Meet Vintaj

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vintaj.

Hi Vintaj, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
What started my music journey was when I was living in Virginia. Right, when my Aunt Jackie took me to my first local youth poetry slam in Washington D.C. during my last year of middle school. After this poetry slam, I was so moved by everyone’s words it inspired me to start writing myself. Throughout high school, I started creatively expressing myself through poetry. I would do this to express myself to girls in school because I know they never had someone do that, haha. But after I got out of high school, I wanted to go to a college in NYC for photography because that was something else I also enjoyed creatively. I taught myself many of the basics of photography in my junior and senior years of high school, but I wanted to get deeper into it. After all, I went a different route and joined the Air Force.

I saw that my parents were both military and I knew you could get free college from it as well, so I decided to do it myself. After being in a whole year, I ended up getting my first apartment in AZ, and also, in that first apartment, I decided I wanted to try to make a song. I opened up my mac book Air and my friends and I tried to figure out how to use Garage Band. After that first day of my friends and me playing around with it, I just wanted to get better and learn more about how to work the Garage Band. This hobby my friends and I started quickly turned into something serious for me. I would try to let go of it but always ended up returning to it. Which now led me to turn it into an actual business. Still not making much money from it, but still love the process because I know how big the outcome can be, even if it seems smaller to others.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I face many obstacles on this journey as an artist, and I feel like the older I get, the harder it gets, but all it’s done is to make my resilience stronger than ever. Most of the obstacles and challenges I noticed throughout this journey and still experience stem from mental health, something I learned to be more head-on about.

When I was younger, that was something I didn’t know how to do, so it would leave me in a lot of deep depression episodes that would lead me into a lot of dark paths I didn’t know at the time were bad for me. But music and good friends were always there to help pull me out of these dark times. It still is complicated from time to time, but I always remember not to tuck those feelings away and figure out why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling, so it doesn’t start affecting me making music.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In Arizona, everyone mostly knows me as a Recording Artist. My alias is Vintaj! I like to think of myself as an all-around creative, though, because I like to do more than make music.

But it doesn’t bother me that people don’t know the other things I do and I’m interested in because it makes meeting new people fun. But my music is different from what you usually expect to hear from the underground hip-hop/R&B scene here in AZ. I love using my voice as an instrument in my music. It’s still not the best, but I’m working on making it an instrument people never get tired of hearing!

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
The main thing is to enjoy the process and keep growing at your pace. People will notice! I feel as if I am growing slowly, but I have many friends I don’t get to see daily that tell me how far I have come from recording in my closet.

If you love what you do, your work will speak for itself. Just keep learning and being consistent.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vintaj.world/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vintaj.wav/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/byVintaj
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/byVintaj
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Vintaj
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/vintajworld
• Other: https://ffm.to/couldyouholditdown

Image Credits
@rustyguillotine, @worldofblu, @alexs.files, and @shotbyanitah