Kaylee Flores shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Kaylee, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: When have you felt most loved—and did you believe you deserved it?
I felt so much love on September 27th of this year. It was the award ceremony of the Semillas y Raíces contest in Nashville, of which I attended as a top 3 finalist in the songwriting category. This contest was put on by a wonderful nonprofit La Misión ConArte whose mission is encouraging art amongst Latinos, and the prizes were grand–first place won $1000. At the ceremony, I performed my song called “Another Place,” which explores the concept of assimilation as a means for survival and themes of identity and belonging. After finalist performances, to my absolute shock, my name was announced as the first place winner! The rest of that night was just so special as I got to give a speech, interview, and then got flooded with texts, calls, and facetimes from loved ones around the country and of course as well as from my family in Ecuador. I don’t remember the last time I felt so entirely covered by love and I will never forget that night and how desperately my loved ones wanted to love me and congratulate me. Even if they were at work in another state with “only 2 minutes” but they “just had to call and say how proud” they were.
At first I didn’t feel deserving of any of it. I was in disbelief all night wondering if they actually got it right and what about my song made it worth $1000 when the other finalist songs were just so beautiful, authentic….and in Spanish. I had to keep telling myself that the judges are talented and intelligent people who had specific criteria that they were looking for in the winning song. After the award night and congratulations set in, I realized that my songwriting and ability to convey complex stories and emotions through music are skills I’ve dedicated so much of my life to, and to be recognized for it in such a special way is something I am allowed to be proud of.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am an alternative rock singer-songwriter under the name of Kaylee Flores and the founder of Go Big Sounds. I have been performing and building my artist brand for over 10 years, and it is so amazing to experience the slow but sure growth that comes with consistently marketing my music and improving as a songwriter and performer. Some things that are really cool about my artist brand that I hope never change are that I self produce my own music in both English and Spanish, and I write about topics that are often overlooked or even meant to be kept quiet. As I mentioned earlier, my song “Another Place” details my experience as a second generation immigrant. But a song that often stuns and resonates with listeners is my debut single “A Time” about surviving childhood abuse and recognizing your innate strength and power. With empathy, authenticity, and understanding at the front of my brand, I am also committed to only featuring vegan and cruelty-free beauty products in all of my content and music videos. At the moment, I am producing my debut full-length album “Let’s Not Forget the Good Times,” which explores self reflection and the complexity of human emotions.
In the last 4 years, I’ve also taken on the title of small business owner to a business that fully encompasses the values I try to provide in my art as well. Go Big Sounds is a one stop shop for creative and professional services I started in 2022 amidst a disheartening job market and deep desire to dive into entrepreneurship. What started off as piano lessons and helping my friends out with resumes and pitches turned into a full-time endeavor where I’ve taught hundreds of piano lessons to students of all ages and assisted countless artists and musicians on their productions and releases. Though Go Big Sounds specializes in artist support, I and my network can service any professional in so many ways whether it’s a last minute notarization, intricate website creation, or a digital product you want to put together. Since its creation, my business has been almost entirely referral based and it has been so humbling to be entrusted by so many professionals with their work and livelihoods. I am so honored to get to offer quality and dependable work to my clients, always with mutual respect, understanding, and flexibility. Something interesting about the way my business runs is that it is a sole proprietorship, which means everything is operated under my name doing business as Go Big Sounds. So every paying performance or client can make their payment out to either Kaylee Flores or Go Big Sounds; we are one in the same. Everything that goes on in my business therefore feels quite personal in the very best of ways as clients tend to become like extended family.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
When I was a child, I believed that a life of joy, peace, and safety was not possible or meant for me. It seemed so far out of reach for so long, and that belief did not change until many years after a dangerous person was removed from my life. How grateful I am to not only have let go of that belief, but to prove it so deeply wrong every single day with this life that I love so dearly, largely built through being a musician and business owner. I was not destined to live in great sadness and fear, and I was not destined to become a statistic. For the larger part of my life, I really did wonder. How grateful I am for those thoughts to have been silenced. I will always be in awe of how a past version of one’s life can be so unrecognizable from what it has become, and it brings me great comfort to know and respect the impermanence of circumstances.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
I stopped hiding my pain and learned that I can use it to empower myself through songwriting as a child and young teenager. In fact, I explore this very topic in my debut single “A Time.” I write about how I didn’t know the power I always held, power that I was purposefully made to believe I did not have. The filming of the music video is also one of my favorite memories because I was surrounded by so much love and such an incredibly talented team that gave a lot more than what they were asking for. I told my friend how crazy it was that such terrible events fueled a song that led to such beautiful moments and experiences that made me feel whole, and she lovingly called it my “phoenix song.”
But my earliest songs I wrote as a kid were written in the following years directly after my home situation changed for the better. Though they will likely never see the light of day, they were still empowering as they were my first attempts at telling the truth. They were written during what was the scariest and statistically most dangerous time of my life, and I look back on it and to this day it is still so emotionally charged and confusing to me. Songwriting was the only way in the world I could process that time as a child, and I’m grateful I allowed myself to do so.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes, it really is! The topics I talk about and discuss publicly as well as on my social media are things I regularly talk about with people who are close to me. In fact I often screenshot and share the responses I get to my content via messages, which largely come from friends or family but also from some avid followers I’ve never met (all of whom I adore). That being said, most of my personal online profiles are also my music profiles, which has been a little tricky to navigate in terms of branding.
I will say it is important for there to be at least a mental separation between your business identity and your personal identity, or else you will let the shortcomings of one affect the other. However I decided a long time ago I wouldn’t censor my life or beliefs whether it is as a person, musician, or business owner, and if that costs me opportunities or relationships then that simply means they were not for me. So far that strategy has worked quite well in my life and brought me very special and authentic connections and placements.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What light inside you have you been dimming?
I have been absolutely dimming my creativity and I’m working hard to bring it back. The thing is I need to lean into my emotions to let that light burn, and my emotions and I have a complicated relationship. I know they are important and I know they don’t make me weak, but I have been so accustomed to and rewarded for turning them off for so much of my life that it is difficult to let myself do otherwise. I’ve talked a bit about my backstory and that plays a significant role, and for more present context, at my day job I’m a forensic analyst constantly working overtime between that role and running my business. Turns out some skills that bring difficulty to our personal lives can actually be really useful in our professional lives!
But ultimately, we just have one life and I have to find a way to balance what is healthy for me overall as a person and the relationships I have with what helps me grow in my careers to live the kind of life I want to live. I know there is a way forward that lets me channel my creativity while keeping my mind sharp and emotionally balanced. I am consistently introducing more creativity in my daily life like practicing piano more, trying to learn new recipes, and more recently, taking myself to Costa Rica to finish producing my album and prepare for its release. It has brought me a lot of joy and I look forward to the outcomes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kayleeflores.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kayleeflorez/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylee-flores-9777261b7/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kayleeflorez
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kayleeflo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbeY_nzz5z0eDNXH5ldBVA
- Other: https://gobigsounds.com
Image Credits
Israel Garcia, Mike Quinones, Adam Hudson, Shirley Flores, and Kaylee Flores
