Madness 2 Magic

There’s a chair in the road covered by a sheet, and I am underneath it. I can’t see through the sheet but I’m sure a crowd has gathered by now. It’s hot in Wynwood, Miami, so part of me is second-guessing my decision to begin this way. Behind me is sits a holographic “musicar”, a customized old convertible with pop-up turntables, equipped the sound system of a nightclub. LEDs, that cover the car, are flashing in sync with the eerie music as fog builds around me. In-ear monitors allow us to speak to each other though our microphones privately. I ask, “is everyone ready?” and he replies, “Are you?” I’m never ready, and deeming them butterflies in my stomach would be an understatement, because it feels more like fireworks. So I close my eyes for a few seconds, and when I open them back up, I am someone entirely new… and she is always ready. She can tap into and exude any emotion; she becomes whoever I need her to be. “Yes” I reply as I slump in my chair under the sheet on a hot night in Miami. Tonight I am a machine, just like the car behind me. Tonight we become one.

The mad scientist (producer, Draydel) in his lab coat rips the sheet off of me, and proceeds to bring his “greatest” creation (me) to life, but accidentally brings the car to life as well. Now we are linked. Dancers in lab coats accompany me as I creepily sing an introduction to our show, Madness 2 Magic. As the car tries to introduce itself, it begins to glitch and scan through radio stations. With each station, I become an entirely different person. The girls begin with me as I smile and sing a pop song, the station changes and I am serious as the boys lunge from the crowd to dance with me for a hip-hop track, which always gives that shock factor. For the EDM switch, the LED hoop dancers/fire spinners come out, and with the ballad our ballerinas grace the streets in lit up wings for a song called “Butterflies”. My favorite is when I peel off a layer to reveal a hand-made fringe mini dress, just as the station switches to Spanish. It isn’t the Latin dance or even the awesome outfit, but the look of surprise on everyone’s face, mixed with that look of “OK I’m here for it now.” It’s hard to describe but when I see it, I know we’ve accomplished our main goal, to bring all people together. It is what fulfills me.

This show appeared in my head one day, just like everything else does. It started with songs, full songs would just pop into my head, often right as I’m falling asleep. Then it grew to include music videos; my obsessions would lead me to creating insane visuals with complex story lines and no budget. Now these shows just pop into my head, and I prepare for months and gather talent in various locations. I don’t stop until I bring them to life, that’s when I can breathe again. The song is always the root. Sometimes I see that song with the live dance and how it plays out, sometimes with the music video or both. My mind races and obsesses until the idea has been brought to life. It is more than a passion, it is my purpose.

I wasn’t always like this. Granted, I was always passionate and hardworking, never stopping until I accomplished my goal, but it was more determination than passion. I went to my lacrosse recruitment trips on crutches, and I’m pretty sure I willed those scholarships to happen. I played D1 lacrosse at both PC and then Howard University, sustaining over 23 injuries in 5 years (not including the major surgeries and injuries leading up to college). I wasn’t particularly fast or tall, just particularly injured, which helped me perfect my skillset. Later injuries lead me to a career in music, but we will get there.

With horrible knees, I was frequently immobile, so I lived “on the wall,” just throwing the ball back and forth, all day every day. I became the best at what I did, taking the draw as a center. My stick skills were unrivaled, but my legs couldn’t quite match my arms, and thus upon taking the draw (face-off) goal after goal for 10 years, getting hit in the head was the norm for me. As I snagged the ball and swiftly cradled it over to protect it, my opponents would reach and whack me in the head. I was too focused on my knee injuries to ever think about brain damage. By now you may be curious as to the relevance of my athletic past, well, that’s how I lost my mind.

Since I could speak, I'd been making up songs, but that’s not a career for someone from a fishing town in Rhode Island. I loved to sing, I loved to write, but it wasn’t a compulsion, it wasn’t a necessity. I remember it was my junior year of college, I started thinking I had lost my mind, maybe life had really finally beaten me. It felt like my brain was flooding with words. Notes in class were covered with these lyrics, and ideas drawn as stick figure pictures for music videos. I couldn’t sleep or even think until each idea was brought to life. It was obnoxious, obsessive, crazy, and uncontrollable. Yet, for the first time in a long time I was happy. A psychologist would later tell me that our brain compartmentalizes everything, and that the blows to my head had torn the walls down that separated everything. He said I had the brain of a pro boxer, but that I was “the luckiest person in the world.” Apparently, the damage typically causes people to begin many things at once, but hinders them from finishing, and from what he could tell, I was still able to complete the million concepts that swam around in my head. I found peace only when they came to life, so they had to come to be created. This is how my story begins. My passion.

I convinced people and places to work with me, donating their time and locations. My songs and music videos had to be done together; they were equally as important to me. I directed, cast, secured every location, created the costumes or wardrobe, I was writing and recording and doing everything except hold the camera. I needed the songs to have videos because I’ve always felt too much and to communicate such feeling would require different depictions. The song would showcase a feeling or event, and the video would exaggerate it and translate it using a crazy storyline. I have filmed, for free, in a jail, insane asylum, BNA airport, mansions, hotels, and with hundreds of people. I believe so much in my projects that my belief is contagious. In “Demons” I was in an asylum and tried to escape, but never succeeding, and it was a metaphor to being trapped in my mind. The other patients represented different parts of my emotion, one being the loss of innocence. “The Crime” showed loyalty and determination through a Bonnie and Clyde type storyline. I filmed in a mansion, art gallery and a jail, all donated. The actors were all waiters at a local restaurant. “Secrets” required a 3 am hike to a waterfall and handmade gowns for each of the sirens. In “Likka” I recruited a local choir and church to further my depiction of hopelessness. My videos can cost me between $200-$1500 in their entirety, most of the cost being the videographer and fabric. I learned to dance (at least for my shows and videos) and I edit the videos myself as well.

