SunnyMarz wants everyone to know how cool they are.
The Park City-based singer and songwriter, fresh off of producing her daughter YaYa’s new song “Butterflies,” (see accompanying story) will release her own song, “Look Good” at 10 p.m. Mountain Time on Friday, April 14.
The song, which finds itself in the alt-rock style, was inspired by a friend.
“I won’t say their name at this time, but they were struggling with body negativity,” said SunnyMarz, the performance name of Tanisha Hamil. “They didn’t think they were beautiful, and I would tell them all the time just how beautiful they were. And after a while, I thought that I should write a song about empowerment.”
The song addresses the impact society has on people through the media, SunnyMarz said.
“Too many young kids are growing up and losing their confidence because they are seeing all of this instant gratification on social media and TV,” she said. “And after seeing all of this, they think they need to change, even though they really don’t know who they are, because they haven’t walked through life, yet.”
“Look Good,” mixed by Dee Kei Mixes, is also meant to shine a light on the beauty of diversity, according to SunnyMarz.
“However you perceive yourself, is how you will, but we need to start teaching our children that we all look different, and that makes us beautiful,” she said. “I hope by hearing this, they can start to develop some self confidence. And it’s no secret that confidence is something that you have to train yourself to build up.”
SunnyMarz began writing the song in 2018, a few months before she graduated from the Salt Lake City Community College Fashion Institute with a degree in design and merchandising.
“I had actually put down my pen for a while to figure out what I wanted to do with the song,” she said.
That’s when different styles started dropping into her brain.
“I did so many different versions,” she said. “I think this is probably the sixth version of the song.”
Finding the right style was important, because SunnyMarz was also going through some changes in her life.
“I started paving a way for who I thought I was at that time,” she said. “By the time I had some things in my life that weren’t the same, I knew I had to start building up my own confidence, because nobody’s perfect. Your body is never going to be perfect. You will never have enough money, and your family and friends may not always love you unconditionally.”
To help bolster her determination to find belief in herself, SunnyMarz enrolled in the Berklee School of Music online program to become a certified ProTools engineer.
“I decided to get the certificate so I could really work more on the song by myself,” she said.
After finding the right style, SunnyMarz went for it, and is happy with the result.
“I think we need more songs like this today,” she said. “I do listen to a wide variety of music, but a lot of new music does tend to be harsh. It lacks positivity and forward thinking. We need more positivity, because what we feed ourselves is what we become.”