Music

My first band. Started in high school in Newberg with a few friends. We weren't great — but it was the first time being part of something where the only way it worked was if everyone showed up and played their part. The name fit: we were always second string, but we were a string.

In college at the University of Miami I started Break Records — a small recording studio. The pitch was simple: get the artists around campus into a real room with real equipment and put their music on tape. It was the first time I touched the business side of music — sessions, scheduling, splits, mastering, putting a roster together. The studio was where I learned that a band needs a label, a label needs a studio, and a studio needs hustle. None of it ran without all three.

Through Break and after, I was the kid in the room making the beats. Producing, writing, rapping, singing — whichever role the song needed. I spent years inside the craft: laying down tracks, arranging, mixing, writing hooks for other people, writing songs for myself. The double major at Miami was Finance and Music — and the Music side wasn't decorative. I was in it every day.

Pretty Tony was my best and last shot at it. We linked up in Miami and I thought — this is the partnership that actually moves the needle. It almost did. But the timing was off, the resources were off, and the run was too short. Too little too late.

If the artist play wasn't going to work, maybe the play was running artists. I tried to manage a few — getting them studio time, hustling for placement, learning what an A&R actually does versus what they pretend to do. Same lesson as Break Records, just one level up: every artist needs a manager, every manager needs a roster, and most rosters don't pay the rent.