London based singer-songwriter Sofia B is set to be the next big thing. The 24 year old is hitting the music scene hard with her soulful lyrics and catchy melodies. She’s also a queer heartthrob, known for her music as well as her friendships with androgynous model ‘It’ girls like Harmony Boucher and Lillie Rage. But don’t let her good looks and bravado fool you, there’s more to Sofia B than that. Sofia has bravely come out about her battle with chronic illness – her passion to bring awareness to Crohn’s disease is palpable and infectious. I sat down with Sofia B to talk about heartbreak, family, models, date nights, embarrassing moments and more.

What was your creative process for your latest EP, “In the City”? 

It all started when I was living and working in NYC and had gone through a pretty horrendous breakup. For me it always starts with a lyric, story or emotion and then I start improvising over chords until I find something that sticks. Some of the songs I wrote to and from work, mostly writing lyrics on my phone and then recording videos of myself, so I wouldn’t forget what I came up with!

Who was the inspiration for your first single from the EP, “Ice Cold Love”

My last girlfriend was the inspiration for “Ice Cold Love.” She is actually a native New Yorker and I moved to NYC after graduating from Berklee College of Music, partially to be with her but also to pursue my career. We broke up only a few months after I had moved and then I had to face the brutal NYC winter all on my own, which is where the song came from!

Tell me more about your second single from the EP, “Soldiers.” What inspired it?

My best friend and fellow Crohn’s buddy, Avery Nejam aka The Candid Observer, was checking in on me one day at work while I was still in NYC. I told her hard I was finding it to cope with the severe cold and my Crohn’s, so she flat out convinced me to book a flight to New Orleans and just take a mental health trip together. It genuinely was one of the most incredible trips of my life, we went everywhere, tried everything, met some amazing Thai girls who were working at the beignet place, ‘Cafe Du Monde,” and they ended up following us everywhere and becoming life-long friends! Anyways, only me and Avery knew how sick we were or how hard it is for us to fight this disease, which is where the idea of being soldiers comes from, as well as the fact that we both happen to be half Lebanese!

Very few musicians and entertainers are open about chronic illness. Why did you decide to ‘come out’ about your Crohn’s disease? How do you think your journey can help others? 

If I’m really honest with myself, I think it’s because of Avery. I could try and explain the extent of her struggles but honestly to this day I still find it hard to comprehend the severity of her situation. We were diagnosed around the same time in Boston, where we met. The only difference was that she had been dairy, gluten and just about everything intolerant and had never smoked or drank. Me on the other hand, I’d been smoking cigarettes for a while, drinking casually and McDonald’s and I were certainly no strangers!

Yet, this made no difference, she ended up losing her colon and I ended up with three blood clots in my spleen (which they saved) and eventually remission for my Crohn’s. Avery is an inspiration, she fights religiously for her life yet she still makes time to check in on me. I hope that my journey and my songs will allow other Crohn’s sufferers to feel like I’m here for them and have made time for them.

How does your Lebanese and Venezuelan background influence your music?

My Father is Lebanese, and he is where I like to think I get my musical skills from, because he is the best guitarist I know. He is actually playing on “Ice Cold Love,” which was recorded in Beirut where he lives. I decided to bring the record to him, because I didn’t want to lose out on the opportunity of recording with my Dad. My Mother, who is Venezuelan, is a jeweler and isn’t exactly musically inclined, but she has been my number one supporter my whole life. Whether she was taking me to singing, ballet, violin or maths (I was truly rubbish!) lessons, she always made sure to make me feel like I could do anything I set my mind to. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I think my Venezuelan side is where I get my drive and motivation from!

What is the overall message that you want your fans to take away from “In the City”? 

Heartbreak and city life have never been good company, this record pretty much captures my healing process, which, yes I did actually manage to do. It’s really easy to think that you’ll never recover from a breakup or heartache when you’re living in a busy city or have a hectic job or just generally have a lot going on. But that’s the amazing thing about us creatures, we heal until we die.

Your music has been compared to Tegan & Sara, Ellie Goulding and Ingrid Michelson. Who are your music idols? 

Fleetwood Mac, The Weepies, Eliot Sumner, Beyoncé and I mean Justin Bieber’s alriggghhhhhhhhttttt

You’re rumored to be friends with models Lillie Rage and Harmony Boucher. What do musicians and models do for fun? 

