The Reset, The Reintroduction... A New Era

Join Nikita in the studio as she reintroduces Mic Check with Nikita! A rebrand with a new studio, a new setup, a new team, and a whole new caliber of guests!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hi everyone, welcome to Mike Check with Nikita. I'm your host, Nikita Gyrom, and as you can tell, we're in a completely new studio. Last October, I brought this podcast and launched it for you all. And thus far, I've brought out 15 episodes. The last 15 episodes have been a huge learning curve for me in terms of learning about myself, the types of guests that I would like to have on, the vision of what this podcast could be and what it should be going forward, and just about media in general. I wanted to take this time to really revamp and bring a whole new level of caliber of guests to you all. So, going forward, you're going to see this new studio setup, a whole new marketing team that's going to bring amazing reels and content for you all, and a new level of guests that are going to be talking about amazing things for you all. But before I start releasing those new episodes, I wanted to take the time to reintroduce myself, the podcast, what the vision of it is, what I imagine it to be, and what I hope for it to be going forward, as well as just giving thanks to those people that have been a part of this journey with me thus far. So let me just reintroduce myself. Hi, I'm Nikita Guyram, and I am a professional dancer who's been performing a part of the Indo-Cariban community for the last 26 years. I've always been first and foremost a dancer, and that is the only way that I will start off to introduce myself. For those who have followed my journey throughout childhood to now, you all may know that dancing has been my passion. It's been my life. It's something that I hold dear to my heart, and it's my best way for me to emotionally let loose and express myself. In 2022, I launched Nikita Guyron Productions. It is my first ever baby, my first ever business that I created as an adult. But before I get into the ins and outs of Nikita Guyram Productions, I want to pay homage to the two people that created me and gave me the talents that I have to feel like I can go forward with this podcast. So my mom and my dad, Ms. Bindu Koli and Mr. Diraj Gyram, two prominent individuals of our Indo-Curiban community, my mom a TV host, my dad a dancer, two people who I now in my adult life feel I'm genuinely half and half versions of them both. My parents are two people that have brought so much culture to our community through their shows when they were together and through all of the endeavors that they've had now separately. I was brought up in this industry. I am a child of this industry, so I feel a little bit more of a responsibility to push forth the culture and basically push forth the legacy that they've started to create for myself and our family. And that little identity crisis is something that I didn't really understand in my teenage years, but really felt it in my 20s. And because of my living situation, I always felt like I was a lot more Indian than I am Ghanese. But then growing up in my 20s and really being out there and understanding more of our Caribbean culture and understanding, you know, the types of music that I like, the types of environments that I'm more attracted to, it really made me realize that I have a lot of Caribbean personality in me as well, obviously because of my dad. But it really took my 20s to bring that out. At the end of my 20s, sort of the end of my 20s when COVID kind of hit, um, dance kind of took a step back. Um, life kind of stood still, just as it did for everyone else. And I had basically just kind of given up kind of a little bit on dance. Um and then in 2021, I believe, or the beginning of 2022, actually, I got a call from my dad, who received a call from Mr. Richard Romneryan, Raymond Romneryan, um, and had asked if we can provide dancers for a show. Um, it was their last ever ELR, Everybody Loves Raymond show that they were doing in Queens before their rebrand, and they needed performers to basically um be on stage with them and kind of back them up. My dad didn't have the capacity at the time to create um the choreography, understand their vision, and then also be there the day to execute it. So he asked me if I can step in. The show basically set off everything for me and made me fall back in love with dance, but not as a dancer, as management and as production. Um, and this is where the seed for Nikita Garden Productions, my first baby, basically got planted in my head. That show made me fall in love with backstage, the hustle, you know, making sure that everything was going well behind the artist, and just, you know, that vibration on stage and what that sound felt like. Um, so yeah, that's where Nikita Guyram Productions came in. And in December of 2022, I launched Nikita Guyron Productions. This is what really started, I feel, like my career in the Indo-Cariban community as an adult, right? It was one thing to be a professional dancer performing at so many cultural events and international shows, but it's another thing to own something, really start it from the bottom up and put it out there. Um, I've been very fortunate enough that our company or my company really has had a lot of success since it was launched. We performed in Guyana, Trinidad, London. Um, we