Entertainment

Melodies of Transformation: Scott Howard’s Musical Quest to Awaken Souls

Published

2 years ago

August 18, 2023

In the realm where rhythm and inspiration converge, there’s an artist who orchestrates melodies that transcend the ordinary and cross into the profound. Scott Howard, the musical virtuoso known for his transformative compositions, has woven an entrancing tapestry of sound that not only echoes within the ears but also resonates deeply within the very core of his listeners. As Popular Hustle steps into his musical sanctuary, we explore the depths of Scott’s creative journey, his perspective on the intersection of music and personal growth, and how he envisions his harmonious tunes igniting souls across the world.

“Sonic Alchemy: Merging Soundscapes and Emotions”
Your music seems to seamlessly blend different emotional landscapes with intricate soundscapes. How do you approach the fusion of emotions and melodies, and could you elaborate on how this synergy creates a unique connection with your audience?

The alchemy of sound and emotion—that’s a very cool way of putting it. The music crafted holds a prophetic essence, representing a New Now, and ancient genre of channeled events from Source at 432Hz. It all began around the age of seven, a pivotal time when a recurring dream guided my path. Years later, I learned the reason behind that dream—it was described by a medium & an independent psychic as resulting from an abduction at age seven, an event that set me on a journey to use lyrics and melodies in 432Hz to awaken others.

Synchronicity plays its role too. The passing of my son Maxx, precisely 12 months from the day, heightened my emotions and catalyzed a cathartic outpouring. Months of writing birthed music that will find its place on future albums. The subject matter has a profound impact on me, often driving melodies forth. Occasionally, it’s the reverse—melodies conceived for events yet to unfold, adding new chapters to the volumes of my life, my albums acting as books and the songs as chapters within.

My personal awakening in 2017 introduced yet another layer of significance to my creative thoughts. An urge emerged to compose a song about a future Harvest—a time necessitating global healing. This birthed “Harvest Blessings,” an acoustic piece about times to come, resonating with listeners who’ve experienced loss, especially those who’ve lost children since the onset of Covid. Music offers solace and a path forward, a path that resonates most profoundly in the harmonious vibrations of 432Hz. The most synchronistic fact was, upon the death of my son Maxx, I was sent by the state his death certificate. Information was given and one such item was his Social Security Number. I looked in utter amazement and, in a way, felt in a way, a relief. You see, his Social Security Number was MY PHONE NUMBER AT AGE 7! The odds are impossible. It would be amazing if it were the last say 4 numbers… THIS WAS ALL OF THEM IN ORDER! The only explanation is, this is a simulation matrix. In my day, our phone number was the one thing we had to memorize if we got lost… HOW COULD IT BE? Nine out of nine numbers, my entire phone number at the age when I was abducted. WE ARE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE…. NOR DO I BELIEVE IN OUR BASE REALITY.

“I asked the man with a faceless mask, what is this madness for…a world with nothing left for us …”

“No peace, no love, only war…”

‘All the saints and sinners are just standing in a line…there’s plenty of room for everyone,

but we’re running out of time…”

“Dreamer…. Oh, dreamer…”

“Harbinger of Resonance: Crafted Frequencies in Your Work”
Your compositions are noted for their unique resonance. Could you shed light on the process behind selecting frequencies or tones for your music, and how do you believe these crafted vibrations impact the listener’s experience?

Our average body composition is 70% water, and it carries a remarkable memory. Water responds to our words—kind ones form intricate frozen shapes, while negativity distorts its patterns. Even more fascinating, show water a photo of a face placed above it for a mere moment, and when frozen, that exact image emerges. Similarly, music resonating at 432Hz aligns with the Earth’s frequency, bathing us in positivity. It’s like higher vibrations crafting enhanced listening skills, fostering involved and content listeners who, I hope, awaken to both the world’s intricacies and Terra’s plight, ready to address its needs.

“The sun might be cloudy…on some days…but never… embers of life will extinguish our flame…”

“Never alone or afraid…living in love’s light…you’ll always be saved…”

“Together forever…heavens source made…we are forever…”

“Unveiling Identity: Music as a Mirror to Self-Discovery”
Music often becomes a vessel for artists to express their inner selves. How has your musical journey intertwined with your personal growth, and in what ways do you find your own transformation reflected in the notes and lyrics of your compositions?

The music IS ME. And I AM MUSIC. There’s a fascinating anecdote about George Harrison that comes to mind. A psychic friend of his, during his earthly existence, conducted readings. When he transitioned, she reached out to him, inquiring about his current pursuits. His spirit responded with a profound statement: “Where I am… I am music.” This incident inspired me to craft a song titled “I AM MUSIC.” It resonated deeply with me, encapsulating the profound connection between our essence and the harmonious vibrations we create.

