The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Step into the bold and unfiltered world of show business with Alexia Melocchi—PGA producer, international distributor, author, and 30-year Hollywood insider.
This is your backstage pass to the mindset, tactics, and truth behind how Hollywood really works. Through raw and inspiring conversations with A-list creators, business leaders, and global thought shapers, you'll discover the real strategies that lead to lasting success—on and off the screen.
From insider tips to soulful storytelling, each episode is a masterclass in making your mark—not just in showbiz, but in every area of life.
The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Owning your Music with Award Winning Composer The Angel
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From Brooklyn Roots to UK Beats, I am so excited to chat with trailblazing music producer The Angel , whose remarkable career in the Music industry has seen her crafting scores for iconic films like "Boiler Room" and the upcoming "Heist 88," all while owning her creative identity through Devilishly Good Productions and Super Crucial Recordings. Hear firsthand about our collaboration on the documentary "Lives Beyond Motion," set to make waves at the American Film Market. We are proud executive producers and distribution reps of this amazing piece on the world of dance from the male dancer perspective.
The Angel shares her experiences as a female producer in the 90s and her seamless transition into film and television composition. With a playful nod to her moniker, she talks about the challenges and triumphs of owning her music masters and the importance of championing fellow artists. From her beginnings with Delicious Vinyl to releasing a long-shelved album from the acid jazz era, The Angel's story is an ode to creativity and resilience in the face of industry challenges.
The Angel also provides insights into the complexities of music licensing for indie filmmakers and the competitive nature of the composing industry. Discover her entrepreneurial mindset and how she balances art with business, taking control of her brand to ensure authentic representation. Influenced by her mother's determination, The Angel has naturally embraced opportunities, defying expectations and paving the way for future generations. As we anticipate the release of "Heist 88," with its score echoing the vibrant 80s club scene, therefore don't stop here, check out her sound at the link below.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0029500/
https://www.theangelsoundclash.com
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Welcome to the heart of show business.
Speaker 1I am your host, alexia Melocchi. I believe in great storytelling and that every successful artist has a deep desire to express something from the heart to create a ripple effect in our society. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. My guests and I want to give you insider access to how the film, television and music industry works. We will cover dreams come true, the road less traveled journey beginnings and a lot of insight and inspiration in between. I am a successful film and television entrepreneur who came to America as a teenager to pursue my show business dreams. Are you ready for some unfiltered real talk with entertainment visionaries from all over the world? Then let's roll. Sound and action. Okay, to all my listeners and now viewers, because I officially am pivoting and moving into the YouTube channel as well, for those of you who hate to put your ear pods on and you just want to watch the amazing people that I'm bringing on my show.
Speaker 1Welcome to the heart of show business. I have yet another fabulous episode. The heart of show business. I have yet another fabulous episode. You know how much I love bringing on people who just make an impact, you know, no matter how small or how big. For me it's about the heart of show business and this lady definitely represented because show business includes music too. I'll give you a little before I'll tell you her bio, but then I'll tell you, like, how we met, because you know, there's always a moment where people's lives converge and it's magical when that happens and we'll talk music.
Speaker 1Producer the angel and I do want to know why you call the angel. We're going to go over that. But she's actually one of the first women to score in film and television in the 90s and 2000. Before there was such a thing that there were so many women who are in this world right now. But she's the OG people and we're going to talk a little bit about her career. She obviously scored films for New Line Cinema with Tupac Shapur, one of his last movies, and then one of my favorite films, boiler Room, which I've seen a hundred times, because to me that's better than Wolf of Wall Street. But you know, maybe the music has a reason for it and she actually has her own band. She has collaborated with a brand new heavy. So I'm just highlighting the things that are interesting to me and she keeps on working and she now just launched or released a soundtrack from this amazing show called Heist 88, which is currently on Showtime and Paramount+. I listened to the score. It's so good and therefore, without much ado, welcome to my show, the Angel.
Speaker 2Thank you very much, Alexia.
