We recently connected with Kiana Gabriel and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kiana, thanks for joining us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

Yes I take vacations! I just came back from NY actually. It’s important to take breaks because I’m a believer that rest is productive. You need to allow yourself, your mind, your body, your soul, time to relax. Life is stressful, and you gotta just give yourself the space to pause and have fun. I also believe that getting out of your comfort zone and experiencing new environments helps inspire more creativity and gives you more perspective on life!

Kiana, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Kiana or Kianarama and I’m known for DJing and playing games on Twitch! I started DJing about almost 5 years ago and have been spinning for both clubs and private events like weddings and birthday parties as well. While pursuing my degree in Fashion Merchandising, I would go to events and that’s when I felt like I could become a DJ myself. I joined a DJ school my last semester of college and have been doing it since! I’ve DJ’d all over Southern California and love seeing people get up out their seats like, “This is my song!” as they move toward the dance floor and seeing them sing along makes me love my job.

When I’m not DJing in person, I’ll DJ on Twitch, a live streaming platform. Thursday nights is where I practice different transitions/ experiment more. Each week we have different themes like songs about money, gone but not forgotten, producer nights, etc and it not only helps me expand my music library but get the opportunity to play songs I usually wouldn’t get to play as well.

I got into Twitch after seeing other DJ friends hop on during peak pandemic time. I missed playing music for people and Twitch gave me the space to do so again. Twitch also gave me the space to fall in love with video games too. I’ll usually play different games the community, the Rama Mob or COR ( Cult of Rama ), gets me to try out! On-stream we play: shooter games like Fortnite and Apex, horror games that I hate playing but the community seems to love watching me play like Outlast and Resident Evil 7, visual novel games like Danganronpa and Detroit Become Human, chaotic community games like Mario Kart and Fall Guys, and art streams like Bob Ross painting and Lego building! I’ve got a lot of interests and I’m always willing to try new things!

I’ve recently started picking up Youtube as well! I started making clips to highlight my streams on Twitch and decided to do more long form content. I currently have two different channels: my gaming channel, Kianarama12 and my vlogging channel, DearKiana. One is meant for if you missed a stream and wanted to catch up on the games while the other is my personal/every day Kiana.

As a whole, I’m an entertainer. I love being able to make people feel joy either from playing music or playing games. I’ve been told that I’m their comfort streamer, where people feel like when they’re in my streams that everything is going to be alright even when it’s not okay. It’s a great feeling to know that I can make a difference in someone’s life just by my presence and by being myself. I’m most proud of the space I’ve created online and how people’s perspectives on rest and selfcare have shifted after talking to me. On the channel I talk a lot about mental health and being open and transparent about how I’m feeling, hoping it inspires others to be honest about how they’re feeling. We talk about healthy ways to express our feelings, have mental health check-ins, take deep breaths to re-center ourselves when we feel overwhelmed, and talk about how the feelings are just visitors and don’t define who we are. I just want to inspire people to be more honest and to be their most authentic selves.

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

Honestly I love being able to say that my creative jobs pay my bills. I love that I can set my own schedules and put work second more easily if I need to. I don’t have to get up in the morning and drive somewhere I loathe. I can start work at 2am when I have a spark of creativity, fall asleep at 7am and wake up at 3pm. I don’t want work to be the only thing my life is defined by and I want to have the time to do other things more. I feel like because I have such freedom to work wherever and whenever, that I can keep creating easier and that’s a feeling I never want to lose.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Before I got into my freelance jobs, I had numerous part-time jobs that I had saved up money from. While going to school full time I was working retail, doing office and PR work, and serving in different sushi restaurants. I made sure to put money aside each paycheck into a savings may it be for travel or for things I want to try. So when I got into DJing and needed to buy equipment, I already had money aside. When I got into streaming, I used DJ money I had gotten and invested into my streaming business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beacons.ai/KIANARAMA
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kianarama12/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kianarama12
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kianarama12
• Other: Twitch – Twitch,tv/kianarama Vlog youtube channel – https://www.youtube.com/@dearkiana

Image Credits
IG Dj Rayted R – @dj_rayted_r Correna – @rennavirus