Today we’d like to introduce you to Takeyla Calhoun, CEO.
Hi Takeyla, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am originally from Lorain, OH, and was raised as an Air Force military brat. I graduated high school with Honors, in the top 2% of my class, and was then accepted into my dream college, Ohio State University, where I planned to pursue a degree in Architecture. However, I ultimately decided to attend The University of Texas at San Antonio, TX, to remain close to my immediate family, who had settled there at the time. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems with a minor in Computer Science.
My passions are music and technology, and I have used different aspects of my specialized skillset, to pursue a full-time career in Information Technology (IT), while also starting my own web development and urban entertainment companies, which were run as hobbies for many years. I am also a mom of 3 beautiful children, 2 of which are special needs (autism and neurodevelopmental disorder), and have recently transitioned my urban entertainment company into one that has become a leader of its type in the music industry.
If that wasn’t enough, in 2022, I decided to pursue my musical career as a lyricist, under my childhood nickname of “KeyIce” (pronounced “key-ice”). In January 2022, I released 3 spoken word/prose tracks, dedicated to my 3 children, Elijah, Justice, and Desiree, and my first song in April 2022, “Buss It Birthday Song”. My most recent release is my first alternative jazz spoken word, “Mother Nature is Love, So is God.”
I plan to release a remix to “Buss It Birthday Song” in April 2023 as well as some new songs that I’ve been working on. I am not a singer by far, but I am a creative writer and have a knack for writing catchy hooks, so one of my goals is to write for some artists and make some hits together. Look out for me as hostess of a new web show called “Rep My Block Show”, that will be exclusive to Facebook Watch, with select episodes also available on YouTube.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, it has not been smooth along the way. With growth and success also comes some failure and lots of change. As a small business owner, you wear many hats, so at times, you overload yourself. Not all projects are successful, which is normal, but when you create them yourself and have big dreams for them, you tend to feel a greater sense of failure whenever they do not play out as you projected. At least I feel that way. I’m very hard on myself and it is difficult to let go of projects that are not doing well that I have a passion for.
However, patience is also key. It is not always the right time for every dream. God guides us through every obstacle and gives us signs when the time is right; all we have to do is pay attention. I also took a mental break for a while, after having had two difficult pregnancies back to back, where both my sons were born three months premature. I also struggle with bouts of extreme anxiety, which sometimes has been a roadblock.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
We are an internet promotions company that specializes in grassroots marketing concepts for urban entertainment projects, Hip Hop/R&B artists, models, and mass events. Our music-related services appeal most to independent artists, however, we also have a custom portfolio of services that also have attracted the attention of major artists as well.
A group of 3 friends and I founded the company in 2005, with the intention of bringing more awareness to urban parties and events online, from a party goers perspective, because there were very few resources online with that type of information and so many events that people did not know about. So we created websites catered to providing more info for special events, such as the Texas Beach Party (also known as the Galveston Beach Party), and city nightlife club parties and events in San Antonio, TX.
After about a year, we each ventured off into our own professional directions, and I became the sole owner of the company, heading up all projects and operations, while at the same time partnering with $trictly Business Tha Empire to create an all-female promotional modeling team called The Phenomenal Gifts.
Meanwhile, HomeBase Promotions’ website party network began spreading to other cities, like Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Miami. Our online presence was prominent, as we received regular requests for street team services and promotions from artists and submissions to get listed on our website (we offered free profiles to artists and models who did not have their own websites-there was no social media besides MySpace back then).
We provided graphic design services, and promotional consulting, and had street teams and promotional models across the state of Texas. We also created a small network of our affiliates, called the HomeBase Urban Network, providing discounted services to members. We began to sponsor popular mass events, such as Allen Iverson’s All-Star Weekend party in Houston, TX (2006), and the Southern Entertainment Awards in Tunica, MS (2009).
These events further helped increase awareness of our brand, and we began receiving requests from artists worldwide, from countries like Spain, the United Kingdom, and Nigeria, to assist in planning concert tours and provide niche marketing. We hosted a few events of our own, from an invite-only industry networking event called, “Power Players Present”, to collaborating with entertainment companies across Texas, to host nightclub events.
We were beginning to be known more as a promoter by hosting club events, and I did not like that stigma at all, because it was not our specialty; the entertainment industry tends to give promoters bad names. Our niche was providing internet promotions; the internet is a mass media, so we began turning down requests that did not appeal to mass audiences and that did not fit our niche.
We gradually shifted our key services to provide brand image management, customized statistical analysis reports, and promotional consulting. We now cater to evolving mainstream artists, independent artists with unique talent, “hidden gem” hits by artists that are slept on, and models with established followings, and only accept special event projects that appeal to our niche target audiences.
Today, HomeBase Promotions is now a leader in the urban entertainment industry for online promotions for Hip Hop and R&B, having shifted much of our attention and efforts to promoting artists via our own in-house projects, providing celebrity domain management, playlist curation, offering tickets to mass concert events as a Stubhub affiliate, and establishing a virtual safe place for music artists and models seeking to venture into NFTs and the metaverse.
Our in-house project portfolio includes Hip Hop EPK (electronic press kits for hip hop artists), HomeBase Radio (playlist radio station), Listeners Choice Radio (worldwide internet radio listening directory), DEJ TV Network (family-oriented), RnBme (R&B storytelling blog), SaTown Hip Hop, Hip Hop Apps, HomeBase Radio Africa, RapGigs.com, and Voiceover Drops.
We also have some major metaverse projects underway, and community initiatives for music artists and college students called “Music in Tech”, and “Music in College”, designed for independent hip-hop artists and graduating high school seniors/college students.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was very quiet growing up. I liked to observe people, but people thought that I was shy just because I did not speak much. That was not the case at all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.homebasepromo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homebasepromo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/homebasepromo
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/homebasepromo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@homebasepromo
- Other: https://www.twitter.com/officialkeyice
Image Credits
Desiree Williams and Kevin Dukes
