‘Localizing international appeal’

For years, local musicians in the Commonwealth have put in hours of work in getting their songs and talents exposed. With the arrival of musician and producer AJ Baldevia on island, the fight for exposure just went up a notch.

Baldevia, who arrived from Guam in 2002, is currently living out his dream of providing a venue for local artists to accomplish their dreams. He heads the production operations of Marianas Music Videos, a show that features videos featuring up-and-coming local musicians. It airs every Monday and Thursday from 6:30pm to 7pm on KMCV channel 7.

“It’s been a dream of mine for the past 10 years, and now I see that it’s coming to life,” Baldevia said of MMV during an interview yesterday. “Improving the local scene means a lot, it really does. This is going to entice a lot of young people out there to get involved in this business, because this business is not just focused on music alone; its also educational. We want to give the community a chance to be able to reach their dreams, because many think it only happens somewhere else, but that’s not true.”

Baldevia, whose involvement in music began as a disc jock while a sophomore at George Washington High School on Guam, explained that although he does respect radio and album sales as a channel for exposure, he visualizes the use of videos as a vital tool in promoting the artists’ composition and talents because of the way it reaches the audience.

“They get to see them and hear them,” he said. “That’s new, and so far, we’ve been getting really positive reactions. People are now starting to find interest in this.”

After years of being a musician, producer, and publisher of his own magazine on Guam, Baldevia’s love for music was put in the back burner after he switched his profession and got involved in real estate.

“In 2002 I was on Guam doing real estate because money was good, but I found out that it wasn’t my passion, It wasn’t something that really turned me on as opposed to my first love—music and media,” he said.

It was then that Baldevia took a job as program director for local radio station Magic 100.3 FM.

With all his experience with local artists on Guam, as well as professional artists from around the world, including Big Mountain and Maxi Priest, Baldevia’s urge to pursue his dreams became a lot clearer, and he began to do marketing studies on music videos.

“Nobody was doing it. I’ve seen some videos that were produced in the Pacific, but it wasn’t exactly up to my expectations,” he said. “We’re still learning how to do this, but at the same time, I wanted to bring it up a step. We’re more artistic. These days, in order for you to really promote your music, radio and CD sales isn’t enough—nothing against radio, I’ve been a radio guy for a long time, but when you see something more visual, it’s more powerful, so I got into music videos and started producing videos.”