Speaker 1Such a pleasure it is so great to talk to you on my podcast. For those of you that do not know, we're actually also working together. We just started recently working together. Uh, the angel heard me on clubhouse in yvette vargas room shout out to yvette and uh, who's who's wonderful at connecting people? And then she came to me with this incredible documentary called Lives Beyond Motion that she's an executive producer on and she also did the music for.
Speaker 1And for those of you who do not know, I'm a huge fan of the word of dance. I used to do ballet when I was a little girl, with a tutu and the whole thing. And then this angle of the story was so incredible and I was like, ok, and the angel's like, will you please take it on and maybe sell it and take it to the market? So we're very excited Drum roll priest that it's making its debut at the American film market. The film is finally finished. Shout out to Keith for directing it and creating it. We're gonna put all the links for people to check it out. But now we're gonna go back to the angel, because the show is about her, not about the talk. But that's how we met, right yes, indeed.
Speaker 2Well, that's how we we came to work together, which has been fantastic. I adore you.
Speaker 1It's oh the feeling is mutual and I have to say I love your husband. Ok, good there, but but here's a question Are you originally from the UK as well?
Speaker 2No, I'm a Brooklyn kid but I've lived in the UK for a long time and I did music in the UK and my roots musically are very Brooklyn, london, bristol. You know. It's a real melange of different flavors from the places that I've lived in. So I met Kevin there. He is, of course, british and Irish and he is my partner in crime, he's my, he runs our production company. I have our production company. I have a production company called Devilishly Good Productions. I have a record label called Super Crucial Recordings, which is the label that is releasing the Heist 88 score album. Thank you, paramount, for giving us the rights to do that. And Kevin runs those two companies plus our publishing company, which is Super Crucial Music. And the relevance of all of that is that I own and control all of my music, so all of my publishing. Thank you, sony for giving me the rights back to my catalog. I really appreciate that. It's a very progressive move and I really think that that's a beautiful thing when a big corporation like that actually does does right by an artist.
Speaker 2Um, and I own all of the masters of all of my recordings, meaning every record that I've ever released, and I've released many albums and singles on and 12 inches back in the day um, under, under various monikers. So I record as the angel and I'll tell you where that name came from, because it started in the day. Um, under under various monikers. So I record as the angel and I'll tell you where that name came from. Because it started in the record industry not in film and tv where I was making my own records and I'd actually done a deal with a Los Angeles based uh label called delicious vinyl and we made it like a several album deal and we were doing all and they were so kind of like oh my god, you produce all this stuff yourself. Like that was really unusual, especially back in the 90s when I signed to them. They were having hits with Tone Loke and Young MC and the Far Side and I was this anomaly and but they were excited about that.
Speaker 2So, um, then you know my name is angel and they were like well, you can't go out as like angel c, which is my, my writer name. Um, for all of my, everything that I've written, um, they're like it's. People are going to think you're a guy. They're going to think you're a latino. You know, you have to. We have to put it like a band name around you, even though it was all me. So we went back and forth with many, many bad names, some really silly names, and finally the owner of the company, mike Ross, said you know well, what about the angel? And I was like, well, I just don't want people to think that I'm pretentious in any way because that's so not my vibe, that I'm pretentious in any way because that's so not my vibe. And I said, but if it'll finally put the the the cap on this conversation and we can just move on, then we can do it. And so the angel was born out of necessity for distinguishing somebody with the name angel from all the other angels out there. Um, and then it followed me, it became my brand. It's followed me into film and television as I started to compose for film and TV as well.
Speaker 2So I have recorded as the angel, I've recorded as 60 channels, which is another project. That again, it's my vision, my whole, you know, I write, arrange, program, mix, engineer. I mean I do all of it. I'm very, very hands on. So very unusual for most artists. I mean it's not as unusual today for most artists because the tools have gotten so much more accessible. I there were like hardly any women at all doing this and that's why I was again. I was such an anomaly to, to delicious at that point and that's really what brought me to Los Angeles was signing that deal.
