I’ve never before struggled so much to come up with an episode title.
But today’s guest, Camellia Kies, aka Cami Loops if you follow the socials, has a quality that’s immediately obvious upon speaking to her and hearing her story, that’s simultaneously really hard to put into a short-catchy slogan.
Here’s what I mean - she was the child of a military family, who herself played drums and percussion in the military, after feeling frustrated that doors were somewhat “closed” to her playing drums in her church. Through a combination of innate tenacity and discipline she learned through the military and the military music schools, she built a practice regimen that’s an impressive combination of “hard”, “smart”, and “patient”, whereupon she aimed right at the most daunting seeming challenges - whether that was learning jazz more-or-less from scratch when she already had a touring gig in just weeks, or mastering left foot independence ala Antonio Sanchez or Horacio Hernandez - broke that down into exquisite detail, took it piece-by-piece, mastered it, then used the meta-lessons to surmount the subsequent challenge in less time.
But that doesn’t fit in a YouTube title. So I had to resort so something that sounds like a slogan you’d see on the wall outside HR.
Cami first caught my attention with her youtube tutorials at the pad or snare drum. She explains that after leaving the service, while living in Texas, she didn’t have regular access to a kit. But it was these ebullient mini-lessons that fueled her eventual stardom on social media - doubtless because she’s a fun and energetic presenter, but also possibly because they were so different from anything else out there.
In addition to her social media, Cami is active in creating music from her many influences, from afrobeat, to jazz and latin jazz, to (recently) gospel.
In this interview we chat a lot about the nitty-gritty of practice, and this “extra gear” she seems to have to conquer challenges, but also about her life arc and influences.
Know you’ll enjoy this one!