Up next in 10
Heyyyyy Boo, Hey! Have we got a fun guest today for our Speaking of Curves series!
Meet @MadelynBrene, an international opera singer, songwriter, member of the Grammy Recording Academy and a curvy chic fashionista. Originally from Dallas, this vocal opera grad is a fusion of opera-trained meets soul + body positivity!
Join us at 12pm EST to hear from and meet the one to watch!
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hello hello hello I'm Marie tonight I'm the creator of the curvy fashionista
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welcome to speaking of curves and today's um Facebook live we have a very
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special guest I want to say I think pepper Mar in of pretty classic up introduce me and sent me her instagrams
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I want to say maybe about a year or so ago and I've been slowly watching um
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this guest like do her thing get her groove on on the stage I'm seeing and
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not just seeing but saying and in the spirit of speaking of cars like we
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feature in spotlight various small businesses influencers leaders people in
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the community because it's important now that we're able to support our business
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owners are like support everyone in the community so that the community is stronger through and after the aroma is
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gone right so it's really important to have a little fun have a little bit growth a little bit of a girlfriend chat
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so as you guys are joining us make sure you say hello let us know where you're tuning in from if you are a fan of
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singers if you are a fan of fashion if you are a fan of supporting make sure
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you share this Facebook live so that that way more people can join us so that more people can get to know our guests
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and more people can support those within the community so our guest is none other
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than miss Madeline I want to say the brunei madeline brunei I said it right
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Madeline brunei she is a senior a songwriter but even more doper she is an
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opera singer she is classically trained as an opera singer so do me a favor
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y'all and welcome miss Madeline brunettes thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me I'm really
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excited really play like I'm excited about like just having you here I'm
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excited that we get to chat a little bit because like girl you can blow thank you
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so you not only are you a senior songwriter you're part of the Grammy
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Recording Academy like you are also a huge lover of fashion like one of the
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things on every performance that you have you do not hold back when it comes to your like you had a sequence jumpsuit
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on I think that's how I found you like in a sequence jumpsuit or something and you were just like getting it in and
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they were dancing you was getting it in girl so tell us a little bit about you like you know especially like your
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journey was singing and kind of like yeah let's start there okay well I started singing when I was 3
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years old I actually was modeling singing acting and doing all that I used to do commercials when I was younger and
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I went through school competing in different things and then when it came
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time for me to choose like study for college I chose vocal performance and my first
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year school actually went to Xavier University where I majored in music and then after Hurricane Katrina I moved to
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finish my education at SMU and I've worked professionally as an opera singer
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when I got out of college I started kind of toying with different genres of music
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because you know of course being from the South I love like a trap and you know hip-hop and all that and then my
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grandfathers were pastors and so I just started kind of mixing all of this music
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together and I kind of start out mixing like opera and soul and then it's really
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popular in New York and then my singing career just kind of blossomed into
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modeling and it's blowing singing fashion and so now just become kind of like a more of a brand and just kind of
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been able to expand my career as an artist so it's been incredible and you also have a podcast of your own no but I
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can Instagram live series right I do I do and we it's kind of been slow but now
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we're you know kicking it up it's kind of called ahead of the curve and we talked to different people not just
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curvy women but just kind of like ahead of the curve and life ahead of the curve in fashion ahead of the curve in
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relationships and it's just kind of like the you know Girl Talk they and we just have different people
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come on and just talk kind of like how I'm doing today so yeah well so you
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don't meet too many so I'm just gonna stick on the upper side of things because you don't meet too many or see
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to any black opera singers like just keeping it 100 and so what interested
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you about opera and how did that like you know evolved for you yeah so when I
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was younger I always sang in my church choir everything but I started taking boys so since probably around nine and
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the teacher that I had she just gave me this random Italian song and from then
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on I just kind of had this operatic tone in my voice and you know that formal
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study is what kind of keeps you kind of engaged with that and so that's just
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what kind of happened it was able to give me a scholarship through school I think that not only do we see a lot of
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you know not see a lot of black opera singers but I wanted to do something a little bit different with my music and
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kind of fuse it into more modern things because I didn't feel well just singing like all the way offer I didn't feel
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comfortable just saying all the way R&B so I kind of fused them to kind of make a different eclectic sound and so what