Speaker 2And then I stayed here and we didn't get the album. I just literally got the album back out of their vaults after 30 years. Um, and we're going to be putting it out at some point. It's a very kind of. It came out of the acid jazz realm out of that era. So you know Jim Iroquois and Brand New Heavies and Jalisa, who I've worked with many times and is a wonderful friend and an incredible talent. She's featured on a bunch of my tracks.
Speaker 2Carlene Anderson, you know the Young Disciples. It was that era where we were all making this sort of funky, soulful, jazzy type of of music of that time, and so this, this album, is a time capsule that has never been released. So I'm going to be releasing that at some point. But that's just a one, one piece of the story. But that's the story. That sort of gets me to where I have really spent the last 20 years really mostly in film and television as a composer and also as a producer, so I've produced quite a few projects and, of course, lives Beyond Motion, which is the one that that we have joined forces to make to put it out into the world so that people can get the joy from it that you and I feel when we watch it.
Speaker 1So, yeah, I love that you champion artists. You know, I always say that what makes a great artist is their ability to celebrate other artists, because when you are a true artist, you love the art form as an art form, and so whenever you see somebody else creating something special like, for example, with this dog, or you have so many wonderful female friends who are singers and you want to bring them on, I mean art has to be collaboration. It cannot be competition. And and that really speaks about you, the angel, and it's interesting my wild guess was when I knew about your name. The angel was, of course, prince, the artist formerly known as Prince. She's probably following that wave. That was my whole like made-up story about how you came about to call yourself the angel. And then I love that your company is devilishly good.
Speaker 2So you're like a little angel with a little, a little wild side to yourself, which and I and I don't take myself so seriously I do have a sense of humor about it. You know, I've taken many a meeting where people are like, oh, what do we call you? And I'm like just call me Angel, it's all good, it's just, it's just a name.
Speaker 1It is just a name. It's just a name. The soul comes out anyway. So yeah, I mean obviously I. I said she either lost the accent or she was born by American family because I came from London. But now I understand, obviously, because you know, that's where you met your husband and you live there, and London of you know the 70s and the 80s. Hopefully I'm not dating you back too bad, because I'm just guessing here. Well, the brand new heavies were the 80s, so obviously it was the 80s because I used to love their sound.
Speaker 2I had both of my movies.
Speaker 1Yeah, dream on, dreamer and Love. Don't get me going. Very competitive world for a woman, composer, my cousin, actually by marriage, not by family. You're going to love this. This is Pinar Toprak.
Speaker 2I know Pinar.
Speaker 1Yes of course, she was married to my cousin, tanaxis, and that's how I got to meet her, and it's so interesting what she said back when I met her, because she was just starting out. She was making this independent films before she started scoring all these big movies and everything.
Speaker 1And I'll never forget her drive and her always saying there's no such thing as plan B, and I always live my life that way as not thinking that there is a plan B and I do not know why my notices keep going on because I shut them up, but maybe they're saying they agree with me, so this got to be it.
Speaker 1I want to talk a little bit about the freedom of having putting out your own music and having your own publishing company and everything. I think the music business is very progressive that way. You guys started it, you know, with saying, okay, we're not going to wait for the labels, Kind of like we're now in this era with the movies. We can't just rely on the streamers and the traditional distribution outlets to see a dollar for the hard work. We need to kind of think outside of the box and have our own brand and do all of that. Is that? Was that a fight? Because you said that now it's been easier to be able to get back the publishing rights At the beginning? Was it a struggle to convince someone, to maybe explain to the audience what that means in terms of controlling your art and revenue?
