You can say it all started with a flash of positive energy in early 2011.  Brooklyn New York based artists, Carlos Ruiz and Tom Nigro sonically collaborated and quickly formed "Kinda Fly".  Hence the name, their goal was to take a humble and delicate approach to create dance music primarily influenced by their love of eclectic after-hours grooves.  Kinda Fly views dance music as a global language that respects and at the same time eliminates borders that separate our cultures.  Our music; a fine tuned blend of classic and modern soundscapes .  

For optimal fun:  Please turn off the lights off, raise the volume, and smile...

Who said that hip hop was dead?
In a time when true Hip Hop is only heard on dusty records,its safe to say the game has been in dire need of a savior.Surely, no one anticipated that savior being a white kid from the suburbs,BUT, that was before Michael Nixx. What do you get when you mix an exotic blend of Hawaiian culture with the bounce of boom bap rap and a dab of classic rock? An unexpected Hip-Hop phenomenon.Michael Nixx is a talented,young and aspiring lyricist who at only 21 years old, has managed to turn record executive's heads left and right . As the son of two 2nd generation musicians, Michael was raised with musical blood in his veins.He learned at a young age to appreciate jazz and classical music, not only for how it sounded, but for its level of difficulty.He also learned that rhythm is not something one is taught, but something you are born with. Originating from Hawaiian descent, Michael embodies the style of his heritage, with a love for the legendary drums and soothing sounds of island soul.Because of this,his persona brings a different vibe to hip hop. His innovative organic approach, versatile lyrical abilities and undeniably smooth swagger, separate him from the masses and create a talent that reaches far beyond the average level. Hailing from Farmingdale, NY, Michael projects a "New York State of Mind",while giving you a taste of what Long Island has to offer. As a teenager in the suburbs, Michael devoted most of his time to skateboarding, until one day something happened that would change his life forever.Through out his childhood Michael occasionally wrote poems but never in a millions years did he think would become a rapper.When Michael was 17 years old he was shown a video of a rapper named Wax, and it was at that moment that he decided that was his destiny. Soon he developed a burning desire to be the best. Before he knew it, Michael was applying that same determination he once used for Skateboarding in a new light. Music.Four years later, Michael has a constantly growing list of performances and accomplishments along with a well honed craft.Michael makes eyes open wherever he goes, whether it's deep in the belly of the underground in New York city or the numerous venues he's performed at throughout the tri-state area.He has earned respect from his peers and continues to raise the bar each and every time he hits the stage.Michael Nixx is the complete package and absolutely ready to take the world by storm.Let out a sigh of relief... Hip-Hop LIVES!

Cover photography © Samuel Wigmore-Sykes.

Having featured at the London Jazz Festival, IC Big Band has competed in a number of national competitions, most recently winning the platinum award at the National Concert Band Festival.

Each year the band travels abroad, with previous tours to Budapest, Czech Republic, Croatia, Turkey and Germany. Notable international appearances include: Romania, 2008, where we performed to raise money for Hospices of Hope, appearing on national television on two separate occasions; China, 2010, where we performed at the World Expo in Shanghai, and various venues in Beijing; Poland, 2011, performing at jazz clubs within the city and the famous Alchemia. 

Our most recent tour, the Great British Big Band Tour, 2016, was a massive success – check out our social media for more news and photos!

Willet is a band comprised of brothers, Jeremy, Justin and Jordan Willet from Westminster, MD with a vision to serve unreached people globally. The band has been serving in full-time ministry since 2006, performing and releasing recordings internationally. Instead of signing to a record label, Willet manages bookings, merchandise, touring, distribution, and marketing independently and has decided to affiliate with mission-sending organization, New Missions Systems International, in an effort to use music releases, tour dates, and merchandise to raise awareness and funds for global missions. The brothers still tour extensively as a band through the year, but each individual member also serves in ministry in separate locations. Lead singer, Jeremy Willet, lives on a missionary campus with his wife, son, and daugther at The Center For Global Outreach in Fort Myers, FL assisting with NMSI’s community transformation initiatives and traveling as a Global Missions & Social Justice Advocate (www.jeremywillet.com). Guitarist, Justin Willet, lives with his wife on the Willet Farm Property in Westminster, MD and runs a missions-photography and graphic design company (www.justinwillet.com). Drummer, Jordan Willet, lives with his wife in Escondido, California and serves as the Assistant Worship Director at The Center Church.

