Mr. West built the Studioplace to educate young individuals about the arts and entertainment industry. As a traditional A&R, he is a straight shooter that understands the path of most young artists and provides direct mentorship and advocacy for those that are new to the industry or in need of a safe haven to maximize their creative vision.

Mr. West has always had a passion for working with youth and arts. As a product of the foster care system, he lived in foster facilities and temporary homes for a majority of his younger years.

As a result, the buildings he builds today are modeled similarly to the foster facilities he resided in.

He sees the StudioPlace as the mental space for any creative to learn how to enter the arts world. He understands and works diligently with government partners and stakeholders to identify opportunities for youth to explore as they enter the workforce.

So how did all this happen?

Mr. West joined the military out of high school and has sought every opportunity to work in the arts and entertainment industry since. At 19, he produced backyard parties, trained to become a combat photographer, and was the military base DJ/ show producer for his duty stations in Spain, Germany, and Italy.

In 2001, he was selected to be a Project Coordinator for USO entertainmment in Middle East Northern Africa (MENA) regions. This entertainment service was designed to bring talent and entertainment to military servicemembers overseas. In this capacity, Mr. West was responsible for designing arts programs, building media studios, providing logistics, and managing agency coordination. This effort resulted in entertainment services rendered to over 25,000 deployed servicemembers on ships and duty stations abroad from 2001 to 2008.

In 2008, Mr. West was honorably discharged and moved to Baltimore, MD and began private contracting for the National Security Agency (NSA).

In 2011, Mr. West continued his artist work and began a wedding photography business, offering brides a unique creative opportunity to be captured in weddings. #theschoolthatbridesbuilt was organized as a fundraiser under his 501c3 (ArtsGroup Inc). Funds from this campaign provided enough capital to acquire an old abandoned warehouse where he began building what we know today as StudioPlace. From 2009 to the present, Mr. West has been quietly involved in the arts and entertainment scene, has worked on hundreds of projects in the mid-Atlantic region and his company has injected over $250,000 in support for mid-Atlantic region arts projects, while building the largest center for artist development on the east coast.

So what’s going on now?

From 2015 to present, Mr. West continued to build the StudioPlace month by month for seven years, often times forgoing his own personal goals, in an effort to reach the next milestone. During this time, his accomplishments in technology and arts are, but not limited to:

• StudioPlace A&R Complex: Creative Director, Head of A&R Services

• Summer Youth Employment Program: Program Director, “Yvng Valued n Gift’d” Artist Development Program

• Transafrica Project : Executive Director for Nelson Mandela’s funeral and memorial week, Washington DC

• Rio Olympics 2016: Director, Cultural Data Project : Culture Olympia Tourism - Rio De Janerio, Brazil

• A3C Festival - DMV Mumbo Sauce Stage: Executive Producer, DMV Mumbo Sauce Stage, A3C Festival

Mr. West has shown his dedication to our community and works with artists worldwide. He has diligently worked as an interdisciplinary artist, manager and friend…. in his effort to continue support for Artist and Technology communities.

Mr. West is a native of Jackson, MS, and the son of Robert and Linda West. He is a graduate of George Washington University’s Masters Program and is designated as a Federally Certified Chief Information Officer.