Today we’d like to introduce you to Uriah Halbeisen.
Uriah, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always had a natural passion for music because of my father. When I was young, he used to play piano and when record stores were still a popular thing for CD’s & Vinyl’s he used to take me almost every other week it felt like. It was always fun to sing along with my dad on car rides but the reason I really enjoyed going was because there was a popular band back in the day named Uriah Heep and my mind melted to think my name was on an album cover! I would run straight to the U section scrambling through all the artwork & records available hoping to find one every time but nothing outside of being a curious little kid excited to see his name on something because of how rare it is.
I got older and proceeded a regular childhood until I was about nine when my best friend had passed away due to health conditions. We were connected at the hip, our relationship was like brotherhood, nearly inseparable for years. That experience shut me down completely as a human, pretty much went mute and isolated as much as possible for a couple of years suffering heavy depression. As I got older probably around 7th grade, I got introduced to poetry as something to do to cope with my “sufferings” and accidentally found something. I would fill compositions in days with letters and poems and drawings of what I was going through or how I felt. My friends would like to swipe them from me like they were diaries or something but would always come back being like “wow, you write really good.” or “I didn’t know you’ve been through all that” etc. At the time, it was embarrassing to me to have my feelings let out like secrets so I didn’t get to recognize what they were really saying.
About a year or two later, another accident happened that forever changed my life again. This time it was a positive one though because I planted the seed to what is today. I was cleaning out the computer room with my little sister, about four years old at the time. She pulls a headset microphone out of the closet waving it around asking, “what’s this? what does this do?”. For whatever reason, I had this idea that I could show her its a microphone by singing a song on it, so I was like “I’ll show you watch this”. I got on the computer and downloaded this free software called Audacity. I’ve never sang in my life, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m pretending for my sister that I do. I had previously written a poem about her so I chose that to sing and searched online for an instrumental to use. I brought her back into the room and said “we’re gonna sing a song, I’ll go first and you can sing whatever you want after me ok?!” She was excited so I sat and tried to record my very first song. I got her to sing, “I’m a princess(x3)” and I did my best to put it on beat. When we were done, I wanted a review, so my mom and my nana came in and listened. By the end of the song, they were both in tears and seemed excited yet shocked how we did it. From that moment, I was in love and knew what I wanted to do in life because as silly as it was I still saw the impact it had and the potential of what it could be. In that moment, I named myself MC Uriah because I couldn’t think of anything better at the time.
My high school days is when music kicked off for me, but so did the derailing of my life. After all these years, I finally accepted a new friend into my life, yet unrelated soon to follow with drugs amongst other things. We would record after school all the time, then go back to school in the hallways or locker rooms and blast it to our other friends. WE WAS WACK AF! But we were pretty cool kids who got along with everyone so people put up with it. As my freshmen year progressed, I fell into the wrong circles and started learning different things like the different types of substances and how to make money on them. I thought at the time, “why would I be going to class if I could be trying to make money, this is boring I’m not learning anything anyway” so I just stopped going most of the time. It got to the point where I was afraid to let anyone know what I’m doing, so I’d stop going home even too, just disappearing. I was in and out of the juvenile system, courts, rehabilitation, etc. so much to the point where I was emancipated and taken into the custody of the state because my actions were getting so out of control. I kept getting suspended or expelled on a regular basis and threw my high school life away for the streets and to get high to escape my pain. By the time of my graduating class of 2011 came around, I only had like 6 of the 23 credits required to graduate, so I just blew that off too and dropped out when they got done.
