Creativity Quote by Kathy Valentine

Kathy Valentine’s line lands with the unforced candor of someone who’s spent decades in rooms where “credit” and “power” don’t always line up. On paper it’s casual: a friend update, a little career news, a shrug of admiration. Underneath, it’s a compact snapshot of how musicians talk when they’re also quietly keeping score of the industry’s shifting pecking order.

The repetition is the tell. “Doing a lot of producing these days.” “Quite a little collection.” “Real busy.” Valentine stacks small, almost homely phrases to build a bigger point without ever declaring it: Carla Olsen is accumulating authority. Producing isn’t just another gig; it’s the seat behind the glass where taste becomes decision, where someone gets to shape the sound and the narrative, not merely perform inside it. Calling it a “little collection” softens the claim, the way women in music are often socialized to understate achievements even when they’re piling up.

There’s also a note of solidarity embedded in the friend mention. “I’m friends with Carla” isn’t name-dropping so much as network-mapping: in a business that historically isolates women into novelty slots, friendship doubles as infrastructure. The subtext reads like a status report from the trenches: someone we know is getting opportunities, stacking receipts, staying booked.

Context matters, too. Valentine, best known from the Go-Go’s, comes from a generation that watched women fight to be taken seriously as instrumentalists and songwriters, let alone as producers. This isn’t gossip; it’s a quiet celebration of a role women were long discouraged from claiming.