two star symphony

L-R: Margaret Hullum Lejeune, Debra Brown, Jerry Ochoa, Jo Bird

Local string quartet Two Star Symphony, which consists of Jo Bird (viola), Jerry Ochoa (violin), Margaret Lejeune (cello) and Debra Brown (violin), have a lot going on in 2012, their 10th year as a band. They recently completed a score for local filmmaker Mel House (with plans for another), next month they’ll make their 3rd straight appearance at SXSW and they’re planning a tour for this summer. Debra Brown talks 2012 and a bit of their process.

When Two Star Symphony is scoring something, do you practice together in the studio?
We have a projector, and we just project it on the wall in front of us and watch it over and over and over again.

So you don’t really discuss what you’ll do, you just let it kind of come out, kind of flow?
Well, sometimes … or if we’ve written something and one of us is questioning it … we’ll stop and be like ‘is that really the feeling of what’s happening?’

What happens if you’re scoring something like Harold Lloyd and you start laughing while you’re playing?
We love that. We’re kind of known as a little macabre or dark by some people, but there’s always humor in our music as well. Our main composer is our cellist – most music starts from the cello or the viola, like the lower ends come up with a lot of the bass lines, and then we write on top of that. But her dream from a little kid was writing cartoon music for spooky stories, so that’s basically what we’re doing.

How about when you score a dance piece?
We still watch everything, luckily. Dancers were in the studio as they’re choreographing the pieces, so sometimes, just like with the Fat Tony project, which I really like, sometimes they’ll ask us to play a piece that they’ve heard before, and we’ll play section by section, and they’ll stop us as they’re choreographing. And then other times, we’ll see the movement, and we have to write on the spot to the movement as it’s happening. But so far, with us scoring new films instead of old silent films, we score by the scene, which is a little bizarre, because there’s no pretext for what’s happening. [In Psychic Experiment], we score a scene where this man is walking into his apartment, and there’re clothes strung about, and you can tell he’s concerned about why there’re clothes everywhere … he’s saying this girl’s name over and over again, he’s following the clothing down to the bathroom, and there’s a girl and a boy in the bathtub together and it’s full of blood, and they’re making out. And obviously, the guy that’s standing there, it’s his girlfriend in the bathtub, but then you find out through the scene that it’s her brother that she’s in the bathtub with, making out. And she’s like ‘isn’t this how you always pictured it?’ or something, and then their flesh starts melting together, and then their heads explode, and that’s the end of the scene.

And you’re like ‘oh! I’ve got the perfect idea for what this sounds like!’ Speaking of the collaboration with Fat Tony last year – any more plans for that sort of thing?
I really love hip-hop music. Three out of the four of us really enjoy hip-hop music. Our violist is more metal and punk rock, but she did enjoy the project as well. I hope that some more will come from it. We actually got to meet – we’ve been a big fan of Devin the Dude for a long time and we were playing at a festival in Bergen, Norway, and Devin was playing around the corner and our cellist talked our way into a sold-out show by saying we were from Houston, and through everything getting lost in translation, they thought that we were friends of Devin The Dude because we were from Houston, so they let us in! Then, a good friend of mine, Matt Sonzala, was his DJ for the night … so we got to hang out. We haven’t gotten to collaborate with Devin the Dude, but we’re kind of stalking him.

Get him one of your tattoos.
We’re pretty sure we’re the only string quartet that has matching tattoos, and that now has 26 fans with our tattoo on their bodies (laughs).

That was for your Titus Andronicus record release last year, right? That all happened on that night?
No, I think maybe 15 people happened on that night?

That’s a lot of people to get a tattoo of your band.
Yeah! There were still people signed up, but we ran out of time that night, actually. There was a mother and daughter – a 17-year-old with her mother, who was like ‘okay, we’ll get it.’ It was her mother’s first tattoo, and then she agreed to let her 17-year-old daughter get her a tattoo also!

