♪ Opening theme music ♪
Hello, and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation.
My name is Diane Kolin.
This series presents artists, academics, and project leaders who dedicate their
time and energy to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts.
You can find more of these conversations on our website, artsably.com,
which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.
♪ Theme music ♪
Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Deshaymond, a singer, songwriter,
and producer living in Atlanta.
You can find the resources mentioned by Deshaymond during this episode
on ArtsAbly's website, in the blog section.
♪ Prisoner by Deshaymond ♪
Let me crying, oh.
I'm crying, oh.
I lie awake.
I see your face at night.
I call your name.
Please hear my lonely ply
'cause I indure the pain I feel
when I sleep alone at night.
I try so hard to breathe myself and
all I can do is cry
'cause I
I
the reason I no more
You got me crying, oh.
I'm crying, oh.
I don't
wohoooooo
I don't want,
I don't want to leave you.
There's nothing enough you.
I don't want to love you.
It's nothing enough, oh.
I don't want to be your prisoner no more.
Your prisoner.
Welcome to this new episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation.
Today, I am with Deshaymond, who is a singer, songwriter,
and producer living in Atlanta.
Welcome, Deshaymond.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Well, I've listened to your work and it's really fascinating, a little bit of your story
and we are here to talk about your journey in your musical activities today.
So I wanted to ask if you could
tell us a little bit about your background,
where you come from, where you grew up, and also your first musical experiences.
Where did music come from in your life?
Oh, yeah.
Again, thank you for having me.
I really love your work, and I love what you're doing with ArtsAbly
so thank you for doing it.
My name is Deshaymond.
I'm originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, USA.
And this is my...
Music is my first act that I'm going back to.
So my second act in life, but my first act.
I've been studying music since I was five years old, studying classical music
since I was five years old.
Just living in a neighborhood that
studying classical is not necessarily
the thing that a lot of people do.
It It was a little bit hard.
I didn't quite fit in.
I was definitely one of those music nerds and all of that stuff.
But I did grow up doing that and fell in love with music.
I started writing songs at a very young age, and I played a few instruments.
One of my first instruments was the triangle.
Then it became the cymbal and the woodblock.
And then, of course, everyone's first wind instrument is recorder, right?
So I started playing that, and I moved up to playing flute and piccolo.
So I played a few instruments, and I just love music.
I went through high school competing
and also college competing in music for voice
and also instrumental music.
And then life got real.
Adulting became real, you know.
And I had a career in Corporate America
in payroll and HR.
How boring, right? For an artist.
But payroll and HR paid the bills while
I was going through life and figuring it out.
And I had some great, great opportunities there
because I actually learned the business.
I learned business as a whole, which helps me now in my career
as an entrepreneur, a music entrepreneur.
The music business is a whole new animal, but at least
I have the business acumen now.
In 2015, I lost my sight, my eyesight.
It started deteriorating rapidly due to a condition I have called optic atrophy.
And it just led me to make so many different life changes and
I had to go and find myself again and find what really moved me,
what I was really passionate about.
And it led me back to music.
It really showed me that I'm supposed to be doing this.
And now I'm so in love with my career.
I'm so in love with my art.
I'm so in love with anything to do with music that I'm on fire for it.
So that's the long story of who I am
and how I came to be a music artist.
So you were trained in classical with all these instruments, percussive instruments
and wind instruments and everything.
As a classical, did you do a lot as a classical musician, or was it just
during your studies, and then you decided to go another way?
It was mostly during my studies.
I did it in high school and also in college.
But my personal passion
was always RnB, soul, pop music
with a little bit of blues and Southern soul and rock.
So that was always my personal favorite.
And I leveraged everything I learned classically, both as a singer and
just as a musician, and just pour little bitty bits
of classical into everything that I do, whether it's like vowel placement
or it's how I hold a note or my vibrato or something.
I try to put a little bit of my classical training in there
while still trying to give soulful because that's really where my heart is.
Yes.
I could hear that in your last album, by the way.
Thank you.
Can you talk about what you're doing now?
This this album, but also you're a producer.
How long did it take for you to produce this album?
What were your challenges along the way?
It took me...
I started working on this album years ago, actually.
This album was supposed to be here years ago when I first
did music in my early 20s before Corporate America and all of that stuff.
But it was so good to go back and pick up those songs, dust them off,
re-imagine them, and bring it to life.
I actually started rerecording this album in 2021, December of 2021.
