Alex Shkudun on the Fictional Journey and Personal Experience Behind “MY STORY”

1. What came first for “MY STORY”: the fictional character, the migrant journey, or the emotion behind leaving home and starting over?

The first spark was actually neither a character nor a storyline.

I had sent another song of mine to my friend John in London, and he simply asked me, “Can you do a hip hop song?” So I went online almost from scratch, just to listen and understand the genre better. I came across a video featuring some of the best hip-hop tracks, heard “Mask Off Freestyle, Ombre2Choc Remix” and something clicked. Images started appearing in my head. Then lines. Then scenes. Very quickly, MY STORY began taking shape.

The migrant journey became the frame for those images, but the emotion underneath it was something I already understood personally.

Because of the war in Ukraine, my family and I had to leave our home country and start again somewhere else. So while the character in MY STORY is fictional, the uncertainty behind him - leaving home, not knowing exactly where life is taking you, having to rebuild - is very real to me.

That is probably why the story came so naturally. I did not have to invent the emotion. I only had to invent the character who would carry it.

2. Why did New York become the setting for the story, and what does that city represent inside the song?

For many musicians, America is still part of the dream. And in a way, America begins with New York.

It is one of those cities people recognize before they have ever been there. The skyline, the streets, the bridges - they already carry ideas of ambition, possibility, struggle and success.

When I was building the story, I needed details. I think details are what make a fictional world feel real. “A big American city” would have meant nothing. New York gives you images immediately.

And then I thought about the Brooklyn Bridge.

For me, it worked because it is not just a famous landmark. Inside the song, it can exist at different stages of the journey. At first it is something distant - almost part of the dream. Later, it becomes a reminder of where the character started and how far he has come.

A story becomes much stronger when the listener can actually see it.

3. Which parts of the character’s uncertainty, displacement and hope connect most directly to what you experienced after leaving your home country because of the war?

Probably the feeling of leaving without knowing whether the ticket is one-way.

When we left Ukraine, we did not know when we would be able to come home. And honestly, we still do not know.

Moving to another country changes almost everything at once. Psychologically, emotionally, financially. Even if your life was stable before - you had your home, your routine, your work, your people - you cannot put all of that into a suitcase and take it with you.

You arrive somewhere new and, in a sense, nobody knows who you are. Nobody is waiting for you. You have to solve your own problems, earn your living and learn how this new life works.

It can feel almost like learning to walk again.

You may go from having your own home to living in a small rented apartment. You start thinking differently about money, work, security and the future. You understand very quickly that if you stop moving, nobody is going to build your new life for you.

But there is another side to it.

My children are safe. They are not waking up to air-raid sirens or explosions. They are not running to shelters. They do not have to wonder what might happen tonight.

And when your family is with you and safe, something changes inside you. Fear does not disappear, but it turns into energy.

You want to move forward. Work harder. Build again. Prove to yourself that you are still capable of creating something bigger than the circumstances that forced you to leave.

That is why the character’s journey is not my biography, but emotionally it is very close to me.

4. How did you keep the song personal without turning the fictional character into a literal version of your own biography?

I think that is one of the strange things about writing fiction: even when the character is invented, part of the writer inevitably gets inside him.

I did not have to give the character my exact biography for the emotions to be honest.

His jobs are not my jobs. His New York is not my personal history. His circumstances are different from mine.

But I understand what it means to leave a familiar life behind. I understand uncertainty. I understand what it means to start again somewhere where nobody knows your history, your achievements or who you were before you arrived.

So I separated facts from emotion.

The facts belong to the character.

The emotional truth belongs partly to me.

I think that is why fictional stories can sometimes feel more personal than literal autobiography. A writer may invent a completely different person and still leave pieces of himself everywhere.

For me, the story always comes first. The story decides what the song needs to become.

5. Is there one lyric or scene in the song that carries the emotional center of the record for you?

I think the line that carries the message most clearly is:

“If I made it, then you can too.”

Because MY STORY is not really meant to be a song about one exceptional person.

It is a message.

If you work, if you keep moving toward something you believe in, if you refuse to stop simply because the distance looks impossible, things can change.

Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not in the exact way you imagined.

But everything begins with one step.

That first step can look insignificant when you take it. You do not see the whole road yet. But without it, there is no road at all.

That is probably the idea at the center of the song for me: you do not have to see the entire future before you start walking toward it.

6. What did you want the production and performance to make the listener feel by the end of the track?

Forward motion.

By the end of the song, I wanted the listener to feel that something is possible.

Not that life suddenly becomes easy, and not that believing in a dream magically solves everything. I do not believe in that kind of motivational message.

You still have to work. You still have to survive the difficult parts. You still have to take the next step when there is no guarantee that it will lead anywhere.

But I wanted the final feeling to be hope rather than defeat.

That is also connected to the way I generally think about music. I rarely hear a song only as sound. I see scenes, movement, characters and emotional arcs.

So MY STORY had to feel like a journey.

You begin somewhere uncertain, and by the end I want you to feel that the road is still open.

7. When somebody who has also had to leave home hears “MY STORY,” what do you hope they recognize in it?

I hope they recognize that leaving home does not erase the person they were before they left.

Starting again can make you feel as if everything has been reset to zero. Your home may be far away. Your status may be different. Your surroundings, language, routine and financial reality may all change.

But your previous life is still inside you.

And more importantly, the fact that you had to start again does not mean your story ended.

Sometimes it means another part of the story has just begun.

I also hope people understand that they are not alone in those feelings. Millions of people know what it means to leave a place they love because staying is no longer safe or possible.

For me, protecting my family was worth every difficulty that came with starting over. My children are safe. That alone changes the meaning of everything else.

Then the question becomes: what do you do next?

You keep moving.

You take one step, then another.

And maybe one day you look back and realise that the period when you thought everything had fallen apart was also the moment when another road quietly began.

I said something in another interview that probably explains what I want from my music better than anything else: if somebody hears one of my songs and thinks, “I know this feeling” or “This could be my story,” then the song has already done something important.