Biography

The fascination of music started very early on.

From growing up singing along to Usher and Michael Jackson, to creating his first song at age 10, the creativity and wonder in music creation continued to grow. Before he realized that FL Studio existed, he created his first multitrack instrumental with a keyboard and a mp3 player; recording the sounds and playing them back on top of each other in Windows Media Player. A few years later into high school, he discovered FL Studio and the ideas for music never stopped pouring out of his head. A few days later, the first song with his best friend was created recording on the same mp3 player and layered into the program. This was the start of his mixing days, and a small step to what comes later.

With his first song and collaboration down, it was time to see if he could make a song on his own. With FL Studio running for a week straight on the family computer, he had successfully created an instrumental, wrote a song and recorded it to create his very first R&B track. With another week for mixing (after losing said instrumental because of a power outage) he had a full song and was ready to perform at his high school talent show for junior year. After that performance, the secret was out and everyone who was curious about making music in the school came to him. His senior year of high school, going into college would be the real beginning of his career.

The year was 2009 when the entity formally known as Hidden Colors Empire was born in Shawn’s attic one day after school. It would be a year filled with music being recorded and created right there in space on a laptop and a video game USB microphone, from school projects to full mixtapes. HCE continued on after he left to college at Ohio University, where he fully crafted his mixing and mastering skills to gain that professional sound that was missing back in high school, being self taught and all. It was during this time, he produced, wrote, recorded, mix and mastered two full EPs (one R&B, one EDM), and a few singles and features with friends and other local Athens artists. In 2014, he graduated leaving with a wide range of experience and ready to make his stamp on the professional music realm.

Since then he has been working with Colored Radio (formally Hidden Colors Empire) as the lead engineer recording a weekly podcast as well as local Cleveland artists. He also has branched out globally with his music and talents touching as far as Australia and back. With abilities to work in almost any genre of music, you can currently find him continuing to better his craft and lending his talents to Breakthrough Sounds Studio in Valley View, OH.