We’re so proud of our Ashleigh Smith. In 2014, Smith competed in and won the Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition hosted on Indaba Music and now she’s all grown up and making albums. You go girl. Read the review below and don’t forget to buy her CD!
“Ashleigh Smith – winner of the 2014 Sarah Vaughan International Vocal Competition – radiates on Sunkissed , which is available for pre-order now. The singer-songwriter’s eagerly-awaited Concord debut features soulful originals and cherry-picked covers. While she’s clearly capable of tackling material underscored by darker themes such as heartache and sobering social commentary, optimistic rays of light always shine through her voice.”
Today Mantis is joined by the most prolific submitter Indaba has ever had, Nowonosous. He shares his musical philosophies with mantis and talks about collaborating with fellow musicians in his native Hartford and around the world with Indaba. We also get to chat with his rapper King Sepparocci and here about there videographer Kyle Corp.
Who should we interview next? What did you thin of our conversation? Let us know your thoughts by e-mailing [email protected].
The Indaba Music Podcast is also available on iTunes, Stitcher, and TuneIn.
Nowonosous Profile: indabamusic.com/people/NOWONOSOUS
Nowonosous Online: www.instagram.com/nowonosous/
Mantis's Profile: indabamusic.com/people/mantis
Our theme song is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and our outro music today is “Follow Your Heart“ by King Stepparocci, produced by Nowonosous.
Breakmaster Cylinder: indabamusic.com/people/984871643
Brought to you by Indabamusic.com
"Practice! Practice! Practice!" I can hear my childhood piano teacher now, as if she gave me a lesson 2 days ago. But for realizes, she was on to something, "Preach sista!"
All musicians have heard it a million times and all musicians know it’s the truth, yet often, it feels like a chore and is pushed further and further down on the to-do list.
Indaba Member J-Tarin found a way to make it fun, and attributes his production growth to the many opportunities he’s entered as his form of practice.
Yeah, that’s all pretty awesome, but Tarin points out some of the things he’s gained that are not in the form of cash. He says, “Indaba does a great thing…they give musicians new opportunities which allow us to improve on skills in production, mixing, remixing and engineering—even writing.”
He explains that the time he’s spent practicing has proved invaluable. You just never know when someone fancy will need quick, high quality work.
"I carried those skills outside of the Indaba Community, and then I received a phone call in late 2011 to work with Tyrese on his album, ‘Open Invitation’. I was ready, and it looks like the hard work paid off because I am now a 2013 Grammy Nominee for my work on that album… we didn’t snag the Grammy, but just to be nominated is COMPLETELY UNREAL to me!”
Tarin jokes that we have received the highest of internet browser honors, “indabamusic.com – one of my top bookmarks on my bookmark bar.” So maybe practicing isn’t so bad after all? At least not when you do it on Indaba Music.
Today our featured artist is GrooveX, an artist currently located in the Netherlands. He's an awesome DJ and huge part of our Indaba community. GrooveX started out with percussion and music theater at 12 years old. After he played in various bands as a percussionist and bassist, GrooveX was suggested to Indaba by a friend.
While on our website he spotted the "Syn Cole – Miami 82 remix competition." After listening to all the stems it inspired him to create a submission and enter a remix of his own! After entering submissions in various contests and getting involved in the Indaba community he was "hooked"! Indaba exposed him to "the possibility to get to know other great producers and get a lot of good feedback and tips."
"Every contest is unique in it’s own way." said GrooveX. "The one that stood out the most to me was probably the Electronica Oasis." He explains "To hear all the different takes on the track, getting direct feedback to my dance track “Godzilla” and seeing the community buzz with activity was very inspiring."
GrooveX has submitted in various remix contests and really impressed us here at Indaba! He continues to use Indaba today and thinks "Indaba is a great place to connect with other producers with different views and talents from all over the world and be heard" he says.
He continued "The staff I’ve “met” in the Listening Party was always helpful and it feels like one big music family of creative people." That's what Indaba's all about connecting musicians all over the world! So shoutout to GrooveX for all your hard work! We really enjoy and appreciate it! Keep up the good work man!
The Listening Party has become quite the local hang for our most active members. To potato or not to potato (either you know or you don't). 10 of these awesome members started chatting in the party one day and decided to write a song about Indaba. My heart... all the feels.
Indaba first started as a site for musicians to collaborate and it means so much to us that the spirit of collaboration is still alive and well in our community. Mantis said about the project,
"Banding together with others, practically strangers, for the purpose of creating beautiful music solely to nourish the spirit of others. It's amazing."