When high school died out, life changed fast. Friends disappeared, people moved on when I was building in an entirely different direction. I didn’t understand I was so detached from being institutionalized. Even my high school sweetheart parted ways & It rocked my world. I felt like life was over and I ruined it all. I wanted to prove I wasn’t a total waste, so that same summer, I took the GED test and ended up passing with flying colors. I was still utterly heartbroken at the time so to cope I locked myself in the computer room. I was destined to win her heart back with a song for whatever reason. So day in and day out, I started looking up tutorials on anything I could learn about music & love, how to mix & do effects, and endlessly practice as I’m putting my first heartbreak back together. About a year or two goes by and I’ve made what seemed like at least 100 songs. I also started telling people I wanted to practice mixing and they would send me their songs. This gave me the confidence to post my own tutorials on youtube helping how to mix and master on these programs I was using. From there, they started to gain traction, each tutorial starting to see 10k-50k+ views with hundreds of comments and questions, etc. People started asking me why I don’t charge and it slapped me in the face. So I start selling mixes for $5 a piece because I did like the idea of getting paid, but I was still practicing. This eventually snowballed into a small clientele base and youtube following to sprout the idea of pursuing this as a what may be a real career because being a singer isn’t as easy as it sounded. I started charging a little more over time and started saving money to show my parents. I was really serious about something & that I wanted to go to school. With the help of my family and by the grace of God, I ended up getting to enroll into a program similar to full sail, but for a fraction of the cost. My mission was to make my family proud in doing better in college than high school, and I didn’t stop till I made sure of it. In Oct 13’ I completed my Bachelor’s in science: Audio Engineering with a GPA of 4.0. In the following years, I would do the same to obtain my Masters in Music Business.
During my college courses is when I started to get my hands on things in studios and start to network with other artists locally. I was also self-learning graphic design in the midst because I was tired of waiting on my artwork to comeback weeks to months after I ordered it. The graphic design was starting to get seen both nationally and locally branded as MC. My graphic design friend known by Three Kings kinda put me on with graphics and I helped him with engineering in return. I would try to get placements by making alternate artwork for an upcoming project that was better than posting it to the artist or their management on twitter with my fingers crossed. I would post these artworks back on my Facebook for my closer network to see as well. I completed both courses and was finally on my own as a “Swiss army knife of music” so I thought but in reality, my graphic design was doing way better than my engineering was going. For example, I had 2-3 clients locally to record/engineer, but have like 10-12 for graphic design. As I started getting more Major label placements, I caught the attention of Alphasquad ENT (a decent of Glory Boyz & Chopsquad’s label in Chicago.) I worked myself into a position in association with the label to be an on hand graphic designer. With them, I started doing major placements for a while for artists such as (8tmg, Chief Keef, Capo, Chedda Da Connect, Johnny May Cash, Wooh Da Kid, Young Chop, + a handful more.). It was an amazing time that finally made me feel like I was doing something in the industry, even managed to get features from Young chops blood relatives on one of my personal projects hosted by Dj Shon.
With all my new accomplishments, I start approaching and applying for studio spots around the city, offering to be an in house engineer as well as a graphic designer as need be now that I finally have a little bit of credits. I shop around and connected with many great studios & owners but didn’t quite find a home right off the bat. Most places were willing to rent me their space though in a freelance situation if extra time was available. That started to get me down because I was searching in the wrong places for the right things but it showed me the opportunity and freedom of freelance. In this time, I’m starting to work with artists all over the city in graphic design anyways and spent the next couple of years doing a huge contribution to the local scene of art creating logos, flyers, singles, album covers, shirt designs, etc. while freelancing studio time on the side. This has kind of gradually built into where I’m at today as business owner. I have always tried to balance work and the music world but was constantly drained and became dreadful to do either but the money of my passion was starting to make me think I can do without the 9-5.
In January of 2019, I had quit everything I was committed to to pursue my passion in full force. I filed for my business license and got all my stuff set up to open and rebrand under the company name of Global Visionz. The intent of the switch was to finally take everything I built up to this point and finally term the coin “professional”. It took a while for the switch to be adapted publicly from MC to Global Visionz but It started picking up the same traction as before. I started to network more with local business instead of local artists to see if there would be a difference. I got locked in with a local MMJ company in Colorado to start doing designs for their business (logo, product labels, website design, etc.) and help them rebrand a new look to their company. I started falling in love with these types of projects, and it was a nice break from music because they’re completely different even though I’m still doing designs. The company launched up & in a matter of a couple of months, I had designs in stores all across Colorado, growing in the United states and starting to even hit overseas as well. As I started to get more involved with this company, I had less time to focus on all the designs I was doing for the city which made me sad but I was astounded to achieve such an accomplishment. In the following months, I would pick up my next few companies to help them in doing the same of having Global Visionz as the go-to designer for their brand and products to be distributed worldwide as well.
