Live Life Fully and Mindfully — Things Change Quickly

Jeeni Blog

Helping the next generation of talent to build a global fanbase

Live Life Fully and Mindfully — Things Change Quickly

by Kelli Richards Jeeni MD USA

Most of us coast along in life day-to-day, and we don’t always think and act mindfully in the moment. There are many reasons why it’s important to practice doing so most of the time, but perhaps the biggest one is that things change quickly in life — and often unexpectedly. When you’re mindful, you have fewer regrets when they do. Here are a couple of examples that have happened to me recently.

Many of you are aware that I’ve been in the music/tech space as a veteran for most of my career, since the dawn of the digital music revolution. I’m proud not only of having been a pioneer steeped in co-creating many of the key milestones that have impacted the evolution along the way, BUT also in having shared those experiences with a cadre of cherished colleagues alongside — many of them for over 25 years now. One off those fellow visionaries was Jay Frank. Jay was instrumental in envisioning the future of streaming driven by user-influenced playlists years before that took off. Feel free to review more about Jay in this obituary on Billboard. He was only 47 when he passed of cancer; he hadn’t told many of us about it — and his loss was a real shock. He certainly accomplished a lot in his years on the planet and left a lasting and palpable legacy. I hadn’t been in as active touch with him during the past couple of years, which I regret, but he knew how much I respected him.

I’m proud to be on the advisory council of Harvest Summit, an annual ‘field trip’ gathering of successful high achievers from different industries who come together in wine country to embrace innovation. Each year we feature a powerful keynote speaker to wrap up the event, and at this year’s event just a few weeks ago in mid-October we were fortunate enough to have Bernard Tyson join us. Bernard was the beloved CEO of Kaiser Permanente, the huge healthcare system, and he was responsible for creating some of Kaiser’s most progressive and innovative efforts during his nearly three decades with the company. He was someone who made a real impact & a lasting legacy. At Harvest Summit he was inspiring and infectious. And when I approached him afterwards, we had a brief chat and he was very warm and gracious. Just a few weeks later, Bernard passed suddenly at 60. His wife is a colleague of mine, and I’d heard about how wonderful he was for quite some time. I was so pleased I had the opportunity to connect with him and got to experience his presence firsthand.

Finally, I’m enamored of wine country and Sonoma County at large; so much so that I intend to re-locate there in the coming years. I’ve built a large community of people I care about greatly in that region. Two years ago, over 5000 homes were lost to the devastating Tubbs Fire there. The week after I was at Harvest Summit in mid-October — right in that same location — the unthinkable happened in that the Kincade Fire took off like crazy with flames fanned by strong Santa Ana-like winds in that same general region causing widespread evacuation, power outages and unrest in that same region for over a week. Some homes were lost again, but owing to the brave firefighters who were determined to save lives and properties (and with some support from winds dying down), the fire was brought under control at last. This has all reinforced for me just how important it is to be prepared for natural disasters — I’ll be putting together an emergency “go bag/kit” shortly as a result.

I guess in summary, the common thread here is that’s important to be present and mindful in all our interactions with others, and not take anyone or anything for granted. Because life is truly fragile, and what we’re privileged to enjoy today could be taken away without warning tomorrow.

Be here now.

