Musicians are warriors of an impossible art. If the countless movies, documentaries and swirling stories about how merciless their industry is are any indication, choosing to pursue music is not for the faint of heart. Carrie Zhu, a junior studying public relations as well as business administration, is one of the select few that bravely goes after her love of music. 

“I have always been someone who always loved to try new things, but music was the very first thing,” said Zhu, who goes by the artist name Carrie Z. “It has been in my life forever.”

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Since age 14, Carrie Z has posted English pop covers on Chinese social media. As her account slowly grew to 40,000 followers, she entered high school reevaluating her presence in music.

“Why did I start posting singing content in the first place? Do I want the fame? Do I want to get the attention?” Carrie Z said. “No, I just love singing to the public.”

That love was reinforced once Carrie Z entered college at USC. During her freshman year, she took a songwriting class which became a major turning point for her music career. 

“I always wanted to write songs but I never knew how to start. So why not do a class? And eventually, I fell in love with that class,” Carrie Z said. “That is when I actually started to write my own songs. It was also that semester that I started to realize maybe I want to do music as a career.”

Prior to creating her own songs, Carrie Z joined creSCendo, a music club on campus. creSCendo provides its members with chances to perform live at a variety of locations, including the USC Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s Mid-Autumn Festival, USC Village and Tommy’s Place. 

Leo Yang, the current president of creSCendo and a junior majoring in business administration, met Carrie Z when they auditioned for the music club their freshman year. 

“Obviously, she’s a great singer, she’s extremely talented,” Yang said. “Most importantly, she has a great passion for music. It drives her to success a lot.”

Something unique about Carrie Z’s musical signature is her subversive and diverse approach to writing music. Every artist takes from their personal life — whether its emotions or experiences — to inspire their work; music is no outlier, and Carrie Z is no exception. 

“I love writing about stories of my personal life,” Carrie Z said. “When I’m writing down the lyrics, I realize what I’m actually thinking. I know why I’m feeling my emotions that way.”

Where much of today’s music is saturated with a thousand and one stories of romance and heartbreak, Carrie Z tries to focus her music elsewhere. Just as life has many avenues beyond love, so too does her music. 

“I try not to write love songs,” Carrie Z said. “I won’t be able to express my feelings as detailed as Taylor Swift so I say I would rather write something that I feel really means something to me.”

Carrie Z’s debut single, “20-sth,” is an example of that goal of moving away from romance. 

“I literally wrote it in a day after my 21st birthday. I just feel I am 21, I should feel like an adult, to feel something different. But I still feel the exact same,” Carrie Z said. “ The chorus part was when I had a realization to myself and to the other 20-something[s] who feel the same stress and anxiety as I am and feel a little bit lost: It’s okay that we don’t have things figured out.”

To avid hopeless romantics and quarter-life crisis victims, it’s clear Carrie Z wants to use music as a space where a variety of feelings can coexist. 

“I would rather write stories about growing up. Also as an international student, [about] culture shock and family. There are so many relationships that I can write about,” Carrie Z said. 

Those different stories Carrie Z wants to tell also lend her music to challenge categorization. When working with Carrie Z, Yang recalls times where her open curiosity for music defied being tied down to one specific genre. 

“A lot of the songs she wants to do are R&B, and she’s now getting more into funk, jazz, different genres,” Yang said. “We ended up making the song sound a lot different than what we intended to do, but it sounds really good. I also appreciate that Carrie’s really open to different ideas and suggestions, and she’s always willing to try different things and let the ideas form themselves.”

Charles Cui, a senior majoring in communication, is a musical collaborator on an unreleased song with Carrie Z. Cui attests to the flexibility of her music and how that enables both of them to explore new depths in their music. 

“It’s definitely something we intentionally made confusing. The first version of the song, [it] was like we were always just thinking of different ways to express it,” Cui said. “We were just always thinking of other ways to express it and it’s partially because we both have a level of range we can explore. We just keep stuffing things into it.”

As Cui outlines his experience songwriting with Carrie Z, it becomes clear she radiates a passion for music that inspires those around her as well as herself.

“She is very intuitive with music. I’m surrounded by people who treat music [as] very empirical, stringent,” Cui said. “With Carrie, it’s never like that. She just starts singing and the music just comes out of her. Carrie doesn’t have this mentality where everything has to be correct. She just starts doing it … and it’s allowed me to become more connected to music intuitively as well. “

From her covers on Chinese social media to being the voice of a Panda Express ad, Carrie Z’s love for music is apparent and thriving. That being said, no passion is complete without its given challenges.

“Being in this industry is a very risky decision. Even though [my parents] can clearly see how passionate I am about it … There are way too many talented people out there and only those couple could stand out in this industry,” Carrie Z said. “Right now, I’m just trying to focus on strengthening my music foundation so that I can create more interesting and more diverse music.”

Perhaps one of the most terrifying things an artist can do is be vulnerable with their work. Yet, it is that willingness to share that produces the most beautiful art. As she uses her new music identity to explore and create, something Carrie Z wants her listeners to take away from whatever she puts out is the realness of her not just as an artist but as a person too.

“I want to let people know that under this glamorous image, even a very high song can be based on a very low time in your life. I want to share more of the different sides of the real life of a glamorous, public image,” Carrie Z said. “I want to show people who I really am with my songs.”