‘Tess’ of time
House; at the Daytime Emmy Awards; and at the Rose Parade in the United States. However, her album Count On My Love, released in
2014, did not register impressive sales figures.
During the interview, she noted that she has been able to close that chapter in her life which also included the break-up of her marriage to broadcaster Michael Cuffe Jr. Seven years on, she is remarried and gave birth to her first child, a daughter, earlier this year.
However, she explained that the pressure was immense.
“When you know that you are doing your absolute best to make things happen, but you may not necessarily have the support… I don’t like to put blame. From I know I can do everything in my power to make something a success or whatever, then I am at peace with it. There is nothing that we could have done differently, nothing that we would’ve done differently because it has all brought me here. But, it was just a lot of expectation and a lot of pressure. My biggest critic is myself. So if people were doing that, can you imagine what I was doing to me in terms of what I expected? It got to a point where I was just like ‘stop, just stop everything, stop’. I had to retreat.”
During this retreat, Chin shared that she lived up to contractual obligations in terms of shows; however, the experience had taken a toll on her.
“I couldn’t even think about writing. I couldn’t even think about singing in the same way. I was singing from a completely different place. I was so disconnected from all of it and it just became something I had to do. So it was trying to figure out… I’m really great at this, I believe it is my calling, but what if this is not what I want to do anymore, and reckoning with that too, ‘cause that is like the scariest thing in the world. It’s all I’ve known, it’s all I’ve ever wanted and it’s what
I’m gifted at,” said Chin.
She credits pregnancy and the birth of her daughter for being the healing factor and what has brought her back to her music.
“There were a lot of things during pregnancy that were laid open and had to surface in some way. These babies come into your life and they break you, but they heal you in a weird way. I believe that she came into my life at a point where I was just like ‘okay’. For the first time in my life I want to write, I want to sing again, I want to be on stage again. It makes me cry because I was the farthest thing from that. I give God thanks because it reminds me that we are here in service and singing is not about us, and the moment we make it about us is the moment we’ve lost the plot,” she added.