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Franchesca is not only gifted and anointed, her voice is so beautiful and pure. When she The beauty is taking the Christian R&B world by storm and making a name for herself. She is an incredible songwriter and talented. Her music is such a vibe and very uplifting. Her album “Beauty For Ashes” is just phenomenal. Franchesca recently sat down with Sheen Magazine to talk about her musical journey, creative process, going viral, reaching people with her music and more.

You have a beautiful voice. How did you first get into music?

I first got into music as a child. I had to have been about, from what I can remember, around six or seven years old. I used to sing in the choir at my dad‘s church growing up as a little girl. From there on, in high school and middle school, I would write poetry. I actually remember having had a composition notebook full with poems that I absolutely loved and cherished. I lost it one day in my creative writing class as a Sophomore and I was completely heartbroken. I was connected to those poems deeply. But, I was reminded that I although they were lost, my gift was not and I continued to write. I always loved subjects like English and Language Arts, they really helped me to expand my vocabulary when it came to songwriting and just writing in general. Spelling tests were my favorite. So between just having a natural passion and inclination towards singing at a young age, and being very inspired to write poetry, I had a wonderful idea. I said hey, let’s put this together, and I started writing songs.

I wrote songs with my cousin Emerald as teenagers as well and I remember it being so much fun to start with a blank canvas and end with something beautiful. Into my early 20s, I started off writing in the secular space before I was saved when I moved to Atlanta in 2015. However, after I did give my life to Christ, He had spoken to me a very clear word to pursue and to pick up music again after setting it to the side for years after I got saved. Ever since that day, I didn’t have resources or really anything that I thought that I needed to get started but from there God reassured me that I had honestly everything I needed, which was Faith. I remember advice that He gave me, which was “Just put one foot in front of the other” and here we are!

Your song “Created For This” has gone viral and has so many streams. How has that experience been for you?

The response from “Created For This” has been overwhelmingly amazing. I initially wrote this song to inspire myself. As a young girl, I feel like I lacked encouragement and I feel like that resulted in me, second-guessing myself a lot of the time. So I wrote this song to encourage myself that this is God‘s plan for my life. This is His purpose for my life and I’m gonna take the shot and know that I can’t miss because this is His will not my own. If He’s backing it, it’s going in everytime! So now, to really see “Created For This” just blossom, inspire and encouraged so many people has been so fulfilling honestly. It really did open my eyes to how much the enemy really does try to limit God‘s people by convincing them out of their purpose. To see it go viral, to see the streams go crazy, and to see the amount of people who are truly impacted by this song has been nothing short of a blessing that only the hand of God could have orchestrated and I’m forever grateful for this song.

You are a Christian R&B artist and very talented. How would you describe the music that you typically create?

Thank you so much I really appreciate that, all glory to God for sure. I would describe the type of music that I create to be peaceful, melodic, thought provoking and just a vibe. I would definitely say it’s a vibe for the Lord Jesus Christ. All of my music is rooted in biblical principles but it relates to the everyday Christian lifestyle. It relates to more than just the mountain tops and “blessed and highly favored” seasons that you usually hear about in Christian music. The music that I create talks about the ups and downs in the Christian lifestyle that come with walking with the Lord. Honestly, everything genuinely is not perfect all the time but when things are going great, we give Him glory. We give him praise even when things aren’t going great. Regardless of what’s happening in the context of my music the end goal is to give Jesus the glory.

What is your creative process like?

This is such an interesting question because these days my creative process looks so different. Now that I am a very blessed mom of two my creative process definitely has started to look different. For example, my latest single, “Praise On Repeat” was written as I cooked breakfast for my boys, and as their father was playing with them in the other room. ‘Created For This’ was written driving back from the studio probably around midnight. “Rough Day” was written on the way to the store to go grocery shopping. So, as you can see I feel like these days creatively I’m having to get very creative, (no pun intended. :). I’ll say this my ideal writing situation looks like writing in the car, (preferably at night). I will say a prayer and invite the Lord into the moment and into the song. Allowing Him to just make it whatever it is that He will have it to be, I pray that He would give me the words to say, that He will give me the creativity to write conceptionally outside of the box and to just really speak to, the human heart in a way that they can feel it. I like to put a variety of beats on and I listen to them. I go through them and initially if they don’t catch my attention or if I don’t connect with it I’ll just skip around until I find one that just resonates with me. From there I will start with different melodies and kind of explore that in a way that it just feels right for the song. Sometimes the lyrics will fit right into the melodies and sometimes I’ll go back in later on to fill them in. Then I’ll take the song and fine-tune it. I’ll sing it for my husband to see what He thinks and ask for his advice. He usually will give me pointers on arrangement or suggestions. If he doesn’t have any changes he will say “it’s perfect, I love it! Book the session!”. Then, I’ll take it to the studio, record and when it’s finished we share it with the world.