I worked with with one of my great friends,
Grammy nominated producer Supah Mario.
He helped me through it.
Literally, he called me out of the blue and asked me to sing at his wedding,
and I had not sang in years.
And we just talked for hours.
And I'm like, Rich, I really don't know what I'm doing.
I don't have the corporate career anymore.
I don't know what I need to do.
And I'm like, if I decided to do music again, would you help me?
And he said in a heartbeat.
And the rest is history.
Of course, I ended up performing at his wedding, and he had
such a beautiful wedding, he and his lovely wife, Jacquelyn.
And we worked on this album.
He came to Atlanta.
I went to Houston.
We just worked and worked and worked until we got it right.
And we were happy with the sound and everything that we created.
And 2024, here it is. "I am."
Yeah. So tell us more about this album.
"I am" is, of course, my debut album.
I hold it so close to my heart
because it really is,
to me, in my very, very humble opinion,
a depiction of all of the little bitty
parts of me that make me who I am, right?
I'm a little bit sophisticated.
I'm a little bit ratchet.
I grew up in the gutta, but I'm also a classical musician.
I also sing opera and classical music.
So I think I'm a good balance of both.
And that's what this album is.
The songs are real stories that I've experienced in my own life.
The instrumentation, the music, I tried to do, of course,
some of the stuff in the dawn, new sounds that
really sounded like real instruments
mixed in with live instruments, which a lot of people don't do anymore.
But I wanted it to have that authentic feel.
And what I think "I am" is not only is it a depiction
of who I am, but it's also human.
It's a very human piece of music.
I didn't want every song to be so perfect.
You know how people record now where they record line by line.
And every little thing is so prim and proper and perfect.
I wanted to hear some rest, and I wanted people to be able
to hear when my voice broke.
I wanted people to hear me emoting in a way.
If I was gravelly that day or if I wanted to just push really,
really hard, I wanted them to hear every breath and all of that.
So Rich and I, we didn't use any auto-tune.
We didn't use any of that.
We left it as organic as possible while still trying
to make sure it was polished.
And this album, the way it sounds and the way it feels to me, I just want people to
understand who I am and just really enjoy quality human music because everything
is so mechanical and computerized now.
We're not feeling, at least for me, I'm not feeling the emotion in it.
So I really wanted to make an emotional album that
really made people feel something.
And I really hope I did it. [Laughs.]
My opinion is that you did.
[Laughs.]
Thank you, thank you, Diane.
Tell the world.
We will post that for sure on ArtsAbly's website so that people can listen to it.
It's available everywhere now.
It's above on Spotify and Apple Music.
All over the world.
It's available everywhere internationally on all streaming services
internationally. So we're really proud of that.
And the reception has been warm so far, so I just want everybody to hear it.
If you have not heard it, it's called "I Am" by yours truly, Deshaymond.
And it's a great body of work.
So I'm such an album artist where I love the whole picture.
Tell me a story.
And I know people are moving away from that now, but I'm such an album artist.
I love it. I grew up in the '90s, right?
So where we had some of the greatest albums of all time
in the '80s and '90s, in my humble opinion.
So I wanted to make something that had a little bit of nostalgia
and made people remember that, and it was a cohesive body of work.
So yes, go stream it, please.
And who are your singer's influences?
Oh, my God.
I have so many influences, but it's pretty...
I would say I have an eclectic blend of singers.
So when I tell you, you're probably going to be like, huh?
But you know,
my favorite artist of all time is Monica.
Absolutely love Monica.
I think that no one emotes like her in RnB and pop music,
and I think that's a dying art.
So she is definitely one of my influences.
Luther Vandross, of course, I respect him so much.
And knowing more of his story, knowing his sexuality that, of course, came out after
his death and rest his soul, it It just really made me appreciate him even more.
He taught all of us how to sing, really.
But to know that he literally had to sacrifice a piece of himself
or hide a piece of himself to have this career and to influence
so many people is very humbling.
And I am proud to be an openly gay, disabled artist.
I love to say that.
Maxwell is another one of my influences.
I absolutely love him.
I think his cool and his smooth and his sexy and his sophistication
is what I really, really try to emulate a little bit,
a little bit of his falsetto, but definitely
his smooth and the way he delivers.
Lenny Kravitz is a huge inspiration to me.
I just remember how bold he was and still is, obviously.
Very sexy, but he's so himself, and there's nothing like his rock RAS.
There's nothing like that.
So I love Lenny Kravitz.
