I actually get this one a lot...

HaXxXo - Started as a childhood nickname {Hakko} which I later changed to have XxX since I speak my mind and hate to be censored.

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VtotheZ - This one is a bit simpler...kinda. Since I do a lot of my artist stuff on my own, I started going with the "I do everything" A-Z mentality. Then I realized VtotheZ sounded a bit better and since VtotheZ and my last name {Vazquez} had the same amount of letters, it worked out perfectly. Then I played with V^Z {"V" to the power of "Z"} and it stuck. There you go...still confused? Good...just go with it.

As a kid I would tap, bang and make music with everything I could. One Christmas, my uncle bought me a copy of "MTV's Music Generator" for the Playstation 1 and I immediately began to create music. I was about 9 when I made my first song. In fact, many of my current songs were first envisioned on MTV Music Generator and later translated to professional DAWs.

I got into The Prodigy really early on and loved their weird style. Once I heard German Hardstyle I got really into the whole electronica scene. After that I heard Trance and loved it. So Electronica {EDM} is pretty much my favorite genre because it's what I basically first started to produce.

My kids. I didn't have much growing up and while I never blamed my mom because I knew she tried her best, I still didn't want for my kids to struggle. Everything I do is to leave them with more than I had so that I could finally break the vicious cycle of poverty and abuse.

Doing everything yourself. I've been let down by managers, agents, producers, studio owners, execs and so many more. I finally got fed up trying to deal with other people and having to rely on them despite their inefficiencies and oftentimes, laziness. I decided to do everything myself from production, mastering, mixing, merchandising, social media, graphic design, web design, budgeting, marketing and basically learning how to run my own studio, production business, clothing line and more. That's why I use the phrase "I became everything" as my slogan. So while it is finally rewarding to finally get stuff done because I’m not relying on others, it’s stressful and does take a toll on me to have to do everything myself.

This is hard! I mean, really hard. I thought I would just make music and become a household name within the year...nope. I had to learn marketing, social media stuff, best practices...just so much. I guess my biggest lesson was that I needed to take the time to learn the things I needed to do and become truly proficient in something if I wanted to to do. You need to step back and reevaluate sometimes.

Learn. Learn about everything. You might be excited about money, attention and even fame but if you put your life and future in the hands of others you will fail. Take classes on basic business operations, learn how the legal system works, understand contracts and licensing. Get hungry for growth and learning. You will fail at times but it's what you do afterwards that truly defines you. Get up and learn from your mistakes. Start small and grow...

Like most things, the Marine Corps has its ups and downs but generally it was tough, cool and something I will always miss. If anyone wants to join the military I would say to do your research, study and plan on doing something that will teach you skills for when you leave the military.

Again, my kids...the rats. It sucks to get off work at 6-7pm to drive an hour away in heavy traffic and get home to just feed them and put them to bed and do the same thing the next day. Children shouldn't spend the majority of their time at daycare. Not to mention deployments…I missed the birth of my oldest and couldn’t imagine being away from them again after that.

I guess much like many other people who had too much time on their hands during COVID, I decided to take streaming seriously. Ideally I started as with intention to connect with people and spread my art, merch and overall style to people since throwing money at marketing doesn't seem to work for me as well as many other people. I have streamed pretty regularly throughout the years since then but do take breaks every so often to focus on creating music or working on business partnerships with manufacturers of my merch. I do plan to stick to the schedule that I have now with each day having a different theme but have to adjust according to other priorities.

Honestly, no. The biggest thing I had trouble with was remembering that I wasn't just playing video games but was actually responding to people. I oftentimes get in the zone with whatever I'm doing and would not see a chat message until 20 minutes since it had been posted. Sorry for that guys. I promise I wasn't ignoring you. Since those days I had the idea of putting my chat on my phone so I could see the chat right below the game i was playing since I use a monitor setup. Sorry for the long answer but yeah...the focusing was the hardest part.