Q Marsden: See With Your Ears

For years, he was simply Q, and the music reflected that individuality. Now, the 27-year-old Broward County musician goes by his government name, and his new album, DO YOU SEE ME?, has arrived as a landmark to that change.

The transition originated as practical thinking. A single letter, as it turns out, is nearly impossible to find online. His last name, MARSDEN, came back because it meant something to him. Before Q was ever writing songs, his dad was making dancehall records in Jamaica, building a legacy that Q now carries with intention. Every time you listen to Q MARSDEN, you are understanding the culmination of familial musicality.

DO YOU SEE ME? pulls in a few other voices, Deb Never, UMI & Marco McKinnis, who move between genres as freely as Q does. The features stem from knowing his own voice is not the right one to carry a certain emotion and he hands the moment to someone who can.

If you scan the tracklist, you will notice it’s all over the place. Some titles read like inside jokes and others seem deadpan. None of it is random. Q names songs the way he texts and the way he writes in his journal. Some days that will come out satirical and some days it comes out serious. He builds each title brick by brick around what the song feels like it’s supposed to represent. "I care about when you read the title, you can see an image of what you think the song is," 

Q MARSDEN’s inspirations come from natural elements. He pays attention to everyday life, building concepts in his mind as "organic media," something that keeps evolving on its own to feed him ideas. It is a striking way to put it, and it explains a lot about the record. DO YOU SEE ME? does not sound borrowed, it sounds like one person's inner world played out loud.

The album title asks a question, and lately the answer from some very big names has been yes. BTS members V & j-hope have both shared his music, and he’s about to open for Harry Styles. Most artists would be boasting about it constantly, but Q's first reaction is calmer than you might expect. To him, these moments are what happens when you put in the work and keep doing your thing. They are proof that the effort is landing but that does not mean he takes them lightly. He called it an honor, and you can hear how much it means to have artists of that caliber recognize what he is building. "It's a good feeling to know that, hey, we see you doing your thing, and we're cheering you on," 

Q points readers towards the music that has his attention right now. Portraits of Tracy, girlsweetvoiced, Love Spells, Natanya, and Overmono are just some names he finds the most interesting. And as for what comes next, there is something brewing, but he would not say what. The one thing that is public is DO YOU SEE ME? because the answer will be yes if you go to his live shows.