BRAVADO

The Kansas City Star wrote an article on Josh Mascarenas, pka, BRAVADO titled: "Teen backs up bravado with talent"

CHECK IT OUT!!!

Posted on Mon, Jan. 02, 2006
Raytown grad on cusp of stardomTeen backs up bravado with talentBy MARÁ ROSE WILLIAMSThe Kansas City StarBefore finishing high school, Josh Mascarenas had punched a friend, gotten expelled, fought with his dad, shoved his mom and landed in jail for assault.
Nothing, it seemed, could calm his rage — until he combined the right mix of doctor-prescribed medication with his love of music and sheer willpower.
Now 19, Mascarenas, once tormented by bipolar and attention deficit disorders, is being courted by some of the top producers of hip-hop music and has a shot at a starring role in a motion picture.
Mascarenas’ dreams of becoming a hip-hop recording artist began to soar last summer, when he won the New Music Spotlight Award from the Memphis, Tenn., chapter of the Recording Academy and was selected to appear on billboards for SBC Communications.
In November, a song that Mascarenas wrote and performed, “Am I Hot Enough,” won the director’s award in the Paramount Group’s songwriting contest in Nashville, Tenn. Now, Mascarenas’ lawyers and agents are mulling songwriting contracts from several music-publishing companies, including an offer from the Paramount Group.
His mother, Maureen Mascarenas, has gone from frequently meeting with teachers and psychologists about her son’s self-destructive behavior to managing his music and acting careers from her Raytown home.
Her son, who now goes by the stage name Bravado, has been in Los Angeles the past few months working on an album and preparing to audition for the lead role as a Hispanic teen hip-hop hopeful in a movie titled “Sing Out.”
“I can’t believe this is all happening for me,” Josh Mascarenas said while on a recent visit home.
Coming home — just a few blocks west of his alma mater, Raytown High School — brings back memories of academic struggles and youthful rebellion that Mascarenas now uses as fodder for his lyrics.
Mascarenas talks freely about a time when it was clear that his high school teachers thought he would not amount to much.
Mascarenas, who has taken medication for his disorders since he was in elementary school, recalled once telling teachers that he wanted to become an audio engineer and make CDs.
“They assumed I meant that I wanted to stamp the paper labels onto the discs,” Mascarenas said. “They told me I would be good at that.”
Mascarenas acknowledged that for a time he, too, questioned his ability to be productive in society.
“But at some point I knew that if I kept doing the things I was doing, if I stayed on the path I was on, I would end up in prison or dead,” he said.
Mascarenas changed his behavior after spending Thanksgiving and Christmas 2004 locked in a cell at a boot-camp-type correctional facility for troubled teens. The gift from his parents that year was Bruce Wilkinson’s The Dream Giver, a self-help book about overcoming obstacles and fulfilling one’s dreams.
“I had a lot of time to read,” Mascarenas recalled. “I think that was the first book I ever read cover to cover. … I made a choice. My first goal was to graduate from high school.”
Mascarenas was incarcerated three months. When he got out, he finished his senior year at Raytown High. In between making up the work he had missed, he found an outlet in writing lyrics about his life, his anger and his few triumphs.
“He had always been creative,” Maureen Mascarenas said. “I knew he had something, and I thought, too, that music would be a good place for him to channel his energy.” It was his mother who, when Josh was 15, persuaded his father to invest in $8,000 worth of music-mixing and recording equipment for their son.
“I was really interested in music,” Josh Mascarenas said. “I was always listening to it, and I thought, ‘I want to do that. I want to make music.’ ”
He spent hours working in the music studio his parents set up for him in the basement of their home.
“I gave up everything — going out with my friends, everything — for my music. I was focused,” Mascarenas said.
It was as if music calmed the beast in him, Mascarenas said.
His friends who heard his music told him it was good.
“But good wasn’t good enough,” Mascarenas said. “I needed to be great. I wanted to be ready.”
It is fitting then that Mascarenas would title his first song “Am I Hot Enough,” the same song that jump-started what music producers are calling a promising career.“Here is the kid who was not going to be anybody, right, and now he is just blowing me away,” Maureen Mascarenas said.
“I know that Josh gets on this high when he is writing lyrics, and he just can’t stop.”
Oren Oami, a Los Angeles music producer, met Josh Mascarenas in July at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip in L.A.
“I noticed right away how good looking the kid is,” Oami said. “I listened to his music, and I was not impressed. I told him what was wrong with it, and two weeks later he sent me a new song, “Am I Hot Enough.”
Oami said that when he listened to the lyrics of this new song it was as if Mascarenas were talking directly to him in response to their last meeting.
“I was so impressed, I had to tell him, ‘Yes, you are hot enough,’ ” Oami said. “So now I’m working with him. I’m teaching him how to hone his craft. His potential is enormous.”
Now Mascarenas is preparing to perform in February at Vintage Vinyl, a retail record distributor in St. Louis. And he and Oami are working to get his first album ready for release about the same time.
“Until then,” Oami said, “Go to his Web sites — myspace.com/bravado21, or www.bravadomusic.com — and check out his photos, listen to his music. 2006 is going to be his year.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First glance
■ Josh Mascarenas (right) of Raytown has overcome bipolar and attention deficit disorders and brushes with the law to make a name for himself, using the stage name Bravado, as a budding hip-hop musician and actor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To reach Mará Rose Williams, call (816) 234-4419 or send e-mail to mdwilliams@kcstar.com.
- Kansas City Star

Memphis Chapter Profile
Kurt ClaytonPresident Jon HornyakSenior Executive Director
493 S. Main St., Suite 101
Memphis, TN 38103
901.525.1340
901.521.6553 (fax)
memphis@grammy.com
September 26, 2005

Missouri Demo Review & Contest: On Sept. 9 the Memphis Chapter hosted the Missouri Demo Review & Contest at The Pageant in St. Louis. Ten Missouri artists' demos were heard, critiqued and judged by our panel of industry experts. Judges included Selim Boaub, A&R Asylum Records; Peter Visvardis, A&R executive; Kevin Johnson, director/editor Coolfire Media; and Jason McEntire, recording engineer.

Hip-hop artist Bravado received first place, indie-rock artist Geoff Kutch came in second place, and the third place prize went to jazz artist Ahmad Alaadeen.
Other finalists included Tracy Mitchell, Thughouse, Modern Red, Chris Brown, Klutch, Zee and the Breakers.
Live performances by some of Missouri's most exciting emerging talent followed the Demo Review. Lost Parade, who won the Demo Review in 2003, opened the live performance segment. After two years of work, they proved they have grown into a tight, impressive rock band. Then roots rock band Miles Of Wire took the stage before the urban music segment started with budding artists L.B. and Alisha René, who lit up the stage with her choreography, dance moves and songs. The unequivocal Stevie Stone ended the night with his new single "Bounce" and "Ram Jam," a song he produced for the NFL's St. Louis Rams. Members of the Rams, including Anthony Hargrove and Brian Howard, showed their moves on stage as well as their support for the artists.
Thanks to sponsors BMI, Riverfront Times, Playback STL, Webster University, Vintage Vinyl, www.jasonmcentire.com, House of Blues Studio — Memphis, and entertainment attorney Daniel R. Friedman. - Memphis Chapter