We recently connected with Ervin Cordero and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ervin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea of Traklife and how it has become what it is today is an evolution that was years in the making. The Traklife Music Network is a culmination of a passion for music and media along with 12+ years of experience in tech. What started off as a simple internet radio and DJ mix show between friends and family, has evolved into a multi-format media platform serving the objective of being a marketing tool for musicians and helping fans discover new artists.

The turning point for how Traklife became a platform of service to the music community came when we’ve realized that our immediate impact came from the smaller emerging artists that we put on air. Their gratitude for giving them an opportunity and a place to be heard was all the satisfaction we never knew we even wanted. As we lean into that notion, our goal is to be a jump off point for all artists to be found and discovered by not only sharing their music but by sharing their story and brand. Artists need super fans in order for their music to be lucrative. Fans become super fans when they feel more connected with an artist’s story and brand as opposed to just the music. This was an approach worth pursuing because in an industry where gatekeeping and exclusivity was the norm, marketing and opportunity for artists was high in demand.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Traklife is a culmination of all my passions and phases of my life which typically centered around my passion for music and profession in tech.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I was always around plenty of music (typically Hip-Hop) and the creative culture around it. From my cousins being DJs and my friends being dancers, I was heavily immersed into the culture since the early 90s. I was always into visual design but when I became a DJ and then a dancer/choreographer, it opened my eyes to see and appreciate music from different perspectives. Although music was a passion, it wasn’t a path my parents wanted me to take in order to maximize my potential.

Being from an immigrant Filipino American family, I grew up with traditional Filipino values and goals which led me to pursuing a career in tech. That started in college at UC Riverside when I majored in Computer Engineering but didn’t quite finish because I was offered an early opportunity to start my career early as a Web Engineer for Fandango.com and have been hopping companies and industries building apps and websites ever since.

All this time, I was still DJing and dancing while building the early stages of Traklife. These stages were the keys to building up my knowledge and experience in the music and media industry and tying in my tech expertise became its turning point.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Traklife has always had a focus on the underserved emerging artist market with opportunities to be heard. Because of our authenticity and consistency of being of service to our music community, we’ve built a brand and reputation that we, as a team, are proud of. This is in part due to our dedication in connecting with like-minded individuals that share in our vision and purpose. Although it’s not always sunshine and rainbows and not all relationships are a perfect fit, but the market we served was always in the forefront of our mission. That is how we maintained our reputation and integrity in this industry.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Being resilient has been the primary key to our growth. There were many instances of setbacks and situations where we had to take 5 steps back in order to take 10 steps forward. One of those situations was when we lost our office and media studio in 2016 leaving our company without a place to operate putting our existence into question. Thanks to relationships we’ve built in the industry, specifically Kevin Hellon of Offstream Music Group, we were able to keep our company going even stronger than ever before through his facilities and resources until we were able to continue to progress on our own.

Shortly after, the COVID pandemic hit which then forced us to be creative in how we operate in a remote situation. This was a blessing in disguise because now that we’ve configured a stable remote work configuration, we have our biggest team yet of 20+ staff members spread all across the country. Not to mention we are also mentoring a handful of interns looking to get into the music industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.traklife.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/traklife.music/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traklifemediagroup
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/traklife-media-group
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/wearetraklife
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/traklife