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that is like freaking amazing opera I like I mean get a girl so in this in
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this journey that you've been on like how what doors has it open for you so I
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know we talked about singer/songwriter and the Grammy Accord according it kind of like what was that like really done
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for you well you know being a part of the grantee reporting Academy has been amazing because what it is is it's like
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an advocacy program for musicians so it's not just like oh I get to go to the Grammys it really is I mean you're doing
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meetings with Congress you're being an advocate for education and arts and the schools you're talking about equal pay
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for musicians and for artists so it's definitely open my my eyes and to just all of the the
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different aspects of performing but in addition to that I've also been able to
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meet you know some incredible producers attorneys and all of that of course I've performed overseas I did
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a Paris debut for New Year's last year no big deal no big deal I was in Paris
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debut happened five years I've had an
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amazing career and like I said it's been amazing because that took me and it kind
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of starting from you to see how artists are really a brand and so you have to do more than just you know music and so
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that's allowed me to kind of get into entrepreneurship modeling and all the other things I'm involved in and so it's
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like I'm gonna say hello to some people because like Suzie Mixon Wow opera singer that's great and like was a
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photographer he was like hello ladies we've got Moana mana I'm gonna say Moana from Denmark we've got um Natasha here
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from Maryland but we've got candy here from Luxembourg hi oh my gosh you've got
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Angela here from Charlotte our Anitra said hey hey I'm Nitra take her okay um
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so if you guys are tuning in and you're just you're like who is this woman like you talking about opera we are here with
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Madeline Renee she is literally probably one of the old immediately coolest
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people I've already met I mean just listening to her talk about like her her a journey with opera but now how she
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mixes it in with R&B and like her journey her path like this is quite
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amazing so as you guys are tuning in like dumb hesitate to say hello we've got Gwen DeVoe set hi hey Craig kandi
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Bailey we've got and Suzy says she's her West Texas so she may be familiar because you're from Texas
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yeah I'm from Dallas Dallas Texas there we go there we go Dallas Texas has a lot
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of talent over there y'all got a lot of folks coming out of Texas well you know
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everything's bigger in Texas including our talent our hair you know our bodies and all that so we're you know one of
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the things I don't even know if you've realized like just like by you existing in the spaces that you are like you are
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inherently being it's and it's inherently political like where you're advocating and you're getting
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representation to people seeing our bodies people are seeing ourselves and
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you do it so confidently like you get on that stage you have fun with fashion and
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in your performances can you share a little bit about your journey with fashion and how that has given you like
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you know even more confidence on stage definitely you know I mentioned earlier
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that my grandfather's were both pastors so that means my grandmother's were first ladies which means that they were
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always dressed to the nines and I think that that just naturally was instilled with me just from a young age my mom you
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know to this day is still always dressed when she comes out of the house and so I've always been a lover in her fashion not being tying that into my passions of
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music being an artist and being creative you're gonna be creative with your fashion and who you are
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I love the turn street glam because I like a little bit of like street wear with like a little bit of glam some
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jeans and you know diamond earrings or just what have you and so I think that
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just being comfortable with being into my skin and being an artist I do think that's helped me to be confident in my
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fashion choices because to be an artist you have to be confident in your your talent you have to be confident in what
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you're creating and I think that that's just transcended you know into my curvy life if you will and just having
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confidence in what I would wear and what I choose to wear and just kind of having
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and so you've also worn a lot of indie designers a lot of you merging designers
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can you share some of those designers that you love to support sure absolutely um so one of my favorites is I'm
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actually a in our fashions she made a futurist she actually made my dress for Paris she made my dress for oh
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my gosh like when I went to North Carolina the scene I also absolutely love a guy named Nick
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morning he's actually out of Dallas he does these fabulous kimonos and even now as I'm gearing up to release new music
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and working on new projects for my brand I'm actually working and starting to
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work with some independent designers too and just kind of in talks with them so there's just so many there's so many
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creative things I love stylus wardrobe on heels she's fabulous - Teresa Sharon
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she's amazing so just working with all that England's been amazing I love it you're gonna have to send me those names
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of those Indies so we can show them some love because girl they be having you just like Swiss like it amazing so I
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appreciate it I appreciate it I appreciate them now I don't know if it's
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okay to put you on the spot like talking about some of the mixing of R&B and opera and that kind of Lane like I've