Speaker 2So publishing is one half of the revenue of a song. So, for instance, if I record a song, the master recording is one half of the overall royalties that you get paid from is the ownership of the actual physical recording. The other part of it is the publishing, which is the songwriting and sometimes a songwriter. You know there can be many songwriters on a song. You take a band like Earth, Wind, Fire or Cool in the Gang, who I have sampled in the past, and cleared those samples and you'll hear that on my old album that I'm going to be releasing, you know there could be seven, eight, ten, I mean however many are in a band I tend to write 95% of in my catalog, which is over 800 titles at this point just kind of blows my own mind to think about that. Um, I've written them on my own. So I write music and I write lyrics and I write top line melodies. I, you know, I kind of I do it all. Sometimes I do collaborate with other writers and then we share in that publishing. So the publishing is generally like 50% for the composition and 50% for the lyrics, and that's kind of a standard way of breaking it up. The bottom line is that when, when you there's, there's a lot to publishing that and it kind of bewilders people, even a lot of people. Artists in in the business still find it a little bit bewildering. But, um, there are performing rights societies like bmi and ascap and c-sat and all of the ones around the world. Every country has their own um, and they talk to each other and they basically, whenever music is played, when it's broadcast, so it's on the radio or it's on television, whether it's streaming or network or wherever, and also they cover blanket licenses for theatrical. So if your music is performed somewhere live, usually there's a license for that venue that covers the music and so you do get something from all of that. And that is really a big lifeline in terms of income or at least it used to be before streaming came along, uh, for musicians that actually write their own material. So the writers of music are really the ones that get the bigger chunk of money. Um, which is why a lot of bands, if there's a lot of members of the band, only maybe one or two people are writing all the songs. The other members of the band really struggle unless they're on the road constantly and earning money that way, you know. So that's what that is.
Speaker 2So owning my publishing is a big deal because I get the publisher's share and I get the writer's share, Whereas when I had major deals like with Paramount, who then Sony, acquired that catalog later on, they are the publisher and it impacts what you can do with those titles as well. It's not just a matter of the money. When I first had that deal with Paramount, people would come to me directly and want to license my songs for film and television, which was a fantastic thing, and so we owned and controlled the master recordings, which was fine. So we could. We could quote for that side of it, and that's great. But the publisher I had a major publisher and they had a floor by which they would never go lower than, which was a problem for an independent artist like myself, who was not a big pop star and had no intentions of ever doing that, had no interest in that, but I had.
Speaker 2I was building a body of work that was really cool and hip and that people came to me specifically for because it did something that other things didn't, and that people came to me specifically for because it did something that other things didn't but they would make it impossible for us to make deals because they wouldn't.
Speaker 2You know I could make a deal for anything I felt good about. They had a very strict rule about that, so it actually stopped us licensing although I have licensed songs to 24, the TV show, and to True Blood the television show, and to the Wire, which was a real favorite of mine. You know, it's been really nice to be able to do that with the freedom of saying if I want to do it and that's your budget, yeah, we can do it. I don't have to have these kind of hard and fast rules about you know. Oh, there's a flow. You know it's like people will come to you, music supervisors will come and they will tell you what the budget is and that's pretty much it and it's take it or leave it, and that's okay. Better to take it.
Speaker 1Exactly, it's so true, the angel. Because you know what you know. We were behind the Duran Duran live concert film directed by David Lynch. But how? We met the band at the time we were going to be doing this movie project called Stalking Simon Le Bon, which was like a bit of like a super bad about Duran Duran and the band absolutely loved the project. But we were dealing right now with two different record labels because we had like the old Duran Duran, like the real times, and then there was a new label that took on the newer songs and they were like like this label is going to make it easy for you, but this label is going to make it really, really hard on you, and they were tied to that themselves as artists because it has got those permissions. And so when I'm reading scripts of some writers who all of a sudden like putting it every scene, like hey, here comes Billy Idol and here comes Bruce Pristine and here's a song by.
Speaker 1Madonna and like they're freely putting it in. I'm like people, do you know how much money those things cost? You're probably better finding this incredible composers like you, who has worked with some of the best you know musicians and some of the best singers, and find that unique spin because they don't understand. I mean, I remember at some point again, even with the Duran Duran movie, when we're talking to a music producer of CAA and she was saying if you have the actors, even in the car, the actors themselves singing for five seconds, hungry like a wolf, and it's not the band, it's not the band who's doing it, you have to pay for that.
