We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kalvin Spikes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kalvin below.

Kalvin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?

It takes a lot of things to be successful.

I became a professional basketball player in 2021. The journey was very long, very gruesome. There were a lot of moments I did not quit. But I kept at it I kept being persistent. It took me 6 years of training to really become actually good at basketball.

I am 6’9 so I Started playing really late. Like my Sophmore year of high school. I was so uncoordinated and bad that I literally could not make a lay up and when i did make layups, sometimes they were on the wrong side of the goal. I was so nervous, didn’t like the attention, was constantly hated on because I was so tall with very low skill.

But i kept working, I just showed up I didn’t do anything extra. My junior year came along and I started hanging with the wrong crowds and getting distracted. I come from a toxic home environment so It was really easy justs to get caught up and get my life ruined through bad decisions. I was the worst player on varsity my junior year. I barely played and my coach would only start me just to win the initial tip.

I needed a way out. Luckily I had a cousin who coaches basketball in a small town called Winnfield in Northern Louisiana. I went the summer after my Junior year and I never looked back. I stayed there, moved in with my great uncle and Auntie who ran a church, This is where I learned what I takes to be successful. I completely isolated myself from my friends and the life I knew to try and create a better opportunity for myself – and I did!

I was not very good during the beginning of my senor year of High School, But I kept training extra and kept lifting weights. We did not win very many games during this season but – I still ended up sparking college interest from a DIII School in Jackson Mississiippi.

I was heavily vetted by the coach who was from Texas and on one of my first visits the feeling was right so I ended up going to College for basketball!

My first two years were brutal – I developed stress fractures in both legs which led me to sit half of the season for my first two years. I really wanted to quit but I stayed consistent and kept at it.

My Junior year is where things started to turn around for me. I started every game that season and led my team to a 17-10 record , which was a feat given my team did not have a positive season since 2008. We made it to the second round of playoffs that year. My dedication to training (working out twice a day including practice, extra cardio, going hard at weights, etc) Really instilled a culture at that school. This taught me the importance of Leadership and leading by Example.

I dropped out of college during covid to pursue professional basketball. I knew an organization based out of Vancouver that does weekly tours to Serbia. The premise was to get guys opportunities in the overseas professional basketball world.

I worked 2 jobs to save up for this opportunity – I worked 3 days a week at a junk removal company and I worked 3 days a week at Raising Canes Chicken, all while training for professional basketball before and after work each day. I took the bus to work at 4am most days and didn’t finish a lot of my workouts until 10pm.

After a 3 week Game camp where I played 7 professional games against Division I and II FIBA teams in Serbia (including the kuwait national team) I ended up meeting an Agent and Signing to a team in Northern Macedonia in the Second division of Fiba.

It felt like a dream come true for me – but it was bitter sweet….Would love to share more eventually later but.

Even though the story was long – there is a lot of traits that I think you have to have to be successful.

You have to persevere, Work really hard, Remember when to rest, be strategic with the people and energies you have around you. and focus on a vision. Focusing on a vision might be one of the most important aspects of this because you really need to have an envision of what you want your life to look like as you work diligently toward it. I believe in the power of manifestation, and the speed of which manifestations occur I feel is based off of the amount of work that you put in.

Kalvin, 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?

Hi – I’m KALTRON. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was in music for 7 years when I was younger as a trombonist, and I got back into music again in around 2019 after a 5 / 6-year pause on it. The Daw was the first thing I turned to when COVID happened. During that time no one had control of anything and It was extraordinary how my intuition told me to cope – Garage Band.

I started composing my own full tracks, songwriting, and recording and performing the lyrics.
My first couple of songs were not good but no one’s first couple of songs were good.

I got back into it quite seriously in 2020, picking up FL Studio and through myself.
I have only had my brand on Instagram and Youtube for a little over a year and a half or so but the amount of networking I have been able to do through Instagram, Twitter, and people I see at events and in passing have been short of incredible.

I have a day job in Online marketing/Sales that sends me around the world as well as around America so I am always networking, building, and looking to provide my network value in any way shape, or form.

Connecting with people from different walks of life has never been hard for me, and I recognize that is a skill in business that is not widely obtained early in one’s life. I am humble enough to know I know nothing yet and I lean on a few mentors that help me.

But yes, I make beats, custom beats. I also record, Mix, and Master artists based out of Las Vegas, NV. I have a very humble studio setup currently – but I hope to own my own studio soon with my business partner, JT or “SMILE!”. He is a stage DJ building his brand on the DJ events side while I am building the production side.

I also have a very close partner who owns his own Ad Agency that handles high-level campaign strategy and execution across multiple industries. He has a hefty part of his portfolio within the Latin Music Industry, landing ticket sales for labels for events that they host. He also has an inside position within Spotify that gives him access to the Ad Algorthims to strategize and execute campaigns within Spotify, which is Huge. So, yes, I have a close partner who can offer his high-level goods and services to artists of any size.

My best products and services I feel like are my original production. I don’t try to sound like anyone else on purpose and I am branding myself this way so that When my skill and sound production ear continues to develop – I will be dropping harder and harder stuff that will be even more “Me” than It is “Me” now if that makes sense. We are most proud of what we can do on the marketing side of things right now – we have full-fledged access to virtually any service that we would need to make sure that clients’ music is actually pushed and pushed well.

Advertising is key to the notoriety and scale of any business, and we are proud to say that we focus on this product.

I really put myself into my work – I am not a producer/artist out here who is doing it for the gram or anything else like that. I want to build a generational asset that can impact those to come. I want to do this through good music, allowing artists that I appreciate to fully express themselves and for me to fully encapsulate the idea the artist wanted.

I want to be the biggest household name producer one day. The go-to for everybody. I want to be known for curating projects directly with an artist with a close relationship – I feel like the best art is made this way. The end-goal vision is to be the top premium and deluxe music production/distribution studio that has an exclusive network. We want to provide the artist with all the tools they need to make their musical ideas come to life.

But as simple as it is man – I love music and I always have. When I get Ideas I know that they are gifted to me – that I must execute as a producer/artist. If I could sum up my relationship to music, there it is.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was a professional basketball player signed in 2021. My contract fell through and I decided to switch to the affiliate marketing industry. It was a very huge shift for me but It was necessary and It all came full circle for me in the music Industry.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

We went to school together in 6th grade.

He was in percussion and I played trombone.

We ended up seeing each other by the ods at a club rave one night. So we kinda linked up after that.

I came over and we produced and recorded some songs together. Still love those songs and we will drop them eventually.

But yea we went to a rave together and – The idea of our company and business was born.

We started off with the vision of a DJ/ Venue network that focused on getting folks gigs.

We have both built out good networks in the local DJ scene as well as the Production Scene here in Vegas.

We are continuing to stack our portfolio and pursue other business ventures. One day we will score a Capital Investor or we

will be able to fund our own studio. Just within the Grind and Brand building phase now.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prodbykaltron/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kalvin-spikes-864ab11a6/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/1prodbykaltron
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6jImIlgAVCZA32NO_8Z7fA
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Cameron Ljungkull