were touring with all of the big names, Raymond Romnry, Ravi B, KI, um, and really became that household name as the tour dancing group for our community, especially here in New York. Um, we got to perform for Silka Brainwash for Private Ryan. We've gotten to perform, you know, in Canada for Carabana with Ravi B when he was headlining for Reviver in 2023. And it really became this huge, you know, success for me, or at least I feel my first ever success. But being backstage, seeing all the hustle, understanding what makes a show, what events, you know, what it really takes to put out events and and all of the hard work that comes behind it, it made me realize that people don't see the behind the scenes. They kind of just see the finished product. And through that, um, it made me realize that there are so many other aspects of our music industry that people aren't understanding of how things come about, whether it was music, whether it was songs that are being put out, the music videos, whether it's a show. Um, and through all of this and everything that I was experiencing, it made me start having the seed of this idea of the podcast. It was something that came into my mind really quickly. About a year in, I really understand or understood that I needed to think of my next step very quickly because as a business owner, you need to continuously strategize, expand, evolve. Um, so I started thinking about what I wanted to do next. And somehow or the other, I guess divine timing, I got this idea of the podcast. Um, but I wasn't really ready at the time to actually launch. It actually took about two years since that seed was planted in my head for me to launch the podcast. But in those last two years, I really did do a lot of learning. Um, I really learned about the business that I was in. I really understood that we as Indo-Caribbeans are people that are really all over the world, but we're so siloed and we're so separate from each other because geographically we're not connected. Um, you know, Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, New York, Canada, these are all places on one side of the world where we think we're all located. But then we're also located in South Africa, Fiji, Morocco, the Netherlands. Um, and it was something that I started gradually learning, and I started researching and realizing that we're just not as connected as a community as we should be. Um, when you look at Bollywood, when you look at Hollywood, people are all over the world, but they all operate the same way versus our industry, our community doesn't do that. So as I started researching and understanding that, you know, we're all over the world, we're all connected, we all should be connected. It made me realize also that there are so many people in our community that are doing so well in their respective industries, but aren't getting the recognition that they should be because our culture really does run on music and cricket. And if you're not in the in crowd or you're not in, you know, or you don't know those types of people, then you don't really get recognized for those uh things that you're doing. So it made me realize that we have people in fashion, we have people in politics, we have people in real estate, we have people, you know, who are news anchors that are really putting out our culture and representing who we are as Indo-Caribbeans, and that are not getting the recognition for it. So ultimately, when I finally had this solidified vision, I realized that I wanted to start this podcast. Um, the first 15 episodes, as you all have seen, are a mix of those people from those industries, real estate, uh a beauty influencer. There's been uh people who are music producers, artists. Um, but those, like I said, those first 15 episodes were a huge learning curve for me. It's been, you know, amazing. It's been an amazing journey so far. But in the last month, I've been very fortunate enough to be introduced to a lot of other people who are on a different level of what I would consider a caliber of guests, not taking away from the people that have been there before and who have, you know, graciously joined this podcast. But I've been so fortunate that this podcast is taking a new level, it's taking a new height, where I can be put into rooms with other people and and be introduced to other parts of the Caribbean as well, where I can bring on a different caliber of guests. So that's basically what this new rebrand is about. Um it's a whole new level, it's a whole new uh vision that I have. I still want to stay true and core, true to our core of what the vision is, but I want to do so by being able to be put into rooms with so many other people. So that being said, I really hope that this next level of guests, or the next few episodes, or the next episodes going forward are what you all are looking for and what you hope to see. Um, as I said, I'm gonna continue on with the vision. There's gonna be artists, musicians, um, entrepreneurs, realist realtors, um, people who are in food, just as I've been bringing before, um, but with a whole new level of a rebrand. So I hope you guys are excited as I am. Um, I hope that you all can enjoy what I have coming for you next. For those of you who know who I am, um, I thank you all for watching thus far. For those of you who are new, welcome. And I really can't wait for you all to see what's coming.