We recently connected with Onyx Zechariah-Shah and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Onyx , thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Tight Media, INC is developing into an independent entertainment company that encompasses a number of companies in the performing arts and production. It contains a theater company, Tight Playhouse, and a public arts school, Tight Academy of Arts. Just a couple honorary mentions. The point is to evolve and ascertain new and higher branches led by remarkable educators with a similar goal: to remodel arts education/emergence. Tight FashionHouse, TightStudios, TightRecords, etc.

Now, as to how and why the word tight has come to be acceptable in this sense, especially when it comes to the name of a soon-to-be registered business, is simple. Tight implies anything and everything to be well-designed. When something is built to be physically tight, everything is bound together firmly. Nothing is sloppily done. So the use of the word is to indicate the product is ‘cool/great/slick’ in design, be it music, plays, films, clothes, or even communal relationships. I don’t believe it’s a big leap to connect that word to the idea of anything being outstanding.

I need to acknowledge my interests in this industry. I know what I like to see in performance, music, design, and so on. I also know that organizations will sell a tidbit rather than the entire picture wherever you go. Anyone may pay to attend theater camp and then spend the rest of the year creatively disconnected. Anyone can make a play or a beat. The distinction is in the retention rate and consistency of the artist.

It defies logic for most homeowners to own a laptop, phone, and perhaps even an instrument and then pay $1000.00 to produce art in less than a month…in the summer…during the highest engagement period of the year. After that, the students are unable to promote themselves, brand themselves, network, or understand their place and address their problems in a new media.

Tight Academy of Arts aims to prepare the next generation of creative workers by offering inspirational arts and academic instruction to middle/high school students, as well as arts opportunities to younger children and the wider community through its Tight Productions Certification Program.

A program where, quite literally, students will run a show..by themselves. No help required.

– Lights.
– Scenic Design/fashion.
– Playwriting.
– Directing.
– Audio design/scoring.

Nothing matters more to Onyx Zechariah-Shah than the future of young people. That is the most crucial aspect of a person’s development. It must be recognized.

Onyx , 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?

Onyx, more than anything else, needs to be an educator. His desire to learn, educate, and improve is the greatest bar he sets for himself, let alone everyone else around him. He knows wholeheartedly that if you want to change the world you have to change the stakes. Much is at stake. Much. Let’s focus on one. Young minds. What’s the difference between a kid and an adult? ‘Ones a little heavier, while the other is a little lighter’. Kids think lightly. They haven’t a clue of how to properly think and navigate the world. If such a ‘proper way’ existed.

The world’s response to innovation and expression is ‘the nothing’; opposition. You want to be a rapper, and everyone else does, but you’re no good, child.

So why not? Why is a poetic saga about gender politics or a food stamp epic deemed ‘bad’?

There is no cause. Nothing positive. There is never a legitimate reason to tell a child that they cannot accomplish anything for their own or the sake of their society.

Onyx grew up with ‘the nothing’. He got it from himself more than anyone else, but that was his reality.

So, he wrote, composed, thought…and thought..and thought. Through expression came his goals and search for what the arts can do for him, his mind, and those who don’t see it yet. ‘The Nothing’.

Onyx can write songs, rap, produce music in multiple genres and has been known to build hybrids, write plays, write movies, radio plays, design sets, clothes, etc.

All this…to conquer ‘the nothing’.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

That money’s everything. It is but isn’t. Not so black-and-white, money. Once a person recognizes their holy grail, they’re obligated to go get it for that satisfaction, fulfillment, and culture-shock. Not for a paycheck. My every move is tainted by my wallet, and how much I’d like to put in it. That’s not a the big picture. Do want you must to ensure the lights are on, yes. But, don’t look for gold in the sky, just ascend and evolve.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Throughout my life, yes. I’ve made many a song, met many people, and wanted the best equipment, the best management, the best clothes, the best attention. So, I started to go to school for music production and computer science, when I know my heart wasn’t in it. Wasn’t in the eye candy that is a six-figure salary if it meant I’m the only one who eats.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tightmedia.inc/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsHSGJzbtjHFpwzUnQ6meeg