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10
Mar

Artist Pairing Success with Ariana May and Daisy Chute

Pioneers of Jeeni’s new artist pairing initiative, Daisy Chute and Ariana May sit down with Jeeni’s Ella Venvell to trade advice, take notes and reflect on the ups and downs of an independent music career. The aim of Jeeni’s artist pairing initiative is to create a supportive connection between like-minded musicians as a platform for them to encourage and uplift each other during their ongoing journeys in music. Last week, singer-songwriters, Ariana and Daisy provided a perfect blueprint for the initiative. Having already worked on six projects spanning from 2005, award-winning singer-songwriter Daisy Chute had reams of invaluable tips and experience. Despite occasionally claiming that she had ran out of decent advice, in actuality, Daisy’s insight was vast and clearly very helpful to theatrical pop prodigy, Ariana who seemed to hang on to every word. Daisy recommended that Ariana should embrace promotion tools, merchandise, CDs, social media techniques and live streaming, all of which has proved to be effective devices for Daisy’s journey in music. We listened together to Ariana’s enchanting ‘Suffolk Bay’, a moving, transportive new single featuring Ariana’s delicate, flickering vocal performance, reminiscent of The Cranberries’ late Dolores O’Riordan. A more prominent influence, as pointed out by Daisy is art pop royalty Kate Bush who, like Ariana, also began her career at just 16 years old. Daisy currently opts for more traditional, folk acoustic instruments for her newest project, ‘Songs of Solace’, a heartfelt and sentimental EP which guides the listener ‘through the beginning, middle and end of a relationship’. The two artists overlap in their tendencies for poetic story-telling and embrace of traditional instrumentation, however a key difference in their styles is the tone, or mood that these artists convey. Daisy presents an acoustic warmth and comfort with sweeping folk strings and guitar plucking, whereas Ariana’s singles currently have an almost chilling tone of drama and theatre whilst also being a pleasant listening experience. With our first venture into the initiative, Daisy Chute and Ariana May provided a model example of how it should pan out; constructive and invaluable support between artists. As Daisy put it, “It was lovely to meet Ariana and hear her music and story. I told her a bit about my music and journey in the industry and gave her any tips I’ve picked up along the way. I hope it will help her with her own musical journey and that she’ll find success now and in the future.” We at Jeeni can’t wait to bring more artists together and form a stronger collaborative and supportive community with our platform. Both of these Jeeniuses have brand new EPs, out now. How can Jeeni support artists like Ariana and Daisy? JEENI is a multi-channel platform for original entertainment on demand. We’re a direct service between creatives and the global audience. • We give creatives, independent artists and performers a showcase for their talent and services. And they keep 100% of everything they make. • We empower our audience and reward them every step of the way. • We promise to treat our members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect. • Access to artist liaison and a supportive marketing team Check out Daisy Chute's page on Jeeni: https://jeeni.com/?s=daisy+chute Check out Ariana May's page on Jeeni: https://jeeni.com/?s=ariana+may

22
Feb

Alana Sukul, ‘Good to you’ - Single Review

Although released in the shadow of Alana Sukul’s previous huge success, ‘Closer’, the newest track from the singer, songwriter and producer is an impactful genre-blurring feat in its own right. A newer addition to Jeeni, Alana has already added five tracks to Jeeni’s database in a sweep of popular genre channels. Learn more about Alana’s creative mission, her inspirations, influences and attitude as an artist with our recent Artist Focus blog all about her: https://jeeni.com/blog/alana-sukul-artist-focus-blog-jeeni/ This new single shows a moodier side to Alana that demands your focus and attention. The reversed piano melody, heard first, is eerily beautiful and sets the tone of the track incredibly naturally, despite the artificial sound of a backwards piano. Alana’s approach to the percussion is subtle, yet constant; instead of a steady, imitable beat, understated rim hits decorate the offbeats with almost irregular patterns. This embrace of more interesting percussion is most likely a prime example of Alana’s Caribbean heritage and influences shining through, resulting in her music completely breaking the mould from other popular music. Alana regularly flaunts her adaptive and impressive vocal control in ‘Good to you’ as she dips lower than ever with the lyrics, ‘so heavy’ and then instantly soars upwards with a warbling and composed ‘closer to being buried’ delivery. Her fluent and gliding voice is perfect for communicating the angsty yet tuneful melodies that she’s designed here. The lyrics here address something deeper than just relationship turmoil. Alana uses her craft to process dark and consuming thoughts, ranging from depressive apathy, the incessant passing of time and overwhelming pressure weighing her down. Through the darkness, Alana does try to maintain optimism, “I deserve so much more than what I’m really settling for”, however, it can’t help but feel hopeless at this point in time that she’s addressing. The lyrics do a heartachingly accurate job of narrating a dark moment in one’s head and adds introspective layers to what could be mistaken as just a heart-break song. Check out this incredible track on Jeeni here: https://jeeni.com/good-to-you-alana-sukul/?channel=alana-sukul&rtn=btasc&artist=alana-sukul And check out Alana’s Jeeni Showcase here: https://jeeni.com/showcase/alana-sukul/ How can Jeeni support artists like Alana Sukul? JEENI is a multi-channel platform for original entertainment on demand. We’re a direct service between creatives and the global audience. • We give creatives, independent artists and performers a showcase for their talent and services. And they keep 100% of everything they make. • We empower our audience and reward them every step of the way. • We promise to treat our members ethically, fairly, honestly and with respect. • Access to artist liaison and a supportive marketing team.

