If you have music that sounds like what you cover, people won't be able to differentiate who you are.
I was going to go to college and graduate and move to New York and do the Broadway thing. That's where a lot of my influences vocally and writing come from. Then I did some covers, and towards the end of college, I saw it was a path I could take. I wrote more pop music.
Up until I started on YouTube, my first love was musical theater.