What started out as an experiment in web design is becoming a syndicate driven by creative individuals using their given gifts, talents, and respective art forms to reach whatever they can of the masses, promoting knowledge and uniqueness amid what has become the ‘norm’ in today’s society. We weave words, blend melodies, and paint pictures in ways that make us stand out from the crowd and, all too often, we meet people with our same problem: our voices are but quiet whispers against the roar and rush of the ‘mainstream.’ We banded together, officially, to strengthen our voice, give voice to others, and – most importantly – teach the willing how to find their own voice through our trial and error. We believe in, pursue, and promote empowerment through art.
The concept went from a two year dream in the making to bona fide corporate entity in May 2010, becoming a limited liability company registered with the State of Florida. Authentic Vision LLC is the ‘official’ face for a number of different movements undertaken by its members.
The Syndicate
Musically Speaking. Authentic Vision is both a provider and promoter of independent music. As much as our ranks despise the term, we operate as a record label. While we deal mostly in underground and conscious hip hop, through our journeys we’ve met wonderful musicians from jazz, funk, rock, pop, reggae, and even Christian music genres and we do as much as we can to help them along as we go.
We have the ability to work with both signed and unsigned artists in areas like copyright administration, music publishing (through ASCAP), electronic distribution setup and monitoring, recording and engineering services, musical composition, production, and album commercialization and exploitation. Our artists are available for live shows and collaborations and we have an extensive rolodex of other musicians, venues, DJs, and related industry professionals and quite enjoy playing matchmaker whenever possible. And we do it all without the traditional trappings of a label: no complex, wordy, devilish contracts that drain the artists’ livelihood and wallets.
An upcoming project of ours will involve, as we find the time and opportunity, using video footage and pictures of musicians we’ve had the pleasure of knowing over the last 3 years to give them each a piece of the spotlight through a promotional website we are developing. Once the back-end work is complete and we’ve taken care of our own artists and early adopters, we will offer the opportunity to be featured to other musicians who share our standards of quality in their craft.
Visual Artistry. The founders are also purveyors of graphic design, illustration, video, and animation services. We three have natural-born drawing talent and one of our collective is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in multimedia design, learning the finer points of putting it all together. To date, we have had our hands in logos, branding, business cards, CD covers, video editing (mentioned above), promotional flyers and brochures, web and information design, and we even have a comic strip working its way off the ground.
The Web. The above-mentioned soon to be graduate happens to have been on the Internet since pretty close to when it first became a mainstream thing. She coded her first web page, all by herself, in 1996 (using Notepad) and realized that it was more than a passing hobby. In the years since, she’s gone from coding HTML by hand to specializing in content management via WordPress. Having been a WP junkie for seven years, she’s had her hands in hosting and setting up websites and their databases, developing and designing themes for said sites from scratch, writing for several of them, and helping maintain and update others. She is also a search engine optimization whiz, a rather strict copy editor and she knows her way around the social networking scene. The cherry on top: she can automate it all save the art.
The Future. Once our next musical venture is under way, there will be two more back-burner expansions that receive more focus.
The first, already partially in the works via Authentic Vision’s objective to help budding musical entrepreneurs, involves
personal and professional development. Over the years we have lived, researched, and found several sources of knowledge relating to both areas and plan to share both our sources and our lessons with anyone who may need them.
The second dates back to 2007, with the inception of what was once Naturally Maid LLC – a green cleaning service run by our future graduate. She specialized in natural cleaning methods, learning a lot about essential oils and non-toxic cleaning agents. In her spare time, she invested herself in planning ways to share what she’d learned and began devising ideas for her own product line. Shortly before she could implement her plans, she was abducted by aliens while investigating a UFO one night shortly after President Obama was elected into office. Her current hope is to get her Abductors famous enough to fund all her bottle and brewing supply needs.
Our Reach
By design, we maintain a strong electronic presence and tap into technologies and platforms our target audiences use the most. This means a lot of blogging, social networking, and striking up conversations on forums relevant to each pursuit. In person, we spend a lot of time talking to anyone who will listen about what we do and how much we love it – and even show them in some cases. We are always eager to make acquaintances and we enjoy a vast, strong, network of friends, associates, and even loved-ones that we hope to share with the world at large.
Home Base
To hear some tell it, we are residents of Planet Zoron, blending in with the Earthlings, occupying their minds, and building our Tribe to colonize and take over the world. The founders, looking to expand their reach, are now spread between Virginia and Florida and Authentic Vision truly exists, almost in its entirety, on the World Wide Web. We began our venture with the full intent of being able to work from anywhere, with anyone, and at any time.
The Founders
The Visionary. The cunning mind behind the cultivation and eventual formation of Authentic Vision and soon to be graduate: Kiva, of the Poison Designs ilk. Kiva, in addition to her web and media skills, acts as the go-to person for all the behind the scenes ‘business’ stuff. She writes up and files the paperwork, pays the bills, and acts as liaison and whip-cracker for the artists. For some time, she was the sole voice from the syndicate on the Web, writing stimulating content for readers and fans as often as possible. Until she grooms or finds a suitable replacement, she serves as designer, developer, administrator and maintenance tech for all six websites currently live or in development.
The Muse. The man who inspired Kiva to conduct the web experiment (that began on Planet Zoron): The Alien Originator, known to the world at large as Leaf Qwembi – Commander in Chief of Planet Zoron. Qwembi brings over a decade of experience in many facets of the music industry to light through his compositions, lyrics, and the engineering of the final product. Find out more about him here.
The Lieutenant. Recent convert and current trainee in the ways of All Things Authentic Vision: MNTLPLX, like Qwembi, is of exceptional musical talent and began his journey into the industry about the same time. He also shows promise in content development and is slowly becoming a one-man promotional team for the syndicate. You can find him on ReverbNation and PlanetZoron.com.
The three of us share a deep love and driving passion for music, similar tastes and standards in artistic expression and strong personal values – even as we join forces from different walks of life. Our collective intelligence, skills, and life experiences make us a diverse and well-rounded force to be reckoned with in whatever we pursue.