We were lucky to catch up with Dakota Monzo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dakota, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I started my musical journey as a teenager, but at the time I knew nothing about the path of the independent artist. I would freestyle with friends & write some god awful cringeworthy material reminiscent of an old school Slim Shady type of song.

I always knew I wanted a larger than average lifestyle, but had given up on the rockstar dream for multiple years. I stumbled back into the music scene in 2020 after meeting my wife in July of 2019. Come to find out her brother was an aspiring musician who had set up his own small studio in the basement of their family home.

I connected with him to make a love song for her in celebration of our one year anniversary. That was my first time recording myself on a microphone, & I fell in love with the process of making music & having that finished product to listen back to.

I released that song on SoundCloud July 31st of 2020, & started releasing music under the D Monnzy brand in December of that same year followed by my debut single that hit all streaming platforms in January of 2021.

Dakota, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The D Monnzy brand from the beginning has been about self expression & taking the listener for a journey through my lens of the world. I make everything from 90’s style BoomBap, to more modern trap style rap, to soulful R&B.

I try & make music to fit every mood & lifestyle by harnessing the raw emotion we all feel in our day to day life. I would say my niche market is amongst the dreamers of the world. The reality is that everyone has a dream. I just happen to be someone fortunate enough to have a plan that propels that dream forward.

Since I began down this path, my scope on the world & on my mission has broadened exponentially. I understand now that in order to achieve everything I know I’m capable of, it’s going to take more than just myself to bring that goal into fruition. I’m not someone who can be easily satisfied, & music is far from the only goal I have set for myself.

The truth is that I have many different interests & creative ideas to generate income, but like everyone else, I only have limited time to focus on each task. This is where my business venture has come into place. In Spring of 2023 I co-founded WDIR Enterprise. It started with the concept of networking & bringing multiple creators from different genres & niches together under one brand.

We started WDIR Entertainment (WDIRE) & brought together a group of talented aspiring creatives ranging from musicians, to artists & animators, to streamers & influencers. We’ve only continued expanding since then, & have recently added a lifestyle brand (WDIR Life / WDIRL) & are working to soon introduce a kid-friendly brand (WDIR Kids / WDIRK).

Regarding what sets us apart & the value we provide to our supporters; we offer a hub for a wide ranging spectrum of creatives to come together & showcase their work to a community made up of all our supporter bases. We offer entertainment for those seeking to unplug their brain temporarily & escape reality through comedy, music, gaming, etc. We also are diving into the opposite end of the spectrum with WDIRL. We are working to provide motivation & an outlet for people to come together & discuss their personal growth & development.

We are soon launching our WDIR+ subscription based supporter platform. This will provide our growing community with a platform they can all come together on & network with one another as well as members of the WDIR family. This is also where we will be storing upcoming content for supporters to get early access & become part of the process through their interactions & feedback.

We are not a company that is restrained by any one ideology or objective. We are a creator owned & driven organization with a hand in just about everything from Twitch streaming, to music, to health & fitness. For me as a creative, this has allowed me to continue the pursuit of my music while also having multiple additional outlets laid out for me to explore & draw eyes to my brand.

We have created a network perfect for other creators to join our ranks & have a team behind them to work towards our dreams together. We’ve also given ourselves the ability in doing so to provide our supporters with endless content from across the entertainment & lifestyle spectrum.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

The average everyday individual goes through life walking the path that has been laid out for them by society & the people around them. They can influence their journey through their decisions, but for the average person they often will struggle to understand what it takes to be a creative.

To be a creative you have to shed your skin so to say, time & time again until you find the shell that’s going to best serve you on your mission. You aren’t afforded the luxury of walking the path that has been laid out because you are looking to attract attention from others, & in order to do so you must be doing something that is extraordinary.

Nothing is black & white in the world, & there are 50 shades of grey (pun-intended) mixed within every aspect of life. It’s difficult to stand out in a world so polarized by entertainment particularly when every person who comes across your content is going to observe you from their own subjective experience & thought process. You can release a song that 1 billion people love, but there are still 7 billion people on the planet who may hate it.

I’ve had people tell me my music is garbage & to give up. I’ve had people tell me to kill myself because I sent them snippets of upcoming songs. As a creative you have to continue pushing through the negativity. I have songs I put out 2 years ago that I personally think are outdated & terrible, but they are some of my most popular tracks to this day.

I can understand why non-creatives would know nothing about the path you walk as someone looking to become larger than life. Many dreamers don’t understand what it takes to manifest their dreams into reality. There is no step by step playbook to life, & those who follow the societal norms will do so at their own detriment without ever knowing what they were truly capable of. To become a superhero in the eyes of every person you care about, you have to go down the hero’s journey.

The hero’s journey is dark, & you will be knocked down far more than you will be picked up especially in the beginning. It takes a certain level of tenacity to keep pushing forward, & to wrap yourself in a blanket of self belief. Once you can find a way to silence the demons within yourself, & you become truly dedicated to the task at hand; there is truly nothing that can stop you. Those who haven’t achieved everything they’ve ever wanted would never understand the process because they themselves fell off the wagon somewhere along the way.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is simple yet ambiguous at the same time. It started as me wanting to make a name for myself through music & rack up a catalog that over time can provide my family with a wealthy lifestyle. Over the last 3 years, it’s become much grander in scale & ambition.

I have a team now that consists of over a dozen other individuals & counting. Every one of us has hopes & dreams along with loved ones whose lives could all be changed through our success. I have a family of my own to look after & my first born child on the way. This is no longer a what if scenario for me. It’s not “well, it would be nice”. No, this is a mission I am headlining that I physically cannot afford to ever give up on.

My mission is to continue what I started 3 years ago, & continue working endlessly towards my dreams until they can be manifested through my purpose driven work into reality. I want to become the Hero in not just my story, but the story of every person who depends on me, or has put their faith in my ability. I want to see people succeed & reach their own version of the promise land. I want to see the world become a better place by changing not just my own life, but also the lives of the people I get the privilege of interacting with & influencing. That goes for my team & everyone who supports us, depends on us, or looks up to what we are doing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dmonnzy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wdir23ent/
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCZC8oWPvN5eoV5gvER4ZucA
• Other: Will be publishing a website shortly for WDIR to accompany our WDIR+ platform. wdire.com You can also find us on Twitch under WDIR Games

Image Credits
Madisyn Kuzniacki