We recently connected with Shawn Everette and have shared our conversation below.
Shawn , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?
My parents taught me to work. While you may not always get the outcome you want, your hands will stay empty if you are lazy. I was taught to value God and family above everything else. No amount of success is worth your soul or losing your family. Choose a spouse wisely. Watching my parents made me see the importance of marrying someone who loves God, supports what you do, has your same worldview, loves you enough to stick with you and loves you enough to tell you you are wrong.
Shawn , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
GOD FIRST, FAMILY SECOND, THE WORLD and all other things…
Intro:
Shawn Everette Rogers is singer-songwriter residing in Baltimore Maryland, and his edgy, in-your-face evangelistic lyrics still carry the aroma of Long Island New York where he grew up. Shawn Everette combines urban contemporary Christian music with a quiet storm brand of soul and worship music. With influences from a variety of music styles such as R&B, Gospel, CCM, and Worship, his signature sound is destined to capture the mind, soul and spirit of people from vast musical taste bringing them to a common point of truth.
Shawn Everette began to sing solos at the age of 13 in church. He was already writing songs for himself when the door was opened to sing. At around age 15 Fran Gooding, a local music producer, was introduced to him and began teaching him how music is produced. She had a small midi studio with a 4-track cassette, samplers, drum machines, and synths. Shawn’s mind was blown and his heart hooked on the process of creating music in a studio. When Fran was upgrading, she sold her Yamaha DX 21, Korg DDD 1 sampling drum machine and a 12 channel Ross mixing board to Shawn. He was already doing some rudimentary recording with 2 cassette decks, a Casio mini and a boss DR220 drum machine. The professional equipment came with midi which opened a new world for Shawn. He added an Alesis MMT8 sequencer, JL Cooper PPS1 midi tape sync box, Tascam Porta 05 4 track Cassette, a radio Shack dynamic mic and started recording in a deeper and exciting way. Throughout his high school years equipment was added and changed as music creation steamed forward. All throughout high school he wrote and recorded songs for himself and local artists. One thing Shawn always believed was, if you own your own recording studio you can always create without limits.
After graduating high school, Shawn attended Nassau Community College in Hempstead New York and Five Towns College in Dix Hills New York to further his broad-based musical training and audio skills. After graduating from Five Towns College with a degree in Audio Engineering, Shawn had one of his original R&B songs highlighted on a major radio station in New York. That experience helped to expand his insight and vision in regards to his aspirations as a singer, songwriter, and producer.
Shawn Everette migrated to Baltimore, Maryland to complete a Bachelor’s degree in Television Studio Communications at Morgan State University. Under Doctor Carter, Shawn sang solos for the world-renowned Morgan State Choir as they traveled and toured. Of course, he never left home without some small set up that he could record a completed song with. Sometimes it was just a Casio FZ1 or Ensoniq ASR 10,a mic and tape deck. During a returning visit to New York, he performed at an open audition in Manhattan, and was offered a recording contract with Famous Artist Associates, a management company affiliated with Motown Records. However, he began to realize the importance of his spiritual background and decided the only way that he could truly be satisfied with his life and music was to give it all to Jesus Christ. After getting a glimpse of the music industry from the inside he vowed to write, produce, and perform music that glorified God. Following graduating Morgan Shawn worked with various artists, in local studios such as Elysium Records, and performed at Maryland’s biggest event, the AFRAM Expo where he shared the same stage as Commissioned, Kirk Franklin, and John P. Kee.
In Baltimore Shawn attended Kingdom Worship Center under Bishop Ralph L Dennis and became a licensed minister. He served in that compactly and worked with the audio team until 2001 when He was asked to be the minister of music for an elder, Pastor Lawrence Richardson who was starting a ministry. Shawn was ordained as an elder in 2003 and served over the music department until 2009. During his time with Pastor Lawrence Richardson he produced one album named The Releasing Of Many Waters and helped release a second entitled Traversing The Deep for the church. The ministry was called “The Sounds of Living Waters”. Shawn also released his first album entitled Answers during his time there.