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seen you play around with some Jill Scott I've seen like and especially
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because you always perform the blind billions well I've seen your sets with live bands now for you like how does
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that like what's the difference from being on stage than being like kind of
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like with a band versus just singing by your sight to a track yeah because they
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don't know the difference and there's a total difference it's definitely a difference I mean each artist and you
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know it has their strengths some people are really great at recording but not great live and some people are really
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very live but they have challenges with recording the cool thing about recording is that you know you're trying you can
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repeat it over and over again we're live is just it happens right then and you can't you know take it back or
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do it again I I mean I've always been a lot of
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performers since I was younger I recorded an album back in 2014 and Janis
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that whole transition when I was finding out myself more musically was a little bit difficult for me but being on stage
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was able to help me to find out what I really wanted to do and in fact the
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Opera song came about because when I was in New York performing for Grammys showcase my band and I have rehearsed I
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like that operas full I guess we're soul trapped or whatever you wanna call it
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but my band tonight we're rehearsing one night before our showcase and they start playing this famous opera called
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Habanera you know but they start adding
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wait a minute she's just like you know like I mean so smoothly make sure people
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know what's going to talk about but it's something that common that's heard but they started kind of putting this beat
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on it and I was just you know playing around with it so we were just doing it in rehearsal and then it came the next
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night the owners of the Showcase were like hey you know you have some extra
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time can you do an extra piece and I didn't have anything and so my drummer was like hey you should do that that
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Habanera that you did last night rehearsal and I was like nah but then we tried it and we end up getting a
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standing ovation and so that's kind of how the opera soul was birthed because I was like you know this would be a really
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cool like a recording project to do so that's how I kind of I started and now
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that I have a sound going now we are starting to get back into studio record to have some some actual recordings of
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that dead style so is it too much to ask you to to like sing a hook or something
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for us cuz now like I'm so totally intrigued and I know I didn't I didn't
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affect you but you just like busted that out so smoothly on my damps you don't even need a warm-up
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like am I just like I'm not like well
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well like what's one of your favorite like influences like your favorite
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singers like that are in like that soul space that you always guide just like love to get down to cuz I'm like I'm
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gonna get a song out of we're gonna get something from you that would definitely just got you know definitely just got
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and the reason why I say that is because of the trajectory of my career it kind of lives with hers she is the senior who
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was classically trained she is a singer that sometimes if you ever go to her live show she doesn't bet a lot
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I'm currently loving and just I love them Chloe and Halle they've been really
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great to listen to because they also play with different genres and they have you know a different sound in which you
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would normally hear is like traditional R&B and pop I'm old school when it comes
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to I Chaka Khan you know all those things so yeah I mean I have so many influences so many and they know and
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that's just with us the R&B side so like when you mix in do you ever take
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inspiration from like rock or jazz and bringing those in right yeah so like
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Sarah Phan is one of my favorites with jazz the reason why Jax is such a big prominent part in what I do is because
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jazz is all about improvisation so those times when I am singing and when you
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know we're gearing off I'm using my Jazz Studies and the you know my family being from New Orleans kind of using those
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instincts musically and to kind of play with new things and ideas because a lot of times to be perfectly honest I may
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just go in the studio and just tell them to press report and I just kind of start you know doing whatever and then
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whatever sticks that's what we build off of for like the next single or what we're doing with our next project so yes
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Sarah mine for opera leontyne price I do love rock I love Tina Turner
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the band journey in the Eagles those are some of my favorites I really pull a lot
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of different sources yes and so what is it that you have next that we can look
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forward to that we can you know you know get good at ease of because you got to
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give us a little tea so folks can be like oh like what is good we got it
16:46
we got to like support and rally behind her because I mean real talk like this is you know in this time like I have
16:53
found especially now in this time with the Rona and it's like it's paused a lot
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of things for people but it's also birthed a lot of things and made some ideas and dreams reality so for you
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how are you leveraging this time and what kind of projects that are you seeing kind of come out from this yeah
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absolutely so one of the main things um my boyfriend he there were a lot of
