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

Rochelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I am proud to say that I have been able to earn a full time living creating music. Not to mention I actually work completely remotely. It is the only thing I do every day (other than being a mom). Being a full time musician pretty much means having multiple streams of income. I’ve been doing music for a very long time. I started earning an income from music at about 15 years old when my parents and I left our very comfortable Seattle life to come to Los Angeles. I had management lined up and some very promising offers. It was a whole musical journey of gigs here and there with various people making some income from each one. My team at the time and I released a single “Queen Bee” which has since appeared on “Dancing with the Stars” 3 times and surpassed 2 million streams. So needless to say, there was an income from that as well (but not as much as you’d think). Soon after, I was contacted by a Cheer Music Company to sing some soundalikes for them. I accepted and that became my first consistent paying musical job. I then worked my way up in that company and became a writer as well as a vocalist for professional cheer music. I am happy to say they are still one of my streams of income to this day and I’ve made connections with other cheer companies as well that I work with pretty consistently. For many years I was making money from cheer music, making some money from YouTube and earning income from various gigs here and there. But when the pandemic happened, everything changed. The cheer world went on a complete hault and at the time, that was my main source of income. So I had to do some research. And I came across a website called Airgigs. For those who don’t know, its a website where musicians can post their talents as services and provide a price and clients who are looking for that particular talent, can hire the musician. So I posted my songwriting and vocalist services and boom! I had my first client within 2 weeks of joining the site. From there, the ball kept rolling and I saw a whole new world of connecting with other creatives and joining on their musical journies. It became a passion of mine to make other’s musical visions come to life all while still working on my own. I made so many new connections with people and worked on so many incredible projects that opened the door to other opportunites. Airgigs is still one of my main sources of income to this day and I’m super proud to say I have a 100% positive rating with over 130 5 star reviews and I am considered one of the site’s Top Rated Studio Pros. The next year, a door opened for me to dip my toes into the Sync Music world. Sync is basically music created for TV/Film/Advertising. I got in contact with various different producers and became a sync lyricist and vocalist. I have since had several song placements on various platforms including Jersey Shore Family Vacation, Siesta Key, The Ultimatum, House Hunters…the list goes on. As well as some really fun ones like a placement in Ray Romano’s Feature Film “Somewhere in Queens” and a placement in Marvels Spiderman Video Game! This has created a large stream of royalty payments as well as sync placement fees. It’s so fun and when you find a good groove, it’s an amazing way to make a living. I’ve also started making money as a freelance professional song writer both in the EDM world and the Pop world! I’ve been working with several collaborators on releases and I do charge a certain writing fee as well as retain 50% of the royalty share on almost every collaboration deal I’ve made. That has also generated a nice income. I still have huge goals for myself and every day I’m making little achievements on my way to reaching those goals but to be able to have a full time job that pays so well and is literally doing my passion every day has been the greatest blessing of all. Not to mention, I get to be a mom at the same time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us a bit about your journey?

My name is Rochelle Diamante. I am a professional Vocalist & Songwriter and amateur Producer. I’ve been in love with music for as far back as I can remember. As a kid in pre-school, I would gather my friends and we’d pretend to be a girl group with myself as the lead vocalist. Music has always been such a deep part of my life. It’s always drawn me in and fascinated me. When I was 10 years old, I told my parents I wanted to be a recording artist! My parents supported me 100%. They immediately built a home studio for me to use. I was always writing poems and sometimes would write short novels. Writing was very fun for me and at about age 12, my dad showed me how to create basic tracks with a DAW called Reason. That was when I started writing songs. I would make a simple little beat and put it on a loop and write a whole song to it. I was instantly hooked. Going forward, I pursued a career as a vocalist. I started a YouTube channel that did pretty well and it wasn’t long before management and labels came knocking at my door. Before we knew it, we were selling everything we had and moving from Seattle to Los Angeles. I went through many years of ultra high highs and some dark lows while in this recording artist journey. I was signed to a label under the Warner Brother’s Umbrella. I went to exclusive red carpet events and performed at some of the most iconic venues such as Whiskey-A-GoGo on Sunset blvd. I worked with producers and writers from Beluga Heights and Universal Records. I was interviewed by Lance Bass. I released a single “Queen Bee” that became a mega hit in the world of dance and is still very popular in that world to this day. I had the privilege of singing for a show on NBC. I was definitely heading in a very promising direction very quickly. I had several major labels show interest in me. But there were a lot of moving factors and those opportunities were missed. Unfortunately, everything took a dive. Things I had worked so hard to build started to come crashing down and the pain was too hard for me to handle at the time. So I took a mental health break. For about a year I worked on myself. Really taking a deeper look into who I was and where I wanted to go. While being a vocalist is still so important to me, being a songwriter is even more exciting and honestly, it always has been for me. I will always release music but I found such a deeper connection to songwriting than I ever had before. I built myself back up and started releasing again. I started making connections with different people and working with so many clients on music projects as a vocalist and writer. I got into Sync writing and the EDM world. I still have major songwriting goals for myself and some plans for future music releases and I’m working very hard to achieve them. But I’m finally feeling like I’m on a path that feels so fulfilling. I’m extremely grateful for every experience I’ve had and even every set back, I never would’ve learned so much about myself without them.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best thing anyone can do to support creatives is exactly that…support us. Creatives pour out their very being into their art and they put it out into the world just hoping that it may make some impact. When someone reacts by giving a Like, a comment, and especially a share. It means everything to us. But I think we live in a society that is so used to swiping to the next thing that often times they could be unintentionally not making any sort of reaction to a creative (even if they do in fact enjoy what the creative has put out there) and just swiping away. That makes a massive impact on the success or failure for that particular post. Something I don’t think most people know is that in today’s world of social media, the AI algorithms run everything. So the average person may think a little swipe away is harmless, but the AI picks that up and deems our creative post as not interesting enough to viewers for them to make any sort of interaction and that looks bad for us. And if the AI thinks our posts are not interesting enough, it shares it to less people. So those interactions are MASSIVE for us. If you come across a creative post, just give it a like. Show some love and support. You’ll make a creative’s day.

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

Absolutely! The big picture: Professional Pop Songwriter. I want to write for all of the big pop stars. I’m working with a mentor right now and continuously honing my writing skills and looking to make new connections in that world. I’ve started a fun Tik Tok/ YouTube Short writing series where people comment a random word and I promise I will make an awesome pop song out of any word that could be suggested. That’s been really fun because its sharing content and interacting with viewers but at the same time it’s SUCH an amazing writing exercise for me! So I’m definitely working my way there and I can’t wait!

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