Every day we have a choice. We can support an up and coming podcaster, try a new family-run restaurant, join a boutique gym started by a local fitness champ or we could keep giving away our money to the handful of giants who already control so much of our commerce. Our daily decisions impact the kind world we live in; if we want a world where small businesses are growing and artists and creatives are thriving then we should support them with our time, money and attention. We’re proud to highlight inspiring creatives and entrepreneurs each week in Hidden Gems series. Check out some of our latest local gem features below.
Amy Elizabeth
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always had a pencil, crayon, and the likes in my hand, drawing anything from Disney characters to fantastic creatures I created in my mind. Drawing was the primary way I expressed myself as a child, as well as a teen and young adult. Read more>>
Jasmine Lopez
In my first year of acting, I started receiving DMs from other actors asking for advice, and eventually it hit me: there’s a business here. I started one-on-one coaching, then created a separate account to build my online presence. Read more>>
Dr. Kevin Bradshaw
When I was in college, I switched my major multiple times, starting with biology to architecture to law, then back to biology. I’ve always been drawn to medicine, and I realized I liked the medical side of biology, the structural side of architecture, and investigative side of law. While I was in school, I worked in a research lab for sleep research. Read more>>
brooke chiro
Growing up, I was heavily involved in gymnastics and truly believed that was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. When I was 11, I was diagnosed with scoliosis and told it would likely never get severe. But by the time I was 13, my curve had progressed significantly, and doctors told me I had to completely stop gymnastics. Read more>>
Evan Cyote
I grew up in St. John’s Florida. I always loved to sing and listen to music but never considered pursuing a career because I had zero outlets for it. I started playing guitar for fun when I was 15 and for a brief period in high school, I would busk in St. Augustine for some extra money. Read more>>
Dave Tsimba
My name is Dave Tsimba. Born in Nancy, France in a rough neighborhood to a congolese family and I live in America. I am a multilingual music artist. I would say mainly hip hop but I don’t exactly like to box myself in. As an artist who has always loved music, putting the work behind the passion has been a difference maker. Read more>>
Sally Hill
My love for music really began in middle school. I joined the Main Line School of Rock in Berwyn, PA when I was 11 after my dad started teaching me what he knew on guitar. I was a student at SOR for about 7 years where I took guitar, piano and vocal lessons. I would occasionally play gigs in our town or in the city. Read more>>
Giselle Mora
I took a liking to photography ever since I was a kid, but I began taking it seriously in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. I was a senior in high school, so after we left school on a Friday afternoon, we never went back. We found a camera for sale on Marketplace, and I purchased it. Read more>>
Seth Oliver
My journey to becoming a personal trainer begins in early childhood, when I first started playing sports. I loved basketball, but decided to give football a try my sophomore year of high school. There was one problem: I was 135 pounds and pretty skinny. My parents told me I needed to start lifting weights to bulk up for the upcoming season. Read more>>
Grayson May
When I was a kid, maybe four or five years old, I used to run around with a little play guitar. I eventually put that down and never thought about it again until my ninth birthday party. My Papaw and Mamaw bought me my first Martin, and I was off to the races. Read more>>
Lauren Eliza
My debut project is called ‘The Girl From Nowhere’ and that is exactly who I am! I was born in Alabama and raised all around the world due to my dad’s military career. Read more>>
Noah West
I visited Nashville for the first time in the summer of ‘16 or ‘17 for my college friends Joel and Mik’s wedding and fell in love with the music here. In the spring of 2018 they ended up finding me a job with Joel, working for Mik’s dad, and offered to rent me a room super cheap. Read more>>
Quincy Lancto
Well, my name’s Quincy Lancto, and I’m 19 years old as of right now. I moved here to Nashville in July of 2024 to try and make a new start in one of my favorite cities I’ve ever been to. If you want to go back to the beginning, I’m originally from Norristown, PA; I was born and raised there for the most part. Read more>>
Dawn Cunningham
My life has been a journey of healing, growth, and rediscovery. I’ve faced trauma, navigated years of therapy, recovered from an eating disorder, and learned, often the hard way, what it truly means to connect with myself and with others. Along the way, I’ve had to unlearn survival patterns, rebuild my sense of self, and redefine what healthy connection looks like in my life. Read more>>
Lillian Leadbetter
I grew up at the end of a dirt road in Vermont. It was a magical place to be introduced to the world, I spent most of my childhood playing pretend and singing to the trees. Read more>>
Melanie Seaver
