We spoke with Sagelee Dinnall Archer about her role as an Online Licensing Administrator at CMRRA and her love of music.
What does your workday look like? Theday-to-day work within our Online Licensing department involves updating musical work data in various ways – either to clarify duplicate information that may have been submitted, manually matching musical works to recording information submitted by the digital service providers or updating musical works that need song share revisions to be inputted in the system. Our days are pretty straightforward with occasional assignments from other departments.
What was your path to CMRRA? My path to CMRRA was quite simple. In the summer of 2017, I’d just finished studying Music Performance and Technology (majoring in guitar) with the Metalworks Institute in Toronto and I was looking for a job that would further develop my understanding of what happens on the back-end of the music industry. After working at CMRRA for three years I’ve found that there’s still a lot more for me to learn about our company but I’m enjoying the process.
Did you always know you wanted to have music in your life? What role has Honey Jam played in your life? Music has always been a passion. I grew up watching a lot of dance movies as a kid and then had a lot of family members who were part of their worship teams at church. When it comes to Honey Jam, I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that I don’t need to be perfect to be validated and that those imperfections are what make me who I am. None of my performances including my audition for Honey Jam have ever been good enough to my own personal standards but luckily they saw beyond my own insecurities. Honey Jam has been and continues to be a great experience because it continues to teach me and remind of the following lesson: when you foster someone based on their potential, their work ethic and their character will always impart growth. That’s something that I’ll always keep with me – growth over perfection.
Has the pandemic contributed to the creation of new music for you? What are you working on musically? Are there particular songwriters that inspire you? The pandemic has definitely contributed to my creation process but in a different way than I expected. Watching the world slow down has also helped me slow down to properly align myself with where I want to go musically. I rush less and feel more. I push myself less to finish things out of fear and more to finish things out of a love for what it is.
Songwriters who inspire me are people like Prince, Luther Vandross, Lauryn Hill and John Mayer. They all have very different ways of writing and producing but the essence of their truth is what makes me respect their art.
Find Sagelee Dinnall Archer’s music here.
Thinking about becoming a client of CMRRA? Already a client but you have questions? Email us at [email protected] and we’ll get you the answers you need.
