Creatives & Everyone Else: Die Empty, Like DJ Jazzy Jeff Said.
Why You Shouldn’t Leave This World with Anything Still Inside You
DJ Jazzy Jeff (Jeffrey Allen Townes) said, “Die empty. Don’t die with shit creatively inside of you. Die empty. So however it’s gotta come out, if I gotta throw it out, give it out, this is the album I gotta vacuum my floor with—get it out.”
My chest tightened like I was listening to Hozier’s To Someone From A Warm Climate for the first time.
Because too many of us are walking around with brilliance boiling inside us, waiting for a “perfect” moment. A clearer schedule. A better camera. A different mood. A co-sign. An Instagram algorithm that finally smiles our way. But while we’re waiting, death ain’t. Life’s got the rudest habit of interrupting your best intentions. And one day, you’ll blink and realize that shit inside you—the poem, the play, the album, the apology, the protest sign, the recipe, the gospel track, the mixtape that only made sense in your neighborhood—never made it out. Never touched anybody. Never fed a hunger that went unfulfilled. Never gave anybody peace or fire or reason.
That’s the real heartbreak.
We don’t need more full trees dying. We need stumps. Mulch, even. Break us down, make us useful, spread us around so that new folks can grow from what we left behind. I’ve said this to those I love often: if all goes as planned (though it rarely does), I’ll die as a stump—not a full oak standing tall and proud with potential still dripping from its branches. I want to go having given every leaf away. Every fruit. Every bark-stripped truth I ever carried.
That means not waiting for the world to ask for it. Not holding back the story that feels “too weird” or “too small.” Not sitting on your photos because you ain’t got Lightroom presets. Not shelving that song you sang in your car at 2AM because no one else has heard it yet. Not dying full. Not that.
There is no benefit in hoarding your gifts. This world is starving for honesty. For beauty. For wild ideas that don’t always make sense until they do. There’s someone out there who needs what you’ve got right now, not when you think it’s perfect. Give us the drafts. The voice memos. The stage fright. The journals with half a paragraph on page one and nothing else. The dance moves you only do in socks in the kitchen. The business plan that might not make sense on paper but sounds like freedom out loud. Give us your weird. Give us your witness. Give us what’s weighing you down creatively before it drowns you in regret.
I know this: one day, someone’s gonna wish you left them a little more of you. Not the curated you. Not the version you thought would impress the grant committee or the therapist you’re still feeling out. But the messy, radiant, complicated, human you who tried. Who risked looking foolish. Who said “fuck it” and hit publish. Who scribbled the thing on a napkin and passed it to someone on the bus.
Die empty.
And I don’t mean run yourself ragged trying to please people or prove your worth through production. I mean don’t leave here with your hands still clenched around your genius like it belongs to you alone. It doesn’t. It never did. It was always meant to pass through you, not stay inside you like a museum exhibit no one’s allowed to touch.
I’ve seen too many people die full. Brilliant people. Brilliant…people. People with voices that could open history. People with songs that would’ve saved lives if they’d made it to the right speaker. But now they’re gone, and all that potential went with them. And I keep wondering what would’ve happened if they’d believed it was worthy before it was polished. If they’d just said what they had to say, sung what they had to sing, danced until the floor gave way.
A nudge:
If you’re waiting for the green light, here it is.
If you’re waiting for someone to say it’s time, it is.
If you’re waiting for the fear to go away, it won’t. But do it scared.
Empty yourself out. Say the things. Make the things. Give it away like it’s compost and you’re trying to save the soil. That’s the way to die with honor. Not with a resume, but a record. A trail. A body of work, even if it’s scattered, even if it’s undone, even if no one claps for it. Let there be proof you were here, and you gave.
Because dying empty isn’t just about you. It’s about us. It’s about the world you’ll never see, the people you’ll never meet, the legacy that doesn’t have your name but has your fingerprints all over it.
So give us your all. Or at least, give us what you’ve got today. Tomorrow’s not promised, but the page is.
The mic is.
The canvas is.
The kitchen is.
The street corner is.
The baby you're raising is.
The student who’s watching you is.
When you go, I hope there’s nothing left behind in that chaotic mind of yours but echoes.
Die empty.
And may what you leave behind be too heavy to bury.