What I Carry, What I Create
Where I come from is in everything I do
I come from a place where identity is something you carve out, not something handed to you, from a lineage where music wasn’t just expression—it was survival.
My parents, Józef Pełczyński and Danuta Bogaczyk, were working musicians who fled Cold War tyranny, carrying only their instruments, their voices, and the will to carve out a future on their own terms. I grew up watching them turn sound into sustenance, watching music pay the bills, cross borders, and fight back against a system that sought to silence people like them.
Their struggle—balancing art with survival—was my first real education. It taught me that music has weight. It isn’t just something you make; it’s something you wield. I was immersed in an environment where music wasn’t just art; it was a lifeline. It wasn’t just entertainment; it was a language, a survival tool, a way to process what couldn’t be spoken outright.
I understood early that creativity is a form of defiance, a way to push forward when the odds are against you. My parents' courageous path as working musicians and immigrants shaped my understanding of what it meant to fight for freedom and expression. That idea became the foundation of how I see the world: there’s no passive existence—only what you build, what you fight for, and what you refuse to compromise.
Growing up, I lived between two worlds—one rooted in my parents’ sacrifices and traditions, the other pulling toward reinvention. One world spoke of discipline and survival; the other of possibility and adaptation. I had to learn how to switch fluently between Polish and English—not just in language, but in mindset—to navigate the insulated immigrant community and the melting pot of American culture. Each carried its own expectations, and I had to reconcile both. My upbringing was an intricate mix of discipline and defiance. I still obsess over the concept of duality—how opposing forces coexist, how tension fuels transformation, and how symbolism reveals truth through contrast, distilling meaning from the collision of forces. I wasn’t handed a map for how to navigate that duality, so I built my own. I gravitated toward sound, philosophy, and storytelling—anything that made sense of the chaos.
That ethos—of questioning, refining, and refusing to take things at face value—defines everything I do. Whether it’s music, strategy, or anything I put my name on, the throughline is the same: excellence without pretense, depth without excess, and power without noise.
I’m drawn to the pursuit of calm power—the kind that isn’t performative but undeniable. I don’t separate my work from my identity because, for me, they are the same thing. Where I come from is in everything I do.