I’ve never been a model before really, especially because I’m quite short, but my idea of fun is a night out of dancing with friends, recording or writing a new song, cooking a meal for someone and attending concerts, fashion shows, galleries and all of that fun stuff! But if I’m very honest, I’m quite a homebody especially with my Crohn’s Disease, so a lot of the time, a night in watching ‘House’ really is like heaven for me!

What was your most embarrassing “on stage” moment? How did you recover? 

The first time I ever performed a song I had written was when I was 18 and was due for my Berklee College of Music audition in a few weeks. Like a total nimbus, I decided to go to an open mic night in London and drink a beer right before I went on… Anyways, I started to play the first few chords and next thing I know I had forgotten my lyrics… I ran off stage grabbed my phone looked up the first line and went right back up and I finished the song. I was sweating and all red after, but a bunch of people came up to me after and said how much they loved my song, especially because it was written about my music teacher at the time.

What does your perfect date night look like? 

The perfect date nights are the ones that are spontaneous, when you decide to just say hey, lets do something! There really isn’t anything much more romantic than walking around (weather permitting!) with the person you love with them as your only destination in mind.

Need more Sofia B? Follow her on Instagram @officialsofiab or visit her website to check out upcoming shows, merch and of course music!

The post Interview with Singer/Songwriter Sofia B first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Nancy Blaine, Founder, Local Expeditions

The sharing economy has given rise to a new generation of start-ups. Joining the fray is Nancy Blaine, a Brooklynite with a love of travel. Blaine is the founder of Local Expeditions- an “anti tour” company that will take you on tours of Brooklyn and Manhattan that will provide an authentic NYC experience. I spoke with Blaine about how she launched Local Expeditions, her vision for the future and how to turn an idea into a business.

What do you do and why?

I just started my own business after many years in publishing. It’s called Local Expeditions and is housed in the sharing economy.  The business incorporates two things I am passionate about:

1. The sharing economy which I think has great potential to be a new economic system based on fair wages for work well done. I know the economic model really comes out of the tech industry, but I also feel like it resonates from Occupy Wall Street. It’s a model that puts the lion’s share of wages directly into the hands of the—you name it—the driver, the homeowner and in the case of Local Expeditions, the local guide.  My website offers a model for a ‘local expedition,’ but people sign up to create their own adventures based on who they are and what they know.  Reviews of guides and reviews of customers regulate the business.  I feel like it is an economic model that celebrates the best in us, instead of the worst. Capitalism is essentially based on profit. Any profit-based system will lend itself to greed. Certainly this can happen in the sharing economy too—we’ve seen it already—but the model I want to emulate is one where a job well done is rewarded by good reviews and most of the income for the expedition. That is how I envision the sharing economy and how I am modeling my business.
2. Travel!  I love to travel. One of the highlights of my publishing career was consistent travel and when I am in a city that I don’t know, I am not the kind of person who wants to go where the concierge tells me to go. I always try to find someone who grew up there or has lived there for a long time to tell me where to go. On the flip side, I am just passionate about New York and especially Brooklyn.  I have been here for 32 years—20 in NYC and 12 in Brooklyn (what took me so long?). I am the kind of person who, when I see an out-of-towner, I ask them what they are up to and I offer as many suggestions as possible that are outside of Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. Don’t get me wrong.  Everyone should see those places once – I have.  But anyone who has lived here for a long time avoids those areas like the plague.  My new favorite passion is taking the East River Ferry from 34^th street to Dumbo and back.  $4.00 plus $1.00 for a bike and the BEST vistas of the east side skyline and Brooklyn you can imagine.  A great deal and an utterly pleasant ride.

The Manhattan Bridge

What did you do before you started your company?

I was in college publishing for 26 years. It was a wonderful career. I was an acquisitions editor in many different disciplines over that time—anthropology, social work, criminal justice, history, English and engineering.  I feel like I’ve had a lifetime of learning and that is one of the things I really love about my new business. Every day I am reading up on areas of the city, the origins of neighborhoods, their art, their architecture. It’s my own continuing education program.
What’s the single most important piece of advice you received when first starting your company? What would you tell a young entrepreneur in turn?

There were two pieces of advice that really pushed me to make the move. The first was from my accountant who encouraged me to talk to my boss about my idea and see if I could work part time while I launched the business. For some reason, I just assumed I would be told to leave automatically. In truth, since I was going into a different industry, my boss was incredibly supportive and also appreciated the overlap while he searched for a new editor. This gave me financial confidence and also allowed me to begin working on the launch instead of just trying to squeeze it into weekends when I was already exhausted from my job.

