Hey! I’m Nilson and I have a BS (Bachelor of Science)in Creative Technologies.
I work as a freelance photographer, videographer and graphic designer. Apart from that I also have a part-time job, where I work as a Customer Delivery Driver. I normally work 20 hours a week which gives me enough time to work on my side projects.
I was born on a small island in West Africa called São Tomé and Príncipe, where I lived for ten years.
Then, my family moved to Portugal, where again, I lived for another ten years.
Then we decided to move again, and this time to Northern Ireland, where I lived for about eight years before moving to England, where I now live with my partner and my 1-year-old son.
“My room is not big. It was supposed to be my son’s room but he doesn’t like to sleep alone. So, for now, I’m using it as my home office,” says Nilson
My whole life has been about adaptation. I think it is an important skill to have, and this pandemic taught us exactly that.
One day you can have your whole life planned and the next day everything changes and you have to find a different path.
My creative journey started roughly 15 years ago when I got my first computer.
At that time, I was fascinated by music and computers.
I wanted to know how everything works. That’s when I started producing music and at the same time, running a website related to music.
The kind of music I used to produce is called Kizomba, in some places such as The Lesser Antilles and France, it is known as Zouk. Kizomba was founded in Angola in 1984 and it is the kind of music I grew up listening to.
I loved listening to this rhythm and also dancing, and that is why I decided to produce music.
It was a fun process to create music, share it with other people and get their feedback. I did it as a hobby and I really loved it! I even got to sell some of my beats which I wasn’t expecting.
Nilson works from home mostly during the day. There is plenty of natural light for him to work effectively
One of my proudest moments related to producing music was the fact that I got some of my remixes featured on one of my favourite artist’s YouTube channel (Kaysha).
Now, the reason why I decided to create a website and later on, a YouTube channel related to this genre, is because, at that time, there were no good websites where people could go and find new Kizomba songs, discover new artists and things like that.
At some point, the website and the channel were very popular. I had many artists sending me their songs to promote on my channel and website. I was able to create a platform where artists could promote their work and get the exposure they needed and that was an amazing achievement for me.
The most popular video on my YouTube channel has almost 8 million views, which I wasn’t expecting at all.
Nowadays, Kizomba or Zouk has become even more popular. Some famous artists such as Burna Boy, Aya Nakamura and Jorja Smith, already made songs singing to this rhythm.
Those years of my life were amazing. I was able to learn so much in the process, I had to learn how to make a website, learn how to make a logo, learn how to make beats, and so on. Today, the website is still up and running (well, a lite version of it) and the YouTube channel has over 60K subscribers.
Tannoy Gold 5 studio monitors take a prominent place in Nilson’s desk setup
As for now, my goal is to secure my first job as a web developer because it is something I enjoy doing and also work on my tech YouTube channel.
Now, if you are wondering why I decided to create this tech YouTube channel, the reason is pretty simple.
When I was trying to get a job as a web developer, I realised is that my weakest point was my communication skills.
I felt like I really needed to improve on that. I thought making YouTube videos would be a great way to improve on that because there is a certain pressure that comes with making YouTube videos.
It’s not an easy process and the voiceovers take quite a bit of time to make. But what I noticed is that with each video, I’m becoming more confident in communication.
