Photographers: Roger Casema and Lital Marom
Marcus Bell is a well-known music producer and composer who has worked with some of the most famous artists in the world. Besides his music career Marcus is a successful entrepreneur. One of his projects is a boot camp called ‘Wealth and Impact’. In this boot camp, he is currently doing 100 Days Challenges and will be doing more throughout the year. This Challenges help people achieve their goals in life, not matter what they are. Marcus has composed, produced or sang music for Film and TV shows including P-Valley (Starz Network) with the singles ‘Boy Listen’ and ‘Own It’, and the soon-to-be-released Netflix series Ginny & Georgia with the song ‘Give Us Love.’ One of the most recently released songs he produced and sang was the R&B Christmas song ‘Joy to the World’ featured in the new Netflix movie ‘Operation Christmas Drop’.
Can you tell us about the 100 Days Challenge?
The challenge has been created to help people move forward on the things they care most about. Challenges have been around for a while and most are shorter-term challenges that are between 5-30 days. This challenge really helps people to change their behavior in a positive way because of the way it is designed. It builds community in times where so many people are alone and it provides accountability so that people can have enough incentive to stick to it. The challenge cuts across cultures, communities, industries, and conditions of life. It creates a community of people that want to go for their dreams and full potential in life.
What would you say is the secret to success in life?
The secret to a successful life is first identifying what success is for you. After you done the inner work of discovering what is important for you to achieve that you would call it success, then you will need to align your daily activity to support those priorities. That activity of life will start to turn into value. When you recognize what that value is that you created out of your activity, then you must be able to articulate that value and deliver it in a way that you can receive some kind of compensation or reciprocal exchange for it. The bigger your value creation the bigger the impact you can have on others as well as your own wealth and identity building.
What is the challenge about?
The challenge is about relationships.
What is your relationship with yourself And what you want in life?What is your relationship to others and being a contribution to others?What is your relationship to the community and inspiring others with your actions?How would you describe your musical style?
I would say my style is Motivational R&B/Hip-Hop influenced music. My aim is for my music to mostly bring forth love and light although I do express heartbreak and upset sometimes.
Has your style changed much over the years?
It has gone through many changes as different genres have become popular. Because I’m such a student of music, I study and create music in new genres I hear and like. When I first started producing I had a real jazz infusion in the music, then it shifted to more neo-soul. Then I started traveling internationally and getting exposed to different cultures and my music had a lot of EDM and world music elements. Now I think Im back to my R&;B/Hip-Hop vibes.
How did the idea of ‘Distancia’ come about?
We were in the studio last year with the intention of starting to develop a Spanish language EP. As we started talking about concepts and what direction we wanted to take the first song, Cristina and I wanted to create something that was relatable too many. Her being from Spain and being away from her significant other...me, before I was married having a long distance relationship...we both saw the complexities of being distant from the person you love. Not just physical distance but emotional and spiritual distance. We wanted to integrate and merge our cultures with the song which is why we chose to bring in the Spanish flamenco elements with the music of my culture, hip-hop. The lyrics capture the complexities of two people and two worlds.
How did mixing languages and cultures in this single made it more special?
Languages and lyrics are a vehicle just as music itself is a vehicle to communicate emotions and ideas. I’m a beginning Spanish speaker and one of the things I’ve grown to love about Latin culture is the expressiveness in the language. Cristina has the ability to create paintings with her words and I’m in love with words as well. Having two languages in this song to create one expression just gives listeners more access to the heart of our song.
What message are you trying to send with this song?
We want to capture the emotional struggle that being apart creates. Maybe in this time of Covid it becomes the expression for many people who can’t express the yearnings of being apart from those they love and not knowing How to come back together so there is no heart, mind and spirit separation.
Where can people find your boot camp, your music and your book?
My boot camp www.wealthandimpactbootcamp.com My music www.bellringermusic.com My music production www.bellringerproductions.com
My book. http://a.co/f82XPMO