Usher, Tevin Campbell, Brandy.
Whitney Houston. Literally, I remember being six and seven years old and
hearing Whitney Houston sing Miracle.
I can't remember which album of hers that was off of, but I'm like
I want to hit those notes.
And how does she just hold it like that?
So Whitney Houston, her entire catalog, is a lesson in breathing and power
and tone and just goodness.
So I don't know if there's a singer on this planet that has not
been influenced by her in some way.
And the list can go on and on.
Of course, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles.
I pull energy from them being a blind artist.
How operating as a blind person and still having to be on and be in front of people
and you're not knowing what's going on around you half of the time,
or you're not seeing people respond to you, but it's a feeling.
It's an energy.
So I definitely tap into them when I'm performing
because I know what it's like now.
I can almost feel what they felt like knowing that there's thousands of people
looking at you, but you can't see them, and you have to imagine their faces
and feel their energy.
So many great musicians, I can't even name them all, but yeah.
When I'm thinking of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, it was
this energy that was so powerful that you could only react, right?
You could only take it and have this joy of receiving and
as an audience to give back.
I mean, it's really to send this energy back and to feel it.
I always had this feeling with them.
That's something that is impactful.
It definitely is.
And it used to light me on fire a little bit because I loved the way...
This is probably going to sound crazy, but I love the way
Stevie Wonder moves when he performs.
He is so... it doesn't have to look like what everyone else looks like, right?
And I remember seeing him, and I remember Ray Charles sitting down at the piano,
and he's just moving his body however the music moves him.
And Stevie does that same thing, and it just shows that it was really
coming from a different place.
That music was really coming from a different place.
They were playing it and it was coming through them, but it was so organic,
and I love that feeling in music.
Yes, so powerful.
One thing that we got from our generation
of artists is that we are now more
and more in mainstream media.
At the time where us as artists, we didn't
have necessarily role models to grow up.
But now it's coming more and more.
And also we start to see artists with disabilities or artists with
some health issues who don't have any shame or any-
And they talk about it.
They talk about it, exactly. Yeah.
And I think that especially '80s, '90s, artists had to be these obscure figures
that were superheroes, right?
But you didn't know that much about them other than what was in their bio, right?
But I love that music has opened up, and it's real now.
It's like people want know about you.
They want to know who you are as a person.
They want to know your heart.
They want to know what you're thinking. You know what I'm saying?
And we don't have to be these superhuman beings, even though they still
see us that way because we get up on stage and we come alive, right?
But we can actually be more vulnerable now.
And it's so crazy.
I didn't realize that Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles and Andrea Bocelli,
I didn't realize that they would be
role models for me
because I never knew that I would be here in my life.
But I pull from them so much now because I saw them do it,
and I saw that it was okay, and
they looked like me, and I enjoyed their music, and they made me feel the way.
So I tap into them, to their spirit, to their essence now, and just
really try to give that same energy, not worrying about how my body is moving or
what people are thinking or if somebody is judging me, I don't care about that.
How - is the music being delivered?
Am I letting it move through?
That's what I care about.
Yeah. And we are both - We know each other from RAMPD.
And this organization was co-created by Lachi.
And speaking of someone who is really-
Absolutely. Let me tell you my Lachi story, okay?
Okay.
I had... I'm so sorry.
I don't need to cut you off.
But my Lachi story is so cool.
I was
going through a huge depression,
and I'm like, do I go back to Corporate America,
or do I really just take another stab at music.
And you know those voices in your head that tell you,
Oh, nobody's going to pay attention to you.
No one's going to take you serious. You're blind.
There aren't any blind singers right now.
It's not in vogue to be a disabled artist.
So I thought, and then I'm scrolling through Instagram, and
I come across Lachi, and she was doing her
Black Blind Girl word of the day that she does.
And I'm like, Who is this?
Who is this?
And I go and I go to her page and I'm looking, I'm like,
oh, my gosh, she's a blind artist. She's actually a blind artist.
Then I listen to her music.
I'm like, okay, so she jamming, too.
I'm like, this is my inspiration.
She really was that catalyst to say, if this blind black woman
can do this, then I can do this, too. It's possible.
And I think representation in music is so important.
And she was that representation
from an adult perspective for me.
She really, really was.
And her art, what she does, and even RAMPD, her organization,
they really showed me that we can be taken seriously in the music business.
We do have a place, and our art is just as good or better than a lot of
the stuff that's going on in mainstream, and we should be mainstream.
