My interest in photography and videography started after I took a class in high school that studied the ins and outs of movies. My interest in videography led to me getting a job filming lacrosse tournaments and, later on, buying my own camera. At the time, I would have never thought that one day I would be on stage in front of thousands of people at the Made In America festival.
After buying my own camera, I knew right away that I wanted to start my own company and shoot music videos for top artist in the world. Right away I started to direct message local artist on Instagram and asked to shoot one of their videos for free. I wanted to start small and work my way up, but I soon realized that this was not the right path to take. The artists that I was working with were missing a key element to getting my work seen. They were either not talented enough or did not have the motivation to stay focused during shoots.They seemed to think that everyone was handed to them and were not serious enough for me.
Enough was enough.
I started from square one and asked myself the question, “How can I work with serious big name artist without a credible portfolio?”
It felt like time was running out. That’s when it hit me, I can start filming concerts where multiple big and upcoming artist preform. This is when I linked up with a concert photographer named Cj who was looking to add videos to his photography page on Instagram.
The first artist he took me to go film goes by the name of Gunna. It was a nerve racking experience because I did not know what to expect. Cj took me there not having away to get in, this was a foreign idea to me because at the time, I thought only the most skilled and known photographers and videographers got media passes in advanced. This was far from the truth. We were able to get into the venue because we met a photographer for another artist out front of the venue. He was able to get us media passes because he knew the person working the front door that night.
After filming the Gunna concert, I saw the opportunity right in front of me. I could film concerts being just an average kid with a camera. This is when I created my Hip Hop entertainment company called Ckold Cklips. At this time a huge festival in Philadelphia, Made In America was right around the corner. I knew that if I got media passes this would be a huge opportunity to spark my company.
One night I stayed up emailing 30 artists managers and, lucky enough, one answered. The artist is from Atlanta and goes by the name of Trouble. This was my way into the venue and I knew right from there I was going to finesse my way around the festival and get as much content as I could to spark my company.
While I was at Made In America, Trouble was offered to perform on the main stage because 6ix 9ine was late for his set. This granted me access to the main stage and after Trouble was done performing I hid backstage and waited for 6ix 9ine perform. While I was backstage, I met a producer of a documentary for Meek Mill and he asked me to shoot Meek Mill’s performance later that night. When Meek Mill stepped on stage for the first time after he was released from jail, I was on stage with him in front of thousands of people. That day I was able to film 6ix 9ine, Meek Mill, and Juice Wrld.
This was a huge moment in my life and also a scary one. I stared Ckold Cklips only weeks before being next to Meek Mill in front of thousands. I worry that I won’t be able to match the stage that I was on, weeks into my companies existence. But, this also gives me hope to what Ckold Cklips can become in the future.
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