What is your favorite song to perform?

As of right now, I would say it’s between ‘I Am Loved’ and “Memories”. I say, “I Am Loved” because I love the way that song starts and I really feel like the chorus is so unprecedented. It’s so unexpected but I think once it’s received by the audience, it resonates with them, and touches them in a deeper way than they imagined from just coming to a show. I believe they leave with a greater sense of authority and a newfound sense of freedom. Both that can come from speaking and praying with authority during times of spiritual warfare in the Christian walk. I would say ‘Memories’ for a similar reason. It is a very unconventional song, unconventional lyrics that you don’t often hear from a Christian artist. It speaks to my past and parts of my testimony. So, I feel like it really does bring in the attention of people who are not saved. It gives them a sneak peek into what I’ve gone through and it gives them the hope that they too are also able to experience the same level of love, redemption and salvation with Jesus. So yeah, I will say it’s between those two songs.

You have song titled “Memories” which has not only resonated with so many people, you were very transparent. What was the inspiration behind that song?

I was inspired to write “Memories” because I wanted the unbeliever to be encouraged that they could to be saved no matter where they have been or what they have done. I wanted them to know that the Lord is still calling out for them and wanting them even in their mess. I wanted them to know I wasn’t always who I was today and I can only credit that to the grace of God. I often speak about this but I feel like the church as a whole doesn’t share what we’ve been through as much as we should. You don’t hear a lot of people’s testimony like back in the day. I think this does a disservice to the lost. It causes a gray area for the unbeliever to feel like there is this level of Christianity or Salvation that just really seems unattainable. To someone who’s in the world every day, who has not renewed their mind, who has not stepped foot in the church, they cannot really see themselves living a different life or being changed. They need hope. So I wanted to write this song to give them that sneak peek in and that’s why I called it “Memories”. You know when I look back over my life these are some of the things that the Lord has brought me through. And, if it had not been for Him, I would still be in that place or even worse off.

I want to give God glory for the transformative power that is in the blood of Jesus. I desired to show them just what can happen if they truly believe in the Lord and give Him the opportunity to transform their lives. You never know what the Lord can do with the surrendered heart I am a testimony to that. I also wrote this song to encourage the believer to stop being so scared, stop being so worried about what other people are going to say about you and your testimony. The word of God says that we overcome by the blood of the lamb, and the word of our testimony. It is interesting to me that, those two things are hand-in-hand in that scripture. How powerful the blood of the Lamb is and right beside it is “the word of your testimony”. It speaks to just how powerful it is. I also wanted to encourage the believer to share your testimony, be free from bondage of people and their opinions of you. Who cares what they think about you? They weren’t the ones who saved you, give that glory to God. You never know, the very person that you think is going to judge you, your testimony could speak to them, change their life, transform their mind and bring them into the Kingdom.

You have a powerful testimony!! Tell us bit about how God has changed your life.

The Lord has brought me through so much that now, when I look back over my life and just see His grace and His hand on me, I’m truly forever grateful. As a young girl, I dealt with abandonment wounds heavy because my biological mother left me and my brother at a very young age. It always caused me to question my worth and my value. From there, I feel like I started to develop these ways of hopefully increasing my value that went beyond just being myself. By things I could do outwardly to appease others into loving me more or staying with me. So with men, I would be promiscuous and overcompensate with my body. In friendships, I would give way to much of myself. I would try to do whatever it was to make sure that these people didn’t leave me. This created a very broken way of thinking and living. I speak a bit more to this on my song ‘Trust Issues’ on my album ‘Beauty For Ashes’. I feel like this kind of stemmed a lot of the ways that I started thinking as a young woman. It always left me feeling empty in a sense because I wanted something deeply to fill that void. Something or someone to silence the questions of “Am I enough?”, “Will I ever be enough?”, “What did I do to deserve this?”, “What does being enough even look like?”, “How can I prevent this from happening again?” Of course, at this point in my life, I can see now that there’s nothing that I could have done differently. That was a choice my mother made that was made apart from me as a child. But, you know you wrestle with so many thoughts as a child and not really having the dialogue that I needed to settle those thoughts left me in a mental frenzy, that birthed a very lost little girl. I struggled feeling out of place in college and not knowing my purpose like the other young adults who were thriving in college around that time.

