Axel Mansoor, Emmy-nominated singer revolutionizing music

Hi everyone, it’s been awhile since I sent this newsletter out. A few updates about me and this newsletter.

First, I got a job! Live look at me.

For those that know me in real-life, you’ll know that I’ve been job searching for the past 3 months. This newsletter came out of the hope of finding a new job and showing expertise (although I’m by no means an expert) in the creator economy and the creator space. This newsletter was definitely a factor in the job interview process and ultimately probably helped me land a job. So, in other words, this idea I had back in November of 2020 blossomed into a regular practice for me and ultimately has landed me a job from it. Never stop believing in the mission of a side project. It might not take you where you want to go but it will take you further than where you were before.

Second, this newsletter.

This newsletter has been my reprieve from the seemingly never-ending job search. Countless no’s, dead-ends, coffee chats are genuinely exhausting especially after the first 100 or so “Thank you for your application” emails. This newsletter saved my brain because I could focus on creating and not the “Will they like me” or “did I answer that correctly" type of mentality. In short, my mental was saved because I could write freely about anyone and take 1-2 hours (yes sometimes the articles take that long to write) and live like someone else. Diving deep into the background and life of someone else was incredibly cathartic and presenting my findings thru this newsletter was the reprieve I needed to not be caught up in the job search rat race.

So, this newsletter is not changing. I will still have weekly Sunday articles that will dive deep into a single creator but a few updates:

1) I’ll be posting more on the twitter for this newsletter @creatorsdigest. If you want more than just the weekly articles, follow there.

2) I’ll be playing out with a Friday weekly wrap-up format that will summarize big creator moves for the week. Kinda of like a round up of sorts. More to come later.

3) In a month or so, I want to add a paid tier to this newsletter. I’m not sure what that looks like and if anyone would be interested, but if you would pay for this content, send me a response via email or tweet me @creatorsdigest on Twitter.

Thanks for sticking with me and for reading this - now onto today’s article!

Meet Axel Mansoor, an Emmy-nominated American singer, songwriter, and now joining the ranks of Clubhouse icons.

Axel was born in Bethesda, Maryland but moved around the world living in many different places like Zimbabwe, Belgium and Mauritius before landing in California where he went to college at University of Southern California.

Axel started his musical career in 2017 with his debut single “Wasted My Love”.

The song charted immediately and held the #5 spot on Spotify’s Viral US Top 50 songs for a few weeks. Since then he’s released more music as singles on Spotify that you can listen to such as “Talk To Me” or “Hit Rewind”.

The following year, he released his debut EP “Somerset”. The EP had a ton of stripped down acoustic tracks and was Axel’s first time releasing a collection of songs.

After the EP release, Axel moved to LA and started booking shows around the US. He toured with Sofar Sounds, a collective to play small intimate live shows in many different cities.

It led him to play alongside and open for great artists like Frenship, Chela, Yoke Lore, and Josh Radnor. A few years later, he was a featured artist on Songland, a show on NBC where he performed an original song called Scary.

Then the pandemic hit. Music businesses were drastically affected. Tours cancelled. Up and coming artists like Axel had to find alternative ways to perform their art. Crowds could not gather anymore and venues were shutting down because ticket sales were plummeting. We all know the theater industry was hit hard, well music festivals and local venues were hit harder.

But none of this discouraged Axel. Instead, in September 2020, he joined Clubhouse. I remember talking to him briefly in September as a lot of the original clubhouse crowd (around the first 10K users) would regular run into each other. We talked in a recurring room called Namaste America and then a few other rooms I don’t remember the name of.

Axel and I had briefly talked about how he was leaving LA and moving home to Mauritius. He wasn’t sure what that would mean for being on Clubhouse because of the time difference but he knew it was the right move for him.

A few months into the move, he decided to start the now famous Lullaby Club. Lullaby Club is a place for soothing tunes and musicians to play sweet nothings to the people on stage and in the audience. Here’s an example of what lullaby club looks like:

The best part about the time difference is that when Axel plays in Mauritius, the US is 12 hours behind. So, 9AM for Axel is 9PM PST for people in the states. The perfect time as people are winding down their days and want to chill and relax and listen to some soothing tunes as they drift off to never never land.

The even better part? Axel started doing it daily. His love for music is unmatched and after buying an iRig to improve the sound quality slightly, he started having a recurring cast of characters who would play new songs and old and would be able to discover new talent that would swing sweet ballads to the people in the virtual room.

The room’s popularity took off. Hundreds of people started showing up and listening to Axel and his friends play acoustic ballads and sing into the ether.

Very quickly, Axel started picking up steam which eventually led to a reach out from Steph Simon, who runs community at Clubhouse. The rest of this story is from a short interview my co-admin Rachel and I did with Axel in our club, Wellness Club.

Axel mentioned that Steph reached out and there were a few finalists. They didn’t communicate that it was a surefire thing so Axel sent over some photos to be used and then never heard back for a few weeks. He expected nothing from it and then woke up in Mauritius to a Clubhouse update that had been rolled out and saw his own face as the icon.

The app started growing in popularity and now millions of people had Axel’s face on their phones whenever they opened the app.

Shortly thereafter, he released a new single called Kids Can Be So Stupid all about being brought up a third culture kid. You can listen to it here (it features Abhi the Nomad and is a bonafide bop).

From there, the virtual press tour began. Axel started doing conversations, interviews, live performances all thru Clubhouse. He stopped by Wellness Club to talk about his meditation practice and how he loves the water in Mauritius and stopped by Italian club below to play some songs and do interviews and even though he wasn’t leaving his home, he was doing what he had sought out to do years prior: interviews about his music and expand his audience.

In more ways than one, becoming the icon helped accelerate Axel’s reach and I’m incredibly ecstatic for someone I call a friend to reach a worldwide audience all thru an app.

Below is a IG reel from Axel on how he became the icon and please please please go listen to his music on Spotify, every stream helps.