Exposed Vocals Interviews Martina Pedro’

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?  

Martina Pedro’ : I grew up in Birmingham, I was born in a area called Highgate but the moved to Handsworth when i was about 3 so Handsworth is my home I would say. As a child in school i always liked English i loved the way how you could come up with a story just by receiving a title and you would have to base your story around that, i do that now with song titles. I just have a passion for writing and I love how you can make puns, metaphors, oxymorons and all that; on top of that i have a passion for music itself ask anyone who knows me i know everysong, when my friends have a lyric from a song or even a melody they ask me ” hey martina whats that song that goes like….” And I never fail to give them an answer. So put english and music together I guess you get Martina Pedro’.

Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?

Martina Pedro’ : Sorry to say but there is no exciting story behind my name lool Martina is my actual name and Pedro’ came from a guy I know called Pedro and we put our names together and it looked cool so we was like yeah lets run with that lol. Originally my rap name was Lady TotzS i use to have to emphasise on the “S” at the end, I hated when people spelt it wrong; but when I hit 14 I was like ”Nah thats not cool no more” ahaa

Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?

Martina Pedro’ : Personally I hate the internet but as an artist you have to love it! Its so easy to get your stuff online. Sharing music online is a wonderful thing because you are guaranteed that someone will hear it even if you just get 1 view it doesn’t matter because at least you know that someone heard it, thats all that matters to me and thats why i give my music away for free. It’s much easier and at the end of the day everyone has to start somewhere, i would like to have music as my main income but realistically its not so i do my 9-5 at work, get my earnings and invest in my music when i can but as for now my music is for free.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

Martina Pedro’ : i’m still trying to come up, to everybody else I may seem like a ‘nobody’ but  to me i’m a different person to who i was last year, every move I make is a progression even the small ones. The only advice I can give is to remain confident; never be afraid of rejection, till this day now i still fear rejection but its something I have to learn as a person, not everyone is going to like you I mean theres days when I don’t even like me aha but in time people will grow to you and love you thats how I look at it. Another thing is promote till the death of you! Understand that no one will put you on, there will be times when you realise who your real friends are and who really supports you, doing music I only had 3 close friends that actually supported me alot of people i didn’t know from different countries supported me more than my friends who live one bus away. So please get on every social network you can, promote yourself and get those connections.

Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?

Martina Pedro’ : when I performed one time I missed out a line of my verse so my verse ended up becoming short so there was still some of the beat left until the hook and I couldn’t say the missing line at the end because it wouldn’t rhyme, so I just had to repeat the last line I said a couple times in different tones.

Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about? 

Martina Pedro’ : Unfortunately I haven’t been on tour, I would really like to because I love the feeling of strangers feeling connected to me through music, i love meeting new people.

Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?  

Martina Pedro’ : I find a beat i usually go off if the title of the beat or i’ll have a hook in my head and then I’ll base the rest of the song around that. Sometimes I’ll just here a word throughout the day and I’ll make a song about that word.

Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?

Martina Pedro’ : as for online platforms I have a Youtube account where I will be uploading videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOWN3TNYoZ6R39rpWGyIDrQ. I have soundcloud where I will also be uploading songs https://soundcloud.com/martinapedro and I have twitter @MartinaPedroLT and Instagram @martinapedro._ where I post pictures of cover work for singles or just little snippets of songs I have.

Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?

Martina Pedro’ : you might find the theme song to Samurai Jack, a song from Bart Simpson called the Bartman, and I also have a song from Avatar the Last Airbender that Uncle Iroh sings ‘Winter Spring Summer and Fall’. I have a lot of embarrassing songs on my mp3 player mainly from cartoons or old pop bands like NSYNC.

Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?  

Martina Pedro’ : I would catch a one way ticket to Africa and buy as much land as possible and starting building an empire, a place for my family, friends and the local community could live.

Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?  

Martina Pedro’ : At the moment I am currently booking loads of studio time so I can spend hours, days just making music, I want to start making an album with the songs that I will in the future be selling and the ones that I have online for free I might do a EP for those. I’m not really 100% on doing albums and mixtapes yet I just want a ton of material out there first.

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

Martina Pedro’: I think twitter is the best way to be heard, most of my responses I get from radios, producers and artists are from twitter and a few from Instagram. Another way I promote myself is from general conversation, when a guy comes up to me and asks for my number I give him links to my music instead aha.

Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why? 

Martina Pedro’: I would really like to perform by The Li River & Yangshuo on top of  hill with Michael Jackson, I love his effort he puts into his songs yet alone his performances his just so energetic I believe his natural energy would just be so amazing to be around.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

Martina Pedro’ : Everybody keeps pushing me to do videos they really want to see me do visuals so I guess it’s only fair that I give the people what they want. So be expecting a lot of visuals along with audio obviously and hopefully an album.

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?  

Martina Pedro’ : as well as music I also Model so I guess I’d be doing full time modelling rather than being a rapper and a model, not to say that I put my music above my modelling because they are both apart of who I am but if I weren’t doing music I would just be modelling.

Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?  

Martina Pedro’ : I’ve personally never bought an album I did buy a mixtape of a guy in town who was selling CD’S up and down the street and I purchased one and I got two, they were Devilman and and one called stimulator stormy nation I think I can’t remember. However my mom did buy be Christiana Millan’s album ‘So amzain’ and Ciara ‘Goodies’.

Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?  

Martina Pedro’: as I previously said I also model and on top of that I have a full 9-5 as a compliance assistant so it’s abit stressful but that’s only because of time management. All my responsibilities are basically to my work apart from that it’s just having time to spend with my family and friends.

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?  

Martina Pedro’: I have a lot of collaborations on the way with a few underground and a few mainstream artists, as well as videos and different sorts of materials including a variety of genres, so I advise everyone not only fans to stay tuned.