This I feel created a rift between me and my parents who wanted so badly for me to find my way. With no direction, I felt hopeless and unsure of why I was here. So when I moved out to Atlanta in 2015, I was honestly running from a lot. I was running from a very unhealthy relationship that had just ended after getting cheated on. I was running from family issues that I just mentioned and running from things mentally. Honestly, I just threw my hands up in the air and I said you know whatever happens happens. I started a very reckless lifestyle of rebellion. I speak a bit more about my testimony in ‘Memories’. I talk about the getting into the stripping lifestyle, I talk about popping molly and getting into drugs, alcohol, materialism dealing with rejection, dealing with just wanting to be loved, dealing with only really valuing a man to the to the caliber or the measure of his pockets, not truly for who he was, and honestly so much more. These are things that I can just think of off the top of my head that really only scratch the surface when it comes to the things that the Lord has delivered me from and brought me through. He is faithful, He will forever be faithful. I thank Jesus for finding me and saving my life.

You just dropped a video for your latest single “Rough Day” which is an incredible song. What was it like recording the song and shooting the video?

Oh man recording “Rough Day” was amazing. I remember that day in the studio. My husband was there as well and it was very fun recording that record. Because it was real life at the time so I wanted to make sure that I recorded it in that season. I know that a season can change and even the way that you sing or deliver a song can change as well. So I feel like on that record it really did capture it, even in the way that my voice was presented, it captured that season of my life.

Closer to the end of the song I remember recording the outro and I had just begin to worship, that wasn’t a part of the song that I had written or anything like that. It was just a part that was just genuinely coming out of a place of trusting the Lord. Trusting Him with the good days and bad days and knowing that He’s still faithful, He will always be faithful and it encouraged me to write that song. Even when I hear it now it encourages me every time. Shooting the video was absolutely nothing short of amazing. I just want to shout out my amazing videographers GRADE A Concepts, they shoot every video I have. I have worked with them for years. They are truly visionaries and such humble God-fearing men, and I’m honestly blessed to have them as a part of our team. They came up with the entire concept for the song, as they do usually with every music video that we have. We follow their creative direction and we get it done. With “Rough Day”, we definitely wanted to do something just a bit simpler that really just spoke to the moment of having a rough day. So, that’s what we did. The goal was to not do anything too complex and I feel like the simplicity spoke volumes and allowed the video to really resonate with the viewer.

What is the best advice you’ve been given?

I have received a lot of advice in my life, but recently, in this season, this piece of advice has resonated with me very deeply. It is “May the other things in your life get no better than second place in your heart.” Recently, I was in church, and my pastor was speaking to us about idolatry and reminded us of the dangers of not evaluating your heart. So he went on to say  “May the other things in your life get no better than second place in your heart.” Meaning that the Lord Jesus Christ would always be first place in your life. That no man, no friends, no platform would ever take over the place of Jesus in my life and in my priorities. Although this is something I know and am aware of it’s such an awakening and needed reminder! It’s such a profound piece of advice because as you continue to walk with Christ, most can contest to this, that you can start to see how the very things that he’s blessed you with can easily overwhelm that first place of Jesus Christ. If you’re not careful the very things that He’s given you can easily become the things that now you put before Him. The best piece of advice for me personally right now is just continue to keep the Lord first and not just a cliché way of saying that. But truly practically walking with the Lord, first! Seeking Him first, committing all of my plans, all of my ways to Him first. So that I will be led by Him, and if He says, go, then I will go if He says “stop!”, I’ll stop. If He says surrender this thing that I’ll surrender this thing. I think this is the best way to live. Actually, I know this is the best way. Your life is to not have any idols over Jesus. We must just allow the Lord Jesus Christ to be on the throne of our heart forever and always.

What can we look forward to from you in 2024?

In 2024 you guys are going to be blown away. The Lord is doing an amazing work in our team, in the songs that are coming out and I’m so excited honestly to share them with you all. We definitely are releasing so much new music, visuals, music videos. There are some amazing collaborations that are in the works. We are 100% all in and committed to delivering with excellence and just giving you all what the Lord has given us. 2024 Lord willing, will be full of all gas, no breaks, for the kingdom in Jesus name!

Any special projects in the works?

We may or may not be working on something very special that I cannot disclose at this moment, but you guys will definitely be the first ones to know when and if anything special drops!

How can our readers keep up with you?

Please follow me on socials to keep up with me! My name across all platforms is @Franchescamakesmusic. That’s for Instagram, TikTok and on YouTube. You guys definitely want to tune in and subscribe to my YouTube channel. We release a lot of our music videos on YouTube primarily but this year we are doing some very special things over there. Special in a way that it will be a little bit more personal for those who are interested in a closer look into my journey.

 

Photo Credits: Javae Lindsey @futuresuccess / Bryant Andrews @skyloveimages /@gradeaconcepts