03
Sep

10 Reasons why the world needs Jeeni

My name is Mel Croucher. I'm a record producer and computer nerd. Over the years I've worked with a whole bunch of superstars like Prince, Frank Zappa and Eminem. In other words, I've been around successful musicians all my working life. A few years back I was hearing from more and more artists how unhappy they were with the big streaming services. So I polled 4,200 of them about their Top-Ten Problems with Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, Deezer, and the rest. The poll result was a shocker, and I asked a bunch of the best brains in the music business to help me create an ethical alternative. It's taken us two years, and we call our alternative JEENI. Here's what the artists we polled told us, and here's our Jeeni solution to their problems. 1 - Money. Artists get paid a pittance. Platforms like YouTube pay $0.00069 per view, so even 10,000 views earns us less than the cost of a pizza per month.Jeeni solution. OK, we get it. You do all the hard work, so you deserve all the rewards. How about a Jeeni deal where you to keep 100% of all music sales, ticketing, and merchandise sold through our platform. 2 - Recognition. We try really hard, but streaming platforms just don't get us more fans or recognition.Jeeni solution. Right. Let's make Jeeni an artist development platform. Our founder invented viral marketing in 1994. Then he achieved the world's first million-user viral campaign. Now he's designed all the tools you need to grow your fanbase and get recognition: all part of the Jeeni service. 3 - Communication. We don't know the identity of who's streaming our stuff, so we can't get in direct contact with anyone who wants to know more about us.Jeeni solution. OK. Here's the deal. With Jeeni you get a built-in fan database to contact everyone who votes for you or likes your work, and you communicate direct with them as often as you like. Safely, legally and all opt-in. 4 - B*llsh*t. The big streaming platforms are full of it. We hate the adverts, we hate the artificial likes, we hate the paid-for recommendations, we hate the hype.Jeeni solution. The answer to this is an ethical alternative. We guarantee Jeeni will stay advert-free. We pledge our charts are the result of democratic votes by real people. And we promise that all Jeeni content comes from genuine unpaid sources. Oh yeah, we'll also pay our taxes in full, because we believe we should make a positive contribution to the society we live in. 5 - Rip Offs. We just can't break through, and even when we think we're making progress as artists we get ripped off.Jeeni solution. Yep. The entertainment business has always been full of shysters. Let's be honest here, the people behind Jeeni have all made it to the top somehow, and between us we've made every mistake in the book. Our mission is to help you achieve success and avoid the rip-offs. That's why our Jeeni Mentors, Ambassadors and Masterclasses have joined forces to do exactly that. 6 - Choice. The big streaming services all offer similar content, dominated by the same big star names.Jeeni solution. Agreed, so let's ignore the content everyone else uses and leave our competitors to fight it out! Jeeni is designed for undiscovered artists to break through, based on talent alone, not ad-spend. 7 - Channels. My work doesn't fit into mainstream channels. For example, what about channels for spoken-word?Jeeni solution. No problem. Jeeni already has dedicated spoken-word channels for poetry, comedy, and voice actors, plus channels for entertainments ranging from dance to videogame soundtracks. And if we don't already have a channel that suits your need ... we'll sit down and create it! 8 - Visibility. People either don't know about our work, or can't find it even if they do.Jeeni solution. We've designed the smartest user interface we can. On Jeeni, you can search by name, type of channel, instrumentation, latest uploads, popularity, even by influences and heroes. But above all, our artists have complete control over publicising their own announcements to their specific Jeeni audience. 9 - Fakes. What's the difference between the Jeeni Awards and the fake results dominated by celebrity voting?Jeeni solution. Simple. Jeeni doesn't have celebrity voting. Our Awards will always be based on one member - one vote. No ifs, no buts. 10 - Live performance. I'd like to stream an event, and charge people to watch it. Can Jeeni do that?Jeeni solution. Um, not yet, but we're working on it! Come on now, we're not perfect, so we need your help. Jeeni has returned to Crowdcube to raise more funds for helping new talent. Jeeni founding director Mel Croucher says, “We’re ahead of our original schedule, but there’s still so much more to do. We need to scale our online platform globally now and build our mass artist showcases. Jeeni raised £100K in 6 days and we’re working hard to get more investors on board. Then we can hit all our targets, and give our new artists the recognition they deserve.” If you want to see our pitch click HERE.

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