We recently connected with Zadra and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Zadra, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

It’s not easy starting your business in the music world. I’ve certainly wondered what it’d be like to have a regular 9-5 job before, as the start of this creative path is real rocky. Ultimately I just stuck to doing my thing until it finally smoothed itself out and as much as sometimes it feels like a lot of work, working crazy hours and extended periods of time, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the unpredictability and constant change in schedule, it makes life a little harder sometimes and it’s tough to plan anything but at the same time keeps things interesting.

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’m an audio engineer and music producer, I work with a lot of musical artists and I’ve done just about any genre from Jazz to House to RnB to Rap. Sometimes I work as the producer or beatmaker, sometimes as the recording engineer and sometimes as the mixer. I love all these tasks the same, I like that I have all these skills and can bring what’s needed of me to the session. So far I’ve been blessed with a few Gold and Platinum Records/Albums, two Grammy Nominations and most importantly lots of music I’m proud to have played a role in.

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

I think the biggest “unlearning” moment in my life was when I started working professionally, after graduating from college. I had studied what I do now and unfortunately when you learn certain things from an institution you get a little mislead about how things really work, sometimes.
The best way to learn is to do but in the case of a school they have to standardise and organise in order to get the skill across. That’s where I got mislead in thinking that there are standards and ways of doing things.
Once I was out having to do it for real I realised there are absolutely no standards and going by what I thought were rules was a serious impediment. The best skill to learn is the ability to adapt to a situation, that’s when you learn and internalise the only important rule: there are no rules.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The goals are ever-changing, ever-evolving. Ultimately, the main thing I chase is making great music. Constantly bettering myself is the underlying drive to always accepting new work with new artists, finding new tools and trying new things to get a new sound. I’m very thankful for those artists that have included me in their journey in search of a new sound. They might not know it but they’ve pushed me into trying new crazy things and by elevating me they’ve elevated themselves and viceversa.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @lucaliptus

Image Credits
Ivan Quiroz Samyra Miller