We were lucky to catch up with Selena Owens recently and have shared our conversation below.

Selena , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

Well, in 2020-2023 I became fully homeless. I was living in hotels, moving from state to state and even stayed outside once. I was scared, depressed, and just feeling completely defeated. My mental, emotional, physical, and financial lives were crumbling down. It was hard to really live.

One day, I was on YouTube watching Street Dance Videos and came across a show called Battlefest. It was an underground street dance battling competition. I was so excited about it after I watched it, I decided to change my whole IG page into a Street dance blog to share the videos and show how excited I was about the artists that I just saw. I started researching different dancers, following, and sharing their dance videos on my page. Doing this really made me feel amazing especially when the dancers would personally thank me for sharing their videos. It was a way to escape my reality and focus on something that I personally enjoyed.

4 years later, I have over a thousand dancers following me, personally dm’ing me their videos to share and also even made a few friends along this journey.

My Blog is named the Kings & Queens of Street Dance. A full community of Street Dance Artists all together on one page. I am known on IG as the fabulous Street dance Curator Queen Selena. My ultimate goal is to build up this Brand and create a live Street Dance Festival where Artists come together to dance, content create, network, and show their amazing artistry to the world. I want to create a positive and amazing event for all creatives to come together and make magic.

I am looking for sponsers, vendors, and resources that can help me build this into a bigger brand because the vision I have is bigger than just having a blog on IG.

Selena , 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?

The Kings & Queens of Street Dance is a Blog that I created to showcase the many amazing underground and commercial Street Dance Artists from around the world. I started this blog because I am a Street Dance enthusiast and there are alot of underground artists that a lot of people around the world never even seen or heard of until now.

I did this out of the love and passion of Street Dance. I love having a community of enthusiasts like myself come together to watch, enjoy, and critique.

I was going through some hard times in life. I’m still struggling but I have learned that the more you indulge your life in the things that you enjoy and that matters to you, it will help you get through the tough times. Oh, as well as prayer. I believe God put this idea in my head to help me get through the rough times in my life.

I want to have an event , party planning business and build upon my own personal event which is the King & Queens of Street Dance Festival. It can be geared towards all creatives dance, art, music, etc.

I am so proud of myself for creating this because it has opened the doors to many possibilities to bring this brand to life.

When you feel defeated, start a business. Lol. Just do it. And if you’re scared. Do it scared. You never know what that outcome may bring.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Well, I built my audience organically. I started sharing Dance videos on IG and I would tag the dancer’s name in the video as well as attach specific hash tags that had to do with Street dance, hip hop, clothing lines, Street wear, etc. So that I may get the attention to my Blog. I also kept consistently posting as much as possible.

The more presence you have on IG the more people will take notice.

Now, I have a little anxiety when it comes to creating videos of myself so nice pictures of yourself works well to. If you get some dms from what you are doing, you can stay pleasant and cordial and even make a social media friend but don’t ever give any personal info about yourself. Just keep it cute and professional and stick to your Blog as conversation.

If you get any opportunities to work with any other potential brands or even popular ones, always do your research before committing to do any type of work or business with anything.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal with this Brand is to create a safe, artistic, space for Street dance creatives as well as other creatives to showcase, network, content create, share and unite together in a fun and amazing atmosphere. To learn from each other and exchange with one another. I would also prepare a dance battle that would generate potential profits through merchandise, ticket sales, vendors, etc.

I want my event to be one of the biggest creative events in New Jersey. I want all creatives to come together and exchange with each other but I also want to create a business that can generate financial profitability.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @queenselenahhh