As I’ve been growing into working with these companies and uncovering even more new territories, I continue to assist artists with graphic design, as well as freelance engineer for clients around the globe. I’m also starting to plan releasing my own artistry again soon. I’ve grown in tremendous ways as a songwriter, producer and engineer but haven’t had the opportunity to truly showcase it until this point due to the way things grew to be with graphic design. I currently have four full projects lined up for release starting with the major distribution of my next full-length project titled “93 – Infiniti”.
The project is my audio sense of this transition of saying I’m going to shoot for my dreams and create timeless art no matter how much I feel I do or don’t fit into the industry. Titled in reference to the 90’s album and being I was born on Easter Sunday April 11, 1993 (shared with the launch of Apollo 13 in 1970) I felt it was perfect to kick things off because this project its hip hop rooted with a futuristic spacey sound. When I was young, I wanted to be an astronaut or someone who studied stars, which led me to the dying spaceman design for cover art. It travels through a galaxy of sounds and messages starting from one mindset and ending in another by the end of the project. The growth of a mindset that is going from a broken person pursuing a hobby to aspiring and achieving a successful living in it. Due to release Q4 2020.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I wish it was… but it’s been anything but smooth. Although with that being so I will say it has developed me in many many ways. Looking back, it seemed as if I had always had this amazing potential, but it was so premature and unattended to due to being a distracted kid with a lack of emotional intelligence. A lot of the struggle for me stems from lack of knowledge or resource. My problem was I was this super creative and charismatic individual but had NO knowledge in business for the longest time and this held me back heavily trying to get my foot in the door. Initially, I was also a very shy person too which never helps in this industry. The biggest struggle though was not fully believing in myself sooner. I’ve always been very intricate with my art so it took me a loooong time to start to become satisfied with it. Almost routinely, I would talk myself out of opportunity in fear of being inadequate. It was a heavy process to mentally prepare for what this industry brings, but once I started to get that conditioned my perception of the road started to change and so did my approach in paving it. Everything seemed to kind of self formulate from there in regards of putting myself in more line of opportunity to grow while help other brands do the same.
Mc Uriah / Global Visionz – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
It seems to vary but I am known for one or more of the following: A Graphic designer, Audio engineer, Artist, or a producer. Most people know me as MC Uriah though I started my company Global Visionz in an attempt to collectively unify these titles in a rebrand and expand more down the line. The brand is specialized in delivering a quality service that can be marketed globally, while still having the hands-on customer service experience of morphing into the client’s vision to assist their branding needs specifically and uniquely to them. Each brand is special in their own way and we thrive to exemplify those attributes in the best way possible. The biggest achievement has been being able to assist musicians/brands and watching their growth with the products/designs we create. It’s amazing to have someone come to you with an idea, help them bring that idea to life, and then witness them prove their idea, capabilities and potential to the world!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me, success is a mental thing more than anything. I think if you are a person who believes in something, expands on that belief and doesn’t give up, you’re pretty successful to me. Of course, everybody has bucket list goals in their career field but I don’t use those as measurements of success. There are great moments of success which are the stepping stones to me, but there is also a lot 0f what others view as failures too. That leads many to give up or push those beliefs under the rug. I imagine it like Albert Einstein or any scientist for that matter. Think about the concepts or contributions they brought to the world. Now consider how many miserable days to years things didn’t work just to get to the moment that it did. The patience and persistence to a bigger vision is what drives you to that success. The biggest goal in my success is to be able to live a life making a living doing what I love to do. I want to be able to grow and expand my brand to the point that gives back and gives others the opportunity to find the same.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.globalvisionz.net
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mc_uriah/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mc.uriah.1
Image Credit:
Raw Tactic Photography, Cannabis Brands Limited, Global Visionz
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