“I am music…the things that I say…the curiosity of what I’ve learned today…”

“I am here, the same as you…”

“A soul born at the same time to question the view…”

“Why are we here at this time…. this thought has clouded my mind…”

“Here to learn our lessons well…a veiled prison cell…”

“I am music…the things that I see…a soul’s climb is the same as an old oak tree…”

“Will you find your life of worth this time…or live it all over again…a Karmic mind…”

We are all receivers, based on the frequency we have achieved or the higher vibration we resonate…. the more stations or hidden worlds we see, and become aware of, the luckier we get. As the events or experiences manifest, the realities and experiences get better.

The above lyric was written in 2012. I hope my lyrics have gotten better…LOL. My life experiences and events have undeniably shaped both the stories and melodies. It’s fascinating how everyone perceives a song uniquely; one may appreciate the vocals while not connecting with the melody, and another might find the melody captivating yet find the voice off-key (how they decipher that, I’m not entirely sure…LOL). My latest single “We Are Forever in 432Hz” was put out with a music video… and you wouldn’t believe the experiences, people have had, every person, contradicts the other… they all hear something based on the frequency they are at… Now, the idea is to get everyone moving in the same direction… be light!

“Narratives Beyond Lyrics: Painting Stories with Sound”
Your compositions often tell stories without the need for words. How do you convey complex narratives through instrumental music, and could you provide an example of a piece that encapsulates a particularly profound message or story?

Staying with my new music video which is unlike any other… it narrates an image-rich story of a world brimming with forgotten wonders, all returning to rouse the slumbering masses. Now, about the music itself, I can’t help but reflect on the review of Music Farmer 5: “In the sprawling canvas of contemporary music, few artists consistently tap into the shared soul of humanity like Scott Howard. Known for his visionary prowess and commitment to themes of love, unity, healing, and self-discovery. Howard resonates with an ethereal brand of music that transcends the ordinary.”

I choose to create art in colored music telling a story, using everything in my arsenal to make a person calm, uncomfortable, angry, and sad enough to question the status quo. Transformation and growth seldom occur without a measure of pain. Most music springs from that very wellspring of pain. Our world, particularly at this juncture, is veering into turmoil, with malevolent forces at the helm. The reality we live seems straight out of a show, encompassing villains, heroes (hopefully), creatures, extraterrestrial beings, and even enchantment! Magic permeates every corner, yet so few explore and awaken others to its presence. Many remain unaware that our planet is hollow, while the moon, placed here eons ago, bears the same secret. The Truman Show, in a way, mirrors reality more than we might imagine, echoing the daily rhythm of “Good morning, good afternoon, good night.” It’s time to unveil the mysteries of a world that defies common understanding.

I envision a realm of mystique breaking free from a fabricated narrative that has lulled our masses into slumber. It’s time to joyfully awaken and head to school not merely to practice professions, but to uncover truths. The genuine remedies are reserved for an elite 1/10 of a percent, complete with their space fleet and army. Dark forces have commandeered the music industry, weaving melodies that relentlessly hammer listeners with words on issues that should never reach their ears, the public’s consciousness. We must reclaim our music and illuminate the public about the real events unfolding today—events shrouded by news outlets. “We Are Forever” endeavors to accomplish precisely this through imagery, music, and song. I’m hopeful that it resonates with individuals, and if you find it in your heart, share it forward, for in doing so, we collectively awaken more corners of the world.

“Outer lands…before races. Hearts were open. The Sun fed life’s seed…”

“When Ego, deceit or fear had no place in me….”

“They came from the heavens, looking for gold…viewed us as cattle…to this day…we’re still owned…”

“Games of Lies…curtains exposed. Rotting in a karmic Candyland…”

“Manufactured History, false flag wars…pedo Mickey-land.”

“Global Soundwaves: Aspirations for Impact”
Your music has the potential to cross-cultural and geographical boundaries. In what ways do you envision your compositions making a positive impact on a global scale, transcending language and uniting listeners through shared emotions and experiences?

Once more, this genre is steeped in ancient roots, the frequency it emanates from stretches beyond ancient itself. Our world hungers for positivity, a universal yearning that knows no bounds of gender, color, or creed. In essence, there’s only one soul—no differentiation between you, me, male, or female. We’re all fragments of the same soul, akin to fractals converging within a holographic matrix. This grand tapestry is woven for us to gather experiences and return them to Source. It’s intriguing to ponder that heaven, while often depicted as idyllic, might not hold the same allure as our earthly existence, given how everyone seems drawn to the imminent EVENT. We have the best seats…

“We have forgotten who we are… Angels of light from afar.”