In 2012, Willet released “The Love on the outside E.P.” (Produced by Grammy Nominated, Aaron Gillespie of Underoath & The Almost) and sold over 10,000 copies in the 1st year. The band then followed up the E.P. with a 2014 Full-Length Album entitled,  “Searchlight”, proclaiming the anthemic message, “Light of the world, send us out into the darkness, Your word is a searchlight”. This community worship album touched on lyrical themes such as miracles, healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy, signs & wonders, predestination & free-will, salvation, simplicity, depression, grace, adoption, poverty and global missions. Willet makes its recordings available to all concert attendees through a unique Pay-What-You-Can model in an effort to advance the name of Jesus to the nations.

Over the past 8 years, Willet has had the opportunity to mobilize over 750,000 nutritious meals for school feeding programs worldwide while also raising over $8 million for community development projects through child sponsorship. As a part of these initiatives, the band has led worship, and participated in community transformation projects in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Haiti, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Bahamas, Jamaica, Thailand, India and the UK.


JDee started off his music venture by being apart of a local collaboration CJC ( Creepz, JDee, Charlie). CJC performed around different venues within the Milton Keynes area. They worked closely with Friends and Families MK, as well as Fishermead Residents Association by performing at local events intending to raise money and give something back to the local community. CJC also got a lot of radio play courtesy of Russell Auty at RadioMK. They appeared for a live interview to introduce themselves to the Milton Keynes Music scene.
CJC went there separate ways in 2014.  Since Leaving CJC JDee has been writing and recording tracks ready for the new year. 

  All is One, You are God, and the answer is LOVE...

   Inside most people there is a feeling of being separate, Separated from everything, and they're not.You're part of absolutely every one, and everything. PLEASE,  believe me. You don't because you have this spot that you can't see past.
  You know not just how beautiful you all truly are...
  There's no need to hide, or to lie, and it's possible to talk to someone without any lies, no sarcasm, no deceptions, no exaggerations, or anything people use to confuse the truth... 

   it's become appalling clear, that your technology far surpasses your humanity...  Someday your humanity might actually surpass your technology... 

  I didn't just go someplace, not away, just out, but EVERYWHERE...


Dear Beloved Soul,
   Some prose exposing my innermost emotions. I give you my words on a wing -  

BOOK OF HOURS

MATINS

Faith, Hope, Love.

 Deliver me unto myself that I may finish fretting the hours in vain, looking for what's lacking always elsewhere and otherwise. Grant me that peace which whispers like the wind between the earth and sky, the hush like intervals of silence between questions, between the calls of crickets, the sorrows of the seasons forever flowing one into the next, swift and sure as grace. 
Bleach my bones and twine my hair. When I am gone feed my flesh to carrion bent toward their erasures of antiquity. But first grant me this: let one day the shadows lift, that enslaves my soul to sadness. 
Teach me the beauty of my emptiness. Fill the hollows of my ribs with wistful winds until they ring like drained crystal goblets rubbed into song.

LAUDS

 Gift me in my lovelorn gloaming, the paled ashes of remembered passion: bathe me in the glad warmth gathered like a song's unfolding thrill that I might rise like smoke lofting up. 
Cloak me in the darkness of uncontrollable desire. Sanctify my spirit in a hunger that devours pride and fills my veins with urgency. Twist those anguished flames around me until my every limb curses this ripe fruit. Oh fill the abandoned rooms where my losses gather to lament. No longer thin in my blood to drain color from my face for want. In the half-light of love grown lambent, I can almost see a way to save me from myself.

PRIME

 Hone my gaze to the riches of detail- fine as the fur on the belly of the bee or the vein's thin as breath lining of a forgotten iris, translucent as thought. Reward's anxious eyes and a hasty heart do not recognize. Toll all the bells and raise the blinds, open the shutters: let this feeling overflow and swell the room with light. Save me from the doubts that swarm like maggots feeding on a wound. Leave me not alone in despair, gnawed raw to the nakedness of my existence.

TERCE
 See me, as I am, in this world of aspirations and broken dreams. Let me be more, yet possess some beauty. Heal my impatient heart which burns within me like a cankar. Teach me not to be annoyed by my faults, which roll within my ears as loud as thunder. Help me to love the fragile and small, the damaged and forgotten without sorrow. Fill me with understanding as an oak tree fills with wind. Caress my compassion; let my consciousness shake down and cover those I love. Help me to laugh with so much feeling I shake the earth and tremble quiet pools with my joy. Multiply my delights till they surround me like an echo resounding in a chasm.

