Meet Nygeria Pannell of Los Angeles / OC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nygeria Pannell.

Hi Nygeria, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My story starts as far back as I can remember. I moved from New Jersey to the Carolinas during primary school, and a lot of who I am today was shaped by what I experienced growing up. Overcoming childhood hardships, poverty, and violence in the home built an undeniable hustle and resilience in me that I still carry today. At the time, I didn’t necessarily understand those experiences as something that was shaping me—I just knew how to keep moving.

By the time I graduated high school, I was simultaneously completing my first degree and preparing to attend a university. I didn’t really have guidance when it came to navigating college or understanding all of the possibilities available to me. College just felt like what I was supposed to do. We’re often taught this traditional path: go to school, get a degree, become a doctor, lawyer, or enter some other established profession. For me, I thought that meant becoming a doctor—a surgeon, specifically.

Eventually, I had to be honest with myself that I wasn’t happy with where I was. I knew I was capable of more, but I didn’t yet know what “more” looked like. I had originally considered joining the military directly after high school and backed out, but I was already involved in ROTC in college. Eventually, that calling came back around. I dropped out of the university I was attending and took a leap of faith by joining the U.S. Army.
It was a huge transition, but it became one of the most important decisions I’ve made. The military gave me experiences, discipline, independence, and perspective that continue to influence the way I approach my life and business today. I ultimately completed my bachelor’s degree as well, graduating about five months after leaving the service, in 2021.

My transition out of the Army happened during the pandemic, when the world had slowed down and there was a lot of time to figure out what came next. Somewhere in that period, music found me.
My brothers were already creating music, and after recording with them for the first time, I started experimenting with it myself. I wasn’t completely invested yet. In fact, my first real entrepreneurial venture was sneaker reselling because I was heavily into sneaker culture at the time. I built a legitimate business from it and had a great run, but eventually I became discouraged by certain aspects of that industry and sold my final inventory. From there, I continued exploring entrepreneurship and took on Airbnb rentals. Even though neither venture ultimately became my long-term path, both taught me a lot about business, independence, and what it meant to create something of my own.

Looking back, though, entrepreneurship had already planted itself in me.
After leaving the military, I had temporarily moved back home with my mom, but I knew I wasn’t finished exploring who I could become. During that time, I kept getting closer to music. My brother and I literally built and painted our first recording booth in the garage of our home. That’s where I really started falling in love—not only with making music, but with my art, my voice, and my becoming.

About a year into transitioning back into civilian life, I moved to Charlotte. I was still working in the medical field because that was what I knew as “security,” but creatively, something completely different was happening.
It didn’t take long for me to find Charlotte’s music community, and that community welcomed me with open arms. I started performing, connecting with other creatives, learning the industry, and pushing myself to become better. From my first performance with the Queen City family, music became an unconditional, unbreakable love for me. Charlotte became the steppingstone for the journey I’m on now, and I’ll always be grateful for what that city gave me.

Along the way, I’ve grown from recording in a garage booth to performing on larger stages, being recognized in press, producing my own creative experiences and events, developing my skills in audio engineering, and ultimately building a career where my artistry, entrepreneurship, and production work can exist under one vision.

After about three years there, I reached another point in my life where I knew I needed more. I had gone through the end of a relationship, my purpose was becoming clearer, and Los Angeles had already been on my mind for some time. Earlier in 2024, I had quit my job and made a promise to myself that I was going to take this journey seriously and stop allowing “security” to make my decisions for me.
Then one day, I got on the road.

I didn’t make a big announcement. I just drove to Los Angeles.
There were challenges between making that decision and actually getting here, but once I left, I didn’t look back. I came to Los Angeles knowing that I didn’t only want to be an artist. I wanted to build something. Before leaving Charlotte, I had already been experimenting with ideas around artist services, development systems, creative packages, and ways of bringing creatives together. The vision wasn’t fully formed yet, but the seed was there.

Los Angeles helped me understand what I was actually building.
That vision has grown into Empyre Production Company—an ecosystem I’m building around independent creatives, production, music, events, development, and collaboration. Ultimately, I want Empyre to help connect creative communities across coasts and eventually around the world. There’s something especially meaningful about being hands-on in that process: engineering, producing, creating events, working alongside other artists, developing concepts, and watching ideas that once only existed in my head begin to exist in real life.

At the same time, I’m still evolving as Nygeria, the artist. That’s important to me because I don’t see the artist and the founder as two separate people. My experiences as an independent artist have helped me understand what creatives actually need, while building Empyre has expanded the way I think about my own artistry, leadership, and legacy.

