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French As part of the podcast series, “ArtsAbly in Conversation,” Diane Kolin interviewed Deshaymond, a singer-songwriter and producer living in Atlanta.
This post presents the resources that he mentioned during the conversation.
Deshaymond
Deshaymond is a singer-songwriter and producer living in Atlanta. In 2015, the Louisiana native lost his sight to Optic Atrophy. He was then working as a software trainer at one of the world’s leading cloud based HRIS companies. After becoming blind, Deshaymond was told by several people close to him he could never achieve his dreams or realize the life he had been working towards. The blind music artist has made it his life’s mission to realize every single one of his life’s dreams. With a career spanning over two decades in the corporate world, Deshaymond possesses the business experience necessary to run his company, Deshaymond Media LLC. Deshaymond has released several singles and released his debut album in 2024.
Listen to Deshaymond’s album “I am” on Spotify
Listen to Deshaymond’s album “I am” on Apple Music
Supa Mario
Supa Mario is a passionate, quality music professional, 2023 Grammy Nominated Producer. He prides himself on providing professional, quality production on music projects. He produces quality sound for today’s music from Rap, Hip Hop, and R&B. He has been producing, mixing, and editing audio since 2004.
Monica
Monica is a Grammy Award-winning Multi-platinum Artist, 25-million-plusselling singer, actress, philanthropist and entrepreneur. She was born and raised in Atlanta, GA and began her career at the tender age of 12 years old. She’s the youngest female ever to have two #1 back-to-back hits on Billboard’s R&B chart from her 1995 debut album “Miss Thang.” Her sophomore album, “The Boy Is Mine,” garnered Monica pop success with a record-breaking 13 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts. Monica is the first artist ever to have #1 Billboard singles in 3 consecutive decades, which puts her in the elite company of history making superstars such as Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, James Brown and Marvin Gaye, whom also had similar accolades.
Luther Vandross
Luther Vandross was an American soul and R&B singer, songwriter, and record producer. Throughout his career, he achieved eleven consecutive RIAA-certified platinum albums and sold over 40 million records worldwide. Known as the “Velvet Voice”, Vandross has been recognized as one of the 200 greatest singers of all time (2023) by Rolling Stone, as well as one of the greatest R&B artists by Billboard. In addition, NPR named him one of the 50 Great Voices. He was the recipient of eight Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year in 2004 for a track recorded not long before his death, “Dance with My Father”. In 2021, he was posthumously inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
Visit Luther Vandross’ website
Maxwell
Maxwell is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to prominence following the release of his debut studio album Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite (1996), which received widespread acclaim and spawned the hit singles “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)” and “Sumthin’ Sumthin’”. Through the album and its follow ups, Maxwell has been cited—along with Lauryn Hill, D’Angelo, and Erykah Badu—for ushering in the neo soul movement and its sensibilities into mainstream popular music during the late 1990s. He has won three Grammy Awards, six Soul Train Music Awards and two NAACP Image Awards. He was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Congressional Black Caucus in 2019 for “his innovative contributions to the music industry as a singer, songwriter, and producer”.
Lenny Kravitz
Lenny Kravitz is an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and actor. Kravitz released his debut album Let Love Rule in 1989. This marked the beginning of a career characterized by a blend of rock, funk, reggae, hard rock, soul, and R&B. He has won several awards, including the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, which he received four years in a row from 1999 to 2002, breaking the record for most wins in that category, and setting the record for most consecutive wins in one category by a male performer. He has won other awards, including American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, Radio Music Awards, Brit Awards, and Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. Kravitz has sold over 40 million albums worldwide and was ranked 93 on VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock”.
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston was an American singer, actress, film producer, and philanthropist. Known as “the Voice”, she is one of the most awarded entertainers and one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales of over 220 million records worldwide. Her crossover appeal on the popular music charts and her performances influenced the breaking down of gender and racial barriers, as well as popular culture. Known for her vocal ability and distinctive timbre, Rolling Stone ranked Houston second on their list of the greatest singers of all time. Her life and career have been the subject of multiple documentaries and television specials. She is the only artist to have seven consecutive number-one singles on Billboard Hot 100 since 1988.
Visit Whitney Houston’s website
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. One of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the 20th century, he is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder’s use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown’s Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales of over 100 million records worldwide. He has won 25 Grammy Awards (the most by a male solo artist) and one Academy Award (Best Original Song, for the 1984 film The Woman in Red). Wonder has been inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday in the U.S. In 2009, he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2014, he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Ray Charles
Ray Charles was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential musicians in history. Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. Charles’ 1960 hit “Georgia on My Mind” was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. His 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200. He had multiple singles reach the Top 40 on various Billboard charts: 44 on the US R&B singles chart, 11 on the Hot 100 singles chart, two on the Hot Country singles charts.
RAMPD
RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities) is a professional platform equipping the music and live entertainment industry with disability inclusive tools, programming and strategy. RAMPD also connects the industry to a global directory of peer-vetted music/sound creators and industry professionals with disabilities, neurodivergence and other chronic or mental health conditions, to find source and hire—bringing competitive opportunities, visibility and community to our Professional Members while offering disability inclusion to Industry/Venue partners. RAMPD’s Mission is to amplify Disability Culture, promote equitable inclusion, and advocate for inclusive and accessible spaces in the music and live entertainment industries. Founded in May of 2021 (and established January 2022) by award-winning recording artist and cultural activist Lachi, RAMPD came about after a public talk between the Recording Academy and several disabled artists revealed the serious lack of visibility, access, and representation for music professionals with disabilities.
Lachi
Lachi is a singer-songwriter, touring performer, producer, actress, author, disability advocate and cultural activist based in New York City. Lachi’s music is often described as Pop or Dance music. She is legally blind, due to Coloboma. Throughout 2021 and 2022, Lachi established herself as a go-to disability advocate in the music industry, speaking with and performing at places like the White House, the United Nations, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the BBC, among other notable appearances. Lachi is the founder of RAMPD. Starting in 2022, RAMPD began partnering with the Recording Academy to help make the Grammy Awards more accessible: working to add a visibly ramped dais, Sign language interpreters, live captioning, and Audio description, American Sign Language and ramps on the red carpet. In February 2024, Lachi was named a 2024 Woman of the Year by USA Today.