Music and Film Navigation
Speaker 2Yes, you do. There was. There was a film called playing God. Timothy Hutton played the lead. He, he and David Duchovny. And Hutton is in a car and he's doing exactly what you're what you're talking about and he's saying why, why, why, delilah? He literally just says it. He's not even singing it and they had to. They had to clear that. So you know that. I learned that that lesson a long time ago too, and it's very interesting that you know. A lot of people, like especially indie filmmakers, think that if they know someone in a band, they can get the rights. And nine out of ten times if you, if that band is, is on a major label, good luck with that. They will not own anything and even worse, if their publishing is through a major publisher, it becomes impossible. You know, the budgets are just outrageous. If someone's had hits and that's their, their area you will find it very difficult to be able to license those songs. It's just the way it is.
Speaker 1Yeah, unless they have their own publishing label, like you do, which is great, you know. So I think that's something that I think all of you filmmakers and talent out there looking to make films and TV and put great soundtrack on it Again, think outside of the box. There are so many amazing professionals out there, you know, like the angel, who are willing and ready to give some of their gifts to great art and great storytelling, like in Lives Beyond Motion, which you did the music on.
Speaker 2So, but it's a good, but it's a good, it's a good way, also a good segue the way you're talking about it between, you know, the songs that I've written and recorded as an artist versus what I do as a composer, because they're two completely different skill sets and different worlds. And so when I'm hired as a composer and especially for for Heist 88, you know, every project brings me into a different world, the world of the characters, the world of the story, and they require different things. And so, even as a recording artist, I do a lot of very hip and very beat driven and electronic music. When I'm scoring projects, it's a whole different ballgame. I've scored network television where I've had to jump through literally every stylistic hoop in the book. Um, I have done films where, like a film called Gaia and I will be releasing that score album shortly um, it is an art house film with almost no dialogue and it's set in the Arizona desert and there's not a beat or groovy feeling about anything in sight. It's all very organic and it's strings and piano and other atmospherics that I that I build sounds from. You know, it really requires a completely different mindset.
Speaker 2When I'm hired as a composer, people may love what I do as a recording artist that's. That's great, like when I when I scored part of Gridlocked, which was Tupac's movie, and there's a whole kind of story and politics around composing that I can share about that. But part of what they really loved was my sound, and so, by releasing my own records and building a sound, people found me and wanted me to be part of their projects and in that particular case they really wanted a specific remix that I had done for donald bird. It's a donald donald bird track that had been sitting in the blue note vaults since the 60s. Unreleased blue note went out to myself and a whole bunch of very high profile hip hop producers everyone from like Questlove and the Roots to Michael Franti, spearhead to Guru and asked us to find whatever we wanted out of their catalog. They gave us a whole like free reign and they gave me a whole bunch of things.
Speaker 2I didn't even really know whether they'd been released or not, but immediately I gravitated toward Kofi, which is a Donald Byrd, gorgeous seven, just gorgeous, gorgeous piece of music. And then they told me, well, it had never been released and I'm like, oh my god, how could I be the person to unearth this? This is incredible. Um so, and in doing that I brought on a fantastic uh rapper from female rapper from the bay area called Mystic. I've helped her get a record deal. She's become a Grammy nominee. She's another incredible talent, both as a poet, a rapper. And then I got her singing. That particular track caught the ear of Andy Curtis Hall and he said listen, on top of the fact that I want you to score this film, we're going to go to Blue Note and try to license it. And they did. They licensed it for one of the scenes with Tupac and Tim Roth and Tandy Newton.
Speaker 1Amazing. So do you pitch yourself? Like, how does that work? Do you pitch yourself? Are you reading the trades and then you're seeing that there's something great comes out, storytelling, and then you pick up the phone, or your agent or your partner, in this case picks up the phone to pitch you, or do people come to you, or is it a little bit of both?
