Today we’d like to introduce you to Carla Silveira-Hernandez.
Carla, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
As the daughter of a Filipino mother and Cuban father enlisted in the U.S. military and stationed around the world, I struggled throughout my childhood to gain a sense of identity and belonging. That was until my first year in college when a friend lent me a VHS of the BBoy Summit. While I had seen breakin’ in films and listened to Hip Hop on the radio, I had never known that the music and the dance represented a community and a culture – one that was completely inclusive of people from countless ethnicities and mixed races like myself. Furthermore, the fullest expression of one’s truest self was not only tolerated in this culture… but insisted upon. From there, my life forever changed. It set me on a path of self-discovery, emotional healing, purpose and empowerment. Today, as the Director of Creative & Content Strategy of North America for Herbalife Nutrition and the Executive Producer of Artson Music & Shero Collective – I can without a doubt say Hip Hop has been the foundation of my success.
Asia One, the founder of No Easy Props and organizer behind the Bboy Summit, became an icon to me. Her strength, tenacity and relentless commitment to providing the community with high-quality programs (workshops, community discussion panels, multi-disciplinary exhibits, events, etc.) instilled in me the principles of leadership, personal accountability, self-confidence, looking beyond oneself, hard work and gender equity. Throughout the course of my professional career, I’ve applied these principles in my work, and into the organizations I’ve led and developed.
The impact of No Easy Props, Asia One and others like them within the breakin’ community stretch far beyond their immediate reach. It is because of their events and programs that Hip Hop’s respective dance styles did not fade away after the 90’s, but instead have become an economic powerhouse, giving birth to an industry of commercial work as well as small businesses including dance studios, apparel lines, film franchises, television shows, and so much more. It is also because of these kinds of programs that breakin’ is now on the brink of inclusion in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
In our culture, we have a saying, “Each one teach one.” As the commercialization of Hip Hop arts and breakin’ as a sport continues to expand, I developed the Shero Collective in order to do my part to preserve the culture and carry on that tradition.
Has it been a smooth road?
Like any good journey, it’s been an unpredictable adventure fueled by unquenchable passion. Along the way, there were moments where I was pushed to make critical decisions and step out of my comfort zone. I had started breakin’ while attending the University of Florida. My early years of college were a disaster thanks to youthful insecurity and poor academic habits. I actually changed my major at least three times. I finally settled on Journalism & Mass Communications and decided to transfer to Florida International University in my junior year in order to pursue better internship opportunities. However, I stayed connected to the University of Florida’s breakin’ club, The Hip Hop Collective. You can say I started my career developing event sponsorship materials for them. After I moved to Miami, I did the same for Hip Hop Master’s Pro Am in 2001.
My decision to move to Miami paid off when I landed an internship in the Music & Talent department at MTV Latin America and went on to launch their mobile platform in 2003 as a producer in the New Media department. Despite great success, my role was transferred to Argentina as part of a cost-savings initiative at the onset of the economic downturn in the late 2000s. Loaded with American debt, I couldn’t take the offer to move with my role. I set my eyes on Los Angeles, and while I had planned to stay in entertainment, my journey took an unexpected turn into the wellness industry.
What I thought was going to be a temporary detour has lasted over a decade. This era in my career has also had many twists, turns and even more layoffs. Despite the setbacks and sense of confusion that surrounded my career for many years, I was struck with a vision in 2009 of how one day I would leverage my experience to be able to create new opportunities for my community. That vision has given me the resilience and tenacity to keep pressing forward. Throughout my career in the world of wellness and nutrition, I continued to be an advocate and supporter of Hip Hop and the Breakin’ community, volunteering my professional skills to bboy publications like BTWN the BRKS and grassroots organizations including the Beat Swap Meet and No Easy Props. I also dedicated my time to developing materials for independent Hip Hop artists which led me to my husband, Artson.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Artson Music & Shero Collective story. Tell us more about the business.
As the Executive Producer for Artson Music, I partner with my husband on every aspect of his music, from the development of every song on his albums to his marketing strategy, and even his stage performances. His music has won two Native American music awards and received over half a dozen other nominations to-date. We also co-produced a documentary, The Making of a Brave Star, which was premiered by the Austin Film Society in association with BBoy City’s 25th anniversary.
In May of 2019, I founded the Shero Collective as a pro-social initiative dedicated to highlighting community heroes and promoting gender-balance. Then in November 2019, Artson and I presented together at Arizona State University as part of their Hip Hop Matters program on the integration of dance and career. We also did a screening of the Brave Star documentary along with episodes of two Shero Collective series, Raising the Culture & Breakin’ Barriers.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Thanks to the impact of Shero Collective, I was asked to join the Olympics USA Breakin’ Committee & Legacy Council in order to help ensure that we do not sacrifice culture for competition on the road to the games in Paris. We are still in the early developmental stages, but I’m incredibly honored and humbled to be able to leverage my expertise in marketing and content development to support my community. The community’s response to Raising the Culture & Breakin’ Barriers has also motivated me to begin the process of registering Shero Collective as a non-profit organization in order to be able to amplify its impact and hopefully create new creative career opportunities for members of the community. Artson music also continues to gain momentum as well through a new #52song52weeks campaign we recently launched.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 310-463-2431
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shero_collective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SheroCollective/
Image Credit:
Photography by Ervin Arana
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