Two Star Symphony performs at Leon’s Lounge
(1006 McGowen) on February 28, from 8-10pm.

hollywood floss

You have a band [The Fabulous Pinecones] that you play with sometimes when you play live. Do you get to do a lot of practicing with them?
I use the band for more festival environments and high-profile shows. I’m always preparing two different sets. I have a DJ set and then I have the band set, so if it’s like Summerfest or ACL, I’m gonna bring out the band and practice on what we need to do and have extra songs just in case the crowd’s not feeling the direction we’re going in at that moment. We try to mix it up with blends and mashups of like The White Stripes or Green Day or Weezer… you know, just to have fun with those types of festivals that allow for that audience. For the DJ set, which are more kind of like the cool people who really just go to shows to be on the scene – they’re not really there for the music – we have the songs that appeal to that audience as well.

Do you feel like you’ve got a different energy when you play with a band versus playing with a DJ?
Nah, not at all! You would think so because live energy also brings just that different level of energy, but I mean, I still do push-ups and I’m still on the floor with the DJ, I’m still trying to jump on something, I’m trying to crowd surf in a mosh pit. For me, I don’t have a drop-off. It’s just… what do you prefer? It’s hard at small venues to get the band to sound as good as the big venues, so it’s kind of like… I don’t wanna bring out this band and then no one can hear the words or the music the way it’s supposed to be heard. But it’s like… go to the DJ set and have the same energy, it’s not a drum or anything else. It’s just already mixed music.

Do you find your rhythmic sensibilities of the way you rap changes at all when you’re playing with a band and you’ve got that natural shift in the tempo rather than having it locked in like a record?
Right, of course, as you know, when the drummer’s off or the drummer goes slower than what the record is played, because the way they quantize and everything’s ready to go, you have to make up for that. So if the drummer’s off, you can’t just stop and yell at ’em, or he can’t yell at you. You just have to adjust. There’s been a lot of times when people thought that was just supposed to go like that, but… it really wasn’t supposed to go like that, we have to adjust on the fly.

Those are the things that make
you better, too.
Because you prepare for that. Whatever’s thrown your way, you gotta be good. You gotta be professional enough to handle that.

You’ve gotten some buzz over the last year and a half, with the blogs writing about you, XXL and The Source… how do you keep your head straight? Because it seems like you have. You’re working as hard now as before you got any attention.
I think it’s seeing my older cousins lose focus. I don’t know if it was 2000 or 2001, but my older cousins were on a small label called Unified Entertainment, and I saw them get to that radio status, and then once they got on the radio, just on the radio in Houston, they stopped working. They would go to the clubs and they would sit in the trailer and I remember back then it was The Roxy or Coco Loco, and they would stay in the van. Fans were trying for autographs and I was like ‘man, what are you guys doing? You’re blowing your opportunity.’ I mean, not knowing it, I’m just there, observing it, but looking back I’m like ‘man, y’all really blew an opportunity.’ I mean, looking back now, XXL is nothing compared to the radio. I gotta keep going until I can do this for a living. I still have a day job, so I have to make sure I’m doing everything in my power to make this happen for me and my team, so I’m doing it for a living. When I see XXL… most people think ‘ah, I made it.’ You haven’t made anything.

You have to work 10 times harder because now if you put out a song and it’s wack: ‘why did he deserve XXL?’ So you have to work harder in this day and age. Someone’s always around the corner to take your spot. You can take my spot, but I’m just gonna be right there battling for it. I’m not just gonna hand it off.
Do you have a day job that provides a nice balance, where you can write a bit while there?
Not really! I mean, I’m a school teacher by day, so not really. I’m dealing with kids from 9-5. They really test your limit, and you know, maybe on my off period – maybe – but that’s just 40 minutes. Maybe get an idea, or surf the net to do something, but, no, it’s a 40-hour job and then I come and have to really get into that zone, so I have to work that much harder.

What age kids do you teach?
7th and 8th, Special Education and middle school.

It’s amazing you find any time
to write at all.
It’s crazy, but when you get off, after they give you the run and they wear you down, it’s like ‘okay, this is more of a reason why I want to do music full time!’

What’s your New Year’s resolution?
I’m gonna put out some mixtapes, and then I’m gonna put out an album in the summer. My birthday is August 4th, so I wanna put out an album in the summer. It’ll be just under a year for a new album, so I’ll put out a new album on my birthday. Other than that, I’m gonna put out some mixtapes and then go to South by Southwest. So I wanna make sure that I’m doing videos and I’m doing music every month to get to the fans, whether it’s a 5-track mixtape or videos to accompany those…

I wanna get more involved with my videos and more music to the fans.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun

Tyagaraja

Tyagaraja plays acoustic guitar and sings, and Gunjen Mittal employs a mixture of classical and modern Indian dance onstage when they perform, often joined by a wide cross section of Houstonians on everything from sitar to lap steel. This month, they are off as a duo on their second trip to perform in India in as many years.