So I really applaud her with all of her efforts with RAMPD
and how she helps other disabled artists.
Yes. [Laughs.]
Absolutely. I know I'm long-winded, Diane.
I love it. I mean, really.
Then all this, RAMPD, I was
speaking with Lachi just before she launched RAMPD.
Then I spoke with her just after she launched RAMPD.
All the project she had in mind on that.
Look at where it is today.
It's a fantastic organization.
It's an amazing organization.
Yeah. And meeting so many fantastic artists. Wow!
[Laughs.]
See, I get to talk to you because of RAMPD.
You know what I'm saying?
How awesome is that?
Speaking of that, I know that - I like to talk about the place of disability
in the arts and the fact that we work in this environment where we promote
the fact that artists with disabilities are awesome, basically, because we are.
Right. Because we are. [Laughs.]
So what does it mean for you to work in
that environment where we
promote disability in the arts?
It means everything to me.
I say it all the time that if I can
inspire or encourage or just show one
future disabled artist, whether they're a little kid now or
they're an adult or whatever, if I could just move one person
to just believe and see that I did it and I'm doing it.
And it doesn't have to fit into the mold of what the pop star
or the RnB star or the rock star looks like, then I'm doing my job.
I'm a black man first.
I'm a blind man.
I am a gay man.
So I belong to a lot of different intersecting communities.
And I want to make sure that I'm representing
all of those intersections in excellent.
So I want to inspire, hopefully,
little disabled kids or even disabled adults,
just so they can see that we're doing this and we are able, we're capable.
So If I can inspire a little gay kid
or LGBTQ+ kid, that
your version of LGBTQ doesn't have to look like someone else's.
It can look just like you.
If I'm inspiring them, if I inspire a little black boy or girl
or any person of color, kid of color, then I'm doing my job.
So it means the world to me to be able to do this as a disabled artist
and do it in excellence and really represent for my community.
It means the world.
Yay. [Laughs.]
Sorry. I love it.
No way. [Laughs.]
I hope that was a good yay.
Oh, my God.
Well, speaking of inspiration and people who might have inspired you in your career,
and maybe if you have someone in mind
who has guided you during your career
or has been specifically present in your life, who would it be and why?
You know, what I have to do is first tip my hats off to my family.
Deshaymond Media LLC is my business.
It's my media company that I release from and all of that stuff
and all of my art comes from.
But it's a family business, and I have a family that loves me
and believes in me so much.
They inspire me to be the best me.
Them just putting all of their time and energy and their love and the attention
into my dream is such a blessing.
And I know people don't always have that.
So they inspire me, and they definitely influence me.
But if it had to be on the art side, from an artist standpoint,
I think that most definitely Lachi is very high on that list.
Just in the short time that I've been in her presence, been acquainted
with her, it's so many things that she's just, by watching her,
has opened me up to and provided me with.
So hats off to her.
I love that I saw -
I got to really see Ray Charles before losing my sight
and Stevie Wonder, because I remember their music videos and I remember their performance,
and I remember how infectious they were.
And I think of those images that I saw that was so powerful
to me as a little kid, and I try to put that into my live performance.
And I want to make people feel like that.
So those three artists, definitely, but also who taught me how to be an artist.
And I told you it was going to be multiple people, Diane.
[Laughs.]
But Monica, I have to say her because
she is the epitome of being real for me.
When I first saw her first music video or heard her on the radio, I remember
just saying, she sounds like my cousin.
She sounds like the girls in the neighborhood.
She sounds like my sisters.
She sounds like those people.
And then when I saw her, how beautiful she was, but she was just a black girl
just twisting her neck and being everything she was and confident,
I pull from her confidence.
She taught me how to be organic as an artist and not care what people thought.
You heard my album, so I say whatever I want to say.
She taught me how to do that and stand up in it, but still do it
with sophistication and class and still do it at a very high level.
She really did - Watching her, listening to her, her interviews
and all of that stuff.
She taught me how to do what artists do, the interviews for that matter.
She taught me how to do that by watching her.
So, yeah, those artists are who inspired me.
Yes.
Well, thank you so much for this conversation.
I wish you all the best for all your future projects, future albums, future singles,
and everything that will come.
Thank you so much, Diane. Thank you for having me.
And big ups to the ArtsAbly. I love what you do with that organization. Keep it going.
Thank you. Have a great day.
You too. Bye.
♪ Closing theme music ♪