Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Milly Vanderwood. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Milly, thanks for joining us today. Let’s talk about social media – do you manage your own or do you have someone or a company that handles it for you? Why did you make the choice you did?
I manage my own social media all by myself and that includes (4-5 different Instagram pages, 2 Facebook pages, 2 twitter accounts etc etc.
Milly, 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?
From rapper to aspiring mogul, my story starts out in Baltimore, MD.. I was born on the 17th day of December, and I prefer being behind the scenes more than in the spotlight. I grew up “idolizing” folks like Sean Combs, Dame Dash, Master P, Jay Z, Kevin Liles, Russell Simmons and many others. I always wanted to follow in the footsteps of people like that. There was a time when I wanted to be a wrestler.. but at the age of 12, I began rapping… created a group called ‘The GoodFellaz’ with 2 friends from the neighborhood I lived in and we started handing out mixtapes at school. Our group lasted a couple years & then we all went on to do separate things.
Fast forward, I created a brand called ‘YHGM’ with a close friend. We wanted this brand (which was music based) to be like a young Roc-A-Fella or Death Row etc. • We had many rappers and singers under us.. collaborating and releasing mixtapes here n there but a lot of them were missing the work ethic, motivation and financial support to take things to the next level. During its 10 years of existence “The YHGM Brand” had a great run… hosting cookouts for the community, throwing pool parties and even meeting with some major labels in NYC but I was drained and tired of feeling like the only one working hard enough to achieve certain things, I felt like I was wasting my time with artists who were negative and unmotivated from a business standpoint but I still consider most of the YHGM team to be like family.
The year was 2014, I had decided to stop “rapping” and making music altogether to step behind the scenes and manage talent + build brands and in just a short period of time, I was able to turn a lot of “nothings” into “something’s” by getting some of my local acts to open for major artists, jump-starting brands from clothing to cupcakes and opening my own art gallery ‘Sell Art Not Drugs’ now known as ‘The Gallery About Nothing’ in my hometown of Baltimore.. and then kicked off 2018 with the grand introduction of the worlds first mini hip hop museum; “In My Lifetime” with plans to open locations in other cities, and we are currently focused on hosting events in Atlanta + Florida!
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
I keep in touch with clients via text and direct messages on social media mostly, + occasional phone calls as well.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Great customer service, quality events & word of mouth!
Contact Info:
Image Credits
The Gallery About Nothing!