By time folks are reading this, you’ll be on Indian soil and you’ll have performed a couple of dates after a long preparation. Where will your head be at that point? Do you plan for that part of it?

Tyagaraja: Wow, well… I try my best to completely live in the present moment. Especially going to India, whether I am performing or seeking pilgrimage and silence, I simply concentrate on my breath and allow my feet to feel the rhythm of the earth and be guided toward the path that opens up to us. I do also recognize that this is very special and I respect this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity enough to know what is at stake. It is my responsibility to conjure motivation and make use out of every single second we spend in India and to make use of the support we have received from back home to even get here in the first place. We intend to completely make the most of it. The moments that pass in India are absolutely precious; I have so much unfinished business, so many places to see and rocks left unturned. We are making loads of plans, and still the majority of it will be done once we reach India itself. It’s a total experiment, and to me that’s truly Living…  

Gunjen: At that point there’s really no telling where our heads will be. As Tyaga mentioned, we’ll just go wherever the path unfolds for us or wherever we feel drawn to at the moment. Mainly though we’ll be hitting the ground running once we get there, continuing to make contacts and planning for more shows. I do feel that there won’t be much time to stop and reflect much in Mumbai because it’s such an epicenter of Indian pop culture, art, music, film, dance, etc., and we have to keep up! After all, we’ll be in the “Big Apple” of India!

What’s the biggest difference between the audiences over there and anywhere here in the States?
Tyagaraja: India’s audience is hungry for music and art. The people there are also constantly blossoming and flowering with it. India has its own obstacles and struggles just like any place on earth, and at the same time it’s completely booming right now. There is a huge underground indie rock scene; of course hip-hop and dance music is there too. The mass audiences are way more open to experimental and avant-garde music and performance art. That’s where I think we fit in. As diverse and interesting as music is here in the U.S., I feel that the style of show that we share will be more understood by the Indian audience, and hopefully that will help spawn the interest and understanding we need in our U.S. audience. 

Gunjen: From my experience in the dance and now music scene, it seems that the U.S. has a lot of catching up to do. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way, but there’s a cornucopia of music, art and dance artists and events going on outside of the States that Americans aren’t even aware of and they’’re being followed by thousands and millions of people. And the kinds of things going on are far more advanced and/or progressive. Once it reaches its popularity elsewhere, America usually catches on after the fact. On the other hand, I know that Americans (including myself) are also just as hungry for intellectual and progressive art, music or dance and there are a lot of amazing things happening right here in Houston as well. But sometimes we really have to seek it out as opposed to having full and easy access to the arts. Not to mention, our public transportation system (or the lack thereof) doesn’t help in this equation of linking the public to the arts or any other necessary social services for that matter! In many foreign countries the artists have a lot more governmental support to fund huge festivals/events no matter how underground the scene. There’s an appreciation for art that goes beyond the audience or the individual artist, which is integral to its success. Indian audiences also have that sort of access to all kinds of music and dance. There’s an intense underground fusion alternative art and rock scene brewing in India for the past decade or longer that may even be considered a sort of artistic rebellion, which is good for us because we’re all about the Revolution! So the audience is definitely ready for something crazy to come along with some depth and unique individuality to take them on a “Glory Ride” (title of one of Tyagaraja’s songs) because we bare our souls when we perform and we can only hope that they experience that as well.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun

Ashlei Mayadia

So tell me about your record. The Mayadia Project is slated to come out this month?

Yes, end of November. It’s basically my first solo album. It’s been a work in progress. I’ve been a poet, I’ve been an actress, I did a couple of poetry shows when I worked for this independent theatre company back in 2003, 2004. I did two poetry shows where it was my work; me presenting it. I had a dancer and a guitarist to help me with some sounds and stuff and did like about a 45-minute to an hour show of me doing my poems. This is my first time taking all of me and putting it into song form and presenting it this way, so it’s been a while. I started the project in 2007, right after The 144 ELiTE’s AgreeAbles +vs- DisAgreeAbles was released, but life has to happen in order for these things to come through.

