Songwriting, Kanye West, God, Smiling Through It All, H.E.R., Sunday Service, and the GRAMMY Journey
Ant Clemons writes from a place that most artists can't access -- a spiritual center that doesn't waver regardless of where the industry is trying to take him. He came up in the orbit of Kanye West, singing at Sunday Service, contributing to some of the most sonically adventurous gospel-influenced music of the last decade, and navigating the particular complexity of working with one of music's most brilliant and unpredictable figures. What came out of that experience wasn't cynicism -- it was clarity.
In this conversation with Elmo, Ant goes deep on the songwriting process that produced a GRAMMY-nominated career: how his faith shapes what he writes and performs, why he made smiling and happiness a conscious artistic choice in a world that rewards tortured artists, the collaboration with H.E.R. that expanded what people knew he could do, and what Sunday Service taught him about the power of music to reach people in ways that ordinary performance can't. This is a conversation about purpose as much as craft.
"Smiling is a choice. Joy is a choice. I decided a long time ago that my music was going to reflect what I actually believe -- that good things are real."
How Ant approaches writing: the starting points, the spiritual framework he brings to every session, what he's listening for when he's in the room with other collaborators, and why he believes songwriting at the highest level is less about technique and more about having something real to say and being honest enough to say it.
The experience of being in Kanye's creative universe -- what the studio sessions were like, how Kanye pushed the music into territory that Ant wouldn't have found on his own, and what he took away from that collaboration that permanently shaped his approach to ambitious, faith-rooted music making.
What it was actually like to be part of Sunday Service: the spiritual experience of it, the musical demands, the way the performances connected with audiences in a way that was genuinely different from anything else happening in music at that time, and what Ant believes Kanye was actually building with the project.
The creative partnership with H.E.R. that produced one of the more celebrated collaborations of recent years: how they connected, what each of them brought into the room, and why Ant believes that the best musical collaborations happen when both people are operating from a place of genuine respect and zero ego.
The relationship between Ant's spiritual life and his artistic output: how his faith functions as a creative source rather than a constraint, what it means to be a gospel-influenced artist in the pop and R&B world, and why he's never felt tension between his beliefs and his ambition to reach the widest possible audience.
The arc from working behind the scenes to getting recognized at the highest level: what the GRAMMY nomination meant for where he was in his career, how he processed the attention after years of writing songs that other people performed, and what he wants the next chapter of his career to look like now that people know his name.
Ant on why smiling is a conscious artistic decision: the full philosophy behind his commitment to joy as a creative posture, why he refuses the idea that darkness is a prerequisite for depth, and what he says to artists who tell him that his happiness isn't a real artistic stance -- it's just ignorance of how hard the world is.
The Kanye sessions: what it was really like in that room, the moments that surprised him, the things about Kanye's creative process that he has never stopped thinking about, and why he says working with Kanye made him a fundamentally different songwriter -- not because of the fame, but because of the fearlessness.
On Sunday Service and the power of communal music: the specific thing that happens in a Sunday Service performance that doesn't happen anywhere else in contemporary music, why the project resonated with people who weren't even religious, and what Ant believes Kanye understood about the human need for that kind of experience.
The H.E.R. collaboration -- how they got in the room together, what the dynamic was like when two artists with completely different vibes but aligned values sat down to make something, and what he thinks people miss when they analyze what made the collaboration work.
On faith and artistry: his direct answer to the question of whether you can be a genuinely spiritual artist and also a commercially ambitious one -- and why he thinks the artists who try to separate those two things end up with less interesting music and less honest lives.
His advice for songwriters trying to find their voice: what he believes most aspiring writers get wrong about the development process, what "finding your voice" actually means in practice, and the single thing he would tell a younger version of himself that would have saved years of writing songs that were technically fine but spiritually empty.