The songs and videos kept me occupied for a while, until I decided it was time to perform live. I think the songs held more weight in person. I brought music video theatrics to my shows and was able to incorporate digital art backdrops, themed costumes and dancing. I kept the storylines that I love, and so my shows would start like the beginning of an epic movie. The songs were in succession to tell one story, both in order and from different perspectives. I love contradictory elements in music. I sing about love, often my happiest songs sound sad and my saddest sound happy. The lyrics always have two meanings, so when you listen you think it means one thing, but when you read the lyrics an entirely new meaning is revealed. I love creating, but I’d be lying if I said I was financially thriving. Then I met Draydel.

Draydel, the producer/DJ from Miami, was way out of my musical league. He was like a fisherman who reeled me in with his intricate tracks, but when I reached out I was swiftly rejected. Due to my persistence and charm, we became great friends, and in three years we learned that we make music much better together but still hadn’t met in person. A few weeks after my showcase in Nashville, he flew in and we accidentally fell in love. This of course is the synopsis of our love story, but he is crucial to understanding how our passions merged and popped out a monetized baby. While I was prepping these shows and being wiped out by band and venue expenses, Draydel was heading in a very different direction.

Dray is a DJ, producer, music engineer, with a background in mechanical engineering and marketing, and a passion for crypto currency. Being a DJ in a saturated Miami market was not working for him. Scheduling and delayed payments took the fun out of it. He switched over to full-time engineering and producing for A-list artists and was no longer creating for himself at all. We were in opposite positions, I was exhausted from a pay to perform Nashville, and he was frustrated by limitations in the industry. He had a solution and its name was LeBoomin: the pop- up party crypto car.

Dray decided to be the club, both portable and independent, he was making his own music mobile to DJ from. The LeBaron that booms, a convertible converted to hold turntables and blast music. He called it the crypto car, adding QR crypto codes to the sides for easy tipping. He even added lift-up turntables and wrapped it to be holographic, then covered in LEDs. He initially designed it for himself, but as our music intertwined, the vision grew into something neither of us had imagined. We determined that I would tour with him, and LeBoomin could feature our music and me. I borrowed a wireless microphone and a sewing machine and we did pop up shows from Miami to Nashville.

Dray was constantly improving the car while I made all of the costumes, logos, and plans for the tour. Nothing has changed, in that we still do everything ourselves, he is a marketing phenom and I love branding. He is the track and I am the voice. We even do the screen-printing ourselves. We started a shop to sell original designs for our album and spent months designing merchandise, knowing how crucial revenue is to our success. The viral nature of our pop up show brings in royalties, as do our songs and music videos, even our clothing shop supplements our income. We get paid to perform at festivals like Miami Pride, Miami Swim Week and Art Basel. We accept tips at our pop up shows and we make jingles for companies like Bang Energy. We help businesses solve marketing problems, and create commercials on the side. Still, that’s not our plan for the future. We have 25 unreleased songs, 2 unreleased videos and LeBoomin inspired Dray to make a crypto coin. LeBoomin is a marketing dream, its guerilla tactic and inclusive nature makes it a candidate for sponsors whose target audience is everyone. We have a site dedicated to potential sponsors, and we expect the strategic release of the Madness 2 Magic Album to bring in a constant flow of royalties. This is how we monetized/ are monetizing our project and how I’ve monetized my passion.

Draydel’s goal has always been to have free musical expression while bringing all people together with his musicar. My goal is to unify, to connect with all people through my words, our songs. I want my dreams to be my reality. Nashville was our first home base, bringing Predators fans together with tourists, and cowboys with the urban youth. We had the elderly, bachelorette parties and full families dancing with us on Broadway. Then we decided to relocate to Miami. We fell in love with Wynwood and could use the lots to have bigger shows. It was a huge adjustment; we remade our entire album to fit the environment. Then we found street, hoop and Latin dancers. Dray focused on production, sound, lighting and special effects. I did what I do best, I make dreams come to life. Together we made Madness 2 Magic the Street Du Soleil. It is the kind of show that you can’t peel your eyes from. Randomly there will be a juggler in the crowd, or two girls who want to be my backup dancers for a song. We feature beat-boxers and all different artists, live musicians and vocalists. We do pop-up street shows, as well as the larger M2M shows. We were prepping for the newest and most theatrical show when Covid hit.

During the quarantine I had six big surgeries, learned to walk twice and Dray tore apart and re-built LeBoomin. The beginning of my article, I wrote about the mad scientist and the radio robot, which is how our new show should have gone. How it will go. It is my passion and fulfills me, along with the songwriting, singing, costuming, directing, jingles, and music video.

The question remains, why should people support my passion? My songs are honest and diverse. There is always an undertone of humor. My work showcases all different people from all walks of life and encourages people to look away from their phones for a moment to witness something completely unpredictable and engaging. I believe in love, and through my passion I am able to spread love and joy to the world. I believe in hard work and am proof that you can do it yourself and that alone can be inspiring. Or maybe it’s all about connection; using art and collaborating with artists to connect to the world around us… but none of these are the real reason people should support my passion.

People should support my passion because I still believe in magic. I still believe in dreams, and I make them come to life. I am the proof that you can make your dreams a reality too. Support me and you’ll be supporting the highlight of someone’s day, an old man dancing, people of all kinds coming together to believe in a dream with me. Covid 19, and the craziness in the world, has divided us, and I am here to help bring us back together.