I think I was born an organizer. My parents say that I would ‘organize’ my dolls on my bed before nap time. As a kid, I loved the process of setting up my room and space and then reorganizing it again just for fun. Read more>>
Sarah Gargano
I write for other artists in all genres & I have my own folk punk/emo project under the artist name Paper Girl. I also have a small jewelry business. It can be challenging to balance all 3 gigs as they’re all pretty time intensive, but I love all of them. Read more>>
Jason Brooks
I grew up just outside Washington DC, in Herndon Virginia. From since I can remember music was always playing in the house. Early on, The Beatles, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, The Traveling Wilburys, Mark Knoffler were all on repeat. This instilled an appreciation for music that’s stuck with me my whole life and fine tuned my musical tastes. Read more>>
Landon Parton
I grew up in Woodbury, Tennessee, where fashion didn’t always feel accessible or understood, but I was fascinated by the way clothing could completely change how someone carried themselves. My mom owned a boutique in our small town, and I spent years working there before eventually opening the first men’s boutique in Woodbury myself at 19. Read more>>
Shanna Torain
I started my journey in the beauty industry nearly 20 years ago with a passion for helping women feel confident, seen, and beautiful. What began as hairstyling eventually evolved into something much deeper for me. Over the years, I realized that healthy hair is connected to so much more than appearance ;it’s tied to wellness, confidence, lifestyle, and even emotional health. Read more>>
Tatiana Maximova
Like many immigrants starting a business in the United States, I had to learn everything from the ground up — not only building a career, but also adapting to a new language, culture, and way of life. That experience shaped the way I connect with people and the way I approach photography today. From the very beginning, I was deeply drawn to weddings. Read more>>
Chance Walker
I grew up in northwest Washington and started playing violin at 3. I became first chair in my high school orchestra and also started integrating guitar. After high school I spent time touring in bands and eventually studied guitar at musicians institute in Los Angeles. I recorded with engineer Robi Banerji (U2, Rolling Stones) for channel records (8 mile soundtrack) and interned at MySpace/interscope. Read more>>
Nathan Pool
My recovery journey began when I moved from Dallas, TX to Nashville, TN in March 2024 to attend in-patient rehabilitation at Integrative Life Center (ILC). I had a relatively great and normal childhood, growing up in Waco, TX. I then graduated from Texas Tech University with a dual-bachelor’s degree, and I moved to Dallas, TX to start a career in the Staffing/Recruiting industry. Read more>>
Joe Randall
I was born in Bremerton, Washington. My family moved to Asheville, North Carolina when I was 3 years old. We settled in a small town called Mills River, and I grew up as most kids did; outside in the woods, riding bikes, fishing. Typical small mountain town type stuff. I went to college at UNC-Wilmington. Read more>>
Amy Freeman
Amazin’ Glazin’ Fried Pies started in our family kitchen with recipes that have been passed down through generations. Read more>>
B Zhané
I fell in love with design at a very young age. One of my earliest memories of realizing fashion could become a real career was watching an episode of MTV’s Making the Video, where I learned that Ms. Tina Knowles had designed and hand-sewn the outfits Destiny’s Child wore in the “Survivor” video. Read more>>
Quinn Boss
Hi! I’m Quinn Boss! Born and raised on a horse and alfalfa farm in small-town New Jersey, I grew up with grit in my blood. As the only granddaughter in a family of entrepreneurs and worked with in our family business, I developed a strong will and an unstoppable drive early on — qualities that have defined every chapter of my life since. Read more>>
Sabrina Fisher
I was raised out east (Nashville) by a single mother. If you know you know, we didn’t have much but we had what we needed. I learned a lot from being raised that way. From a very young age, life taught me resilience before I even fully understood what that meant. Read more>>
Christina Lincicum
I grew up in Los Angeles in a big, loving extended family, but we didn’t have much. Money was always tight, and a lot of what I learned about resilience came from watching the people around me make something out of very little. My grandparents were immigrants from Mexico, and I spent much of my childhood with them. Read more>>
Mockingbird Musicians
I founded Mockingbird Musicians in Nashville in 2010 while I was working professionally as a pianist and contractor in the city’s live music scene. What began as a small operation focused on connecting couples and event clients with high-quality classical and contemporary musicians gradually grew into a full-service music contracting and event company. Read more>>
Diamond Bell
I got started in this work in 2021, during a time when Nashville was in the process of criminalizing homelessness. Growing up, I always saw Tent City off Charlotte Pike near Walmart, and it deeply impacted me. Having experienced homelessness myself and lived in hotels with my family, I could not imagine my mother being incarcerated simply for being unhoused. Read more>>
Frederick J.
