Interview with Lets Live Fast: Music, Fashion & Inspiration

1. Tell us about yourselves. How did you start collaborating?

Hey! My name is Nicole “MJ” and I co-founded and blog for Lets Live Fast. I actually started, ran and relaunched this blog with my former college roommate, Chel. We have been best friends and roommates for as long as I can remember, and seeing that we have overlapping tastes in style, music, and lifestyle in general, it seemed only natural for us to enter the blogosphere and share what we like and appreciate with the online world (or at least those who cared to visit our site :)

2. When did you start Lets Live Fast? What is your primary goal for the project?

Lets Live Fast was something Chel and I started in sophomore year of college: it started off as a casual style and inspiration boards depending on what we were currently obsessed with in the fashion world. This, however, evolved into the creation of the LLF Monthly spotlight features, where we got up close and personal with our favorite up-and-coming bloggers, some of whom are actually super successful now (re: Aimee Song & Zanita Whittington, to name a few).

Anyway, soon after, life got in the way so Chel and I took a break from blogging. It wasn’t only until several months ago that we decided to relaunch and rebrand Lets Live Fast as LLF Interview, as we decided to build on the “discovery” and social aspects of “meeting” new and inspiring people throughout the world wide web from the old Lets Live Fast. 

3. What topics do you cover, and what perspective do you bring to the table?

Our main pages are Style and Sound, in other words, we primarily focus on fashion and music. What we try to bring to the table is this: build taste, at least our version of it, by helping people discover new, talented, and inspiring people. We want LLF to be the primary “launching” platform of some sorts for young creative go-getters to be discovered by the LLF audience and eventually, the rest of the world. For example, I curate a Soundcloud (and of course Whyd) profile that I hope to use as an A&R tool to help me find the artists that are worth getting to know. Admittedly, LLF is still very much a work-in-progress, but it is definitely a space to watch! 

4. What can we look forward to from LLF in the near future? 

More music, more style, and more interviews! We love meeting new people, albeit virtually… everyone always has an interesting story to tell. And although we spotlight those delving into fashion and/or music, I think we will eventually extend our focus and feature people who we find inspiring, in general no matter which field. But for now, keep up on our Soundcloud and Whyd pages, it’ll definitely give you a taste of who we are and what LLF strives to be. 

Don’t forget to follow LLF on Twitter and Like their Facebook page too! 

Interview with Johan: Music Miner at Soundigger

1. What are the different faces of your personality?

One could define my personality as very open in a number of different domains. Clearly music is at the forefront, but I am interested in everything that is around me on a daily basis. From cinema to reading passing ads to traveling. I love to discover, learn, and share the little things I find everyday. Very involved in everything that I come across, I like to go as deep as I can. Always unsatisfied with my work, I try to do more, take detours, and improve what it could be. I’m currently working on the rebuilding of my blog, modification of design, a new logo and making stickers. 

2. When did you first have the idea to launch a music blog?

First off, I was definitely fed up listening to my friends listen to Maître Gims, Pitbull, David Guetta and other Zaz during road trips or happy hours. I wanted to make them discover music with a capital M. Just the guts and those that rise the charts. I bummed around for a while on friends’ music tweets (@ilovezistrack, @absolutebass, @musiquechic, @bordwood among others…) The idea to launch my own blog came a long little by little as a result of following them, and they were the ones who really gave me the desire so I have to say thanks! We arrive at the start of 2013, and I decided to launch the site. I was alone at first, then a friend came and joined me to cover Hip Hop on the blog. So we are two. 

3. Where do you find your music?

I use 2.0 web tools a lot to discover new tracks. Principally Soundcloud, but also Whyd, Shufflr, YouTube, ExFM… Certain artists send me their links directly and I thank them graciously. I try more and more to find music blogs from other continents to enlarge the range of musical styles and get a way from European artists who are already widely covered by the French blogosphere. 

4. What are your goals for Soundigger? Who should read your blog?

By creating Soundigger.com, the primary goal was to break as many people as possible out of their commercial shackles, freed from peroxodized clips which can be endlessly consumed on national radio and TV channels. We want to make people discover, and bring forward, lesser-known talent, creating connections with them and other bloggers to carry out various projects, and to create a small community. To do interviews, live reports from festivals… that’s what I had in mind when I created the blog. 

