Today we’d like to introduce you to Mr. BandClap.
Hi Mr., it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
It’s a long story! As a child, I always loved things like cartoons and video games that were focused on storytelling and adventure as well as watching movies that were based on mythology like marvel. As a child, I was always fascinated by the way that my mom was able to draw exactly what she saw, she was so good at drawing and painting that when I was in elementary school, she would draw my book reports and my reports will look so good that the teacher would post them outside the classroom on the bulletin board. Growing up in a somewhat Sheltered and Christian household, I spent most of my time either playing video games or watching cartoons when I would go with my dad to Grandma’s house. I remember one time I was grounded and my dad gave me a bunch of construction paper pencils and crayons so I can write the whole book of Genesis and during that punishment I came up with a dope idea! I took my favorite video game character Eddie from Tekken and made my own comic strip that I turned into a book, I would draw the environment the character and also create the dialogue as well. Later on, I ended up adding characters from other video games that I loved and I would draw and create these books in the form of episodes. Then, I’d bring them to school and show my teachers, and sometimes I would create one just for them. I remember for my fourth-grade teacher’s birthday, I created her a comic book and I remember the look on her face and how she loved it. When my parents found out what I was doing, they were afraid that I was going to get in trouble with my drawings and stuff so they pretty much banned me from making those again so I stopped. During the time that I stopped, I no longer wanted to draw like that anymore but I never lost my ability to be a storyteller which later on turned into rapping and becoming an emcee which kick-started my journey into being a musician, but I never lost my first love which was wanting to one day create my own animation, it was just that until now, that wasn’t really an outlet for me to do it unless either I was an extremely great artist or I was willing to go to school for it which was my plan at first. In 2009 when I graduated, I wanted to go to Full Sail University for game design and development but got discouraged because they were telling me about how much math I would have to be able to do and I was never really good at math like that so instead, I ended up going there for recording arts. I spent 2 years at full sail but wasn’t able to graduate because I came there on a financial needs scholarship and the money ran out. In 2017, I started A New path which was show production and I’ve been doing that ever since assisting in building shows from concerts to Major festivals, and doing this type of work really gave me Hands-On experience in letting me know all the intricacies that are involved with creating not only a good production musically but also a good production when it comes to movies and things like that because I was also able to be a security guard who whose job was to patrol movie sets. In 2015, I had my spiritual Awakening and that set me on its own special path and in my YouTube channel, I talked about my journey, and from that time till now, with the invention of my website, I provided many services dealings with helping other people who were just like me searching for information to further their lives in a more conscious type of way, giving consultations and other services based on the knowledge that I’ve been able to learn in my spiritual journey. Recently in 2022, with the knowledge of things like Unreal Engine 5, character creator, and Shadow pc, I’ve been able to revisit an old passion of mine which is to create my own animated series using what I’ve learned about African spirituality and mythology to create my own Orisha inspired animations. In the short time that I’ve been working with Unreal Engine 5 and character creator, I’ve already created a few of the characters that I’m going to have in the animation as well as showcasing some environments that I’ve created as well and these things, you can find on my YouTube and TikTok channel. I know that I still have a long way to go as far as my goal but this is as far as I’ve ever come in life to finally being in a position to reach this goal.
I also wanted to say I appreciate shuni Grant so much for leading me to you all and this opportunity.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Is definitely been an interesting road, full of changes, lessons, and also material for many stories that I’m going to be able to tell in the future. Being a traveling man and a stage pirate comes with its own issues with stability, but with the things that I’m trying to accomplish, I’m willing to sacrifice what I need to in that department if it means that I’m getting closer to my goals. And also, with the more knowledge that I obtained about different things I’m able to modify the things in processes that I’ve been doing as well which makes every lesson in my life worth it
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
When it’s all said and done, I want to be known for a lot of different things in the entertainment industry, mainly being a musician and currently as far as being an animator and being able to take all of the knowledge that I’ve learned from the many industries that I’ve been able to work in and putting it in one medium to show the world. I was born in a heavily musical background so my talent as far as being a music producer, rapper, Dj, and songwriter all spawned from my upbringing as a child. When it comes to what I’ve done as far as show production, however, these are skills that I stumbled across that I didn’t even realize how this was going to help me in the future until now
What was your favorite childhood memory?
It’s funny because my favorite childhood memory now was something that annoyed me as a child but looking back on it now it was the best thing that could have happened to me as a child. My favorite childhood memory is remembering those mornings when I would wake up on the weekend to my mom in the living room blasting oldies hits as well as r&b and New Jack Swing of the time. It always put me in a good mood waking up in the morning and it gave me so much positive energy to start the day which is something that I try to replicate in my adult life. This is the reason why I’m so good at DJing is because my mom pretty much programmed that within me throughout my life. My mom did not allow rap being played in the house unless it was Will Smith or Kirk Franklin or Mary Mary which was the closest to hip Hop that I got to, so because of my mom, I was able to learn all different styles of black music and appreciating the old school music as well as the newer school music that came up in the Neo-Soul era.
Contact Info:
- Email: shopmeliamar@gmail.com
- Website: www.bandclaptv.com
- Instagram: @bandclaptv
- Facebook: www.facebook.com\bandclaptv
- Twitter:@mrbandclap
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/rapperpbp