My journey in music has truly been one of faith, perseverance, healing, and purpose. I started singing at a very young age in church, where music became more than just something I enjoyed — it became a way for me to connect with people, encourage others, and express my heart. Read more>>
Tell A Friend
Tell a Friend started in 2019 out of a desire to create something that felt more real and intentional within Nashville’s social scene. As the founder, Ivan “Uncle Ivo” Andrews, I felt like a lot of nightlife experiences were becoming repetitive and distracted. People were present physically, but not really present with each other. Read more>>
Nicole Ribera-Ergueta
I am a proud Bolivian immigrant who came to the United States at the age of two. Growing up, I was always drawn to the arts. Singing, dancing, and acting became some of my earliest forms of self-expression and creativity. Read more>>
Amy Harms
Even though I’m known for my visual artwork, my artistic journey actually started in music as a pianist. I went to university on a piano and vocal scholarship and taught piano privately for over 20 years. Even though I enjoyed teaching, I also worked in the art world in my ‘day job’. Read more>>
Dr. Alisha Hayes
I’m Dr. Alisha Hayes, Ed.D., Ed.S., M.Ed. — an Educational Diagnostician, Educational Therapist, Licensed Reading Specialist, educational leader, entrepreneur, wife, mother, and founder of Dr. Hayes Educates Learning Center, Dr. Hayes Educates Academy of Innovation, and the nonprofit organization Dr. Hayes Educates Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve had the pleasure of calling Nashville home my entire life. Read more>>
Rebecca Hinton
My path to creating Soul Serenity Nashville was really born out of both personal healing and years of working closely with people in transformational spaces. Before starting Soul Serenity, I spent over 17 years building my fitness business, b.fab.fitness, in the Nashville area. Read more>>
Jordan Johansen
In 2015, I launched Notable Nashville with a vision of spotlighting local music and uncovering the stories behind the songs alongside my friend Gary Branigan, who at the time worked with me selling cell phones at a local Sprint store. What started as full bands performing in the Green Hills house I was renting quickly evolved into something much bigger. Read more>>
Becky Bennett
Aloha! I’m Becky. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me! You can usually find me between two oceans, painting my way around beautiful Hawaii and the coast of Florida. Getting to create with my own hands is such a gift to me. Read more>>
Danielle Davis
I’m a Registered Nurse with a background in Neurological ICU and nearly two decades of experience leading and overseeing clinical trials globally. Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with high-level global biotech companies, experiences that shaped my leadership, discipline, and resilience. At the same time, personal style and creativity were always a part of me. Read more>>
Laura Koster
I’ve always loved travel and the way it brings people together, but becoming a travel advisor really started from wanting to help people create meaningful memories without the stress and overwhelm that can come with planning. What began as a passion quickly turned into a business that I truly love. Read more>>
Luke Jenison
Your Mother’s Favorite Rapper here! I started out as a freestyle rapper in Dallas, TX…which is strange for a kid who looked remarkably similar to Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone until I turned 20. It was a skill I discovered I had after randomly attempting to rap over a Lil Wayne song while driving parents Honda Pilot. Read more>>
Juliana Mason
I moved to Nashville & started my small business, Festigyal, in November 2024, after leaving Sewanee: The University of The South due to discriminatory disadvantage, financial, & ethics concerns. I have since traveled across the United States to sell & display my own art as well as many other artists work at large scale events, markets, music festivals, & burns. Read more>>
Carver Jones
After high school I was looking for a way to do music, being from Nebraska the market isn’t extremely thriving. From there I ended going and living in a van with my other 2 buddy’s from Nebraska really just traveling around and street performing. Read more>>
Julie McNabb
Weddings have always been part of my world. My mom was a florist for over 35 years and later a wedding coordinator for five, so I grew up surrounded by her creativity and the rhythm of wedding days. I was right alongside her as her assistant, learning the flow of a wedding and what it truly takes to bring everything together. Read more>>
XOË MILES
Hi! I’m Xoë Miles, and I’m a pop singer-songwriter. I’m originally from Montgomery, Texas, but now live in Nashville, Tennessee. I started playing guitar, writing songs, and recording in studios when I was 12 years old, and have since then been lucky travel all over the country to perform and work with some of the most talented people in the music industry. Read more>>
Java Hemmat
Hi, I’m Javaneh! Born to Persian parents in the UAE oasis, surrounded by desert dunes and date-bearing palm trees, my world was enriched by a tapestry of vibrant cultures and their unique cuisines. Read more>>