It does.

It does, so it’s taken years, but I’m really, really excited about it and I’ll probably have about 11 to 13 songs on it. I do have some poem songs where I begin the song melodic and then it ends with a poem. It’s basically the story of Mayadia, which is me, and I guess my awakening. It’s a lot of looking into yourself, getting over some hurdles and bumps, some hip-shaking music, some things you might bob your head to.

What did The 144 ELiTE teach you as far as song structure, peeling back the layers and putting together the pieces of a song?

Well, The 144 ELiTE was so unique, that project, because me and JusTice [AllaH] had just met Dope E and K-Rino and everybody and we were all just hanging out in Dope’s studio for days and days and I just watched how the vibe worked. I watched how you tune in, and I watched how you keep writing. You might write a verse, but you keep writing until it sticks. It really is like a feeling. I understand the formula and stuff like that for pop music and radio music. I understand that. But I really learned with 144 ELiTE is breaking some of those molds, and just really tuning in to what the music is saying, and allowing yourself to just write. I think that’s one of the biggest things. I just watched these dudes bust out 16 bars. They just write. They don’t judge. They just write and write and just come back and keep going. I watched 144 ELiTE come together organically, and then JusTice was doing Supreme Mathematics around the same time, so I really learned a lot about allowing it to be channeled, so to speak. I don’t think the guys would use that word, but they’re channeling. They’re reaching in from some place and pulling this out. They’re pulling it out. They keep working and keep creating, and I really respect that work ethic. That really taught me a lot, to just keep going. I didn’t beat myself up for not sticking to the timeframe I had.

You’ve got to. Those are the songs, and that’s the way they come together, but the way that the album unfolds is another.

I got Independent Music 101 with the 144 ELiTE. Putting songs in certain orders, how you want them to flow, and the whole concept of an album actually having a concept. A whole piece to it instead of having an album that has songs that really are not related in any kind of way. Kind of like a salad as opposed to a gumbo, going back to the idea of presenting a body of work that is a connected thought.

So then what’s the connected thought of The Mayadia Project?

Free yourself, fools! (laughs) That’s basically what it is, because as I put it out there and I started doing songs, I just… that’s my essence. I’m an only child, a weird little… I can be alone by myself and talk for hours and days at a time and I don’t care. You really get into the space where you really allow yourself to be who you are. Loving yourself unconditionally. Being able to even look at the everyday, mundane things and see the magic in that. The magic in growth. I have a song called “Sea Legs,” that was a poem song. I had this hook in my head, this little bridge in my head that came to me in ‘07 or ‘08 and I was like ‘damn, I wish I had some music to go with this.’ And then it starts to come together… basically “Sea Legs” is about me being a mermaid of sorts, deciding to get out of the water and get on the land so I could walk. Letting the air sustain me instead of choking me, because a lot of times you start to realize who you are, even the bright stuff and the dark parts of it… you can get really afraid of it. You want to polish things up. And I really found a peace in allowing myself to not know. Allowing myself to not be perfect, allowing myself to be free in whatever it is. If I have a childlike outlook, like an optimistic outlook, it’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that I’m naive, it just means that… it’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to go there. It’s okay to want that, and actually cultivate that in your life, as opposed to having to have a chip on your shoulder and be a roughneck, to put walls up that don’t allow people to accept grace and love when it comes to them. For real!

By Lance Scott Walker

Photography Peter Beste

KB Da Kidnappa

What’s different about your new album Army of One?
Army of One has a lot of different flavors on it, not necessarily patterned from Street Military style. I kinda put my own little twist to things and kind of experimented a little bit so I could get different opinions and different views for my fans.

Well, you’ve heard a lot and can bring in what a young artist can’t necessarily bring in.
I ain’t old, man. I still consider myself fresh and new, and I understand the nature of the business and I understand marketing and the fact that we can’t put some of these youngsters at fault for not knowing who some of the older artists are. I always tell people, ‘Look, it’s not their fault; you can’t blame them for not knowing something they don’t know until it’s presented to them.’ That’s why I never give up. I never listen to people when they tell me I can’t do this, and when they say ‘old school,’ I don’t listen to none of that. I still promote myself as a fresh artist. That’s why I be getting the type of results that I get, because of the way I think. I believe in the law of attraction. If a man think it, then so is it. If you say you’re old, you’re old. You are what you say you are. I’m still fresh and relevant.

