I Like My Music Like Costco on a Sunday

Full of samples.

Having a great love for New York Hip Hop there is something so magical about how a producer can strategically splice separate works of art into a single masterpiece, like a musical collage. I feel DJ Kool Herc had a lot to do with the evolution for majority of the groups I love (Tribe, Wu Tang (which is for the children), KRS-One). I thought I'd share a fun song Spotify introduced me to, but first I'll warn you that it sounds messy & chaotic, and it's what I love about it. I also have the same cat unitard as the girl in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPLG7YTyzDA

I also love catching the same sample in multiple songs, for example Groove is in the Heart has the same sample from a Belly Dancing instruction video that Tyler the Creator used in I Ain't Got Time

Night Life Photography

I absolutely love night life photography. You can play around with a vast amount of lighting, props, shadows, and people. I love catching raw emotions and candid photos. Catching people in their true form brings a joy to me that I cannot describe. Mostly because I don't care for anything close to superficial. Candid photos are honest, and sometimes a smile is a lie. I also love watching people play with fire, but who doesn't.

Great Instrumental for Freestyling

A thing I do to get inspiration for lyrics is listen to instrumentals and free style over them. I love taking the unspoken journey that a producer wishes to take its listeners. It's like reading a book; being able to fill the empty spaces with your own imagination. This is a nice, chill kind of melancholy beat with a versatile tempo.

Trip to Seattle

Here are some shots from my first visit to Seattle last year. The photo of the bees is my favorite from the trip, because it's beautiful and kind of sad. I think it's a perfect representation of the word, bittersweet.

Can I Spell Kaiyote?

Another band I can listen to is Hiatus Kaiyote. I can listed to the albums from front to back. Found them via Spotify playlist. They're from Australia and I got to see them when they had their first show in Las Vegas. It was at Insert Coins (RIP Insert Coins, I hope to find a bartender that used to work there so I can have a Dirty Kerby. I've been craving one for like 4 years, but I digress). It's been absolutely amazing seeing them grow from being in a small, intimate venue and upgrading to Brooklyn Bowl during their next visit. Nai Palm is the lead singer and she's incredibly sweet. Her vocal runs are otherworldly, listening to her really helped me lock down the ability to perform vocal runs ("Swap Thing" is a great demonstration of it). Her voice may sound familiar if you listened to the most recent album releases from Drake and Kendrick Lamar, you can hear her voice sampled in their song (I think Kendrick sampled "Atari").

Long post cut short: I really love this band and can't wait for the next album to drop.

Portraits

I did a shoot for my friend, MJ. I'm so proud of how this photo came out. She designed the set in her living room. She's also throwing a 3-day festival from October 31st - November 3rd, called We Are All One. The festival was recently featured in the Las Vegas Weekly. One one interested should really check it out if they like House or Tech House. Tell them Marion sent you.

https://www.instagram.com/soulstateofficial/

Ever Heard a French Song?

If you haven't this one is amazing. The bass is super deep and reverberate. I started listening to music in other languages to learn them in a fun way. Proud to say I can sing this whole song in french, sad to say I don't know what all the words mean. Myth Syzer is one of my favorite producers, they did an amazing job on this collaboration with Bonnie Banane. However, it's a great conversation starter with french speaking people, I've discovered through a few conversations that when she sings bon bon a la menthe, it could mean that she's sucking on a mint candy or sucking on the sweet lies of a partner.

Favorite Shot of 2018

Here's a photo of the Art Director of Fresh Watta here in Vegas. Really nice guy, let me take a photo of him at an event Soul State was a part of at the venue. Turned out to be my favorite shot of 2018, but it was technically a few hours before 2019 started. It's also my favorite shot of 2019, maybe ever? I just love his mask and the contrast of the yellow neon lights bouncing off the gems of his mask and refracting off his white suit. I love everything about this photo.

Amazing Toro Y Moi Cover

I came across this cover on Spotify and I'm so glad it made its way to me. An absolute amazing cover of So Many Details, worth a listen.

Too Many Hobbies

Did I also mention that I love to create music? I created this cover on an app called Loopy, really suggest it for anyone that has a hard time playing instruments but can still hold a note. I used my voice to make instrumental loops to sing over. Hope you enjoy this cover of my favorite Blink 182 song.
Blink 182 Cover

Captain Hook

As previously mentioned I love to venture into creative projects in my spare time. Here are some crochet tops I created for a clients two daughters.

Soul State

When I'm not in school, I like to do art projects in my spare time. This usually includes designing clothes, cooking, or photography. Here are some shots I've done for my friend's at Soul State. They through an event at Artifice every 1st Friday and 2nd Saturday and a festival twice a year. Here are some of my favorite shots I took at their Playa Del La Soul Festival last October.

Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Isn't Rainbow Kitten Surprise the most epic band name you've ever hear? Really love their first main stream album, I can't share my favorite song as the title is explicit, but Hide is also a good one.

Awkward Job Interview

Hello,

Part of A3 is to share a job hunting or interview experience with the class, so I thought here would be a good place to do so.

A while back I applied for a job as a Physician Credentialing Specialist for a hospital system in Vegas. During the interview I was asked a three-part question that I answered incorrectly and made a statement that was misinterpreted. I wanted to share to help anyone else that might encounter this. The three part question asked was along the lines of, "Have you ever had a manager you didn't agree with? What was the situation and how did you handle it?" I answered truthfully in stating, "I had a manager that was pure evil, she would point her finger in my face, call me names, and really made working there hell. How I handled the conflict was addressing her first, and after the issue proceeded, I went to her manager." You DON'T want to say anything like that in an interview. I personally think it was a terrible question to ask, but to each their own. During the closing of the interview, the Manager told me that if I had any questions or if I changed my mind about wanting the position to give them a call. I then informed her that I would not have applied for the position had I not wanted it. Needless to say, I did not get a call back.

Dog Mom

I did a mini shoot of my two puppers. Wiz (black) and Gio

Grizzly Bear

One of my absolute favorite bands is Grizzly Bear and this is definitely one of my favorites. If you've seen the movie, "Blue Valentine," you might have heard this song. Grizzly Bear did the entire soundtrack (excluding the heart melting Elvis cover by Ryan Gosling). A great soundtrack and cool film if you have time. However, I do recommend listening to in your car or with headphones, computer monitors don't do this song justice.

Crazy Week

So much has happened recently, it's been kind of crazy working full-time and taking 4 classes. So much homework! However, if you're curious, the photo in the background of my blog is a photo of my late dog, Bella. She gave the best cuddles and was such a great model.

My First Blog Post

Hello,

This blog post reminds me a lot of MySpace Bulletin Boards (I feel so old typing that). I'm very happy that CSN moved away from using the IC3 requirements for this course, after taking my first training video, it's already about 70% better than IC3. IC3 only recognized 1-2 ways of completing a task and Cengage is more realistic.