At Soundigger, we love diversity, as much musical as human, that’s why our publications are not reserved exclusively for specific types of people, snobby preps or other hipsters, but just as many people as possible. If Jacky the farmer on the corner discovers, appreciates, and shares the latest releases of Bit Funk, Fakear, or Apollo Brown on our blog, that would mean that wouldn’t probably couldn’t get any bigger. 

5. What other blogs do you recommend?

Among the following blogs, a good portion come from friends with whom we discuss and share a lot of music and advice. It’s the magic of web 2.0 that we know these people thanks to the same love of music 

- http://www.ilovethistrack.com/

- http://absolutebassline.tumblr.com/

http://unclesound.fr/

http://lecoledumicroenbois.com/

http://www.spreadtheword96.com/

http://moosetache.over-blog.fr/

http://www.radiovnl.fr/

http://bordwood.com/

http://davycroket.com/

http://www.musique-chic.com/

http://sodwee.com/blog/

And many more! 


Thanks Johan! Make sure you like the Soundigger Facebook page, and of course subscribe to Soundigger on Whyd

Interview with Le Digitalophone: Jazz Purveyors in the Modern Age

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Translated from original French

1. What is the mission of Le Digitalophone? Why does it exist?

Le Digitalophone is a blog/webzine that we created in the autumn of 2012. The initial idea was to create a place where we can share our discoveries and musical “coups de coeur” with some of our friends who love music, without thinking about opening it up into something larger. Very soon after its creation, we realized that music blogs were not rare. On the other hand, if there are many blogs dedicated to new music (electro, pop, hip-hop, etc), many fewer focus on Jazz. We therefore decided to enlarge the public side and our presence on social networks. 

We would love to show that the image Jazz carries today is false: that of an intellectual music that is very inaccessible. We want to show that it is rich, but also common. We talk about both the Jazz “classics,” and the modern groups that continue to evolve the style, and where it combines other newer music forms, like electro for example.

2. Where do you come from?

No one from our team comes from the universe of music or even of journalism. We don’t pretend to be professionals in these domains. Rather it is because we are true fans that we write and spread music on Le Digitalophone. We try to only share our musical tastes. We teach ourselves a lot about the history of Jazz during our research of the artists that we post about. It is really enriching for us too! 

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3. Jazz is one of the oldest styles of music, with regard to hip hop and electro for example, and it has changed a lot over history. Do you have a favorite period in the history of Jazz?

It is very difficult pick out a particular period. But it’s true, the history of Jazz did not start yesterday, it’s that which is interesting with this style of music. Even if today Jazz isn’t anchored in the popular culture, one must not forget that it came from there and it is still intimately connected. Decade after decade, Jazz colored society. Every bit of Jazz recalls a specific context that we cannot neglect. Every epoch is fascinating. That being said, if we must absolutely answer this question, we would say that the 60’s and 70’s, first marked by the hard bop and free Jazz, then followed by the emergence of Jazz fusion and Jazz funk, retains a lot of our attention. Incredible creative ideas were explored during this period, when everything was possible. 

And then the 70’s was also the golden age of Soul music, which we love too!

4. How do you use Whyd and other social networks to share music?

We have been very happy to discover Whyd, because it has become for us a way to assemble different pieces that we love in one single place. We also regroup the artists we have identified on our pages and which we are about to write about, so that the rest of Le Digitalophone team can follow our discoveries. It is very practical. Being able to share with other Whyd music lovers is also clearly a plus, it generates more musical discoveries! We also post the artists that we haven’t necessarily had the time to talk about, but that we want to make other people discover. The other social networks like Twitter, Facebook or Mixcloud for example, are more a way to have relationships with the readers of our blog. Whyd on the other hand is a musical extension! 

Subscribe to Le Digitalophone on Whyd, Like their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter, and if you are interested in learning about the extensive backstory of Jazz and particularly the way it was influenced by history, read “Why Jazz Happened,” a new book by Marc Myers, the Jazz expert responsible for Jazz blog JazzWax.com