DEETRANADA, Laundry Day & More Relive Their Origin Stories at SXSW

Before they were artists, they were just people with dreams. ORIGIN Refreshingly American Spring Water partnered with Billboard to bring these Origin Stories to life at SXSW. We sat with a variety of artists: the seasoned, the independent, and the hot-and-emerging, to celebrate their stories of inspiration, drive, and passion from the festival’s Artist Village in Austin, TX.

20-year-old DEETRANADA hails from Baltimore, MD, and carries authenticity and pride for her city throughout. When speaking of her origins as an artist, the young rapper recalls stumbling upon her parents’ CD collection as a child, which opened her world to female emcees, prompting her to humbly rap in her bedroom before sharing her gift with the world. Today, her lyricism and raps, complemented by her bubbly-out-of-this-world personality, have brought her to a bigger stage.

Making music doesn’t always come with an army of fans. Shaun Solo, DJ Five Venoms, Fly Anakin and BoofPaxkMooky discuss who their original supporters were on their journey to music. The Texan rapper, Shaun Solo, whose hip-hop sound is raw and Cali-inspired, chased his dream of being a musician backed by his mother’s early support. Similarly, DJ Five Venoms, the official DJ for the Rolling Loud festivals, first found support in friends and family, before catapulting as a renowned DJ infusing all genres. Additionally, Fly Anakin, the 27-year-old rapper, known for infusing the rough essence of ‘90s rap with the present-day genre, celebrates the music community of friends-turned-family in Richmond, Virginia. Conversely, BoofPaxkMooky, a North Carolina native, kept his craft low-key from his hometown, and was embraced more by strangers and adopted fans in cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York.

Laundry Day, the 5-man pop/rock band in their early ‘20s, from New York City, shares how they first formed in the basement of their Hell’s Kitchen high school. Six years later, they’ve embarked on tours, played at festivals, and just released their third studio album, We Switched Bodies.

LADIBREE, Xavier Omär and JVKE reflect on the defining moments in their careers when they knew their life’s work would be dedicated to making music. LADIBREE, the young artist out of Staten Island, New York discovered the adrenaline of performing while studying abroad in Tokyo and was hooked ever since. Similarly, Xavier Omär, a veteran of SXSW, discovered the magic of watching his dreams come true when he performed his makeshift bedroom-made hits at some of the nation’s largest festivals. As for JVKE (pronounced Jake), growing up in Rhode Island, he found his love for music after creating his own beats at 14 and found his nationwide fanbase by uploading original songs on social media.

MC Bravado first found love for words through literature giants such as Ernest Hemingway. He translated that love into poetry and rap freestyling, before becoming a high school English teacher and relocating from New York City to Baltimore, MD. Marrying his commitment to educating inner school students, his latest collaboration, Beats not Bullets, is a non-profit that uses music as a vehicle for education. He currently sits as the program’s coordinator.

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