Alaskan Music Artist Brivon Breaks Into The Music Scene With Genre-bending RnB Hits
Brianna Bundick-Kelly, stage name Brivon, is an independent Alaskan music artist. She may have been born into cold weather but she has created even colder hits. This 23-year-old HBCU graduate is creating her own world where R&B is her foundation to painting a colorful aura of genre-blending masterpieces. Brivon's passion for merging luring vocals, unique cadence and melodic sounds has pushed her to become a new force to be reckoned with in the R&B scene. Her hunger to express her submerged thoughts through lyrics is something music fans have loved ever since May 2020.
Maria: How did you get into music?
Brivon: I would say it was around May 2020. It was like the heat of quarantine. I had just gone through a really bad situationship type of deal. And I didn't know how to express myself. Like, how I genuinely felt. And so the only way that made sense for me to get my feelings and my thoughts across was music. And I had been writing little things here and there since middle school, but I never put it to music or ever never took it seriously. But one day I was just humbled myself and I just listened to some beats on YouTube. And everything that I was thinking and feeling was just let out of my brain. And from there I think I can really do this. So I put out my first song in May 2020 It was called “Dead”. Basically just about that whole situationship I was going through and yeah, the rest is history. Pretty much.
Maria: Do you produce your songs yourself?
Brivon: There’s a small engineering team behind me. Usually like scouts for beats, just to get the right sound and stuff but no, I wish I produced everything myself. But you know, I'm learning everything. But I’m just getting started. So I just have a little team behind me.
People don't tell their friends about their music, I don't like putting out stuff like that. So I wanted to tell my friend about something I'm proud of.
Maria: How would you describe the genre of music?
Brivon: I like to say it's r&b based because my foundation is an r&b. Since I was a kid I was raised on it. That's how I got introduced to music. I sometimes do r&b-pop or I do r&b-soul. I can just branch out and do different sub genres of r&b. I'd say r&b base because that's always where it's gonna be routed from.
Maria: Who are your influences when it comes to your sound?
Brivon: I would think I sort of have a mix of like, older artists and newer artists. When it comes to musicality I think I resonate with Jill Scott and Brandy. But newer artists that really made me take it seriously in a songwriting aspect would be rappers like Smino and Noname. Those are my two favorites. They actually inspired me to start making music.
But my all time favorite is Beyonce. Of course, a genius, everyone likes Beyonce.
A mixture of all those people inspired me whether it comes to songwriting and musicality, just adlibs alone, or arrangements and stuff like that.
Maria: What was your creative process like for writing your latest single Moon?
Brivon: Oh, so with all my music, honestly, I start with the beats first. You know, I don't really feel inspired to say anything or think anything if it's the beat doesn't really move me in that way. So when I get together with my team, and we're looking for beats or creating beats or anything like that, it looks like that at first and it's gonna suck if I'm not feeling a wave of emotion in my brain or in my heart, then it's not going to work. So usually I listen to the music first. Usually, I love a good eight away or a baseline. That's my thing, like all my music across the board. I never really think about what I'm going to write about. I just let the music speak for itself. I hear a beat and I just say the first thing that comes to my mind. I write down the first thing I think of and it just flows. It's usually crazy at the time. I don't know what I’m writing about until I'm done, which is kind of weird. Like, I'll write the whole song from top to bottom. And I'll be like, what does the song even about? And I'll play it back and I'm like, That's what I was talking about. That's kind of crazy. So it's sort of an unorthodox way of doing it. And then once the songs are written out I'll have a home studio so I record right here. So I'll just record and record. I’m a perfectionist. And then I'll just add on the background ad libs and vocals and all this stuff and then work on my engineer and then yeah, that's pretty much it.
I'm a stickler on songwriting. Like I think songwriting is just my niche. My dream job, I'd be a songwriter for the rest of my life. But I'll do the artist's things a little bit and see how it goes (laughs).
Maria: Do you think your process of writing songs has changed in any way since you started releasing music?
Brivon: I definitely think I've progressed as a writer. I think when I started off I progressed in a good and a bad way. I think when everyone starts off a new venture, career wise, creative wise. There's no expectations. There's no rules like that really. You're just doing it, feeling it out and just, you know, being authentically yourself until you realize there might be a way of doing things there might be a more better procedure, where you kind of lose a sense of authenticity a little bit, but you just have to refined it, you know? So I think I got better when it comes to structure in my writing. And I also think I got better at being more vulnerable.
I personally was more vulnerable in the beginning because my first song was about heartbreak. But now I think I'm more vulnerable in a lot of different ways. I'm more vulnerable when it comes to my happy emotions as well. And not always trying to be sad and not always want to be toxic. Even though everyone loves a toxic song. As a writer I'm realizing there's more to music than making a sad song or more than to music making a love song. You can make music about anything: about getting money or make a song about death and some people don't have that range. So finding out if you do have that range or you don't have that range has definitely been a task for me so far, so I always can get better. I write almost every day. Practice makes perfect.
Maria: What is the message that you would like to share through your songs?
Brivon: I usually don't know the message till I'm done with the song, you know. But once I realized what I'm writing about, then I'll be like, okay, this is what I learned from it. This is what I'm trying to convey. And then I can convey it to other people. My messages are usually just to be honest, no one's perfect. I'm not perfect. People listening aren't perfect either. We're all more similar to each other than we think. And so just to be honest with yourself, even if it's ugly, is the best way you can be a better person. I just feel like if we're honest with ourselves, that's one way we can heal, the only way we can grow. So that's really my message behind the music – honesty, no matter how bad it is.
Maria: What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Brivon: My advice would just be to do it. Everyone is caught up in the perfection of it all. And people just get caught up in their own mind, but even it's like the first song isn't perfect, but the first 10 songs aren't perfect. Just try it out. You never know what you've learned about yourself. If it doesn't work it doesn't work then, but if it does work, you don't know what could come of it. So just do it. Just put your foot in the water because that's the scariest part of starting anything new. So that's my advice. Just do it.
Being other than being honest with yourself. If you try to rap and you realize you're not a good rapper. That's okay. That's fine because you can be a singer. You're a better singer than a rapper, a better songwriter than an artist. So it's just yeah, you got to try.
Maria: If you can have your fans remember one thing about you, what would it be?
Brivon: I think just to be yourself again, and be honest, I love honesty because I wasn't always the most honest person. I'll be honest about the fact that I wasn't an honest person. Back when I was younger and stuff, like college days or High School. These days, I was not the best person. And I just want people to know that you're here for a reason. You're definitely here for a reason outside of yourself and for yourself. And that I just want my legacy to be a people person and be a person for yourself. Like, when it comes to emotions or physical, spiritual, whatever – it's all about you. When you’re a goof person to yourself you can be a good person to other people.
That's just my legacy. Be a good person.
Maria: Do you have upcoming projects?
Brivon: Yes.. I've actually been having a whole artist development thing with myself and realizing like what I need to do, what I don't need to do. The EP is absolutely done. It's 100% done. I'm just working out the kinks of booking music videos, figuring out how I want to promote it. You know, everyone loves Tick Tock. So I'm trying to figure out the whole Tick Tock thing, and just reaching out to curators and reaching out to blogs, but I just want to do that all before I sit on a date. So definitely this year, definitely before summer. But everything's done.
