2008 SEA R&B ARTIST OF THE YEAR - SHANNON SAND

“An Over Life Success”
If you asked Shannon what he does for a living, “Doing what I want to do” is probably the first response you would get. If it is, please don’t take it personally. It’s just that after years of working in fast food restaurants, cleaning carpets, picking up the neighborhood trash and doing whatever else he could to make ends meet, this singer/songwriter/producer/musician is finally at a place where he can live off of his God-given craft: music. And, since he can remember, that is exactly what he has wanted to do.

Of course, this luxury did not come at a cheap price. A lot of time, effort, energy and sacrifice came and went before Shannon could claim the title of being a 2X Grammy-winner; India.Arie’s music director; a writer for singers like country music newcomer, Rissi Palmer, and a highly-celebrated co-producer, alongside his creative partner, Drew Ramsey for such artists as India.Arie, Jonny Lang, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Heather Headley, Eric Benet, Nicole C. Mullen, Mandisa, Marc Brousard and a host of others.

If Shannon could push rewind on his artistic lifeline, he would credit several things to his success: being a member of Technik, an independent-yet-legendary rap group in Nashville at 14; playing the organ and leading the choir in his late-grandfather’s church at 15; playing in the band at Tennessee State University at 18; meeting Drew at 20 and at 27, releasing his first solo LP, Outta Nowhere, which features the original version of Heather Headley’s chart-topping 2006 R&B single, “In My Mind”; a project that, thanks to the heavy soul, R&B and even hip-hop presence in his voice, lyrics and delivery, many of his peers consider to be one of the most slept on and underrated albums of this generation.

However, as Shannon gears up to release his highly-anticipated follow-up, Grown Man Handbook---an LP that pays tribute to the men who live as he has in work, life and love---he admits that while he’s excited to “speak for the people who are doing what they have to do to make it; the ones who have dreams and may not have yet reached them”, within him, there is also an unsettled anticipation as he moves out from behind the scenes to the forefront.

“Being a producer is like being the guy who helped build your car,” says Shannon. “All that people in traffic know is how good you look in it. They don’t realize the work that went in to making it all happen. But, when the designer or mechanic drives up next to the car he worked on, it makes him feel good that you look good. He knows that means that he did his job. That’s how I feel about what I do.”

And now, that he’s considering transitioning from “car maker” to “car driver”?

“Fate has dealt me the hand I am playing,” Shannon expounds. “God and my mother gave me my voice. My grandfather gave me my first platform. Pretty much everything that I do is because life reveals that it’s time to do it. I didn’t write the Grown Man Handbook. My life experiences did. And now, it just feels like the message needs to get out; like I will be betraying a part of my journey if I don’t do it.”

Of course, if you asked Shannon if this means that he’s permanently trading in his Pro-tools rig for the spotlight, it would be one of the rare times that you would see anything other than a smile on his face. As a matter of fact, asking Shannon to choose between performance and production, to him, is like asking him to choose between one of his children.

“I believe that my job is to document inspiration whether it comes from me as an artist or producing someone that I am working with,” says Shannon. “I’m not nearly as meticulous about the source as I am the message, but I know that I have to do what I can with what I have to get the messages that come across my path out.

So much of music today is focused on making people an overnight success, but I am proud to be an over life success because it makes my writing, my singing, the way I do business, simply, the quality of how I live my life better. You know, I would have never thought that doing some of the things in my past would’ve been preparation for where I am now, but even with all that’s happened, one thing has not changed. I was singing on the back of the trash truck, I sing in the studio now and I will continue to sing wherever life takes me.

Everyday I wake up with a song in my heart and accolades or not, that is something worth celebrating…and I do, no matter what. I’ve come to see that when you do what you want to with your life that is when you are truly living it…regardless of what you do, how much money you make or who knows about it. When you’re happy, that’s when you are a true success.”