what they're familiar with, out of their own lens, but they may not have any knowledge beyond that. It's easy for people to paint a picture of how they want to see it, but that doesn't mean that's the truth, let alone the facts, let alone the situation. In the music industry, for example, songwriters have this preconceived notion you're supposed to argue with your publisher over the contract - it's sort of a stereotype. Actually, it doesn't have to be that difficult. If people can not play out these stereotypes, not create fictitious stories of how they imagine it would be, and then just listen, it would solve a lot of the problems.

After my experience in publishing, I will respect a self-published artist - that's totally up to them - but I do not recommend self-publishing, ever. Absolutely not. There are so many legal snags that can occur, and time and time again, every artist I've worked with so far has had a legal issue that I've had to resolve so that it didn't become a legal issue. People get caught up in the 'oh, it's exciting, it's fun, we're gonna go party, we're gonna dance, we're gonna sing,' and that's great - we need that energy - but they don't understand the process of the legal compliance requirements that the industry requires, and then unknowingly they're breaking them all, or they're infringing on themselves, or they're doing things that they just didn't know. So if I gave advice to young artists who wanted to go into music, it is possible to make it a career if that's what they want. If they're gonna do that, definitely go to music school if they have that luxury, or spend time teaching themselves as much as possible, and then give it a shot. Don't be afraid of going into it, but also understand that it is a gamble and there's no guarantee. Don't set yourself up to feel bad if it doesn't work the way you had hoped.

The biggest challenge right now in the industry is AI. Hollywood is trying to pick itself up from the writer's strike, the pandemic, the wildfires, the cost of living in California, and now they're dealing with AI on top of all that. They've been totally pummeled in the last 5 or so years with really very challenging circumstances. And on top of that, people are retiring or dying, so they're really trying to hold on as much as they can. This is a really important, critical year because with AI coming in, they're trying to dabble with that and see how it goes. The challenge is, will the United States accept AI as a real possible replacement of all of our jobs, or not? And then how are they going to weave that in to incorporate it, but at the same time, not wipe out the smaller industry? Musicians are going into quote-unquote battle mode to defend their art, and it's gonna stay human-made no matter what happens. They're dividing it - they're gonna have human-made music with a percentage of royalties, they're gonna have AI-made music, they're gonna have hybrid music. And if Congress can get on board and come up with legislation, that's half the battle, but the industries are now feeling like they have to take charge because they can't rely on the government. We're all kind of scared, but we try not to go there. We try to keep taking it one day at a time.

I am of an older generation, so I have very strong values that were instilled in me by my grandparents and my family from a very young age, from a different time frame where there was no internet, no social media, none of this stuff, no AI. My lens is I have to create everything, I will treat others as best as I can, as well as I can. I will do my best to try and help others, whatever it takes, within reason. Authenticity is huge for me - honesty, good, bad, ugly, being genuine and original. Integrity and morality are very important to me. I have zero patience or tolerance for stealing ideas or passing oneself off as someone they're not. Things like that really don't sit well with me. I'm very particular about living an organic, eco-friendly, green kind of life - I'm very careful about what I eat, what I wear, I don't put chemicals on my skin. You could call me very earthy, granola, crunchy in that way. And I think we spend way too much in this country focusing on money - it degrades the value of the art. The money becomes more important than the actual art, and I want it to be just the opposite. I want the art to be the focus, which is sort of a dying art in America.