“Escaping unseen prison walls… slaves from this ancient war…”

“Full life experience… a soul mission to be. Not coming back to this prison unfree…”

“Misinformation, what is real… who can we trust. In this divine new deal…”

The music bestowed upon me resonates profoundly with many. My hope rests in their willingness to share it and the world will be a better place… Unbeknownst to many, hidden technology remains hoarded by the elite, a treasure we could all enjoy. Think of universal space travel, a gift to the masses. Personally, I’m yearning for a performance on Ganymede, where the action is, of course!

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Entertainment

Joaquina’s “Freno” Captures the Push and Pull of Letting Go

Published

3 days ago

December 1, 2025

Popular Hustle Staff

There’s a specific kind of emotional paralysis that “Freno” nails perfectly: knowing you should leave, wanting to leave, but finding yourself stuck in the same place anyway. Joaquina doesn’t just sing about this feeling. She builds an entire world around it.

The Venezuelan-American singer, who took home Best New Artist at the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards, released “Freno” as part of her debut EP “Los Mejores Años,” which also earned a nomination for Best Singer-Songwriter Album that same year. At just 3:34, the track distills a cycle of heartbreak into something achingly familiar. The lyrics circle back on themselves intentionally, with Joaquina admitting she’s “on her fifth try” when the saying goes third time’s the charm. It’s self-aware without being self-pitying, and that balance is harder to strike than it sounds.

What makes “Freno” work beyond its confessional honesty is the production’s restraint. Recorded at Miami’s Art House under the direction of 14-time Grammy and Latin Grammy winner Julio Reyes Copello, the track opens with fingerpicked guitar arpeggios that establish a melancholic foundation before Joaquina even enters. There’s no distortion, no heavy effects. Just natural sustain and space, complementing the synth pads and programmed drums underneath.

The guitar work, performed by Colombian session guitarist Ana Liu, deserves particular attention. A Berklee Presidential Scholarship recipient who studied under Danilo Pérez and John Patitucci, Liu brings a jazz-trained sensitivity to the pop arrangement. Her open voicings evoke hesitation, mirroring the song’s “braking” motif with almost literary precision. When the chorus hits, the guitar shifts to strumming for emphasis, adding percussive weight without ever competing with the vocals. It’s warm, woody, and impossibly tender. Every sustained chord feels like a confession you weren’t quite ready to hear.

That restraint speaks to Copello’s broader philosophy at Art House, where he’s shaped records for Jennifer Lopez, Alejandro Sanz, Marc Anthony, and Ricky Martin. The producer has a gift for knowing when to pull back, for letting a song breathe instead of burying it under layers. With “Freno,” every element exists in service of Joaquina’s voice and the emotional weight she carries. The synths hover rather than push. The drums keep time without demanding attention. It’s the kind of production that sounds simple until you try to replicate it.

Joaquina’s Latin Grammy win for Best New Artist wasn’t a fluke or an industry bet on potential. “Freno” and the rest of “Los Mejores Años” showed an artist who arrived fully formed, with a clear perspective on love, loss, and the messy space between. She writes like someone who’s lived more than her years would suggest, finding specificity in moments that other writers would gloss over. The image of watching someone look at another person from across the room, knowing it shouldn’t hurt but feeling it anyway, that’s not a generic heartbreak lyric. That’s observation. The Recording Academy recognized what listeners already knew: Joaquina isn’t building toward something. She’s already there.

That maturity shows in her songwriting instincts. The best breakup songs don’t dramatize the ending. They capture the long, frustrating middle, where you’re still stuck with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Joaquina, barely into her twenties, already knows this.

Entertainment

The Quarantined Release ‘Aversion To Normalcy,’ An Album Born From War and Survival

Published

3 weeks ago

November 13, 2025

Popular Hustle Staff

Sean Martin // The Quarantined (Image credit: Alexx Calise)

The Quarantined are released their third studio EP, “Aversion to Normalcy,” today, and it’s not the kind of record you put on for background music. Created by Sean Martin, a former airborne infantryman and Iraq War veteran, the album confronts trauma head-on, pulling from his experiences in combat and the disorienting aftermath of trying to rebuild a life once you’re home. It’s grunge-heavy, emotionally direct, and built around the idea that “normal” is just a polite lie we tell ourselves. What makes it work is that Martin isn’t trying to package his experience into something digestible. He’s just refusing to look away.

The album arrives with momentum that’s hard to ignore. The Quarantined have racked up over 30 million views across TikTok, with one clip of “Skeleton Chair” alone hitting 1.1 million+ views. On Spotify, they’ve pulled in 500,000 streams, and their viral reach has sparked conversations about trauma, forgiveness, and what it actually means to heal. For a band working outside the traditional industry machine, those numbers say something about how their message is connecting.

