We recently connected with Alexandra Morancy and have shared our conversation below.
Alexandra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
As I get older, I’ve grown to appreciate and really acknowledge how much my parents gave me growing up – even in times of hardship (almost always financial). My brother and I were always taken great care of and never felt the gap or loss in our household when money was tight, but I credit that – in great part – to their resilience as human beings, individually and together. They gave us solid foundations to build upon and a few key lessons in personhood I will never forget. These are the things they got right, in my opinion:
1. Consistency – time and time again, my parents were grounded in what they believed in and what they didn’t without weird flip-flop periods. If they said they would do something, they would do it. It might take a little time (procrastination is a Morancy-trait!), but it would get done. They also never dangled things over our heads without making sure they could come through, which taught us trust and reliability. Our parents always promised us a blow-out trip to Disney World when we were kids, and by the time I was 11, and my brother was 9, we found ourselves there in Florida having the time of our lives. They scrimped and saved for YEARS for that trip, and even if it was one time, they were able to make it happen when they promised it. I still think it’s one of the coolest things we ever did together as a family.
2. Confidence – especially as a younger girl, I struggled a lot to figure out where I found confidence in myself, and it took me a long time to develop a strong voice. I also was reckoning with a body that developed quicker than I could have imagined, and I hated how I looked. I had a few instances, all in school, where teachers treated and spoke to me in a way that separated me from the others and made me feel that much more self-conscious, almost always because of my body or the way I presented myself. In each one of these moments, I would confide in my mom and boy, did she MOM. In every instance, she had words with each one of these aggressors at my school, and I got apologies from each person, every time. If she hadn’t ever shown me that, what would that have done for my psyche? Rather than cower and fear people, it taught me to be confident and stick up for myself, which has helped IMMENSELY as a business professional and adult today.
3. Individualism – Specifically thinking of individualism and being allowed to express myself, I come back to a story in my freshman year of high school. I was starting an Accelerated Economics class, and it was the first day – but I’m also well into my screamo phase in the mid-2000’s and really looked the part. Lots of black, tons of eyeliner, and the smell of hair dye must have been intoxicating. My teacher took one look at me during his intro spiel for the class and, no kidding, asked if I “really belonged there in this classroom” in front of my classmates. Assuming he knew nothing about me and could glean an opinion based on my looks, I was horrified.. but kept my cool at the moment. In response to this moment of doubt he exhibited in me, I showed him up; I kept the look and my individuality, but I charmed the pants off of that man and stayed in that Economics class with straight A’s. My parents always taught us to be ourselves and really pushed us in that – hence the daughter in the music industry, co-founding a record label and making music as an artist. No idea is too crazy, and no path is impossible – but also, they listen to my music, watch my live streams, and have supported the label since day one. I couldn’t ask for better support.
This really only skims the surface, but these specific things have made such an impact on who I’ve become today that I have to credit them for being the right guiding principles.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Alexandra, and I am a chameleon within the music industry – by day, I work an industry job processing label and publishing royalties for a variety of artists, big and small. At night, I’m the co-founder of record label Rabotat Records with my counterpart and better half, Nick Zeigler-Heil (Ironfist/Nikki Manos). I also produce electronic music under the moniker Madame De Fer.
I started my journey in life as an actress and a dancer, and my passion developed into music as I started going to more live shows when I was a teenager. Not only did I pursue a degree in Music Business, but I also have my undergrad in audio post-production/sound design, which has led to my creativity and my specific style of sound as a music producer.
Rabotat Records is an incredible little epicurean artist collective that spans across the globe – we release music digitally, develop some incredible video content and live streams, and have fever dreams to expand this into a physical location in the near future. We love all kinds of music and the art we release isn’t exclusive to one vision – if it’s good and we believe in it, we will release it. We also do podcasts, live shows, and sell merch as part of the label’s regular operations.
We are also celebrating our five-year anniversary this year, which is DOPE!
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I met the co-founder of Rabotat Records, Nick, ten years ago this year. We met on orientation day at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain, where we were getting our Masters – him in Music Technology & Innovation and me in Global Entertainment & Music Business. We were acquaintances at school initially, but the more we connected at school events, social events, and spoke one-on-one, the more electricity was noticeable between us.
We began a romantic relationship and, at the same time, started talking about our dreams for the future of our careers. Nick and I had one conversation outside our campus where we talked about starting a record label and him producing music while I handled the business end. These initial talks set the stage for us to develop the record label, first by selling Nick’s music, then bringing in other artists once we had a foundation established. It turned out to be a natural, comfortable way to start the business. We don’t bring in a large amount of income each year, but we are always growing and our business has been able to creatively flourish, without restrictions. A lot of that, I do believe, is due to the nurturing and loving foundation Nick and I have between ourselves, too.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One of the hardest lessons has been living in the real world vs. the non-realistic academic world and the highs of those experiences. Going to an incredible undergraduate school, Emerson College, and getting my Master’s at Berklee, I had a lot of exposure to awesome opportunities at both schools. I met a lot of cool people and icons, and always felt like all these tools would always be at my fingertips even after I graduated.
Both Nick and I have discovered that being out of school, you are on your own. in most ways. This isn’t to diminish the work of the alumni support systems at our schools, but there’s just no guarantee that just because you met this incredible audio engineer at school for example, that he will care to talk to you outside of an academic setting a year from then. The lesson we had learned was that we would have it easy because school had made access so plentiful, but you have to work hard to earn your place outside of academia. We are both really proud of were we’ve come, but it’s been a long journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rabotatrecords.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rabotatrecords/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rabotatrecords
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RabotatRecords