Creativity Quote by Kenneth Edmonds

There is a quiet grief baked into Edmonds's line: an industry built on sound is increasingly run by people who, metaphorically, can’t hear. By contrasting “executives” with “producers,” he draws a fault line between two kinds of authority in music. Producers are framed as listeners first - close to the raw session, the imperfect demo, the unpolished voice that still carries a spark. Executives, in this telling, are managers of risk: they hear numbers, formats, “market fit,” the clean sheen of something already validated.

The phrase “diamond in the rough” is doing double duty. It’s a romantic defense of creative messiness - the belief that greatness often arrives unfinished, without a brand story or a TikTok-ready hook. It’s also a subtle accusation: if you can’t recognize potential, your power is administrative, not artistic. “Unfortunately” matters, too. He’s not just venting; he’s describing a structural disappointment, the sense that gatekeeping has shifted from musical discernment to spreadsheet logic.

Contextually, this reads like a veteran musician watching A-and-R instincts give way to corporate consolidation, streaming-era metrics, and short-term return. The subtext is a plea for an older kind of listening: not passive consumption, but active imagination. Hearing the diamond isn’t about predicting a hit; it’s about being willing to take responsibility for becoming one.