Conversations with Iz Lamarr

Today we’d like to introduce you to Iz Lamarr

Hi Iz, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born and raised in Hollywood California, and also spent some time living in Mid City down by LaBrea and Wilshire. I am a rapper, singer, producer and entrepreneur. Although I grew up in LA, I moved to New York in 2019 to study music at NYU. After picking up piano and guitar at the age of eight, I grew a passion for music as way to express myself and what I was going through. It’s remained integral to my life. The artists I look up to the most are Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Michael Jackson, Travis Scott, Rihanna, Kanye West and Tupac Shakur. My career kicked off towards the end of high school when me and my friends started throwing underground shows around LA, and I started to release songs on SoundCloud.

Expanding further as I moved to NY for college, I am created the event production company Roaring 20s, a platform for independent artists of color around the world, based in LA, NY and Berlin Germany. Starting as an idea I had with my co-founder and best friend Kenny Dreams to simply create a platform for ourselves, Roaring 20s has now expanded into an emerging collective of artists taking over the underground hip hop scene mainly in NYC where we are currently based. Over the last few months I’ve been feeding the fanbase I’ve built up with my latest singles “Show Me Luv” with my artist and R20 member Reaper3lu, “BANG” with Kenny Dreams and Synthefire–also fellow members of the Roaring 20s group– and lastly “ELITE TIMING,” which has garnered millions of views across platforms in just the last few months, which came together in less than an hour when my friend JohnElite came over and picked out the beat.

Over the last few years I’ve started to introduce a new sound to hip hop called Rage and Blues. The sound is a blend of high energy ‘rage’ and afro beats influenced production merged with live instrumentation both in the recorded track and in its live performance. I’ve always had a wide range of styles I loved to create in, but found it can be confusing when you’re trying to market versatility in music, so creating this hybrid sound has allowed me to communicate exactly the type of music I make.

Over the last few years I’ve been blessed with a unique affiliation with the East and West Coast, and have worked hard to maximize these resources to create a meaningful impact wherever I go. Starting as just an outgoing kid from LA with a lot of ideas, I’m now working with my team to lead Roaring 20s, packing out venues from 300-1000 people weekly across the country. When we’re done it will be known as one of the greatest hip hop groups of all time.

Now I’m at the point where I have built a sustainable structure for my art and my business and now I’m working to scale it up.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Life is never easy, especially when you are trying to build something to last. My goal at this point in my life is to fulfill my purpose by following the path God has set out for me, and enjoy the process as much as I can. However, it took me a long time to get to this mindset.

As I began releasing music and starting to throw events through Roaring 20s, one of the biggest obstacles I encountered wasn’t actually getting the tasks done, but completing them in a sustainable way that didn’t cause me to burn out. When I have a clear vision for something, everything in my existence hyper focuses on making that vision become a reality. Sometimes to the point where I can’t see anything else. For the purpose of propelling yourself forward and getting things done, this quality is vital, but if you’re not careful, your hyper focus on one thing will cause you to lose sight of everything else, even the people close to you.

There was one summer we started going really crazy with events, I had just gotten back from Berlin, Germany in a study abroad program where I was able to successfully expand Roaring 20s overseas– my first time ever leaving the country. After that we started doing more events in New York, LA and even touring in Utah with Jay Critch, Shordie Shordie and Rucci in front of thousands of people. I felt on top of the world.

I was moving a mile a minute, with no intention of slowing down. My vision was only focused on moving forward and upward, as fast as I could. However, with this focus I was blind to a lot of what was going on around me. Because I wasn’t really caring about how I got from point A to point B, I didn’t realize that a lot of the people around me at the time were draining my energy and/or just not caring about my wellbeing. This created a lot of built up frustration that I was holding in, and would come out at random moments without me realizing. This led to several moments of me acting out of character that God used to humble me, and serve as a wakeup call that I could not continue to live and operate this way. I had to learn mindfulness as well as self care so that I could be the fullest version of myself, and fulfill my purpose to the highest level; Spreading light through God.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
On a daily basis I am making music at the Roaring 20s home studio, organizing events with my best friend and business partner Kenny Dreams, and doing music marketing for myself and other artists. Both people that I manage like New York artist Reaper3lu, as well as paying clients.

Musically I produce for myself and other artists on Logic Pro, as well as engineer sessions when needed. My biggest natural strength is composing melodies as I’ve played guitar piano and bass for over 10 years, but I’ve worked hard to also bring my drum patterns to an equal level. Vocally, I’ve been singing since I was 5 years old, and rapping since I was 14. I’ve found my natural voice is very distinct and recognizable, and my writing style very free flowing and sonically pleasing with melodic flows, while also having very intentional lyrical content.

When I am in my creative flow, nothing can stop me from making some of the best pieces of music to ever exist. I create art to last forever. If you ain’t know now, you’ll find out real soon.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
To answer simply, YES. When you put your all (emotionally, creatively and financially) into something that only exists in your head, a lot of people will look at you crazy.

One of the biggest risks that I took was try to throw an 1000 person, 18+ event partnered with NYU Welcome Week. We had 7 days to promote at a venue with a racist owner that hated doing 18+ parties, and was charging us double because of it, . My team was looking at me crazy, but for whatever reason I had the strongest conviction that this event needed to happen. We would be bringing a new underground crowd of kids that loved to turn up, but were never given access to quality venues like this, playing the music they loved. I knew it would have a large impact on the community we were building and expand our brand to a huge mass of new people, and was convinced it needed to happen.

We went to Washington Square Park in NYC damn near every day handing out flyers and free R20 book bags to the new students during welcome week, shooting content with our friend Spidercuz (a local NYC public figure) and doing everything we could to get the word out. At the night of the event, we ended up having a pretty filled room(definitely not 1000 people tho) but everyone there had a great time–except I ended the night with a fat bill and 10 security guards pressing for me bread while the owner ran my card until it declined.

I had every reason to feel like shit, but honestly I knew it was supposed to happen. And looking back now, because we threw that event we met a huge number of people that later became instrumental figures in our team moving forward. From mentors, musical collaborators, to DJs and event partners that we still work with today. In one night we transitioned from just being a college party group to being introduced to the underground scene of New York, setting us up for the next stage of our journey.

This definitely taught me to trust my gut, even if everything else doesn’t make sense. God will lead you where you are supposed to go.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/izlamarr/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IzLaMarr/
• Twitter: https://x.com/IzLaMarr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhtNKYjybAnUyy28GBbJUQ
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/iz-lamarr/elite-timing?si=a46525064a574ae485f9b1ab5cf6bf8f&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Image Credits
Photos by A.L.V. Media