Father's Day...

I can start this blog with the origin of me being a Father (physically) or I can take you from where I get my inspiration to be a Father from (emotionally)! I get my inspiration of being the best Father I can be from my Mother! She raised both me and my brother as a single parent in Virginia Beach, Virginia! 

There was tough love, there was motherly love, and there was encouraging love! Growing up, my Mother would sing around the house all the time! Her voice was like a fragrance that filled our home with love! She would come home (still in heels) from working a full day at her 9-to-5 job for the government! Regardless if she had a good day or bad day, you would never know it because her singing was always the elixir for anything that ailed her emotionally! When she sang, I never saw it as a talent thing… Only a mom thing! Although we didn't get all the things that other kids had, we had the things that we needed that she could afford as a single parent! Of course as children we didn't understand why we couldn't get some of the same things that other kids could! Later in life it became apparent as to why things were the way they were!

As I've grown into myself to be the man that I am today, I've always thought to take the talent that's been bestowed to me through the legacy of my Family, to give back to my Mother for all that she's done for us!  I found that this need to "give back "to her came in the form of me living right and having a Family of my own that she can be proud of! 

Me and the Fam

Being a Father in today's society has been one of the biggest achievements in my life! I know that I am not perfect by any means, but I feel that I'm heading in the right direction​ with the support of my "Little Lady" and Mother! To take a quote from my idol, Will Smith… "BESIDE every good man is a good woman "! 

Rings and Things

Being a Father and today's time, especially in the black community is an all but lost form of leadership that's missing! One of my personal missions is to make a dent in that negative statistic in America! There are various ways in which I express my Fatherhood! I do my best to post positive​ images, moments and stories to let people know that being a "dad" today is something to aspire to and not shy away from! It's important for us men to create the leaders that we look to have in our future! 

I for one, will fight hell with the squirt gun to do just that!​

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY​

Anna and Gio

Sunday Funday stroll... Photo credit: My Little Lady

Binge Watching?

Find yourself watching a full season of your favorite show in a matter of hours? Finding yourself out of sync at work and needing a 5hour energy drink to maintain focus? Do you think that watching commercials are "so 1999"? Did you get that new iPhone 6 for the beautiful retina display to show every titillating pixel of drama unfolding while on a plane, train or automobile? If you find yourself answering yes to any of these questions, then you may be… Binge Watching! 

According to Wikipedia, Binge Watching , also called binge-viewing, is the practice of watching television for longer time spans than usual, usually of a single television show. In a survey conducted by Netflix in February 2014, 73% of people define binge-watching as “watching between 2-3 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting.” Binge-watching as an observed cultural phenomenon has become popular with the rise of online media services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime with which the viewer can watch television shows and movies on-demand.

In fact, this phenomenon was realize in 1999 with the introduction of TiVo ! Ever since then, DVR and other streaming means have dominated our already short attention span to absolutely ZERO tolerance for commercials! 

I could remember this binge watching phenomenon (before I knew what it was) back in 2005 when I was singing on Celebrity Cruiselines and DVDs were dispersed throughout the cast of the show I was a part of! The show that we shared amongst each other was the show "Lost"!  For those who lived under a rock during its time, it was a show that featured castaways on a mysterious island with the backdrop of their lives leading to them being stranded on the island!

Given that we didn't have any immediate access to any network television, we took it amongst ourselves to have friends from home burn DVDs for us all to watch! Whoever would watch one DVD of episodes would then pass it along to the next person in the cast! It bonded us together for the duration of our 6 month contract together! 

Now we fast forward 10 years later and things have become more accessible and more immediate! Even cable companies have started adding channels dedicated for network TV shows to be ON DEMAND!

Show that I enjoy binge watching includes...

Breaking Bad, Walking Dead (AMC) House of Cards (Netflix), Orange is the New Black (Netflix), Blacklist (NBC), The Slap (NBC),  Nashville (ABC), How to Get Away With Murder (ABC) and now Secrets and Lies (ABC)

Although this phenomenon has swept us all by storm, I'm starting to see how the demand for these shows are starting to become the achilles heel of this phenomenon! You see, some of these shows are starting to do "Semi-Season Finales"! This cheapens the product and have writers of the shows scurrying to write subpar scripts for the next group of episodes! Some shows have gone as far as to cheat this binging (in my eyes)

So I'm cruising along watching uninterrupted the first few  seasons of Breaking Bad and then It happened... Popularity! I mean the Internet BLEW UP with it's success after starting off slow the first 2 seasons! When it's popularity hit a fever pitch, the show ran out of free episodes on Netflix!