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women they were always reaching out to me saying that they wanted to have help with like coaching and how to kind of
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like you know monetize their their following learn about influencing learning a little bit more about confidence and
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tips and tricks supposing I was never able to do that because I was so busy so when the pandemic first started I
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actually did like a cardi coaching where I were kind of individually help different women well that was a success
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I didn't I could not imagine that it was would have sold out twice so now we have
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created a group credit coaching call the first one would be one on July 19th and
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so I'm really excited about it because we'll be taking 20 women and I'm just really kind of helping them you know
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start their career and curvy influence them but also just to kind of figure out what their path is going to be as far as
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getting themselves out there and it'll be a little bit more hands up we'll have workbooks and so that registration is
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open now as far as music I'm still gonna writing for different artists but like I
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said this will be this is the first year in a couple years that I'm actually releasing my music and I usually
18:26
a Christmas show every year of course because of Rona miss Rona is what I call
18:32
her because because of misrata we may not be able to do a live show so we're actually working on a virtual concert
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and I'll be releasing a single for that too as well so I'm really excited I mean
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we're busy my team and I are like you know we're going a little crazy right now but it's really but that's beautiful
18:49
those beautiful looks like you find different ways to pivot and for you you've really lead into your
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entrepreneurial side so now you are giving back to other women to show them how to be confident how to learn their
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learning their body and love their body and and have fun while doing it so again
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what it's called Kirby coaching can you can you just reiterate that one more time for those who are listening if they
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are interested in learning more sure it's a Kirby coaching call that will be
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consist of 20 women you'll get a workbook we'll be talking about shapewear we'll be talking about style
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tips we'll be talking about if you want to become an influencer and how to use your story to earn income one of the
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things that actually saved me was being an influencer because I was able to pay down debt I was able to pay off my
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school loans from the extra money that I had on the side from being able to use my social media platform and then it
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also helped with my confidence as well so we'll be talking about that and I'll be doing like answer question and
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answers with different women we'll be learning how to do different poses and also creating content that is available
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on my website along with everything else madeline brunette come and then you can
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also always follow me on instagram or facebook and madeline brunei and i'm
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always having updates about everything that i'm going to show it makes lies all
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types of things so yeah so right now you talked about you talked about how like
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through this you are able to lean on your your entrepreneurial side to kind
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of help you get through the roma and for you like have you also had to have like
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real interesting or colorful conversations with yourself like from a mental health space like
20:39
how has that journey been because I know like myself like for me you know at the start like everything was crazy and I
20:46
was able to lean on and part of the reason why I started this was to fellowship with other entrepreneurs other business owners to kind of talk
20:54
about how we are navigating and how important it is to support our indie success to support small businesses how
21:03
how's that been for you how has that journey been you know the Mitzvah the
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mental stay and it's been it's been good but it's been at times rocky and the
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reason why I say that is because I'm not sure but I suffer from anxiety just naturally yeah and I think that you know
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in this this case it was definitely more prevalent because of all that was going
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on it was like these outside sources of what was going on in the world and then maybe personal things that you deal with
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day-to-day and just being a human being I think when it first started out it was kind of that confusion of just not
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knowing what to do and not knowing how long I was gonna last now that we're in the thick of it I think it's more so
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like okay this is not an ideal situation but how do we adjust like how do we take
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what we have and just kind of make it work you know how do we make our lemons into lemonade and so of course that was
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a little bit of a journey it took a lot of Prayer lemon drop or a lemon drop tops or you know limoncellos lemon tea
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knees lemon margaritas whatever you want to do but I definitely think that for me
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it was a lot of like self-talk I did you know check in with my counselor and my
22:15
therapist that I normally use just like different steps and I kind of just gave
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myself permission to change what I'm used to as far as my routine and now I'm kind of getting more of a flow of it
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whereas it first it was a little bit challenging just because it was such a change so I'm great such as like so
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definitely writing things down you know that's a good thing and a lot of meditation and prayer for sure
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meditation I have not done that I have not mastered that for
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me my meditation is me on my phone playing my games okay like I've tried
22:57
because if I just sit and if I just sit my mind just goes and trying to write
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that's the point of meditation though it helps you to train your mind to stop because my mind over over X and over
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thanks a lot I find it the best time to meditate is primary in the morning or
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like at night before you go to bed only because you give your best when your mind and your body is winding down or