The second piece of advice was from a wise friend who knew me really, really well and asked “what is it that is stopping you from moving forward?  What is your greatest fear?”  When I described the 3:00 a.m. terror of walking away from a perfectly good career to start a business that no one is interested in and falling into a deep depression and then drinking all day and then losing my partner and sitting on my dog and killing her in a drunken stupor and losing my apartment and ending up in a refrigerator box in the park, she said to me, “I know you and that is not going to happen.”

I am a daily bicycle commuter. The advice I would give to a young entrepreneur is akin to the advice I would give to a city cyclist.  You must be confident to proceed, but you cannot be over confident. If you are not confident you will falter and the faltering will cause you risk. If you are over confident, you are at an equal or perhaps greater risk of crashing. Be confident, but be aware of your own limitations and the outright randomness of life and others. The most intelligently cautious cyclist can still have a car door opened in their path. Deep breaths. Do the next right thing. Keep on keeping on. Assume the best in people. The car door would not have opened had they known you were there. And if they are in the 1% of people who actually opened that door on purpose—ride on past. Their own karma will catch up to them.

What aspect of business ownership came as the biggest surprise to you?

So far, how much fun it is!  It is so creative in a way I never imagined. It started with a simple vision, and then I had to spin out the vision into the practical, and then I had to look at the financial possibilities and then I had to consider the risks, the regulations, the barriers, and then I had to talk to others to get feedback, and then I had to decide which advice to take and which not to take. It is all-consuming in a way that I find really interesting.

DUMBO

What do you find most rewarding about owning your own business?

I confess–I like calling the shots. As an Acquisitions Editor I called a lot of shots, but there were some that I had to “check in” on. The “checking in” usually had to do with some kind of higher corporate goal—or worse yet—higher corporate fear—legal concerns, etc. My new business has a lot of legal and insurance concerns but I like weighing the risks and employing my own values to arrive at the ultimate decision.
Where do you see yourself / your company in five years? Hopes / dreams / plans?

I would like to see Local Expeditions grow nationally and internationally for these 3 reasons:  1) It offers something that people want; 2) It is reasonably priced and; 3) It has great customer service. I have heard many, many business theorems in my years in the corporate world, but these are the three simple features that strike me as a winning business plan.

For the customer:

1. All expeditions are 2-3 hours long and led by a local who designed the jaunt
2. All expeditions are $40
3. All expeditions are 10 people maximum (to keep the experience intimate)

I also believe that it has a fair and sustainable business model for the guide:

1. Local Expeditions website gets 15% of every tour ($6.00 per person)
2. The guide offers customers a local libation of his or her choice in the amount of 10% ($4.00 per person)
3. 5% of each expedition ($2.00 person) goes to a local non-profit of the guide’s choice (10 from which they can choose)
4. The guide receives 70% of the proceeds ($28 per person x 10 = $280 per expedition)

Also, the guide gets to choose his or her own schedule on a weekly basis. This is a great opportunity for extra income or full-time income depending on how often the tour runs and fills up. I really hope to attract artists, actors, grad students, local historians, etc.  as guides. I think it is a better way to make money than waiting tables and these people are natural storytellers!

What resources would you recommend to someone who is contemplating starting her own business?

So far, I have been able to fund this business on my own via a loan. I am really only launching now, so I have no idea whether I will need to seek further financial resources but I personally don’t like to be beholden to anyone. Banks, I don’t mind. Eventually I will seek a Board for advice but not for fundraising.  I want the business to gain a profit from its own worth.

Let a Local Expeditions tour guide take you on a ferry ride!

What would you say is the single most important key to sustaining a business long term? 

This is a two pronged business:  1) Guides 2) Customers

In order to sustain a long term business we will need to be absolutely attentive to and respectful of both.  Happy guides and happy customers = success.

Also, I want to keep it simple.  I want to manage people’s expectations. They should always know what they will get from Local Expeditions and it should always be fun and simple—clear website navigation is critical.  I am not a huge fan of offering a million different things.  I want to do one thing well for a very long time. No upselling.

What obstacles did you face in establishing your company and how did you overcome them?

