Buzz Magazine New York

35 years ago I recieved a terminal diagnosis. I was told I had one year to live. I realized that I had been living my life for others and was determined that I would spend my last year doing what I had dreamed about since my mother took me to the Corning Museum of Glass when I was 8 years old. I decided to work in glass, my true passion. For 10 years I was told that I had one year to live. This meant I became obsessed with furthering my skills before I died.

Then one day I realized I wasn’t going to die in a year, so I began doing something with my skills.

My love of acting began in the 4th grade. I auditioned for a school play and won a fun comedic role playing a disheveled and kooky female school teacher. I was really surprised by all the amazing comments I received after the performance. I had a lot of fun doing that play and it’s really nice when you enjoy doing something and other people enjoy it too. It was after that play that I thought acting might be something to pursue. My mother signed me up for some acting classes and I have continued performing in schools plays. It was all so much fun that I decided I would start auditioning for more professional opportunities, but I needed headshots. Someone who lives in my apartment building is a famous headshot photographer who has taken photos of the most famous actors in the world. He took some headshots of me and I started getting background work for television shows. Those onset experiences led me to student films and then short films. Last December I signed with an agent in New York City and this month I found out that I was nominated for a Young Entertainer Award for Best Young Actor in one of the short films.

My mother filled my world with music and the arts when I was a kid. Symphonic music. Classical music. Broadway music. I did my first show (“The Music Man”) when I was five years old and I was completely hooked. I never stopped and I’m 35 years old now.

Well growing up in a family where my mother is a nurse and my father is a fireman, I thought I was destined to be a civil servant. Up until about 10 years ago, I wanted to follow in my fathers footsteps and then I got the bug..the acting bug as they call it. As a kid, I looked at acting as a profession that was unattainable. I always thought that it was reserved for people who were born into it. While I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, I took up acting as a hobby. I would submit to local casting calls here in the city, literally anything and everything just to have the opportunity to get onto a set. In this time, I was fortunate to land an agent to help me with castings as I was not having any luck on my own. Lucky for me this agent of mine landed me a role on the set of The Dark Knight Rises. As many of you know, it is part of the Batman saga. Although it was just a background role or “Extra”, it was during this time on set that I realized my passion for acting and desire to become an actor.

I have been performing in front of crowd since I was five years old, and by the age of nine I was already singing, dancing, and acting in competitive engagements. An accomplished actor and singer, I recently finished filming a new movie based on the award-winning book “Song of the Tree Frogs” where I played the lead role of a teenager named Philip. My first feature film “18 to Party” recently premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival, and over the past several years I have appeared in in multiple other films, commercials, TV episodes, voice overs, and national and international TV ads.

Ever since arriving in New York in 2015, I have regularly put in 15 to 20+ hours a week training, attending workshops, and auditioning. All of my hard work and dedication to perfecting my talents paid off when I was tapped to play Friedrich for the Broadway 50th Anniversary National Tour of The Sound of Music. Once off tour, my musical abilities continued to be highlighted as I was selected as a finalist in the American Protégé International Vocal Competition and I had the privilege of singing at Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium. I then was chosen as a winner in the Junior Division of the NY Lyric Opera Competition and was asked to perform on The Harry Connick Jr TV Show. I have performed in and sang Tosca, Macbeth, and have performed in multiple cabarets all over NYC. I was selected as a 2018 Honors Performance Series Sydney Opera House Finalist and had a 2017 Grammy consideration for my first professional recording “A Christmas Presence”. I was given the honor of being the first and the youngest American artist to be invited to Italy to train in the art of Belcanto, where I was honored to be invited to sing with the Belcanto Italiano Foundation in the home of famous tenor Beniamino Gigli.

I am represented by Innovative Artists and managed by Snow Entertainment, Cinda Snow. I am an honors student in high school and I also attend The Juilliard School as a Vocal Performance Vocal Major in Juilliard’s Pre-College program 2019-2021.
Member of AEA (Acotrs Equity) & SAG-AFTRA

Good morning…it’s a pleasure to be with you!

I was exposed to music through my parents in the 70’s, and then a bit later through the tastes of my older brother. Dad was into the Stones, Beatles, and the Beach Boys (he grew up in LA in the 40’s and 50’s, so the Beach Boys were compulsory listening). My mom’s tastes…well, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Gordon Lightfoot, Kim Carnes, and the BeeGees. Yikes. Brother Matt, though, redeemed us all by getting into Iron Maiden, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, and Rush, all of whom are still in regular rotation for both of us.

