For Stacy Capers ’18, ‘life’s good’ and just beginning

Stacy Capers ’18 on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles during her recording trip / courtesy photo.

It felt like a one-in-a-million chance, but then Stacy Capers ’18 was one of just four.

In August 2021, she traveled to Los Angeles to record a music video for LG Electronics. She’d won the opportunity in the Life’s Good music contest, in which singer-songwriter and producer Charlie Puth wrote the chorus for a song and asked musicians to contribute verses and instrumentation that would both blend with his work and add their own flair to the piece.

Capers’ entry was one of four chosen from among more than 1,500 submissions. The new song created from the collaboration, “Life’s Good,” was used in an LG ad and was featured on a Times Square billboard.

“The whole experience, from the time they told me that I won to even now, has been surreal,” Capers says.

Her sound, a blend of R&B, pop and neo-soul, was born in a church choir. She was still in elementary school when she started to sing in the Charleston, South Carolina, church where her grandfather was pastor.

Capers majored in music at Furman and spent hours outside the classroom involved in musical opportunities on campus: Furman Singers; FUtones, an a cappella group; the Twelve Peers, a student-led ensemble; and Pauper Players, a musical theater group.

Serving as musical director of FUtones during senior year “gave me an outlet to write music, a place to be able to create and compose,” Capers says. But her entire musical education at Furman was inspirational.

“I just have the music department to thank in general,” she says.

Capers works for a payroll company, using evenings and weekends to hone her art. In 2020, she entered LG’s first musical contest and was a finalist to help complete a piece by H.E.R., one of her favorite artists.

In 2021, her dad was encouraging her to push herself as a musician. Days later, she saw an Instagram announcement about the second season of the LG contest. It felt like fate.

Capers enjoyed the challenge of identifying Puth’s objectives for the song, lyrically and musically, and building on those while adding her own perspective.

She learned in mid-summer 2021 that she was a “potential winner” and needed to attend a Zoom meeting for final interviews. But it was a ruse – the meeting was to tell her she was one of the four contest winners.

Within weeks she was flying to Los Angeles. Puth already had put the five individual pieces of music together. Capers and the other winners worked with him to create

She spent hours with a stylist, then moved on to hair and makeup professionals. Recording was managed by a complete production crew.

“I’m used to doing everything for myself,” Capers says, laughing.

The experience inspired her to keep putting in the work on her music. In fall 2021, she was working on a personal extended play project.

“I definitely don’t want to stop this momentum,” she says.

Winning the contest has “broken the conception I had (that) it’s a one-in-a-million chance to get something like this,” she says. The dream used to be: Get signed by a label and become a big star.

But today?

“You can make your own path,” Capers says.

To support music at Furman, go to furman.edu/support-music.