I hear all of the time, from teens who want to become a recording artist, but I have never actually met or known someone who has actually worked at it and made it their reality. Meet Alycia Levels, a fresh graduate of Georgia State University she is an independent recording artist who's first album, '
PUSH - Pray Until Something Happens', was released in July of last year. Since then, she has been marketing her album allover the country.
Her dreams and talents have been in sync for much of her life, but the road has not always been a strait one. From the
Bio on her website she originally enrolled at Tuskegee University where she won the B.E.T. black college tour showcase for her school as a freshman and was featured in TV ads for the network. She traveled abroad in an Italian Opera Study Abroad Program and later transferred to Georgia State University in Atlanta,Georgia, and took up Political Science in hopes of becoming an entertainment lawyer. This is where I met the talented Mrs. Alycia Levels, and this is where our interview begins...
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| Alycia Levels Promoting her album PUSH |
GOTB: How old are you?
AL: I am 22 years old.
GOTB:And you are a Gospel singer?
AL: Contemporary Gospel
GOTB:Oh ok, Contemporary Gospel.
AL: When they think of Gospel they think it's (stuffy), but it's way out of the box, some people hear it and don't even realize that it's Gospel.
GOTB: Why did you get into this form of music instead of any of the others?
AL: Well I use to do R&B and Pop music and stuff like that, but then like a lot of things started happening and I started looking at the imagery and the message that it was sending to young people and then from my own personal life you know, it was just something that could really lead you on a downward spiral, you know? And so I had a watch of this DVD, it's called The Truth About Hip Hop. I DON’T agree with everything he said in the DVD, but, there were definitely some things in there that started making me think.
So I just stopped singing. And I just stopped writing music.
But I knew I wasn’t supposed to stop, but I was supposed to change my approach and my message. And so that’s when I decided to that I’m going to sing and I’m going to live for God. And I’m going to inspire young people to let them see that you can be cool, you can be fly, you can be young, you can be hip; like myself and still love God, still have some positive things going on you know.
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| Alycia and her Beautiful Mother |
GOTB: When exactly did you start singing?
AL: I started singing when I was six. My Mom was the choir director, and so I started singing at church with her and stuff like that. And then I sort of strayed away and came right back to my roots.
GOTB: I know that this is not what you went to school for. You went to Georgia State, and what did you just graduate with?
AL: I just graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science in Political Science. And I initially chose that route because I was going to go to law school and do entertainment law. I’ve seen so many people want to be musicians and [instead end up] poor and homeless and I did not want to be poor and homeless. So I was going to go to law school, but it wasn’t my passion. So when God opened up this door and opportunity for me I was able to walk into it.
GOTB: You did an internship on the way to [beginning your music career] right?
AL: Yeah, I interned at B.Lawrence Watkins and Associates Entertainment Law Firm in Atlanta, GA.She represented a lot of singers, songwriters and producers in Atlanta.That was a really good experience for me. I still plan on going to law school, just not right now.
GOTB: How much did your experience in Political Science [and your Internship], help you in your career right now?
AL: It helped me out A LOT. Anytime you're in an institution of learning, it teaches you a formal way of looking at things; of thinking. My everyday life isn't consumed with political science theories or ideologies, BUT, writing, reading and being able to look at certain things from a different perspective; and being able to take things apart and put them back together and being able to have a discussion about things definitely helps on the business side of music. People can tell that you are not just out here trying to do something, but that you have formal knowledge and a formal understanding of HOW to do things.
So school, yeah, school is actually important.
GOTB:You've just come out with an album PUSH, How did this all come about, because I know I was trying to push you into American Idol.
AL: Pray Until Something Happens. Well yeah, I've always been singing, I've always been in the studio, I've always been writing songs. So like I said, before I came out with PUSH, I was still in the studio, singing and recording and writing R&B and Pop music; so I've always been doing it, but I'm just sort of quiet about it. I was just going to go strait into law school because this[music] was too much, too hard, and then I met Keith and he owns a Nonprofit that I was volunteering with. And he was, at the time, doing promotions and marketing for Hip Hop artists and one day we realized that we knew some of the same people in the music industry, and he was like, 'Well how do you know him?', and I was like, 'Well I sing.' And he was like 'Well let me hear something.', and I'm not shy so I sang something, and he was like 'Wow, what are you doing with your voice?' and I was like 'Nothing, leave me alone I'm going to law school and that's the end of that.' And he said, 'No, no, no, God has really been telling me to get out of Hip Hop and to really do Gospel, and you, you're going to do Gospel'. And I said, 'God has been telling me that too, and I've been telling Him to leave me alone because I don't want to do it.'
You know, because I had been running from doing Gospel for the longest time because it's not the most fun thing to do in other people's eyes.But Keith was like 'We're going to do a Gospel project.' And we have no money, he has twenty five dollars, I have twenty five dollars and we know someone who will let us record in their studio, and the first song I recorded was Found. And then after that it was like people just started saying 'Here, here's five thousand dollars for this and money for that, so that you can record that and things just started to work together.
GOTB: That's Awesome! And so how many songs have you actually written on this album?
AL: There are ten songs, and I wrote seven of the ten songs on the album. There are three songs I did not write, and the reason for that is because I was in school, and I was trying to write these songs, so I needed help finishing this album, so two people came in and wrote the last three songs.
This is the end of the first part of our interview, find out more about this songstress and listen to samples of her music at her website.
Check out some clips from a couple of her performances here: and here2
Twitter.com/alycialevels
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