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Below is our recent interview with Suzanna Lam, The Founder and CEO at Dream Music Productions:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: Dream Music Productions is a purposeful music production company based out of Jacksonville, FL. I created it because I couldn’t find entertaining and educational hip hop/rap music done by an artist or a music company focusing on five important healths back in 2018 for my family to listen to. All my life up to that point I was chasing money and career successes so at the time when I was at the top of my game, I still felt very empty. One thing lead to another, in my quest to discover the reason why I even existed to feel empty even after all the successes I got, I came to realize the reason why I felt empty was because I was focusing only one thing in life: money. I was jumping ship, from job to job, with the next job paying more than the previous job, more responsibilities, more stress, better title and more benefits/perks but more time away from family. At first it all felt good but after a while it became more like a routine. I didn’t feel I was adding any kind of permanent values to the progress of humanity as a whole. That’s when I came up with five healths essential to my total happiness in my life. I now call it SPEMF (Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Mental, Financial). Once I got that formula then I needed to reinforce it daily. Unfortunately, being a busy professional like me finding one source that had all the materials I needed at my fingertip that would remind me to stay focused on these five healths daily was proven to be a great challenge. I got all types of audio books, personal development books, Youtube videos, attending all sorts of self-development conferences, classes, you name it, chances are I’ve done it all. Maintaining my five healths on paper like an easy goal but in practice it’s very challenging. Then one day I happened to read a 10-K report (annual report of a publicly traded company) and some basic research of a music company that someone had asked me to do before they invested money in it. In this report, it was stated that on average Americans spend between 30-40 hours a week listening to music and that hip hop /rap music was leading the chart for the very first time in 2017. Everything that was said in that article rang true. I did indeed spent a lot of time listening to music in my car, on an airplane, during my work out, even when I was in a shower. That’s how the idea of creating a music company focusing on five healths came about. The idea is to save me time while helping me stay focused on my five healths daily. An average a song is about 3 minute long, and if I listen to 15 minutes worth of songs about SPEMF health then I’m set for that day. That new option versus attending a 3-day conference on each of the health topic or 29 hours, which one would I choose? I chose 15 minute option. That’s how DMP was created.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: There are three highlights of DLW3 album release. 1. The importance of being positive no matter what happens in one’s life. 2. Don’t take yourself too seriously 3. Music from the past is meant to be appreciated forever.
Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: Staying true to our core mission, all 8 songs taken together represent SPEMF health. The first track, “The Maze” is about the ability to recognize life is a maze, there isn’t a manual for us, we have to figure it out as we go. At times we will bump into walls and dead-ends. That’s OK as long as we keep being positive treating these as learning experiences and move forward until you find wht you’re looking for. This is where mental toughness training comes in handy which falls under the “M” health. Due to the way our educational system is set up, many of the untrained mind will see the maze of life as something they can’t overcome which then leads to hopelessness, then depression, then more pills, then more depression, then eventually suicidal, which is unncessary. Nowadays with the help of social media, everyone around us but us seems to have it all. Then we tend of blame ourselves for not having the ability to measure up to the people on social media, self-sabitage if you will. Little do we know, we’re traveling on a Pan-Am Highway in real life, which is the longest man-made road in the world. Urban Fu$e sees the journey of living life the equivalence of walking on this road with “jungles, valleys, winds and sands”, and most importantly with God’s blessing. While Urban Fu$e is not a gospel hip hop/rap collective, we believe in a higher power, we do our best but a lot of the times, the result is dictated by an invisible hand, “God’s plan” if you will, which falls under the “S” category of SPEMF. To end the album, we concluded that we should all “Slow Down, Fall in Love”, learn to love again by helping others live instead of just working for “taxes and bills”. This message really drives home the underlying emptiness I felt years ago. I’m pretty sure all married women out there can relate to “wanna see him look at me like I’m here ‘n someone special, like before we got kids, stress, goals and the schedules”. Believe it or not, that loving look from him is worth a lot more than a hefty paycheck you got at work. Last but not least, the biggest highlights of the album other than the SPEMF health messages is the Vietnamese traditional instrumentations used throughout the album. I can confidently say that during the last 46 years of resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in America, this is the first time such instrumentations are being introduced to American’s mainstream hip hop/rap scene. It’s refreshing to see how different a track sounds with a 17th Century Vietnamese melody mixed with 21st Century 808 bass sounds all underneath the voice of an African artist. It’s truly a melting pot of sounds like America is.
Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: We’re releasing a music video named TikTok Rollie worldwide in the next couple of weeks. This version is in Vietnamese and uses AI, deep learning technology in our story telling and drives the lesson learned home. Around the same time, we’re also ending the year with the pop/EDM track called “Love Cam”. Similar to all our previous tracks, “Love Cam” is telling the story of how addicted we are with our smart phone cameras and how it impacts our love life. In the next six months, we would like to continue to work with our partners in the financial services industry to promote our financial tracks, helping more Americans with financial ed through our hip hop/rap songs. Our financial songs are not just about money in general but one can really learn about IRA, Roth IRA, IRA roll over, taxes, three types of taxes, the importance of having life insurance, making money by flipping houses etc… We hope more Americans will embrace these songs as they drive down the street with their families. Hopefully these tracks will facilitate a healthy discussion between parents and kids about financial matters that are rarely taught in school.
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: Wow, this question is very hard to answer given we’re a brand new group and there are so many things people don’t know about us. One thing we know for sure that makes us different from other bands is that we’re multi-cultural in our DNA. Our leader, founder is an Asian American, our artists and music producers are Africans, Caucasians, Hispanics, some speak English, some speak French, some speak Spanish, some speak Vietnamese. Music and the love of music really connect us all even though we come from all corners of the world. And lastly, one of the members can’t speak English yet the group is able to produce tracks with him without any problems using a translator. LOL. Knowledge of a spoken language is not mandatory if you work behind the scene in this company. As long as one understands music and how to use music to communicate an effective message that’s all we need.