Even creator Vince Gilligan thanked the on demand video service Netflix at the Emmy Awards in September 2013. He even went as far as to say that Netflix "kept us on the air". Luckily for Gilligan the  "shortage" mixed with popularity, garnered the last 2 seasons to be for purchase on Apple TV to continue your binge watching experience of this now cult classic TV show at a premium price! For the rest of the world, you would have to watch week by week which became outdated due to the risk of spoilers over water coolers and the internet! Not sure if this is just a phase for watching TV right now or what the future of TV watching will be! I am loving what I'm watching and hope you are too!

With that being said, what are YOUR favorite shows and why?                                                           I want to hear from YOU! 

As always,                                                                                                                                SUBSCRIBE and SHARE                                                                                                                  (Click on the comment to Subscribe)

Thank God it's... Monday!

Yes… You heard (Read) me right… Monday! Through the years and through our generation, I've found that Mondays get a bad rap! One could look at Mondays as the beginning of a long slow boring week of responsibilities and things to not look forward to! Looking at all the laborious thing to get you through to the weekend, some would say that it starts your harsh reality of a 9-to-5, 40 hour week!  I look at Mondays as an opportunity to start something new… To renew my mind and spirit… To reset and enhance my perspective on new possibilities! Most importantly, I feel that Mondays are to inspire and uplift those who see them as a negatives and turn it into a positive! I use a triple "R" theory about this Mondays…

Renew... Refresh... Reset… ! Start a new blog… Read a new book… Begin that workout regimen that you've been putting off… Call someone you haven't called in a long time… YES, actually CALL!  Start eating healthier… Learn a new language! These are just the tip of the iceberg of the possibilities of what Mondays can mean for you! Share this blog and inspire others to change their view about Mondays!

Have a AMAZING week, Friends! 

Let TODAY be the beginning of something GREAT in your life and those around you! 

As always,

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Yes, I'm Blogging

I started a blog because I feel like it was about time given that many have asked me to! I've been blessed to have a unique multifaceted life that is predicated on my family, my career, my friends, and the spontaneity of God's gifts throughout my life! My family consist of a loving Mother who's raised me and my brother on her own from Washington DC to Virginia Beach! She's a rock and a source of a lot of my strength and love in my Music and in my life! My Music career spans nearly 20 years, singing with various artists, singing for various companies, doing voiceovers for various products and commercials! I've toured with artists internationally!  I've supported artists on well-known television shows such as Good Morning America and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon! Artists I've supported include, Michael McDonald, Larry Carlton, Keri Hilson, Imagine Dragons, Lucy Woodward, and Alexander Kogan! I've even been casted on NBC The Voice Season 2! Many of you may not of seen me on season two but it was an experience that I will always remember! (I'll save the details for another blog) I was casted in my first featured film, directed by Clint Eastwood (Jersey Boys) What a great experience it was to be directed by the living legend! An experience I will never forget!

Valentine's Day  

At the turn of the New Year, there were some AMAZING things that happened! I asked my beautiful Little Lady (Nino Kolotashvili)
of 5 years to marry me! We have a beautiful three-year-old son together named Gio! We never wanted to make a big fuss over marriage but we felt that it was good for our family! There is no timetable as to when we will get married but when we do, it won't be a big huge to do! Another wonderful moment that I've had in the month of February was the opportunity to sing with Grammy award-winning band, Imagine Dragons on Good Morning America! It was a wonderful opportunity I was afforded through a good friend of mine, Stephanie Alexander… (Amazing singer in her own right)! It was a wonderful opportunity to sing with some of New York's top session singers! We all got along famously and we laughed and sang as well as shared each other's resume and experiences! Some of the singers included working with the likes of Sting, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Mary J Blige, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, as well as on tour with various superstars! As far as my Music is concerned, I just released my latest song on Sound Cloud and YouTube! "When Will It End" deals with things that ail our society as a whole and offers a peaceful plea to be a better people! 

So in closing, it's been a great start to the New Year! The proof is below...

Stay tuned to my next one... 

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Performing "I Bet My Life" with Imagine Dragons from new album  

with Dan Reynolds Lead Singer of Imagine Dragons