In this episode Durell is joined by indie creative manager ,music business consultant and the founder of Aspire Agency Afiya Cunningham. Afiya and Durell begin the episode talking about how they got connected. Durell and Afiya share a passion of helping to educate indie creatives on the music business. Durell shares that he really admires and respects Afiya because of her young age and drive to make a difference. Durell asks Afiya about her earliest memories of music. She can remember being absolutely in love with Soca music because Trinidad & Tobago is synonymous with Carnival. Afiya also remembers loving Gospel music. She shares that she remembers being at church and a marching band was recruiting and she ended up joining the band after listening to them play some amazing instrumental music.

Durell asks Afiya if she went to school for music business and she shares that she stumbled into learning about the business side of music. She shares that she started on the public relations and event management and connected with an Gospel artist named Curtis Jordan. Curtis Jordan asked Afiya to be his booking agent and then two years later she became his manager and then through networking and more relationship building she began to work with several other Gospel artists. She shares that it wasn’t until a couple years ago that she decided to turn what she was doing in terms of working with creatives into an official business. She shares that she began to invest in herself to get the knowledge and tools by taking the necessary courses to be able to serve the artists that she works with properly. Durell shares that education is so important when working in the music industry. He shares that there’s a difference between the music industry, business, and the business of music. Afiya shares that she has noticed that so many indie creatives are often stressed out when trying to navigate their careers. Afiya shares that she tells her clients not to chase success but rather to become a person of value and success will come.

Durell and Afiya talk about an event that she was a part of called “No Grey Lines” where she credits this as a pivotal event that helped to shape the journey that she is now on. She worked with several gospel artists such as Travis Greene, Jaron Nurse, Sherwin Gardner, and JPrince. Durell shares the importance of having women on a business team because of the skills and traits that most of them naturally have. Durell asks Afiya what is her approach to artist management. She shares that she believes in quality over quantity. She feels that artist management is very personal, honest, and integral. Afiya is very particular about who she takes on within the role of artist management. Her reputation is something that is very important to her and she knows that if she’s not careful her reputation can be tarnished quickly and she will not let that happen because of how long it has taken her to build such a strong and solid personal and professional brand. Durell shares that when it comes to working within the role of artist management, there must be trust on both sides. Durell shares that it’s important for artist managers to have their own brand because it’s important to take care of them because oftentimes artists think the grass is greener on the other side so there’s definitely the possibility that they will want to leave and go with someone else.


Durell and Afiya talk about her creative side in addition to the business side. Afiya is a drum major for the Pathfinder Band and her local church choir. Durell talks about the fact that he’s not a creative person and his gift is people. Durell shares that he tried to learn how to produce and that after a few weeks he understood how difficult it actually is. He says that music producers can actually see the music in their head even before they lay down the musical bed and that production is very hard. Afiya shares that she also enrolled in