The biggest obstacles in any sharing economy business are municipal rules and regulations. New York City, in particular, is a highly regulated city and I am of the belief that it needs to update its Byzantine systems to meet the new economy. So far the biggest barriers I have come up against are maneuvering around and within the test for tour guides (i.e., what subway takes you from the Cloisters to the Rockaways?—who cares? Anyone can look at a map and this will never be part of a Local Expedition).  Not all cities require this and it makes my model much more complicated than it needs to be.  Also, receiving my PO Box key from the USPS was a nightmare. I am a fairly intelligent person and I had to return no fewer than three times to get my PO Box key. Why?  Every time I needed a new piece of paper that had my address on it (apparently a passport and a NYC driver’s license was not sufficient). Come on people! I don’t believe this level of absurd regulation is either necessary or sustainable and I do believe that as younger generations come up and technology improves (does the USPS know about the world wide web?) these kinds of regulations will not be tolerated.

Persistence. Especially in this town of all towns. One must be persistent.

Want to take a tour? Visit the Local Expeditions website!

The post Enterprising Women: Nancy Blaine, Local Expeditions first appeared on Lesbian.com.

On the heels of the wildly successful Lesbians Who Tech San Francsico Summit, organizers have announced plans to bring a similar event to New York City, but need your help to do so.

Lesbians Who Tech, founded by Leanne Pittsford, is a community of queer women in technology and the people who love them. Just over a year ago, the organization began hosting Lesbians Who Tech happy hours to bring together queer women across the tech industry. The concept caught fire and quickly grew to include over 3,000 people in 14 cities worldwide.

In early March, the group organized the Lesbians Who Tech Summit in San Francisco. The event brought together 800 queer women, incredible speakers, a hack-a-thon for social good and featured weekend events like a bike ride and brunch.

Based on feedback at the San Francisco event, Pittsford is now hoping to host a Lesbians Who Tech Summit on the east coast. In order to do that, Lesbians Who Tech has launched an Indiegogo campaign.

In order to secure a venue for the event, scheduled for June 19-22, 2014, Pittsford needs to pre-sell 150 tickets and raise $20,000.

You can support the campaign by purchasing your early access ticket at Indiegogo today. At press time, just 15 hours remain in the campaign, with $17,836 raised toward the group’s $20,000 goal.

The Lesbians Who Tech New York City Summit will be held at Tishman Auditorium at the New School, in Union Square.

The post Last day to help bring Lesbians Who Tech Summit to NYC first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Demonstrators in NYC (Craig Ruttle)

BY LILA SHAPIRO
Huffington Post Gay Voices

Organized by out lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, New York City held an anti-violence march following the killing early Saturday morning of Mark Carson, an openly gay man, by someone allegedly screaming anti-gay slurs.

Serena Poon and Melissa Cerezo marched along shouting “Love Conquers Hate.” The two women got married in Brooklyn on the same day Carson was killed. “We want the streets to be safe for our kids,” Poon said. After the rally, Sharon Stapel, the leader of the LGBT advocacy group the Anti-Violence Project, said she was gratified by the turnout at the rally, but that the work is far from over. “I hope that this is actually the beginning of a community-wide call to action where people actually come together and work to create the safety that we’ve been talking about today.”

Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

The post Hate crimes in NYC spark anti-violence protest first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY CHRIS HUQUERIZA

LGBT non-profit organization Live Out Loud is hosting its 12th annual Young Trailblazer’s Gala featuring young professionals in the LGBT community on Tuesday, April 30th. Live Out Loud aims to inspire LGBT youth by connecting  them with successful, established professionals in the community. The project was conceived in 2002 and awarded collegiate scholarships to LGBT youths from the New York tri-state area. This year, Live Out Loud will present 5 awards of $5,000 each during the gala.

Live Out Loud’s mission has always been “to empower, energize and enable Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth to live the life of their dreams through the celebration of the richness and diversity of our shared experience, the visibility of role models and the dissemination of information.” Past attendees of the gala include Lisa Lampanelli, Donny Deutsch, Thom Browne, Ariel Foxman, Michael J. Fox and Sandra Bernhard.

Tickets to the event, to be held on Tuesday, April 30th at the TimesCenter in NYC, can be purchased here. 

Read more at dot429.com

The post Live Out Loud hosting 12th gala for LGBT youth first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The Out NYC, the first gay urban resort of its kind, recently celebrated its official opening in New York City. The premises include a wellness center, three courtyards, hot tubs, a nightclub and the hotel’s restaurant Kitchin, which is due to open in May. The Out NYC was opened by developers Ian Resiner, Mati Weiderpass, and designer Paul Dominguez in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.

Although many hotels currently boast a gay-friendly environment, the founders of The Out NYC felt that the community needed a “home base.” The hotel remains inclusive of straight guests as well.

Read more at dot429.com

dot429 is an online and event-driven professional social network and online magazine for the LGBTA community. Connect, engage, discover, inspire at dot429.com

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