South By Southwest Festival

Last week I sent off my interview questions for Demi Louise a singer/ songwriter from Oz, whilst doing a bit of research about her I came across a festival that she has played at and was headed back to play at the festival again for the second year in a row this month.

So what is South by Southwest festival you ask? Well South by Southwest  (SXSW) is an annual set of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences that take place in mid March in Austin, Texas, USA. SXSW  began in 1987 and has continually grown in size every year.

SXSW Music Component;

SXWS Music is the largest music festival of its kind in the world, as of 2014 the festival had more the 2,000 acts. SXWS Music offers artist- provided music and video samples of featured artists at each festival via their official YouTube channel, the event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987 to over 28,000 registrants.

The Music Festival has help launched the careers of many artists including that of singer-songwriter John Mayer who preformed at SXSW Music festival 2000, which led to signing with Aware Records, his first record label. James Blunt was discovered by producer Lind Perry in 2004 and shortly after was signed to her Custard Records, where he went on to release all three of his subsequent albums, other big nanes of the Music Festival attendees include; Talib Kweli, Lil’ Wayne, Big Sean, Kanye West, Indi bands MENEW, The Shins, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga.

SXSW Film Component;

The Film Conference consists of keynote speakers, panels, workshops, mentor sessions with expert filmmakers and industry leaders. There are some big name that were past notable speakers including, Ryan Gosling, Nicolas Cage, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Seth MacFarlane, Henry Rollins, Amy Schumacher, Robert Rodriguez  and many more. The SXSW Film Festival and The SXSW Film Conference run simultaneously and celebrates raw innovation and emerging telent both behind and in front of the camera. Some past notable premieres include Furious 7, Neighbors, Bridesmaid, 21 Jump Street and Insidious. TV series Girls, Silicon Valley and Penny Dreadful also premiered at SXSW Film Festival.

SXSW Interactive Component;

SXWS Interactive focuses on emerging technology, that focus has earned the festival a reputation as a breeding ground for new ideas and creative technologies. In  2006 a video game component “Screenburn at SXSW” was added to SXSW Interactive but in 2013 was remamed to SXSW Gaming & SXSW Gaming Expo. The Interactive Festival has help app’s such as Twitter which gained a good deal of early traction and buzz at SXSW Interactive, the Foursquare was launched at the Festival along with legend Mike Tyson’s iPhone game.

This years SXSW Festival features

Music Festival: Four On The Floor UK Rock Band, NAS, DJ Khaled, Indie label showcase and heaps more

Film Festival: Secrets of the force awakens; a cinematic journey to world premiere, Documentary Theme Going home, Key & Peel, Meet short filmmakes and heaps more going on

Inteactive/Gaming Festival: Samsungs Galaxy Life, Virtual Reality with New York Times, The Five Gods of Smash, Sonic the Hedgehog: 25 Year anniversary, BATMAN: Telltale Unmasked with Greg Miller, LINE Webtoon – Women in Digital Comics just to name a few.

Without festivals like SXSW our creative geniuses wouldn’t have a platform to be heard or be able to showcase, nor would new talent be discovered or inspired so we have these festivals to thank for that and for new films, new TV shows, new music and new apps.

SXWS Festival 2016 Dates

Interactive: March 11-15th

Film: March 11-19th

Music: March 15- 20th

Held in Austin, Texas

http://www.sxsw.com

References: Wikipedia, SXSW

 

An Interview With T.ELI-$HA

Howdy! Today I interviewed a young up an coming rapper from Perth, Western Australia. T.ELI-$HA a 16 year old Zimbabwean/Australian who is focused on telling stories about life and spreading a positive message through his music, as well as expressing himself as an artis and is produced by Fugitive Beats. His song “Being Real” is on the Australian digital radio station Tripplej Unearthed and can also be found on Soundcloud.

Get on it… 2 thumbs up

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T.ELI- $HA’s Interview 

1) Where are you from?

I was born in Harare Zimbabwe, where I lived till I was 8. I know live in Perth, Western Australia.

2) When did you start rapping? 

Started rapping around the age of 8 but it was just to my favourite rappers back then nothing serious, around 9-10 is when i started writing music and expressing myself.

3) What made you decide to go into the music industry?

Music I feel is just my natural calling ever since a young age, I knew it would be my destiny to speak to the masses using music and rap. From wanting to be President to being a rock-star and at the age of 10 I finally decided that rap was my calling after being inspired by a couple of artists.

4) If you could compare yourself to an already established artists, who would that be and why?

I think its hard to compare me because I don’t like placing myself into just one sub genre of hip-hop music, I like to focus on telling stories so I guess you could compare me to J.Cole and Kendrick in that way. I also want my music to make people feel good so I’ll leave the comparing to my fans and or haters.

5) What message do you hope you’re listeners will take away from your songs?

I just try spread positivity in all my music, I just really want people to feel good about being themselves. Using music I hope to tell stories about my past, things I have seen and been through and hopefully make the world aware that life isn’t just about ourselves.

6) Who are your Influences?

I have so many! Lil Wayne  is probably the person that inspired me to rap back in the days of Cater IV and such projects, but Drake is the rapper I wanted to resemble when it came to flow etc…. Now having grown up my biggest influences are J. Cole, Kendrick, 2Pac, Asap Rocky, 50 cent, Jay-Z , Hopsin etc….

7) What do you hope to accomplish throughout your career?

I just hope to be able to inspire at least one person. That would mean the world to me, obviously I would like to be able to continue making music till my time on this earth is out…. So yeah hopefully  I can impact people in this world who need it in a positive way, Make people aware of problems and show them the world is a much bigger then them and I, also that I have a long and fruitful career.

8) Do you have any projects in the works ie up coming gigs? 

I’ve got a lot of really deep and personal music that I am working on too so keep a look out for that, I will try to release new music every month so follow my Soundcloud and my twitter.

9) Is there any advice you’d like to give to young aspring rappers like yourself? 

I wish you all successful and bright futures, just keep working hard and make music that is imporant to you and is real to you and I guarantee someone out there will be listening. Don’t be afraid to reach out especially Australian singers, producers and other rappers.

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Links:

Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/t_eli-sha_c

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/T_ELISHA _C