Friday, April 27, 2012

Virginia Country Bound . . . . .


What's up world ?!? D-Natural here back at you with another blog of mines ! I know it's been awhile since I've blogged here . However, as I've said in the past, whenever you don't see me blogging here, it's only because I'm MAD BUSY working really hard at alot of other things. But this here blog has always been one of my main priorities and as I stated from the very 1st blog here back in 2009, my mission here is to take you every step of the way with me as I grow with my music, poetry, and production company : Artistic Visionz Productions ! !


All the photographs you will see in this post are among the many that I shot when I visited my family in Southern Virginia over the spring break . For those of you that don't know yet, I'm moving ! ! Yes finally getting away from the hustle and bustle of DC city life for calm pastures, clean air, and the simple living that rural life can provide. Now don't get me wrong, I will always love my hometown of Capitol Heights, Maryland and everywhere I travel to upon this planet, I will ALWAYS represent ! However, it comes a time when after you have planned and worked as hard as I have, the opportunity presents itself to get out of the hood and Capitol Heights is the HOOD . You see, a man must move on . Seeing police helicopters(birds of the ghetto) fly over your head eyeing you from the sky ALL DAY, everyday, because they are trying to monitor all the Madness in the town, getting harrassed by the police in the streets because they thought you were someone else, fiends on the corner constantly begging you everytime you walk past for money to support thier habits, ignorant thugs & hoodrats who want nothing but to cause you drama in the streets, it gets old . You turn on the news and learn that someone was just shot yet again around the corner from you . Sometimes I look around and think , " How in the hell did a person like ME come from an area like this ? " I know though, that I owe that to God and my mother, a strong single parent who did the very best she could to protect and shepard me through the darkness so that I would find my light, which as you can see, I DID ! ! !


So, the time has come to move on and continue to show the world who I am and what I'm about so that I may return back to Capitol Heights and help make it better than it was when I left it, which I will do some day ! Fortunately, I will still be in my beloved DMV, just residing now in the V part ! So I'm really digging that ! I've built up a strong local network of folks here in the area and it's still plenty of work to be done with them. I've found a place near my family in Southern Virginia to move to and even have a van that I now own there waiting for me. Getting a van was the best option seeing how my music business is getting larger and I'm gonna have alot of traveling to do along with my all music equipment which consist of my keyboards, guitars, basses, amps, mics, cords, my MPC, etc . . . I'm also transferring to a college down there where my grandpa used to be one of the deans at, where I am going to finish my bachelors degree in business in a special accelerated program and probably pick up another bachelor degree in the process. I'm at the Junior level (3rd year) of college now with my studies which I somehow managed to complete all within the last year and a half while singlehandedly running Artistic Visionz Productions, traveling, producing music, writing poetry, growing my photography/video shooting skills and the other thangs I'm involved in ! ! ! Wowzers ! ! BUT somehow I've managed to do it all BY MYSELF ! ! I even earned a Twitter Shorty Award nomination in the social media world, in the top 40 ranking for the Radio category, around this time last year in the process which I'm extremely proud of . . .


So as the butterfly goes through stages before it can fly, I'm branching out of my cocoon to a different environment, around new unfamiliar people, new territories and artistic venues. Just as I did late last year in New York (check my last October blog), I'm expanding Artistic Visionz Productions to new horizons ! ! It is all very exciting ! ! Everyday I'm stronger, wiser, and more skillful. I'm understanding more of what I'm doing in an ever changing music industry and it's becoming clearer what direction(s) I wanna go in. One of the the good things about being near my immediate family in Virgina is that I will have access to my grandpa's church, which is where my music career started at 4 years old, and where I taught myself to play all the instruments I play. When my grandpa, a Pastor, it's not using it to preach at his services or do any other functions, I'm gonna turn that joint into my live recording studio ! ! ! I'm gonna get started almost right away when I get down there working on all those live solo albums that I'm planning to release as well as complete the work on my studio albums that I should have released by now in between my college studies ! ! It's gonna feel good to take it back to where it all started at this stage in my musical development, playing the very instruments I grew up learning and playing on as a child ! !




I can't express enough how excited and ready I am about this new transition I'm in ! !

In other news . . .  I'm about to release in the next blog post after this one, my next appetizer for you guys to vibe to while I'm completing the several music and poetry projects I have in the works ! ! I've mentioned my song called "Guestlist" in previous blogs and I've decided to go ahead and take it out my vault of unreleased work . It was originally set to be included on an early prototype of an album I was working on along with my other single I have out "Madness". I felt it's only right to release it now, in hopes that you guys will enjoy it while I steadily work on the much much newer material that I have in store for you guys ! ! So please stay tuned for that, u digg ? ? word




So with ALL that said , until the next I return here with a personal update, please keep the faith and keep chasing your dreams ! ! As you can see, I sure still am ! ! ! Stayed tuned here of course for all my latest music, poems, photographs, videos, collaborations, and other surprises I haven't revealed yet ! !

I just wanna say THANKS to all my fans/followers/supporters from the bottom of my heart for keeping up with me ! It truly means more than any of you will ever know ! Peace


D-Natural, AVP