Different by Design

So here’s a thing that happened: I made a song.

This is notable because (a) I’ve never released a song before, and (b) the last time I attempted anything musical that involved singing to an audience was well over 20 years ago, and that really didn’t turn out as well as I expected.

But “Different by Design” exists now, and it’s the first of many songs that I’ve written that will be shared on a regular, ongoing basis. This one is a gospel-hip-hop track about autism, faith, and the theological concept of “what if everybody just calmed down about people being different.” It features a choir, some rap verses, and exactly zero apologies for taking up space. Future songs will be among a variety of different genre’s, but I digress…

The song started—as most questionable decisions do—with a conversation someone had after church. A mom whose son was humming during the sermon. Not disruptively. Just his own soundtrack. Someone asked her to keep him quiet. She had that look. You know the one. The look that says “I have explained my child’s neurology seventeen times this month and it’s only the 8th, and I’m fresh out of patience but somehow still smiling.”

I couldn’t get that interaction out of my head. Not because it was unusual—that’s the problem, it wasn’t—but because it crystallized something I’d been thinking about for a while: Churches talk a big game about “all are welcome,” but then get real twitchy when “all” includes people whose worship doesn’t look like the brochure.

I’m grateful that there are many churches that welcome special needs families, but sad to say, some don’t. I just want to make sure I mention that, as this isn’t about ‘religion’ – it’s about acceptance.

Here’s the thing about boxes. (And yes, there’s a line in the song about boxes. Stay with me.) We love them. We build them constantly. Boxes for behavior, boxes for learning, boxes for what “normal” looks like. We label them “For Your Own Good” and “Society Functions Better This Way” and my personal favorite, “We’re Just Trying to Help.”

But here’s what I keep coming back to: The box wasn’t built by God.

That’s not a metaphor I’m particularly proud of—it’s a little on-the-nose, even for a gospel song—but it’s accurate. We did this. We built these containers and then spent centuries confused about why some people don’t fit inside them. Then we decided the people were the problem.

“Different by Design” is my attempt to say out loud what a lot of parents are too exhausted to keep repeating: Autism isn’t a design flaw. It’s not a rough draft God forgot to edit. It’s not a punishment or a test or a character-building exercise for everyone else’s benefit.

It’s just a brain. Working differently. On purpose.

The song uses gospel and hip-hop because that’s where I’ve always heard the most honest conversations about worth, about being seen, about the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually do. Also, because I deeply enjoy the idea of a choir shouting “DIFFERENT BY DESIGN!” while someone raps about IEP meetings. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does.

I’m not particularly interested in inspiration porn. I’m not trying to make anyone feel warm and fuzzy about neurodiversity while doing nothing to actually accommodate it. What I am interested in is this: What if we stopped treating different minds as a problem to solve and started treating our inflexibility as the actual issue?

Wild concept, I know.

This song is for the parents still awake at 3 AM, googling things they wish they didn’t have to google. For the kids who’ve been told they’re “too much” or “not enough” or “broken”—which is a word that should never be applied to a human being, full stop. For anyone who’s ever been asked to shrink themselves to make other people comfortable.

It’s also—and I cannot stress this enough—for the people who’ve been doing the asking. The ones who genuinely think they’re helping by encouraging conformity. The ones who need to hear that the work isn’t making autistic kids act more neurotypical. The work is redesigning spaces so nobody has to perform normalcy just to belong.

So yeah. First song. It’s out there now. On the internet. Where things live forever and can never be taken back.

No pressure.

Listen on Spotify and everywhere else you listen to music online.

Here’s the video on YouTube:

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And now for that disclosure thing:

This song, like all songs we will be releasing, was written to advance autism awareness and understanding. It was created with AI-assisted production, and we openly disclose that. Transparency matters to us.

These songs are meant to start conversations, inspire reflection, and encourage others to carry the message forward.

If you’re a performing artist or vocalist who would like to bring this message to the stage, we welcome collaboration. Reach out to discuss performance or recording rights.