Nia Lonette

Beauty of the Month

Nia Lonette

Tell the world who you are, what you do and tell us a little bit about yourself. Ok cool! So my name is Nia Lonette. I’m a dancer first and foremost. I model. I do natural hair. I eat alot, and I do so much stuff, you know what I’m saying? But I’m originally from Temple Hills, Maryland, moved to California about 3 years ago to pursue dancing and I’ve been dancing and modeling ever since I tapped into the industry out here.

You have a very fresh face, very young, exotic, very Queenlike, are you getting alot of work out there in California? Yes, pretty crazy! I think ever since Black Panther came out, I think a lot of our fresh young-looking faces are starting to become kind of the same out here. They’re always looking that new, or not really new but that Queen-esque type of look. They’re really valuing us Black Women out here for the most part. I know there was a time when I first moved out here, Black women with short cut hair, or short cut colored hair was a big thing for us out here. So its been really great to be on this journey right now in California.

What was it like deciding to move to a whole new state just to pursue a dream. Tell us about that journey? It was freaking scary. I’m not gonna lie when I was in Maryland I was kinda comfortable. I was saying that I liked being in Maryland because I had my friends out there, and I was pretty content with just having my boyfriend at the time, I was working a job, I was living with my mom. I was just like ‘when the time comes, the time will come, I don’t really care’, but deep down inside I did care. I saw people thriving and I was just like, ‘I know I can do that but I don’t think that could happen for me right now.’ Until one day my mom called me. I told her I wanted to go to California for this summer program where you basically go out for the summer and if you pass the audition, you get signed by the agency. And I was like, ‘Lets try it out and see what happens, whatever happens happens, it’s cool.” My mom was like, “What if you do get signed, what are you gonna do?” And my answer was, ‘We will cross that bridge when we get there.” And she’s like, “No, for real! I really think you coud make it out there. I think you would do great.” Long story short, she told me I had to move out there because she knew I was gonna make it and I’ve been signed and working ever since then. So it’s pretty scary. But it’s cool to know that someone out there believes in you as much as you do, or probably more than you when it comes to a dream of yours and you just kinda have to take that leap of faith and go for it.

Do you ever get to the point of “this is too much, I’m going back home!” Nah, never that! Never, never, never, never.

What is the end goal for you? At what point will you feel like, “Mama, I made it!”? Ummm, Im gonna say mama I made it, for real wise, when I have toured the world with... Well I can’t saythat, I’m doing that right now. When I can open my own dance studio and have a tour with my students. Like take some kids or adultls who train with me around the world to say this is the process.

Thank you for this brief interview, where can people follow the journey? Everything Nia can be found on NIALONETTE

Go ahead and tell the world who you are and what you do I just want to thank you for allowing me to be here. My name is Durrell Peart. I’m the Founder/CEO of a company called Double N Management and Marketing Group, LLC. I basically help independent artists really navigate the music business. Artist manager, speaker, and music business consultant. How did you get started in that line of work? For me, I like to say the music industry found me, I didn’t find it. I was actually in a hip hop dance group back in 2004 back when I lived in Orlando, Florida, and I just got bit by the entertainment bug. I knew I wanted to be in the music business, but I knew I wasn’t going to be a “Alright, Lil Bro! You’re gonna have to navigate yourself through now.” I was managing an artist at the time named D.Cody and I helped him put out his one and only R&B project called “Us against the world.” In 2010, we released it on CD Baby. We made a lot of mistakes along the way. It took us 3 years to complete that record. I worked with him til 2012. We kinda had a rough patch because he just didn’t want to do the work that was necessary to really try to build a career in this industry. So we had a cometo-Jesus moment in 2012 and we decided to part ways. At that time I was really frustrated with the way things were going so I decided to finish my degree. It’s something I’m passionDURELL PEART disability, it just wouldn’t make sense for me to live in all those cities. So I started my company I have now, called Double N Management and Marketing Group like I said before, and this time around I wanted to make the company more about me and branding myself. I knew I had alot of knowledge and that I could pay it forward to other creatives that want to build a career in this industry. So post-graduation, I was fortunate enough to help quite a few artists over the years and I’ve been to 6 different countries, which I’m really big on being global, and fortunate enough to be featured in 5 different magazines for the work that I do. And most importantly I just love helping people. That’s the short answer. *Laughs* creative. I wanted to go learn the business. I was fortunate enough to meet my mentor, big brother, Lashon Jones, who basically took me under his wings and taught me how to navigate this thing called the music business. So we had a record label called Brothers For Life Music Group in 2006- 2008, and then he moved to Raleigh to take a job with the Charlotte Bobcats at the time and basically said ate about. So I enrolled at Full Sail University and got a Bachelor’s of Science in Entertainment Business where I was Valedictorian of my class, advanced achiever of my class, and graduated in 2015. I knew I wanted to start another company and I knew I was going to be a freelancer because most of the jobs that are business jobs are in other cities. And because I was born with a What do you feel like artists need help with the most? That’s an easy answer! Education. The thing about the entertainment industry in general, especially the music industry, is that it requires special education to have a career in music. If you come from corporate America, that’s not going to help you in our

industry because it’s like Apples to Oranges. If you want to be a lawyer, you have to go to law school. You can’t just decide to practice law. It doesn’t work like that. It’s certain education you have to have. The problem in the entertainment industry is that there’s no requirement by law to be licensed to be in this business, and I think so many creatives want to make a living in this industry not knowing what it really takes to be successful. Education, I would say, is the most important thing for artists. That and artist development. Artist development is the one thing that has been so lost over the years and it’s so required now. Because now you can go right to people. A lot of young artists think I have a lot of followers, so I don’t need artist development. They already like me. But if you don’t have a solid brand, nobody is going to want to spend money with you because this is a business. The moment you decided to do this professionally and it’s not a hobby for you, you are now in small business. A lot of them don’t really understand that concept. Why should an artist get a consultant at the very beginning of their music process? Most importantly, you need somebody who’s going to help you navigate your way through the process. They’re gonna help you and tell you what pitfalls to look after. Anybody who’s interested in working with me, I want them to leave me their phone number by going to TextDurell.. com. Leave your phone number there and I will personally get back to you and see how we can work. And if you want to find me on Social media, I’m everywhere. @DurellPeart everywhere, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin as well.