The 21st century breeds a new era that has endowed us with the capability of connecting across countries in a matter of seconds while also crippling us: creating distance between two people sitting at the same table; all conversing but not with each other. This leaves us with a bit of a conundrum as we ponder ways to build walls to protect our sanity while also trying to tear them down to induce creativity. Where the greatest concern lies, is with those who possess the future: our youth. For they contain potential that no one can hold, should s/he use the necessary excavation tools to uncover hidden treasure. But, what happens when the tools are yet to be used–or worse—the wrong tools are used and/or abused in an effort to deposit when extraction needs to occur?
People are lost. Trapped. Unsure of what to do with their lives. Not only that but the oversaturation of “what” you should be and “who” you should be, through media platforms, distract us from true destiny and fulfillment.
I began my company, Cage Free Voices as a means of fusing the current culture with education to help others become more self-aware and to unlock their human potential. When we unlock our potential, we are fully capable of using this new era as a mechanism to take human communication to another level. I believe music is the conduit through which that can happen.
Why?
Music is a universal language. Every nationality understands what it emotes. It is the antiseptic that removes impurities, the surgery that replaces broken hearts with notes that serenade the soul, and the scalpel that peels away at racial barriers and societal ills, in seeing that there is no discrimination when it comes to communicating love, joy, peace, happiness, and pain. We can all understand every one of the aforementioned. Why not use music as a vehicle to educate, understand, and unlock human potential?
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As an artist, educator, author, motivational speaker and business owner, I was looking for a place that would become fertile ground for my endeavor. While I did not completely know how my company would unfold, I started searching for a place to call home.
When I began working with Blue Room Studio Productions, my vision enhanced, as well as, my creativity. I could see how this dichotomy of the current culture and education could fuel a revolution comprised of people of diverse backgrounds.
People who understand that we are no longer in the 20th century.
People who understand that we can sit at the same table, and converse with one another, while traversing language by communicating through modern day hieroglyphics (emojis) with those who speak languages different from our native tongue in a text message.
What brings it all together is the bond created through different sounds that are not common to what you typically hear on the radio—although you may still hear some of that too. There are no boxes at Blue Room Studios. It is not about thinking outside the box. It is about never having the box, to begin with, and putting forth a final product that meets your needs as an artist.
Blue Room Studio Productions is on the cusp of cutting edge music that will bring forth an influx of not just musicians, but socially conscious, trailblazing, peacemakers. The environment is diverse. It is where traditional artists communicate with emerging contemporary artists. You flourish as you bond with those who think differently because music keeps you connected.
As a result of my work at Blue Room Studio Productions, I have one EPK comprised of six songs that now serves as part of an educational curriculum Cage Free Voices provides to schools, youth development programs, etc. My EPK, as well as, my most recent single, Downloaded, has opened doors for radio interviews and is also the music used for our Cage Free Voices Youth Radio Show that began September 19, 2016. Find out more and listen to the podcast here: http://cagefreevoices.com/radio/
We believe some of these tools (radio, performance, recording, etc.) are the tools that will help extract the potential housed in the future: the youth of today. As our youth reflect, connect, and transcend they, in turn, will “See themselves, even if the world is blind,” and live #cagefree.
Best,
Bathsheba Smithen