I’ve realized that so much of my life has been about taking leaps before I had every answer—the military, entrepreneurship, music, Charlotte, Los Angeles, and now building Empyre. Each chapter gave me something I needed for the next one.

There are still moments when I feel like I’m not doing enough, especially during the lows. That’s when I’m grateful for the people around me who remind me to look back at how far I’ve actually come. Sometimes you’re so focused on laying the next brick that you don’t realize you’ve already built part of the foundation.
And that’s really where I am today: still building, still becoming, and still laying those bricks.

The exciting part is knowing we’re only at the beginning.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I don’t think anything you truly want in life, especially your purpose, your dream, whatever it is you’re chasing, 5rwill ever be a completely smooth road. If it were, it wouldn’t have the same meaning or substance. Maybe we wouldn’t want it as deeply as we do.
So, for me, no, it definitely hasn’t been smooth. And I think one of my greatest struggles has ultimately been facing myself.

That’s actually a huge part of what I love about my upcoming project, Haunted. The project shines a light on confronting my own shadows—understanding them, accepting them, and ultimately becoming one with every part of myself instead of running from the pieces that are uncomfortable.

For a long time, I had a habit of taking on other people’s baggage and carrying weight that wasn’t mine. I was an over-giver. I wanted to put everyone else’s pieces back together, especially in relationships, and in a way, that became my drug. If I was focused on fixing, loving, or saving someone else, I didn’t have to sit still long enough to face myself.
Eventually, I realized I was avoiding things within me that needed attention—childhood trauma that carried into relationship trauma, old wounds, patterns, fears. I had to dig those things up, face them, understand them, and then put them back to rest—but this time, in peace. That process hasn’t always been beautiful, but it has been necessary.

Another struggle has been focus. My brain is constantly running. I have what feels like limitless ideas, concepts, businesses, music, visuals, and things I want to bring to life. I want to do everything at once, and sometimes I want to see it all completed at once. Add perfectionism to that, never feeling like something is completely finished or good enough—and ironically, wanting to accomplish everything can sometimes leave you feeling stuck.

Of course, there have been tangible struggles too; leaving the security of a traditional career, relocating across the country, leaving my family behind, building independently, figuring things out without always having a blueprint, and learning how to fund a vision while you’re still building it. But strangely enough, I’ve found that the external challenges are usually easier for me to face than the internal ones. I can figure out how to make something happen. Learning when to slow down, let go, trust, and get out of my own way has been the harder work.

I’ve had to learn to be kinder to myself and understand that it’s not all supposed to happen overnight. Nothing great ever was.

Sometimes I think ideas are sent to us simply as a starting point—almost like a glimpse into the future. You may receive something creatively today and not understand where it belongs until months or even a year later. Then suddenly another piece arrives, everything connects, and you realize why you had to hold onto that idea. That’s art to me. There’s so much joy in those full-circle moments.

There’s also something humbling about watching how life—or, for me, the Universe—will slow you down, redirect you, teach you patience, and teach you how to love yourself if you’re willing to listen. We can become so focused on the future that we overlook what’s directly in front of us, even though what’s in front of us may be the very thing meant to get us to that vision.

Then there’s the reality of navigating people and the industry. Learning who genuinely wants to build with you versus who only wants access to the outcome. Learning who sees the vision and is willing to put in the work behind it. I’m naturally very observant and intuitive, and sometimes being hyperaware can turn into approaching people with your guard already up. Finding the balance between discernment and still allowing yourself to trust, collaborate, and connect has been another lesson.

And yes, there are lonely moments. There are losses. There are ego deaths. There are moments of realization when you have to accept people, situations, and even previous versions of yourself for exactly what they were. Growing up and growing into yourself can be incredibly bittersweet.
But I’ve also learned that you can’t stay at the top of the roller coaster forever. There are going to be highs and lows, and strangely enough, all of it drives me; and I’m here for the ride.

Every time I come out of another battle, I trust myself a little more. I listen a little more closely. And eventually, I find myself smiling because I realize: I made it through again.
The fear, the doubt, the noise—all of those things can become distractions from what I believe the Universe already has in store for me. Sometimes the hardest part is simply trusting that and, as my parents would always say, “remembering to remember.”

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am an unchecked creative. I live outside of the box, believing that the impossible is always possible—and that what seems impossible usually just hasn’t been figured out yet.

At my core, I am a music artist and performer. I love performing. There’s something about being onstage and creating an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else. I write and produce my own music, and I’m also an audio engineer. My love and appreciation for sound has grown tremendously as I’ve learned the technical side of creating it. I think about sound almost like photography: you’re capturing a moment, a feeling, an emotion—and if you do it right, you create something that allows that moment to live forever.

