NewGround Entertainment LLC is ready to make waves.
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Four Staten Islanders – three solo artists and one producer, all longtime friends – have collaborated to form an independent record label ready to make waves and showcase artists in a way that many labels would not dare: Providing free tracks for download of its featured artists.
This method shows their confidence in backing its artists as well as helping to build a fan base through NewGround Entertainment LLC.
Haghi “NV” Suka, CEO and also a singer, songwriter and performer; Kelby Tejeda, 25, producer, engineer, and songwriter; Mary “Elizabeth Styles” Garuccio, 25, singer/songwriter/performer; and Luidely (Luis) “Fuerza” Baez, 26, also a singer/songwriter/performer collaborate on production and engineering, beat ideas and lyrics for fellow members’ songs.
Haghi “NV” Suka, a Staten Island native, founded NewGround Entertainment with longtime friend Kelby Tejeda. Suka experienced numerous turndowns by mainstream record label executives who criticized him on his sound or his image. Growing up in a household without too much money, he always had a niche for music on the radio. And he pays homage to artists, such as Brian McKnight and JZ, for influential vocals and strong business sense, respectively. Suka draws on music styles such as R&B, hip-hop, and pop. Currently working for Mid-Island Mortgage Bank on Staten Island, Suka’s mindset has him always focused on business.
“I refused to go to college if I knew that there was nothing in college that I wanted to do,” he said. “I said to myself: I’m gonna make as much money as I can, save up as much as I can and I’m gonna start pushing my record label.”
With this in mind, Suka set off with longtime friend Tejeda to build a recording studio and a record label. All of his savings, everything he worked for, he poured into NewGround Entertainment, NewGround being the name of Suka and Tejeda’s first short-lived band which hoped to reach new ground with their music.
Tejeda, whom mainly works on the production and engineering for the solo artists of NewGround Entertainment, is expecting his first child while sticking to a can’t-hold-me-back attitude.
“It’s a happy thing when a child is coming into the world. It motivates and lights a crazy fire under your ass,” he said. “Whatever you need to do, you gotta start doing it well, start setting an example, basically, for your child.”
“We all came from nothing,” Suka and Garuccio added simultaneously with regard to Tejeda’s motivation to not expose his child to the environment he grew up in: The projects.
Tejeda works at City Hall as a clerk in the Employment Authorization Unit and plans to stick with it until the label begins to gain more recognition with NewGround.
“We’re planning our careers while other artists are planning their hits,” said Garuccio, a Brooklyn native now living on Staten Island, known by her stage name Elizabeth Styles; Elizabeth is her middle name. The difference is that a career can last a lifetime while a hit is only ephemeral – thus the term One Hit Wonder.
“BNI,” she recalled and laughed. “Batteries Not Included, we actually changed it to Pretend because BNI was mad whack and we were children.” Garuccio became friends with Suka and Tejeda high school. Ideas for solo artists and creating an independent label were beginning to percolate in their minds.
As a day job, Garuccio is a flight attendant for North American Airlines for over two years, and flew with a then Presidential Elect Nominee Barack Obama for eight months. North American Airlines chartered out a Boeing 757, which was eventually reconfigured for Obama once he became the Democratic Candidate.
“The one thing he said to me, and I will never forget, is, ‘For every one person that hates you, five people love you,’” Garuccio recalled.
Luidely “Luis” Baez, a Washington Heights native, known by his stage name, Fuerza, draws his influences from hip hop, Spanish hip hop, Raggaeton, and pop. Growing up in a single-parent household with his brother, Kelby Tejeda – they share the same mother – Baez attributes where he is today to his mother.
“My mother took us from Washington Heights and to the projects [in Staten Island] for a better life, so, there’s kind of irony there,” he said of their move to Staten Island in their grade school years.
“I remember they were performing, doing some choreography and singing a capella, a song that they had – and I remember the butterflies that I got, I was like ‘Oh my God, these kids are growing up,’” Baez recalled at the feeling of seeing the Suka, Tejeda and Garuccio as actual performers.
Baez introduced the style of Raggaeton to NewGround and attributed his desire for being creative to having focused on poetry and its styles early in his teens. As a driving force – or Fuerza – behind Suka, Garuccio and Tejeda, Baez suggested they evolve Raggaeton, hip hop, and what he knew from his poetic standpoint, then apply it.
From this application, they all collaborated on the song, Suelo Nuevo – meaning new ground in English – and it became their first team effort; featuring vocals from Garuccio and production from Suka and Tejeda.
“His lyrics are nice, his vocals are amazing, and he’s throwing Raggaeton out the window and totally recreating it,” said Suka about Baez’s style and flavor.
“You see what other artists do and try to see what hasn’t been said yet and I try to write my songs based on that,” Baez said.
“All of our sounds eventually evolved,” said Garuccio with regard to Baez’s contributions to her and Suka’s songs, and all of their ideas feeding and bouncing off one member and to another.
Fuerza’s music can be heard in several radio stations in Dominican Republic, and Garuccio has performed overseas in Japan, Ireland, and Germany thanks to being a flight attendant.
As a family unit, the four friends have a boundless energy. They have performed as a label at the Izod Center, Village East Theatre, Remote Lounge among many venues.
For more on the flavors of NewGround Entertainment, visit their respective myspace pages:
Haghi “NV” Suka: http://www.myspace.com/nvworldwide
Mary “Elizabeth Styles” Garuccio: http://www.myspace.com/stylesworldwide
Kelby Tejeda: http://www.myspace.com/ktworldwide
Luidely (aka Luis) “Fuerza” Baez: http://www.myspace.com/fuerzaworldwide