Below are the beautiful people who worked on this. See you guys in the Listening Party!
From big benefit concerts like Live 8 to individual songs like John Lennon’s “Imagine”, music is often used for a greater purpose; Connection. If people of all walks of life, shapes and colors can connect through a favorite melody maybe everyone can join forces to support the same cause, inspire a real change. It’s that powerful notion of connection that has led Indaba member, Samantha Kirshtein, to write her most important song.
"I really don’t remember how I found Indaba Music." Samantha writes, but after she settled in the thought, she exclaimed "this site is pretty cool!". She has been an active country singer/songwriter on the site now for the past 3 years, sending in 140 submissions to varies contests and placing in over 10 of them. Not too shabby for 16 years old!
Samantha reflects on a one of the more meaningful contests she’s participated in, “One of my favorites was playing live for an internet audience on YouNow. The awesome comments and support of the Indaba musical community is so appreciated.”
In the YouNow contest, the final contestants competed in a live video stream concert with a simultaneous live chat feed, enabling the performers to see a constant flow of comments. It blew her away to read a comment from a mom who’s child is ill with cancer and expressed how lighthearted and and bright she felt to hear her music.
"I think singers and songwriters believe in themselves but when their work and passion touches someone else, it takes that inspiration to an even greater place." Samantha wrote a song for her Grandfather who lost his life to Alzheimer’s, with the idea of connecting people with similar experiences and hopefully make a difference.
She adds "that disease will always be one of my great missions in life. I want to be able to touch someone enough with that song that they learn about and support the fight to find a cure for Alzheimer’s."
Again, this girl is 16??? Not only Indaba Music found this inspiring but Mark Bryan from Hootie and the Blowfish did too, and featured it in his Songs of the Fortnight blog. “It was really cool”, Samantha writes.
Check out Samantha’s YouNow track “(That’s What) Living Is For” below:
It’s a known fact: Indaba users produce a lot of amazing, original music. So why not capitalize on this content? Indaba’s Music Licensing program can certainly help with that. Created in order to help Indaba artists gain exposure vis-à-vis interaction with music supervisors, record labels, publishers, and other industry professionals, it has already helped several independent artists establish themselves in an often-uncertain industry. One such success story is Low Lustre.
The Brooklyn, NY-based semi-punk band were long-time members of the Indaba website before their song “On the Floor” was featured on a television commercial for French sports equipment manufacturing company Salomon. Check out this awesome commercial here, and pay a visit to Indaba’s licensing page to see how you too can get your hands on this awesome opportunity!
With a killer remix of Zeds Dead's "Demons", the Maniac Agenda took home the grand prize: a flyaway to perform at Camp Bisco.
As one of the most renowned Electronic Music Festivals in the world, Camp Bisco is a three day long show-stopper event. People from all across the country come to the festival to camp out and share their love of music and entertainment. For the Maniac Agenda, it was a return to their roots.
"We first experienced Camp Bisco in 2009, which changed our musical journey forever," said the group. "So to play it this year was like we were coming back home." And indeed, it was quite the homecoming.
The Maniac Agenda made the most of their festival experience, mingling with countless other artists, musicians, and producers. A highlight for them was the opportunity to meet KJ Sawka, the celebrated drummer, who they've been collaborating with online.
They cited KJ's futurist project with Downlink and Excision Destriod as their favorite performance of the festival, and were honored when he came out to see their set as well. The collaboration between the Maniac Agenda and KJ Sawka will be released soon.
While visiting the festival as a fan is one thing, the band's chance to perform took the experience to another level. "This was the perfect opportunity to showcase some of our new tracks and get experimental in our performance, which really paid off," said The Maniac Agenda.
Being able to play at such a historic event and in front of so many people is quite the achievement. Their experience at Camp Bisco was certainly both awesome and unforgettable. Coming off the high of their successful Camp Bisco performance, the Maniac Agenda has some more excellent opportunities to look forward to.
The group's winning remix of "Demons" on indabamusic.com was noticed by Grammy winning producer Robert Fusari, who hired them to remix the track "Any Where but Here" for his upcoming group Cary Nokey.
In addition, the band is hard at work on their debut album, "Through Fire & Flood." To get a free download of a live acoustic version (and a sneak peak of the plugged in version too) of their upcoming single "Flooded", click here.