I’m also deeply involved in creative direction. I create and direct my own work alongside my support team, from the music itself to visuals, concepts, storytelling, performances, and the worlds surrounding my projects. I don’t like limiting creativity to one medium. Sometimes an idea starts as a sound, sometimes it’s an image, a scene, an event, a feeling, or even an entire world. My job is figuring out how to translate whatever I see or feel into something other people can experience.

That’s also what brings me back to my larger vision as a founder. Through Empyre Production Company, I’m building an ecosystem where I can eventually executive produce and creatively direct other independent artists and creatives who think the same way—people with big visions who may simply need the resources, team, knowledge, or environment to bring those visions to life. I don’t want Empyre to just provide services; I want it to be a place where ideas are developed, challenged, expanded, and ultimately made real.

I think what sets me apart is that I don’t naturally see the boundaries between things. Artist, engineer, producer, creative director, entrepreneur—they’re different disciplines, but to me they’re all different languages for creation. Understanding multiple sides of the process allows me to communicate with the people helping execute a vision while also understanding what it takes to actually bring that vision together.

I’m also someone who likes pushing the limits of the people I create with. Some of my favorite moments are when I bring someone one of my wild ideas and initially there’s this look of, “How are we going to do that?” Then we start figuring it out. Eventually, you see that person’s face light up because we’ve captured, produced, or created something they weren’t even sure was possible. I love that. It’s never about demanding the impossible from someone; it’s about getting people excited enough to discover what’s possible together.

What I’m most proud of, though, is my journey and my resilience. I’m proud of how far I’ve come while still being able to recognize how much further I have to go. I’m proud that I’ve maintained the ability to see beyond the surface—to look at something that exists as it is and still imagine what else it could become.
I’m proud when I see my own vision come to life, but I’m equally proud when I can help someone else see theirs more clearly.

Ultimately, that’s probably what I’m becoming known for: VISION. Seeing beyond what’s immediately in front of me, connecting things that may not obviously belong together, and believing strongly enough in an idea to figure out how to make it real.

That’s what being an unchecked creative means to me. I don’t create from the boundaries of what already exists. I create from the possibility of what could.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I think the next 5–10 years will continue to bring what I like to call the new industry—an industry increasingly developed around and for independent artists.

We’ve already watched the barriers to entry change tremendously. Artists don’t necessarily need to wait for someone to discover them, give them permission, or hand them access to create and release music anymore. We can record ourselves, distribute our own music, build our own audiences, create our own visuals, produce our own events, and develop businesses around our art. I think the next shift is going to be about building stronger infrastructure around that independence.

Being independent shouldn’t have to mean doing everything alone.

I think we’re going to see more companies, collectives, producers, creative spaces, distribution platforms, and artist-development systems built specifically to give independent artists access to resources that historically came with being signed—without necessarily requiring them to give up ownership or creative control to receive them.

That’s a huge part of why I’m building Empyre the way I am. I don’t want to recreate the traditional industry. I want to help build what comes next. I see Empyre becoming one of the companies helping lead that new industry—eventually on a worldwide scale—by creating an ecosystem where independent creatives can access production, engineering, creative direction, development, events, collaboration, and community while still remaining at the center of their own careers.

At the same time, I think one of the biggest conversations over the next decade is going to be technology versus humanity, especially with AI.

AI isn’t going anywhere, and I don’t necessarily think technology itself is the enemy. There are incredible ways it can assist creatives and make certain tools more accessible. What concerns me is when assistance becomes replacement—when we’re so focused on generating more, faster, that we start removing the human experience that made people connect with art in the first place.

Music isn’t perfect because a machine can make it technically perfect. Art is powerful because somebody felt something and found a way to translate that feeling into sound, movement, film, photography, writing, or whatever their medium may be. The imperfections, experiences, cultures, heartbreaks, joy, weird ideas, and different perspectives are part of what make creativity human.

So ironically, while technology becomes more advanced, I think authenticity is going to become even more valuable.

That’s the future I want to contribute to: a worldwide creative industry where artists have more ownership, more access, and more freedom—but where human creativity is still protected and celebrated.
The new industry shouldn’t just make it easier to create more. It should make it possible for more people to create freely.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.empyreproduction.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/empyreproductionsco/
• Facebook: https://www.empyreproduction.com/nygeria-latestnews
• Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/officiallynygeria/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@officiallynygeria
• Yelp: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/nygeria/1582247756