Speaker 2it's a little bit of both. Um, sometimes there's something that I'm just like excited about, that I read about and and I'll have my team, whether it's agents or manager. You know kevin also manages, we sort of co-manage me. You know I'm very'm very, I'm a very left and right brain. You know I'm super creative, but I I think like a producer, I think like an executive, so that doesn't sort of impinge or take away from the creativity. Quite the opposite, I feel like the creativity feeds all areas, all areas. You know, very rarely though, we'll actually reach out to somebody directly and say, hey, I would love to do this.
Speaker 2But you know, often and I will say this about composing it is one of the most competitive, difficult arenas for any creative in music to get into. It is still, to this day, women represent something around six, seven percent of all working composers in film and TV worldwide 2024. That is insane, but this is what it is, and so it's very difficult to get somebody to give you the opportunity to show what you can do. I am self-taught I didn't come up the normal way, but I will say this that most composers, male or female, come up behind somebody else. They come up under the wing of a very established A-list composer who's building a team and they have huge teams. And you, honestly, when you are a filmmaker, if you think that Hans Zimmer is scoring every note on his own score, I hate to burst your bubble, but that's just not the way it's done. And when I say it's done, that's not the way I do it, because I am that person that does absolutely everything and really wants to be there, shoulder to shoulder with my creative colleagues, I mean with my collaborators. It's like that's my joy. This is not like a job. This is the thing that I really love doing most. I love being in a dark room with working to picture very nuanced, very connected to what is going on with every performance and all of the cinematography and everything that my director and film is hoping to get from my score. But it's really important to me to be, to really be there, to be present.
Speaker 2I'm not looking to sub things out, but so many of my colleagues do, all the guys do it. I mean you can't physically score five projects simultaneously, or even two if it's really, you know, I mean it's, it's a lot. Or even two if it's really, you know, I mean it's, it's a lot, and so I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a team to help you do various bits and pieces, but there's a lot of like handing things off for a lot of the bigger names and it's. It is what it is. I mean, the studios go with that.
Speaker 2Again, if I were working at a studio, I would not want to hire a composer who didn't care enough about the project to actually make it a priority. The reason I have a big problem with it is because it keeps a lot of up and comers out. It makes it very hard for anyone, and so a lot of composers spend years and years behind the curtain doing a lot of work. For some of these people to take all the credit. That's not why I'm doing what I do. You know I'm a creative. First, I love what I do, and that comes with the package. As a producer, I would never hire somebody who wanted to sub out their craft, whatever craft it might be, and that's what I'm interested in is the person who's hungry and interested and loves what they do and brings positivity and excitement and passion to that job. That's what you want as a creative. You don't want people just like yeah, yeah, you know whatever. Like no.
Entrepreneurial Mindset in Show Business
Speaker 1The angel preach, preach it in the room. Yes, yes, yes, and it's so true. You know, even in television many people think, oh, I just want to be in the writer's room. Yes, yes, yes, and it's so true. You know, even in television many people think, oh, I just want to be in the writer's room and I'm like, most of the time, you're going to be doing a lot of writing and you're not going to have the credit for it. It's going to be the showrunner who will. So you will be doing that.
Speaker 1It's a great learning experience, but don't rest on your laurels thinking that this is the way that you're going to get and advance. You're going to have to do it yourself. The showrunner is not going to push your career. They will use your talents for a moment and you will get the experience, but then, ultimately, we all have to be entrepreneurs, and this is why I always say do not forget people, that this is called show business.
Speaker 1There is a business aspect to it all, show business. There is a business aspect to it all. So you have to be the CEO of your own brand, your own life, your own art, your own messaging. You have to do it all and you have to learn how other people around you are doing it, which is exactly how Angel is running her life and her business. She is doing it all Not because she's a control freak, not because she has an ego, but because this way she knows exactly how her messaging of her own brand and her art is going to be represented and she's making sure that it's being done in the right way.
