2021 in Review at GroundSounds

 

In 2020, GroundSounds underwent a period of growth and rebuilding. In 2021, it was time for the rebirth! We worked hard to crank things up a notch and make GroundSounds a destination for art and music lovers around the world as well as raising up artists locally, but it didn’t happen alone. The city of Columbus rose to the occasion and delivered so many talented artists, creators, collaborators, and just flat-out fantastic humans to our doorstep that brought boundless inspiration and creativity to our studio.

 

Just having the ability to bring people into our space and connect in person was a huge step forward from the restrictions of Zoom calls in 2020. And not just in our studio, we created a pop-up event on High Street in June, interviewed artists on the street, and made personal connections with the real people who are on the grind everyday for their passion. This year also saw the inauguration of live events in our studio with Dirty Dale, AK the King, and Truesdale gracing our stage in October and then three more brilliant artists in Amie Rulay, Apollo Storm, and Stacks performing at our GroundBreaker show in December. Along with opening up to the public with two electric shows, our recording booth was opened for business as well as solidifying our stage for live streaming. In addition to hosting streams for a few charities, 2021 was the beginning of GS Live, a bi-weekly livestream featuring discussion, games, guests and more with Will Winbush and Max Wrolstad. New segments like GroundVisions and OBSESSED were cemented, while Jessey Alley continued to shine light on the hustle through Grinding with GroundSounds and Donny Woods took Fresh Features to new heights and slightly dangerous locales.

 

GroundSounds is here for independent artists first and foremost, and this year took us deeper into the independent music scene at home and abroad. From Nigeria to Norway, Columbus to LA, it was a privilege to get to talk to such a diverse crop of artists from different genres about their art, and sometimes get to know them on a personal level. We received and featured hundreds of artists who submitted their music to our website, but there are so many we would have had a hard time finding if it wasn’t for the hard work of our many friends in the know across the globe at Epic Records, Frazes Creative, We Plug Good Music, PressHere Publicity, Auteur Research, Garden State Hip-Hop, MajorStage, Reybee, and Rubenstein PR.

 

GrindTime stops for no man, and 2022 will be another year of pushing the envelope and expanding our goals. We have big plans for the rest of this year and we hope you stick around to see what we come up with. Thanks for following!

 

 

 

Special thanks to Bari Lieberman, Jordan Frazes, Linda Kadiri, Ayo Adepoju, Graham Nolan, Lucy Binetti, Lara Martin, Connor Mantle, Steph Rutcofsky, Gannon Andrews, and Rodney Coursey.