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just waking up and you know it really does help you to just kind of get
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control of your mind - kind of like use those thoughts because it's putting you in a place to like kind of be guided
23:32
through like a little bit of you know peace if you will huh I'll have to I'll have to try that again
23:40
because I've tried and I've failed and I've even tried to use apps and I'm like this is dumb like and for me like where
23:48
I can really slow my mind down is actually in these games and so maybe like that's interestingly like I saw
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this meme yesterday when this guy was talking about when I tried him to meditate and he's got like a song and
24:01
then like a a game and then like a song and a game like going through his head and he's and I'm like this is me this is
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exactly how I'm dealing with this so for those of you guys were doing and Don
24:15
just asked more information about you so that we're here with Madeleine Renee
24:20
she's a singer-songwriter she is an opera trained write operas soul singer
24:28
and she is she is one to know and one to
24:34
watch because her journey like she's even though she's been doing it for a while like she's about to hit that like
24:41
surely be like oh my god we had her on the live so let everyone know like how
24:47
and where they can reach you yeah sure well you know but I'm on all social
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media platforms my largest one being Instagram Madeline Emad Bly in BR e and E and then
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everything you can find all of my information as well on my website which is www.hyken.com up for music and
25:27
virtual comp of you know concerts conferences modeling things you know
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just whatever I have going on so yes okay so my last question to you
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like if you could do a duet if you could have a like your perfect dream track who
25:52
would be on it right now if you wanted
26:00
somebody current or just sooner it don't matter it's your dream track I well I
26:06
definitely always like I said I love Chloe Holly because I love what they're
26:11
doing you know I love Leslie all of them junior which it's a Broadway star he's
26:16
awesome he's in Hamilton and hey guys I know exactly what are you talking about girl Cynthia Reba I love her I knew
26:25
there would be so many I don't know if I could pick one maybe I would just do a track leg everybody on it and just have like different sections of the song you
26:32
know but like I said even before doing something with Jill Scott would be absolutely amazing
26:38
so that would be also a dream of mine because I really I've really followed and kind of just she's been like a big
26:46
role model of mine for sure now I didn't ask you this and I know I said that was the last question but I live Broadway or
26:54
theater like do you ever see yourself like venturing into that space or testing it
26:59
out - well dick I mean I actually started with theater you know theater and musical theater and opera on stage
27:06
that's definitely what's giving me the stamina and the performance expertise
27:12
that I have even with my music but yes I've done theater actually my last show is about two years ago I still have some
27:19
theaters that I work closely with and so whenever they need something I may call me and say hey Madeline you know we need
27:25
this I definitely would do Broadway and some more musical theater at some point
27:30
we're looking into that of course when everything opens up right now but I've actually written even a one-woman stage
27:35
play that I did how about five years ago so I'm so excited for you you just keep
27:47
pulling things I don't know I mean you like all right here's this and here's this it's funny because when you go back
27:54
like when I my PR whether we were going back and writing my bio and and my resume it was funny because it was like
28:02
there were so many things I have to take out because we have so much you know but it was a blessing to see because I think
28:07
we forget about all that we've done and and what we've done to get to this point so yeah I've done it all film
28:14
commercials theatre modeling host thing I've been done it all right in
28:21
composition all of that so and so you've you've been writing songs is there any song that we may know that you can share
28:28
well there are some songs but I'm a ghostwriter so I can't oh okay okay okay
28:34
so it sucks because sometimes you may hear it I'm not gonna radio your life
28:39
you know like that's me yeah but it's so
28:44
but I've definitely been lucky to work with some really incredible artists and some really incredible people so I'm
28:51
just excited about my music and get it on out there so that I can go to the next steps of my goals and my journey so
28:59
yeah I'm excited well I'm excited for you I'm excited to see this unfold I'm excited to see your
29:05
journey and I'm probably gonna just like a beef right before we wrap up I'm gonna ask you again will you give us a little
29:10
something so people can see and hear I had an open warm up I don't even know
29:16
what's saying I'm see I'll do a little bit of the habanero I was doing okay
29:26
[Music]
29:50
that was so amazing so much Don told me
29:56
to tell you to tell her at Heather Headley to a list and that's a voice for
30:01
you oh my god that was so amazing that was like a guy got goose bumps you're like that was so dope thank you you have
30:09
made my day you don't you don't even know you haven't made my day
30:14
alright so if you guys want to see more of why I was like trying so hard to get her to sing for y'all like make sure you
30:21
go follow her on Instagram because she has little sets that she plays and check
30:26
out that blue sequins jumpsuit thing that she's wearing cause that thing is fly on her curves I'm just saying um but
30:35
thank you so much Madeline for joining us thank you so much for those sorry I
30:41
said ain't even having it thank you I'm so you just made my whole day girl you
30:47
don't even know you don't even know okay so for those you guys are tuning in we're here we we are just wrapping up
30:54
our interview with Madeline Pranay here on speaking of curs she is a classically trained opera singer who is now doing a
31:01
poor soul soul opera opera soul this it's a new it's a new thing she's coining right opera soul so opera well
31:09
her soul her soul there we go opera soul and then she's also got
31:15
sheena some coaching she's leaned into a lot of entrepreneurship so if you're looking for someone to kind of help you kind of
31:21
figure out posing your learning your body learning what works for you in a one-on-one I'm not 101 but more of a group intimate
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study make sure you check out her website at Madeline Renee comm we will actually be following up with the blog
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post that kind of features a lot of these different things that we're talking about we'll also have some clips from Instagram that I was like talking
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about I'll make sure I'll put that in the article though we do these Facebook lives speaking of curves every Tuesday
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Thursday featuring various designers boutique owners influencers performers
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people you should know in the industry that we should support now so that we can make sure that our industry is just
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as strong on the way on the other side of the room oh right so thank you guys so much for tuning in with us have an
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amazing day Thank You Madeline and don't hang up okay girl
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