SEXT

 Speak my mind in the tales of tongues turning words into wonder and wile away my wasted effort sweeping aside the bitter beauty of my betrayal. Seed the soil with loneliness until no plant will rise and paint the bright land black that I may blend my hide against its ravaged contours and disappear. Let me not forget the afternoons full of leisure when I flush in blessings lolling in your swoon so abundant and light every breeze was the lifting of time's wing. 
Hide me in another season: Use my shame like a prism to refract the light into shards of color, blushing this deed and that, embellishing a thousand years, until the renaissance roars of my regret that only centuries can comfort.

NONE

 Grant me hope the measure of a myth and my spirit will rebound: this love will burnish the air as if etched in lightening and my hands will clap like thunder. For I have come so long without a sign. Into my path 
let fall moments in handfuls, ripe and random, a little grace the comfort of this gift. Bless the blooms and the upstart grasses, single stark born broken-ribbed unbearable. All hallow the stoops and leaky asylum cracked alleys filled with broken inhabitants and dreams. Thank all the nouns we cling to, until calm blankets us like snow.

VESPERS

 Fill the evening with whispers. Smooth the air with the waft of worship from behind my pale facade, for even anger falters when the whole gasp of sky is mauve and gold and all the windows proclaim aflame. Protect me from the undertow of failing light, the suck of self-sacrifice lifting the last starling from the field leaving nothing but crickets and the bleak embrace of black. Angels have I none nor hope enough to fill this length of day yet let my heart rush as one with the swell of oceans, arising and the bells dispersing evening like smoke in the thickening air.

COMPLINE

 Slake my longing this heavy thirsting heart with draughts of God until the familiar burn and bruise is cooled as if by marble met or deep in earth the damp of darkness leaching from my skin the lingering fever so I may sleep again. Still this fear more loyal than a lie, that I may wake without the crease of hard dreams pressed into my flesh or the trace of brine when I swallow empty glassfuls in every breath. 
A gentle stirring flutters, filling like vowels swelling in my mouth tentative kisses these unfinished prayers: Bless me, do not break my heart.

Synopsis -

 "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of the imagination". 
Cultivation of the soul might be as simple as listening to one's heart and examining the different moments of one's life. 
Perhaps enlightenment, isn't customarily found in the blinding bolt of lightning but rather in a series of tiny illuminations, none of which at the time seems important or interesting but collectively combine to lift the heart and widen the aperture through which we allow ourselves to view the infinite.

  A.'. A.'.



free downloads/inner circle --> smarturl.it/aftersoundcircle

listen on spotify --> http://hyperurl.co/spotifyprofile
say hi on snapchat --> zainmusic / kshapa

Bio:
Playing video games would never lead to anything, or so they said, but don't tell that to the members of electronic pop/rock duo AfterSound. On their own separate paths, Zain [vocals/guitar] and Shap [drums] began their musical journeys playing the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band only to learn they truly had a deep passion for writing songs and performing on stage. A few years and a craigslist ad later, AfterSound was formed from the most unlikely of circumstances - an acoustic singer/songwriter and a metal drummer having a shared musical vision. 

After touring the U.S. and Southeast Asia to promote the release of his debut album, The Leap, Zain decided to put the solo effort on hold to start a band. "Even though I had had the opportunity to work with some incredibly talented people, I remember feeling like I wanted to be involved with something bigger than myself," recalls Zain. "My musical interests and influences were expanding, especially in the electronic genres, and I wanted to go on that journey with others." Cue in Shap. 

Coming off various stints in punk and hardcore bands, Shap was searching for a project that allowed him to experiment across genres and push his creativity behind the drum kit. "That's probably the main reason why I took a chance on reaching out to Zain's Craigslist post looking for band members," explains Shap. "It was something so different than what I had done previously and after meeting Zain, we instantly realized we had several common influential bands we listened to. I found that to be really exciting for where we could take our sound and the band."

With the release of their first single, "Find a Way", AfterSound started their exploration into their own unique sound. Working with producer Sureknock Jones on the track, the song combines the organic sound of guitars and strings with heavy electronics and synths to create an energetic anthem. The song is included on their self-titled EP, which also features the track "Stand Tall". AfterSound donated this song exclusively to the United Nations to help raise funds for their relief efforts. "Music has always been about more than just the writing or performing for me," admits Zain. "It's part of the meaning behind the band name. Aside from being able to affect people psychologically and spiritually, I just felt like music could do some actual and tangible good in the world. The opportunity to work with the UN was incredible, and we plan to continue doing what we can with our music to support great causes."

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