Interview: Shreveport, LA Based RnB Artist Donalveon Discusses His New Song "Tell Me"
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“...here I am a 29-year-old man, living on some real grown man shit, seen some things and been through more. So I actually have something to sing about now.”
1. Your brand new single "Tell Me" is great; what inspired you to write and record it, and who produced it?
I really appreciate that! “Tell Me” was produced by Kevin Posey.
Myxr App, this great L.A. music platform is where it all started. The owner LJ Moody made the link with Kevin possible and he laced me with the track in June, I cut the record that same month. Bryan Johnson, the studio engineer for the session, came through with slick assistance by laying a dope mix on the outro that sealed the deal with me, when I heard it I knew we made something special.
The instrumental alone was on a sexy vibe, so I kind of just put myself in that mode mixed with some personal experiences, the words just fell in place. Very smooth session and I love how the track came out.
2. "Tell Me" will be featured on your upcoming debut album “Sodium.Chromium.Uranium”; what can you tell us about this project, and what are you most proud of with it?
“Tell Me” is actually the very last song added to this album! Mane if I had the pages to tell you the full story on this album I would, but in short it’s my long awaited debut and how it all came to be is what I’m most proud of!
I wanted the playlist to reflect not only just things I felt and went through, but more so the chronology of the tracklist. From start to finish, I want my fans to know Sodium is sequenced as songs I chose as early as 2007!
Yea, I literally was a 14-year-old freshman at CE Byrd in my hometown Shreveport, LA in the embryo stages of what is to eventually become my first LP. My heart kind of smiles when I think back on how far my brother(and executive producer) El “E:R” Robinson started working on this album because I wasn’t even old enough to sing some of the material that I chose to sing. My parents were strict but still trusting enough to allow me to develop my sound so it all worked out.
Fast forward unbelievably 15 years and 4 underground EPs later, here I am a 29-year-old man, living on some real grown man shit, seen some things and been through more. So I actually have something to sing about now.
This album is a life soundtrack in a sense on a sensually rhythmic tip, but it also introduces my New Age R&B sound that I plan to seep into the genre’s soundscape of tomorrow! Very galactic and strange, I use new sounds and classic reminders along the way, it’s a beautiful entry into this R&B music game!
3. How did you initially become interested in music? Have there been any artists in your life or that you heard on the radio that really motivated you to start songwriting and perfecting your craft as a musician?
I started singing at age 4 and I got initial influence from both sides of my family with music basically; my Mom’s mother was the choir director of our family church choral department for many years and almost everyone on my Dad’s side is musically inclined!
My cousins are in a classic R&B band called Profyle that went on to top the charts and it really opened my eyes at an early age to R&B; although I credit Usher and Timbaland’s work with Ginuwine and Aaliyah for inspiring me at age 5 to slide through this R&B game with my own next-era sound!
I started building my style around age 9, the same year I started writing along with the Space Age idea I worked into my brand; an angle inspired by my Dad who’s big on Sci-fi and all things time travel and it made me love futurism and incorporate it into my music.
I want what I’m doing now to become the standard or an inspiration to the standard of the R&B scene of the 2040s! New sounds, instruments, melodies, languages and foreign samples are kind of my formula to creating the magic I’m creating; no one knows what I’m going to do next!
4. When someone listens to "Tell Me" or “Sodium.Chromium.Uranium” for the first time, what do you want them to take away from the experience?
“Tell Me” is a straight up baby maker *laughs* so my fellas out there they have to score on me; just play this track I swear you in there!
My ladies I want them to escape for those almost 4 minutes and channel the sexiest mindset they can: it’s a time and place for everything and this track will do it, every time! I want my fans to get a prophetic R&B experience from Sodium, it’s truly like no other sound out there and I want them to know I will take R&B into another era!
5. With 2022 winding down, what are some of your goals musically for 2023?
I plan to definitely release this album in this last quarter! My birthday is November 24th and the title of this album actually represents that, just in periodic element form: Sodium 11, Chromium 24 and Uranium 92, so this album is the biggest mark on my agenda in addition to releasing visuals for the first single “Get Better” and “Tell Me” to follow.
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