The game has really changed in the last 5 years…
To me, things have changed, but the basic foundation and blueprint are still there. Getting out there and promoting, doing your legwork. Taking time out to make a complete album – not worried about what’s going to be the next radio hit or changing your style up to meet the standards. Because everything is sounding the same.

You used to be able to listen to something and kind of be able to tell where it’s from.
A lot of the artists around the country are really following after what’s hot at the moment. You know, if this dance song is hot at the moment, then everybody’s flockin’ to do a dance song like that and try to make their stuff sound like what the industry is allowing in and accepting. But me, myself and I and the crew of people that I associate with, we’re still in control of our own destiny and makin’ the type of music that we want to make. I wanna be able to have creative control. Always. That’s why I’m still in the position that I’m in, but it’s a good position. It’s a CEO position. That means that every record that I sell, that money goes straight to me. I’m not waiting for a middleman to pay me, I’m not waiting for a company to pay me. As soon as the money comes, it comes right back to me. That way I can manage it back into my career, like how I want to. A lot of young artists coming up don’t understand that. The industry isn’t really teaching them the game. They’re teaching them what’s hot, and raising them to skip the business part and just think about being a superstar without really knowing the business end of it: how you get paid, how you get your royalties. Street Military, we went through a lot of that. We was young, we didn’t know the business at a time when we were real, real hot. And we got taken advantage of, but throughout the trials and tribulations of going through that, now I have a different perspective about the business, and I look at this music now like real estate. I wanna have a catalog that I own. Ain’t nothing like owning your own catalog and being in control of your masters. I wanna let every young artist coming up to know it ain’t about bein’ a superstar. It ain’t about having the fame, because you can see people out there getting’ fame, and their song is being played everywhere, but if their paperwork ain’t straight, then they won’t have what you think they should have. They’ve been making slaves out of artists since the beginning of music. Either you can have creative control and be in control of your destiny, or you can leave your destiny in the hands of somebody else, and that ain’t always a guarantee.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun

Sara Van Buskirk

She made a splash last year when she dropped her solo debut, The Place Where You Are, after years of playing around town honing her craft. A year later, she’s back, but this time with a full collaborative effort in the band Finnegan.

You worked with Taylor Lee on The Place Where You Are and a lot of the arrangements were drafted up by him. Is that how the idea for Finnegan came about?When I met Taylor in 2007 he had his fingers in a lot of pots. That is to say he kept himself busy with a couple of bands, producing, recording and having a day job. This is still true to this day. I don’t know anyone more productive with their time! Finnegan started as a place for him to put all the songs that he had written that didn’t fit the styles of his other bands. We started hanging out a lot and became really good friends and that’s when he asked me to start laying vocals on these tracks (the first being “set2song”). A year or so later we started playing the songs together live, forming a little band and doing small shows here and there. We started practicing more often in 2009 and playing more shows; in the meantime Taylor and I were working on The Place Where You Are, a collection of songs that I had been performing live/solo for 5 years or so. With its release in May 2010 I started playing a little bit more and focusing on [solo material]. Meanwhile Finnegan was building strong. In 2010/11 we started practicing as often as possible and even writing a few songs together as a band (those will appear on the next record) and performing as much as we could in Houston and Austin. The album is an almost 5-year effort of songwriting & collaboration between us musicians. Taylor does most of the writing, but we definitely give lots of feedback and make it work as a band. We also have a whole lot of fun together.

The songs don’t just sound like a mix of your material and that of Literary Greats, though. How do the songs generally come together?Taylor or Darin bring us a rough draft, ideas of songs, and we all usually write our own parts. One of the most beautiful things about being in a band with talented musicians is someone can just start playing a little something while sound checking their instrument and you are all inspired to jump in and make it become something. We’ve written a few songs and a few are in the works that started like that. You also can never underestimate the value of good chemistry.

How about the lyrics though? That doesn’t always come together as a group effort, and yet you’re trading off lines here and there…Once we had a band and the members were somewhat committed I think that that is just how the songs started being written. Taylor does most of the writing, but we are beginning to actually trade off. I think it’s really difficult to sing about both sides of the story by yourself. I mean, Willie Nelson can do it of course, but for the rest of us it’s a whole lot more difficult to translate. Having a lead male and a lead female vocalist really help communicate a narrative or a specific perspective. It’s great to look out into the crowd and see all the different kinds of people that are way into it. With six folks in the band  (three male and 3 three female), I think we’ve definitely got something interesting and honest to offer.