Speaker 1And I love what you said about mindset, by the way, and to close it off, definitely I want to ask you a little bit about you know your mindset journey? I mean, have you, or spiritual journey, or whatever we want to call it wisdom journey? What has the angel learned through the years as a woman and as an artist? What are the things that you've learned by you? Know the school of hard knocks, as we call it.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, coming from Brooklyn as the quintessential Brooklyn underdog, I have to say my mom was always very, very encouraging and very positive and she was out there working all through my childhood. My parents divorced when I was about 11 months old, so I never really lived with both of my parents or with two people in a household. It was my mom and myself. So she really took care of herself and she took care of me and she was a great role model in showing me that women can be in the workforce and not. You know, she started out as a secretary of a company and wound up becoming a marketing manager. She put herself through college and got herself a master's eventually in business. You know, she showed me that, not didn't just tell me, but showed me what was possible, and so I kind of grew up with this notion that anything was possible. But the crazy thing is that when I got into the music business, you know, and I was doing all this stuff and again going back to the Delicious Vinyl days where they were just kind of like you know, their minds were blown, like you're actually doing all this stuff, and I thought it doesn't everybody like it didn't even occur to me that women were so kind of, you know, marginalized in that, in the producing end of things, either None of that stuff really hit my radar until I was in it and people started saying like, oh, that's a big deal that you're doing it, or that's really unusual that you're doing it, and I was like, oh okay, because it just came naturally.
Speaker 2And so everything that I've done and this is sort of my big life lesson has been sometimes you can plan and go towards something and you figure like this is what it's going to be for me and this is what I want to do. But I've always been really open to, like receiving opportunities, and the things that have actually propelled me to where I am today happened organically. So I am grateful for that, because it doesn't always happen, believe me, and what we deal with in our art and in this industry is not easy. Even once you've proven yourself hundreds of times over, there's always another obstacle, another level, another something that you need to reach or prove or whatever it might be. So I always say that, you know, I think it's really important to just always be open.
Speaker 2You never know when something that somebody says, hey, what you know would you want to do you think you might want to try this and instead of just immediately being like, no, no, that's not the thing I'm aiming over there, but don't be close to it, because all the things I never thought in a million years I would do, I'm doing. You know, these are not the. These were not my dreams as a child. I was not even kind of pointed in the direction of the, of music as a as a dream job, um, and on any level. You know, it was something I did for fun, it was something I did out of enjoyment, but it was an amazing thing that I discovered that I love it so much and the opportunities came.
Speaker 1I absolutely love what you just said and I really believe that you know that there is something you know, as we all know, that the part of the word inspiration is being in spirit, right, and when you have that, in whatever incarnation and manifestation of this, that is so vital, as well as the art of allowing, there's actually an art to allowing or, as you said, receiving. You do not know what life is going to throw your way and clearly, everything that you have accomplished has been thrown your way for a reason the good, the bad and the ugly and it made you stronger and more centered and more in line with who you are and and I absolutely love that about you I I can't wait for you to like win it all. It's award season. We're all going to be voting. Whoever can vote vote, vote for whatever. We're going to drop in all the voting links for people who are members of the Academy PGA. We're going to drop in all the voting links for people who are members of the Academy PGA Composers Society, whatever that is, we'll drop the votes.
Speaker 1And in closing this conversation, because we could be talking for five hours but unfortunately my listeners they tune out after half an hour because I know them. They have all ADD because most of them are artists and they're thinking, oh, this is so great, I'm going to go off and write a script now. So, which is good, that's what we want to accomplish. So let's talk about Heist 88, which obviously you are promoting for awards season. How excited are you and why are you rooting so much for this amazing piece of work of yours?
