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

Alright, VZN thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

Up until I believe October or so of 2023, I’d been working 40+ hours a week at whatever job could get the bills paid; doing so religiously since 2013 as a high school student. My parents have had jobs (as long as I’ve been around at least) and worked until retirement, and all I ever really knew was the idea of a “9-5” being the only way to survive. Before the age of 21, had you told me that people were creating ideas/services out of thin air and making a profit from that, I’d have sworn you were completely losing it. Once I finally had some confidence in the belief that I could make a living as an artist, I slowly began to despise giving THAT much time to a job that was never going to pay me what I thought I was worth. It was quite literally draining me physically and mentally to force myself to put on a happy face every shift knowing I wasn’t even able to survive check to check off of that pay rate. So I quit and walked out one day when I had finally reached my limit. The reality of that mindset is that if you don’t have that safety net of a bi-weekly paycheck, you quite literally HAVE to figure something out and develop a “get it out the mud” work ethic, or suffer the consequences that inevitably come with being unemployed. But I’d happily put that faith in my ability to figure it out rather than spend one more day forcing myself to make somebody else rich for little to nothing.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am the one and only, VZN (vi-zhn). I’m an independent music artist first, among all the other aspects that come with being within a creative industry. I hate comparisons when it comes to art, so I can’t say who I resemble or favor musically; I’d rather leave that up to the listener’s interpretation. I’m just a guy that loves to sing/make music and I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it. I can adapt to any genre, sound, beat, etc. that you can throw my way and I believe that’s what sets me apart from the rest.

When I’m not doing music, I’m building my brands outside of the artistic realm; investing in my real estate business, financial consulting firm, and my non-profit. I have my mind set towards greatness and success and I just refuse to take failure as the outcome. Whatever path God has destined for me, whether it be as an artist, entrepreneur, or a mixture of all those different realms, I am certain I’ll thrive along the way.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In my opinion, the best thing society can do to support creatives would be better interaction on social media. As easy as it is to sit there and scroll and lose track of 2-3 hours of a day, it’s just as easy to hit a follow, bookmark a post, and copy/share creative content. The algorithm is designed to favor the famous ones already and make it difficult to gain traction unless you (or some machine behind you) have excess money to spend on marketing. Sharing content makes that much of a difference. Imagine of EVERYONE that skipped over their artist friend’s post debuting a new song, went and shared it on their story, or went to save the song, etc. That makes the algorithm see the increase in interaction; it’ll continue to show more and more people that post. I’m not gonna lie and say I’m not guilty of the same thing from time to time but I do try to be more conscious of how much it helps, and do better about sharing on social media. You never know who might be following you or come across something you shared.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect is just knowing that an idea came straight out of my brain. Sounds kind of weird at first, but a song is quite literally just a thought initially. It’s a bunch of neurons firing off in your brain, and to be able to take a random (or I guess it could also be intentional) thought and bring it to life, create a real physical manifestation of the thing that started just in your head? Man that is like a superpower to me. Especially those people who can draw/paint? It’s like man you drew that off the dome! No stencil nothing! I feel the same about all aspects of the creative world, not just music and art, but all the things people happen to be capable of doing in a similar fashion. You have to think like, some people really aren’t fortunate enough to bring an idea to life. They literally just think it and then let it fade away. Nothing wrong with the people that do operate like that, but to be able to do this kind of stuff…. Man that is truly a blessing. Being blessed with the opportunity to get paid to do that is just icing on the cake.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/vzn.music
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/NVZN__

Image Credits
@TooChillShots https://www.instagram.com/toochillshots