Does it give you a playground to sort of do things you wouldn’t necessarily do with your solo material?Most definitely. That’s the first thing I noticed when I went in to record vocals for the tracks “Interpreting Clouds” and “Topo Chico,” and when we began performing them and some of our other louder tunes live. There’s something about a collaborative effort that allows you the perfect balance between feeling some sense of ownership and pride in the material and some distance and awe that you get to perform something you really like or have fun with. I get to dance around on stage and bang tambourines on my head with Finnegan. Live Sara Van Buskirk performances are usually a lot more subdued, but I’ve got a really awesome band and we’re gonna start bringing a little more noise to SVB shows and future records. I’m excited.

What is it about “What Happened to Jacqueline” to where it became the title track? Did the song or the album title come first?The song. Taylor got the line from a Wes Anderson film. Bill Murray says it in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The answer being, “She never loved me.” I think what we as Finnegan go for is sad (or just real) lyrics with happier music. Okay, sometimes it’s sad music as well. But with the happiness we have as individuals hopefully that shines through. It’s a bittersweet effort – we go through sad times, but our love is real. And we are happy to be here alive and well.

What Happened to Jacqueline? is available at Houston’s Cactus Music. www.reverbnation.com/saravanbuskirk

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun | Makeup by Ginny Lee of Satori Salon

Niva, the Soul Diva

Houston-bred soul artist Niva released her debut album, Rollercoaster Love, late last year, and a couple of videos to promote it. Musically, it’s an amalgamation of a lot of things, maybe with a few kinks to work out. But it doesn’t matter; she’s already eagerly talking about a new direction.

What do you think has changed the most about you as an artist since you left Houston?

Oh. Wow. Everything. My stage presence, I’m more confident. I feel pretty. I could put a smile on a person’s face. Being able to do videos, and just being able to do what I really love to do without the stress of somebody trying to put me down or tell me that I can’t do anything. So as an artist, I’ve definitely grown. Even my mom – I did a show recently in Alexandria, Louisiana, for a charity event – and my mom … she was so amazed at how I have grown as an artist. She couldn’t believe how I moved, my energy. I electrified the crowd. There was like 1,000-plus people there, and I gave them what they wanted to feel. I woke ’em up! They were sleepin’! They were asleep. So I gave them my energy, you know?

When do you find time to write?

I write when I’m on the road, when I’m by myself. Like on my airplane ride coming back I wrote some new material. Material ideas that I had came up with. This album I’m getting ready to do is going to be geared in between rock and soul. Tina Turner with a little Mick Jagger, you know – I’m trying to really, really take it to a different level now. It’s hard to find my niche, and I’m ready to really, really enjoy singing rock.

What was it like opening up for Aretha Franklin?

Oh, man. It was so surreal. I got a chance to meet her but it was really, really quick because everybody backstage wanted to meet her. I thought I was in a dream or whatever (laughs).

In March, you had the Number One Independent R&B song in the country, and you said at that time that you were looking for major backing, but did part of you think ‘well, look how far I got on my own’?

That’s true. That’s exactly how I felt. I couldn’t believe I was Number One. I could not believe it. It was just such a beautiful thing to know that the hard work that me and my team have been doing for the past two and a half years had finally paid off and people was appreciating real music. Because I was writing music about everything. About real life, about love and music that people could really relate to, not the stuff on the television shows or the radio or whatever. So it was just very rewarding to see that I was able to reach number one on the Independent charts without the backing of a label. You gotta keep pushing. You can’t sit around and wait. You have to go out and get it. Because if you sit around and wait, you will never get anywhere. That’s one thing I’ve definitely learned as an artist. It’s not sit around and wait. You gotta go out there and get it. When you want something, if you have a dream you want to accomplish, you can’t just sit around and wait for it to happen. You gotta just go for it, and believe in yourself as an artist and know that whatever you have in your heart, you may achieve that with hard work and dedication.

www.nivathesouldiva.com

By Lance Scott Walker | Photography Anthony Rathburn | Wardrobe Design by Ayo Shittu