Brand Yourself By Dertrick Winn

Tonight one of GRAMMY Camp’s key sponsors came to GRAMMY Camp® to talk about the importance of branding yourself and staying true to your art and purpose for making music.

Scott Nelson and Dan Cherry, leading members of Converse and Anomaly Communications respectively were both part of the project team that helped get every GRAMMY Camper one of their very own pair of custom Converse Chuck Taylors.

Although Converse is a clothing brand whose product appeals more to the visual aspect of artistic expression, The Chuck Taylor is an iconic shoe that has been worn by some of the most legendary and unique artists in the music industry, like the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, Pharrell, and Andre 3000. As well as the shoe being a part of music history, Converse now serves as a catalyst for promoting the creative music of the future. The attention of the combined talent that is GRAMMY Camp was now focused on these two speakers who, we soon found out were a lot like us.

Dan Cherry is the Managing Director of Brand Strategy at Anomaly Communications, a media company purposed to spreading positivity and creativity in the world of music and entertainment. Dan Cherry started off as a college student attending school with a basketball scholarship, but ended up not being able to play due to a serious knee injury. He spent his first day of college on crutches, spending the first of his college days entirely different that he expected. “I wasn’t playing basketball, wasn’t going to parties, just sitting in my room, depressed.”

Though this seemed to be an unfortunate predicament, it was during his alone time that he came up with the concept for what today is known as the And 1 basketball media production company, which he describes as “Like a skate video, but with basketball moves." The And 1 projects consisted of recordings of talented athletes touring the States playing street basketball accompanied by energetic music that served as a theme for this entertaining show. These productions became known as the And 1 Mixtapes, and were released in several volumes that achieved critical success to street basketball fans everywhere. “I took my passion for basketball and music and found a way to combine the two," says Cherry. Though he feels he has no musical talents, his And 1 project has displayed talented musicians through these Mixtapes.

Scott Nelson is the Director of Advertising at Converse. His job is to oversee all of the marketing actions being taken in by the brand, including work with artists who do music and commercials for Converse. He made it clear that Converse only works with artists who are true to themselves and are original. “They all started out just like you,” Says Nelson, “Use your talent to create something powerful and respectful.”