Where to begin..
First, hi Steemit, Hashbrown here :) Good to be back after quite the hiatus! I've decided to start writing a little blog/journal to reflect on and share the pretty wild journey life's been so far, and the adventure to come.
What a crazy transitional year it has been. If you had told me a year ago that I would be living and building a tiny home, off grid on a mountain, with a dog, I'd tell you to go fly a kite. Not because I don't love nature, animals, and a good challenge, but because I was headlong in my career as an audio engineer in the recording studio (Knock Knock Studios) I designed and built in San Francisco. I was extremely blessed with handfuls of albums under my belt, and scores of loyal clients helping me consistently pay rent in the most expensive city in the country; something I will always appreciate looking back.
It was also in Knock Knock that I finally truly found my voice as a rapper in both a literal and figurative sense. I had been writing bars I had been proud of for years, but was so caught up in the conceptual and verbose grandeur that I neglected to focus on the actual tonality and inflection of my voice itself as an instrument. After building a quality recording studio, and honing a quality signal chain that I tested on some amazing friends and guinea pig clients (ie. Señor Gigio, Kaly Jay) I found that my raps sounded like very high quality mediocre raps much to my utter dismay. All the ingredients were already there, it just took a journey inward to find the secret sauce of swaggy self-love; aye, que saucito!
In the safety of the studio shell I felt comfortable enough to explore musically, especially once I realized I could record myself in the vocal booth using the wireless keyboard! One of these musical explorations was into the realm of writing lyrics about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that launched the teamHODL project, and my career as a self proclaimed “Crypto Rapper”. This journey started here on STEEMIT actually just about two years and a month ago practically to the day, and has changed my life more drastically than I could have possibly imagined; from getting flown to New York for the first time to perform, to being featured in a BBC World Radio piece, to opening up for the Woz in Las Vegas after a last minute road trip because of a friend's (thanks Phu!) invite.
But alas, all good things must come to an end. Our landlords informed us that they planned on moving into our house that we both lived in, and had the studio built in the 2 car garage of, and without rent control we were as they say “shit outta luck”. As unfortunate as the circumstances were, it was also very much synchronized with the crossroads I had been feeling in my heart: the pull to be a full time artist and explore the excitement (and anxiety) of that path vs. the safe and pajama coated but more grueling and in some ways less gratifying career as an audio engineer.
There is a subtle irony I just now realize writing under the 3 am nearly full moon (when I always seem to do my best writing) that the studio's greatest gift was making itself unnecessary. The confidence and reputation I built as an audio engineer and the career as an artist are the two greatest strengths I still stand on, and neither would have been possible without Knock Knock. In fact, many of the salvaged materials are going to help turn my tiny home into an off-grid, solar powered, recording studio, with mic input panels in every room for a variety of acoustic spaces. Onward and upward!
I'll go into more detail about studio life, launching a crypto rap career, the current tiny home build, my rekindled passion for gardening, and some other sprinklings in the near future. Looking forward to connecting with like minded people here so please comment and let me know if there's anything that resonates with you or you'd like to hear more about. Thanks!!