Music Explored Podcast

Our guest for today's episode is musician Gabriel Vargas. Gabriel is based in Melbourne, Australia with strong ties to his native country of Brazil. He has a great approach to life and thirsts for experiences outside the normality of social conditioning and beyond his own areas of comfort. He connects to the fact that real growth occurs on the outskirts of normality and comfort. In this conversation, we discuss his transition from athlete to musician, the process of him learning to use music as a means of healing, and the experience of traveling on his own path!

Lady Luck joins us today for this week's episode. @iamladyluck has been in the music scene from a very early age, thanks to her aunt, the great Sylvia Robinson, one of the founders of the legendary Sugar Hill Records. Lady Luck went on to sign a record deal at the age of 17 with the iconic Def Jam recording label and was also featured in the 2000 documentary film of Jay-Z's 1999 tour, Backstage. In 2017, Luck was a cast member on the reality show "First Family of Hip Hop" on the Bravo cable network. We connect and talk about what it was like growing up immersed in hip-hop, the experience of being on a reality show, and much more. Available wherever you listen to music or podcasts!

Our guest today is musician LJ Mitchell. LJ is currently the musical director for the Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Elevation church for anyone who doesn't know is one of the larger churches in the US with over 12 locations in the US and Canada with a weekly attendance of well over 25,000 people. We talk to LJ about how he had almost given up on his love for playing the keys when the chance of a lifetime presented itself, the journey from Toronto to Charlotte, and some of the conversations currently circulating regarding the current state of gospel music. It's funny but the more we think about all the incredible musicians and artists, we notice more often that their success is really about progress meeting with opportunity and he is just another example of that so please enjoy his story.

Today we connect with songwriter and musician Thad Cockrell. Thad had spent two decades steadily building his career through five album releases and constant touring before the COVID-19 pandemic forced musicians, including Cockrell, off the road. Cockrell intended to end his music career and even emailed his managers letting them know; however, on Jan 4th, Thad got a phone call every musician dreams of - his management called with the news that he would be performing on one of the biggest late-night television shows, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon! In this episode, Thad tells us the incredible story of how the Tonight Show appearance came on the same day he decided to hang it up, what he's been up to lately, and much more.

This week we sat down with Canada's premier media and public relations expert Eric Alper. Eric Alper started his own PR firm, Eric Alper Public Relations, after being the Director of Media Relations and Label Relations for eOne Music Canada for over 18 years. As a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week, and 16-time JUNO Award winner overseeing PR campaigns, he's been fortunate to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time (past and present) including Ringo Starr, Ray Charles, Snoop Dogg, J Dilla, Slash, Ashanti, Allman Brothers, Bush and so many more. The Toronto native is a regular music industry contributor to Bell Media, Rogers, Shaw Media, among others, and also the host of his @ThatEricAlper show on SiriusXM. We connected with Eric to discuss the incredible journey he's had in music and his advice for the next crop of artists dealing with the publicity.

On this episode of the podcast, co-hosts Diriki and Anthony sit down to talk about their careers in the music industry, their new pursuit of learning the piano and song-writing, plus much more.