Speaker 2Well, you know, this is the latest film that I've scored for director Menha Shoda this. He and I have done five other projects together, including a UK hit called Kidulthood, and so you know we have a really great dialogue as far as what he expects of me and what I can bring to the table for these projects, and this one is really interesting. Angela Bassett and Courtney B Vance have their own production company through Paramount, and I was excited to be working as as Minaj Wood was as well on this film. The film is loosely based on our biggest bank heist in US history and this is something that happened in Chicago in 1988. So there's a storyline that also encompasses the Chicago house music scene, which Chicago 88 was the height of Chicago house music, and so Courtney plays the criminal mastermind and his nephew runs a house music label and he's a DJ and he needs money to keep going. He's starting to have success and he needs more money to invest in himself and instead of going the usual route, which he was gonna do um and he does find himself in a little bit of trouble with a, with a local gangster where he borrowed money from his uncle decides he, he kind of reads the situation and he says, ah, you have friends that work at the bank, hmm, and then the plot thickens from there, and so it's a really interesting thing because the original, the actual person who this story was based on, was able to convince a bunch non-criminals who work at the bank young people who are friends of his nephew to go in together and help him pull this thing off.
Speaker 2So it was a really fun look at what life was like before pagers and cell phones and, you know, before the technology. So before the computerization of the transfers, the big wire transfers, everything was done by phone and it was like a code and they would call, and so there's a lot of internal stuff going on. You know, jeremy, played by Courtney, he's constantly playing this sort of three-dimensional chess in his head, and so there's a lot of thematic work that I did to support what's actually going on as he's thinking about what he's going to do next while he's manipulating everybody around him, and so this is not a shoot them up, it's not one of those. There's no SWAT surrounding the building. It is just a really fun look at what they were able to achieve by just using some ingenuity and some really basic planning and role playing again with with men hajj huda.
Speaker 2He's my director, he um, he wanted this to be an electronic score, so it is electronic. I pulled some sounds from the 80s club music to infuse into the score. That's what kind of gives it its own kind of special something and it's a fabulous score.
Speaker 1The angel, it's fabulous. I heard it, it's great, and I'm not usually like I hate to say this I'm not usually like a soundtrack buying person, unless it's like john barry or somebody. But again it was so unique and it's so cool and so yeah, so, but you have it well, the album.
Speaker 2The album drops on November 1st, okay, and it's out there, for we have links to pre-save and pre-order if people want to do that, and, of course, those help the algorithm. See, this is what 2024 has brought us. This is what the last 10, 15, 20 years has brought us is a shift from, you know, human to human, to algorithms. So, yes, this is where it's at, but, yes, I'm excited to get the album out in Paramount. We're really behind it, which is really really nice, and so we're excited to release this record.
Speaker 1That is wonderful. And push those buttons, people. It's all about the click, absolutely. So now, how do you define yourself like in three words? And and well, you already told me a little bit of your life mantra, so I guess we covered that in the last question. But how do you define yourself in three words?
Speaker 2Grounded, yes, Inspired and and loving.
Speaker 1Oh, you totally represent that. That's the lady who know who she is. People yes, I see that about you. I sense that about you from the very first moment. So I can't wait to see you soar even higher. I can't wait to work with you on more projects. I can't wait for this wonderful doc that we both signed on as an adventure out of pure love and support for the arts. I can't wait for it to thrive. And for any one of you listeners, this is the angel. I will be dropping on the notes all her links where you can check out her music, buy her music, her website, hire her for your art, whatever that is, Make sure you listen, because her sound is really good and she didn't pay me to say that.
Speaker 2No, I didn't.
Speaker 1But thank you so much.
Speaker 1Yeah. So please, if you enjoyed this episode, do subscribe, rate and review. And to the next one. I'm going to keep on bringing awesome people. This has been a music wave. I just had Barbara Natas on my show. I don't know if you've heard it. It's really gorgeous. It's amazing artists out of Hungary who just dropped her latest record. So now I'm in the music phase, but you know, if you keep on listening, there'll be lots more people from all kinds of life showing up. So the heart of show business, over and out. Thank you, the angel, for coming on my show. Thank you so much, Alexia.
Speaker 2I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Heart of Show Business. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can also subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast player. If you have any questions or comments or feedback for us, you can reach me directly at theheartofshowbusinesscom.