‘Aversion to Normalcy’ by The Quarantined

Martin doesn’t soften his subject matter. Tracks like “Skeleton Chair,” “Shadow (on my back),” and “Nemesis (friend of mine)” trace a path through chaos, self-destruction, and the slow, unglamorous work of choosing to survive. He’s not writing from a place of having figured it all out. He’s writing from the middle of it, which is what makes the record feel urgent rather than reflective. There’s no tidy resolution here, just the raw acknowledgment that some battles don’t end when you come home.

The album was recorded at Blackbird Studios and Sound Emporium in Nashville, two facilities known for handling heavyweight rock projects. Producer Nathan Yarborough, who’s worked with Alice in Chains, Korn, Halestorm, and Evanescence, handled engineering and production. The lineup includes Jerry Roe on drums, Luis Espalliat on bass, and Zack Rapp from Dream Theater on lead guitar and violins, with Martin covering vocals and guitar. It’s a setup that balances aggression with precision, letting the songs hit hard without losing their emotional core.

In a Veterans Day post on Facebook, Martin didn’t hold back about what this album means and what it cost. “You know, the things you thank us for today, have lifetime consequences for those who carry the burden,” he wrote. “I always thought if you’re gonna thank someone, better be specific about what and why, otherwise it has no meaning except as a false absolution for yourself.” It’s a pointed critique of performative gratitude, and it underscores what “Aversion to Normalcy” is actually about: rejecting easy answers and comfortable narratives in favor of something messier and more honest.

Martin pulls from punk rock, grunge, and metal, but what ties it together is his refusal to romanticize any of it. This isn’t protest music in the traditional sense. There are no slogans, no clear villains. Instead, it’s an invitation to sit with discomfort, to look at the parts of life that don’t fit into neat categories, and to find meaning in survival itself.

The Quarantined also support the Free2Luv movement, working on anti-bullying efforts, mental health advocacy, and music education for veterans and their families. It tracks with what the album’s already doing: making room for people who are still figuring it out, still fighting through it.

“Aversion to Normalcy” doesn’t offer answers. It offers witness, which might be more valuable anyway. In a culture that constantly demands we move on, heal up, and get back to normal, Martin’s album asks a better question: what if normal was never the goal in the first place?

“Aversion to Normalcy” is available now on all streaming platforms. You can follow The Quarantined on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook at @thequarantined, visit their website here, or stream their projects on Spotify.

Entertainment

Meet Kaziboii, the Afrobeats Artist Mixing Drill Energy With Vibrant Soul

Published

3 weeks ago

November 10, 2025

Popular Hustle Staff

There’s a tension in Kaziboii’s music that most artists spend years trying to figure out. How do you make something hit hard enough for the club while still carrying real weight? How do you blend the aggressive punch of drill with the kind of soul that actually means something? For the Nigerian artist now based in the UK, that balance isn’t something he’s chasing. It’s just how he hears music.

Raised between Lagos and Port Harcourt with a mother who kept music constantly playing, Kaziboii didn’t just grow up around sound. He studied it. As a kid, he bought Michael Jackson lyric sheets just to understand how songs worked. That early obsession turned into high school bands, homemade beats, and eventually his first studio track “Carolina” in 2018. That session confirmed what he already knew.

By 2020, he was performing at beer carnivals when Mc Concept (aka Oga Boss) saw him and started booking more shows. He went by Kazola back then, but switched to Kaziboii in 2021, the same year he moved to the UK to study Music Production and Performance at the University of Chester. He wanted to understand the technical side of what he’d been doing instinctively for years.

His sound pulls from Wizkid’s melodies, Timaya’s street energy, and Burna Boy’s fusion approach, but what comes out is distinctly his. Afrobeats meets Afro Drill meets Afro Hip-Hop in a way that refuses to pick a lane. His seven-track EP “BODY TO BODY” dropped on August 19, 2025, running just under 20 minutes with standout tracks “Jemimah” and “Wetin Day Do Me.” The project featured Duncan Mighty and Fiokee, and it showed exactly what happens when you stop treating genres like borders.

Right now he’s working on “Too Late” featuring Qx The Great and “Sideways” featuring Faceless, both international collaborations that continue his approach of turning real experiences into tracks that work on the dance floor without losing their emotional core. For Kaziboii, the goal has always been simple: make people feel something while they move.

That’s the thing about blending drill’s intensity with genuine soul. It only works if both sides are real. Kaziboii isn’t softening the edges or adding emotion as an afterthought. He’s proving that energy and feeling don’t cancel each other out. They make each other stronger.

Follow Kaziboii on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and stream his music on Spotify.