After leaving Pastor Lawrence Richardson. Shawn worked at Evangel Cathedral in Upper Marlboro MD as Chief Audio Engineer while simultaneously working at Johns Hopkins as an audio editor /mastering engineer. At Evangel he mixed for artist such as Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, Ledisi, Mary Mary, Karren Clark Sheard, Detrick Haddon, The Winans, BB and CeCe Winans. Shawn assisted on Marvin Sapp’s Grammy nominee album I Win. He also did a lot of the behind the scenes work and assisted for Richard Smallwood’s live album Anthology. Along with Johns Hopkins, Shawn Everette presently works as an audio engineer at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, Maryland where the Directors of the music department are Ricky Dillard and Byron Cage.
Though a lot of his time is spent engineering Shawn still spends a significant amount of time writing and releasing new music in his current studio that is much more modern than what he had in the 80s and 90s. At Soul Levite Music Studio there is a PC running Pro Tools Studio. It is coupled together with Avid control surfaces, two M audio 2626 units and a Behringer ada8200 for audio in and out, There are preamps, outboard gear, guitars, keyboards, and microphones to record whatever comes to mind.
In 2020 Shawn released two EPs entitled “Changing Me” and “Back To Our First Love”. They are currently in play wherever you listen to music. Sound cloud holds demos of work not released and currently he is working on a music project about marriage and family. Shawn continues to sharpen his skills as a singer, audio engineer, producer and records music that he hopes will enlighten the world with a vision that a great song can change a heart, bring truth to mind, and redirect a life.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
The computer has made it so easy to do so many things. Where we used to need many people and expensive analog hardware to do things, one person can do the Job of many. In the current system we sometimes miss the collaboration of minds and ideas, still it has opened the door for so many to create. Technology always comes with its benefits and a whole lot of unintended backlash that can uproot and destroy established systems. Right now the A.I technology is threatening to cause more upheaval in the Job market and creative spaces.
I say the above because digital music and the internet have changed a lot. It became super easy for many to create and distribute art but because of the “anyone can do it” art has lost its place as “art”. Big recording studios have all but died and seek to just be places where they can sell the dream of an industry that has long passed by teaching young people how it was done. Music has become like Kleenex. Streaming, while it has opened the door for so many to get their music before listeners, seems to be mostly background noise. Artists are not compensated well at all because people just do not value music anymore. The streaming services collect all the money and they are in league or owned by the few record companies so they pay out next to nothing. No one really buys music anymore so there is no real money in sales. Publishing and licensing are the only real ways to make money now it seems. Getting music in games, movies, tv, You Tube videos, and social media should be the focus.
Somehow it would be great if people started buying music. Cds sound so much better than streaming. I do think high quality streaming may be taking off though. Somehow musicians need to find a way to make music special again and worth people investing in. We really need to find better ways for people to interact directly with the artist and support the art and the people making it first and put the industry second. That may sound strange but it is like the artist work for the industry not the Artist paying the industry to work for them. The industry would grow if many of the Indi artist were paid real money that would intern be used to hire marketers, sales and promotional people. It is all backwards so everyone is suffering.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
The goal of my music and artistry is to use my gift of musical expression to be a light in a dark world where people are misinformed, confused, and deceived. I want to create art that reflects the creator of the universe and people want to listen to it even if they don’t know why. My hope is that people will enjoy the music but be spoken to on a much deeper level. I am trying to reinvent my music now. Seeking new lyrical ideas so I am not hitting people over the head with melodic apologetics lol! I’m learning more and more in our world people don’t want to be preached to so you have to sneak in truth between the rhyme’s and over the groove and trust God will make the little flicker of light a shining star in their hearts as the song reverberates in their mind. If people listen to my productions and say it changed them, they learned something about the biblical world view that brings freedom from sin and or new life in Jesus, that is a mission accomplished! I hope the music will grow and reach more people and that is also a part of achieving my musical goals. I still have a lot of work to do. I hope the time I spent with you all will be a part of the goal moving forward.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2ICAJ39IiE3Pt0DhlMbUWD
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawn.everette.rogers/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawneveretter
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawneveretterogers/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShawnEverette
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCneorqIoMOohHOrlo1m8axg
- Other: https://soundcloud.com/shawneverette https://www.threads.net/@shawn.everette.rogers https://www.tiktok.com/@shawn_everette?lang=en