Art & Life with Syeed Poole

Today we’d like to introduce you to Syeed Poole.

Syeed, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
On August 15th, 2006, an old friend gave me the means to upload a copy of FL Studio to my computer. While I had sang in church and school choirs, what I didn’t have was a musical education, or a deep seeded desire towards producing my own music. I spent years tinkering with the program and eventually started to upload tracks to Myspace. This lead to me having a back and forth overseas musical relationship between Phoenix and Bulgaria as a vocalist / lyricist to Rick Spry, one half of a producer and vocalist band. I eventually replaced the existing vocalist for the group and we released two albums through the online imprint Sunset Connect as “the beautiful ones”.

When we stopped making music together, I went back to working on solo material and eventually released my first full length LP “Body of Work” around the same time in 2011 where I had my first public performance at the Trunk Space, an inclusive art space where I still happily perform at from time to time. “Body of Work” was a critical success that kept me motivated to work on the follow-ups “Queen” and “DARKWORLD” as well as other compilations, EPs, singles, and hopefully my next release “Body of Work II”.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
My art is music; production, lyric writing, arrangement, recording, mixing and mastering have been done by me from the very beginning with few exceptions. The majority of my music is certainly Hip Hop influenced with often deviations into R&B and other unclear deviations from genre. I tend to produce music through the same DAW I’ve used since 2006, FL Studio, except for the few times that I’ve produced using Logic Pro X on Macintosh computers. When I record, I keep the set up as simple as possible to where it’s a mic stand with a USB Condenser microphone on top.

DIY is my philosophy. I’m grateful to have a best friend, TK, assist now with DJ’ing during performances and offering input on recordings, something that I didn’t have when I first started making music. That’s the energy I want to instill in at least one person who thinks they can’t do it on their own. They absolutely can. I didn’t have very many openly gay / queer roles models growing up first in Flint, Michigan and then Phoenix for the rest of my formative years at fifteen years old. I want to fill that gap for anyone who needs encouragement to pick up that instrument or that Digital Audio Workstation and not wait on others to make the music they’d like to make.

If anyone were to take anything away from my music, which I know can be challenging at times per its experimental nature, then I’d certainly want them to be inspired, motivated, and even anxious to get to work and create something that will truly change the world.

In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
The biggest challenge, I think, is that music needs to captivate a listener or audience member within the first ten to fifteen seconds on a recording and about that same portion of time when they perform live.

I wonder if the “new kids” in the industry can draw attention to their sound within the “moment”, stay diverse, and still have the ambition to go against whatever popular music paradigm shift is taking place to create something that has impact as well as a clear intention. I rap, and I fearfully wonder if trap music and its variations, for example, will remain “the sound” clear into the next decade. I look forward to seeing young artists rail against the “sameness” in any genre. That’s the biggest challenge; getting these new musicians to change the world with something that’s never been done before.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
My discography is available at http://thedoyenne.bandcamp.com and my official website, http://syeed.me, has additional links to Soundcloud and an archive of videos from past performances and my first music video for the well-received song “Strange Kind of Love” (which was directed and conceptualized by my aforementioned best friend and fellow artist TK Campo).

The two ways to support my art is to make a purchase of the entire discography or individual projects as well as come out and have a good time at a live performance. I feel most fulfilled when I can see how people respond to the music in the moment; one of my biggest wishes is that the audience can experience that feeling of “the moment” and forget all about their phones or the drama in their personal lives even just for that “moment”.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://syeed.me
• Phone: 6026889341
• Email: theteashoppetv@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_doyenne/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SyeedTheDoyenne/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/syeed
• Other: https://thedoyenne.bandcamp.com/

Image Credit:
Frank C. Photography, Peach Girl Photography

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