My life until about age 15 consisted of sports and more sports. Music was for pleasure, not something that I saw as a creative outlet. But I stopped growing just south of 5 foot 8, so I realized that the NBA wasn’t in the cards. Around that same time, probably Xmas of 1988, my dad gave me a Washburn Acoustic Dreadnaught that still remains as my go-to for songwriting to this day. It is, quite literally, my oldest surviving possession! So I started to fiddle with chords from a book for songs I knew by heart, and lo and behold, I joined a band at age 16 called The Green T’s.

Growing up in Seattle pre-grunge, the local heroes were Hendrix and Heart and Queensryche. A few more, but that was sort of the Holy Trinity in Seattle Rock until the Pearlgardenchainvana thing happened. I moved to Arizona for college in 1990 and then followed a girl to El Paso in 1992 (a recurring theme, as you will see) and got married at the ripe old age of 20. I had to work and go to school and hustle just to survive, but when I met a couple buddies in a popular local band looking for a new drummer, I jumped at the chance, and Tweed Quickly was formed in 1995.

Tweed was sort of an eclectic mix of Zappa, Spanish music, Prog Rock, and the Beatles. It was SO MUCH FUN. Those guys have remained close friends and musical collaborators for over 25 years, and that influence has certainly remained as a part of Little King. But Tweed Quickly ran it’s course, and because I had already written about 10 songs that I had intended to record with those guys, I made a move and formed Little King (which is the Gaelic translation of my first name, “Ryan”). We recorded what can be best described as a demo/almost album in 1997 called Transmountain, and the rest is history.

In the past 23 years, I have recorded 6 albums as a producer, lyricist and music writer, singer, and guitar player. The lineup is Transmountain (1997), Time Extension (1998), Virus Divine (2003), Legacy of Fools (2008), OD1 (2014), and the latest, Occam’s Foil (2019). Been a helluva ride…but I am still here and still writing.

I am Keiana Armani Creative Director/Stylist Certified Fitness Trainer and CEO of the Online Fashion Publication That empowers women to “Embrace their Inner Empress”
My journey started almost 5 years ago in 2015. At the time I had full time job that I was very unhappy with. I was miserable overweight and stuck in the rat race. I was making just enough money to pay my bills car note and such but something in me wanted more. One day I walked into work and found a book on the desk that would change my life. It was a book by Joel Osteen. I read a line that said the richest place in the world was the cemetery there you’d find million dollar dreams never created. I began to cry and I said enough I’m leaving my job and I’m gonna Start creating the life I want. I picked a date on the calendar and I post dated my letter of resignation. That date came I walked in and resigned. I then became determined to recreate myself lose weight and become a fashion stylist. My son was taking karate classes at the time so I began to workout at the gym right next to his class. I attended my very first fashion week in NYC that same year. I left fear behind and I showed up with no invitations, no connections, Fashion was just always inside of me it just took for me to Embrace my inner Empress. I lost weight I started my career and my first work as a fashion stylist was published by a major company Curl Box. During this time I birthed Indigo Blue Style by simply sharing my story of fashion fitness and transparency on a weebly website I had created. I made a plan as to how I would grow the platform because it really was about empowering other women and bringing them along the journey with me. Over the years I kept working on myself mind body and spirit . Perfecting my craft And working with major publications as a stylist creative Director. By 2019 I was ready to relaunch the Brand and take it to the next level with a team of women writers , stylist, graphic designers etc and that exactly what I did. It was also a dream to become a certified Fitness trainer and spread the world of how much a healthy lifestyle is vital for success. I became a certified fitness trainer Jan. Of 2020.

Blogging was something that I had always been interested in. I started writing poetry when I was about 7, to
express my feelings. As I got older, I started writing about more complex topics and things I was experiencing in detail. I started blogging to take the stigma off of mental health, infertility, and life challenges in general. I wanted my blog to change people’s perspectives on that. My intention was always to create a safe place and to let people know that we’re all struggling or have experienced hardships and that’s okay. It doesn’t make you weak. I noticed that through my transparency, I was beginning to reach people. Some were people I knew, some I didn’t, but I would receive messages or comments on my posts from people with similar experiences.

An entrepreneur, a motivational speaker, certified effective business writer, and blogger, Alice Dele has committed herself to guide others towards greater fulfillment in their lives. She serves as a mentor to young women nationwide, emphasizing the viability of their dreams and the enormity of their potential.