We had the good fortune of connecting with Juan Rodriguez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Juan, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Creating AKA Musique seemed so easy to do. It has its difficult times, however, the goal never seemed to degrade. Out vision was always to aid the small local scene in Orange County. Knowing multiple small artists, myself identifying as one as well, it was difficult to find comfort or courage to proceed in the scene without any sort of help. Starting out, you are shoved with play-to-play gigs, and many artists don’t know better and think a gig is a gig, however, finding the tragedy of the abuse behind losing so much money, to never seeing most of those tickets sold come back to you, its a hard thing to be apart of. We want to help reverse that and solely dedicate our time to help the community.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a musical artist part-time and a full-time audio engineer. It may be something not as common, but I find an immense passion for everything in music. I just released my second EP, “new eyes”, I recorded, mixed and mastered it on my own and I’m proud of that. During the process of that EP, I was lucky to get some serious gigs in audio and was able to work with Israels Arcade and started our first show together at The Teragram in LA in sep 2024. Did some gigs with The Mexican Slum Rats, The Red Pears, and Minds Eye from Sep-Dec of that year alone. I got so busy that I started to forget my interest in solo music. It was an intense high that I got working Front of House for people that I consider brothers, it felt like a dream starting to become reality. It took a while, but I randomly opened an old song and just got to mixing, not very interested in the outcome, I just did my usual thing, but it ignited something in me and I got hungry to finish that song and more. I love to promote myself as DIY, making music in my room, mixing house shows, mixing songs for people on my computer with some headphones, no studio, no money on my back, but just hungry for helping my friends. I release my music to express myself and am always happy when people feel it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love OC, but i havent explored too much in all honesty

Though I always find myself at The Observatory in Santa Ana, that’s easily my favorite venue in OC, I went to my first show there in 2017, attending a free show to see Injury Reserve with JPEGMAFIA opening, absolutely legendary. Discovered JPEG that night and got to meet Groggs from Injury Reserve, I owe that place everything.

Its not the same city, but I have to take it back to Indio. During the pandemic, there was a major boom in local businesses, working at one at the time myself, I was able to meet some of the most genuine people I’ve met, opening a coffee shop called Everbloom Coffee. One of my favorite spots, great coffee, great people, and even greater values and love for the local community.

Recently in Indio, a new bar just opened up that immediately grabbed my attention. Rosemary Hi-Fi in downtown Indio, a Hi Fidelity Audio Bar that exclusively spins vinyl through some iconic and vintage set of JBL Speakers. I was lucky enough to meet the owner, Adrian, through some mutital friends while visiting the soft opening and his energy is so strong with local love and love for music in general.

Growing up in Indio, we didn’t have many towns nearby, we were literally surrounded by mountains and easily 2 hours away from any place like LA and OC. The community there is something that really means a lot to me and the lcoals there and to see this new generation of people creating new grounds of community means the absolute world. Especially people with good intentions with our city. Im proud to say I’m from Indio, not many musicians can say they’re from there, except Josh Homme from QOTSA.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There’s way too many people that come to mind when I vision my growth within the last two years. It ultimately started when I moved out of the desert and into Orange County in 2021. I met Aram, lead singer of The Faye, and that’s what felt like the first real step into entering the local scene. The scene in OC was a complete culture shock to what I was used to in Indio. With rare occasions of house parties, zero local venues, not even a real venue within an hour radius, unless you went up to the mountain to Pappys. After meeting Aram, I started really diving into making my own music and mixing on the side. From there we made AKA Musique and I met everyone I needed to. Lunar Riptide, El Segundo, and Malk for some. So many people who welcomed a new guy with open arms and taught me what they knew about the scene, about music, and everything in between. It wasn’t necessarily mentorship, but we all grew together and learned different things and communicated within each other as much as we could and just created a close bond with each other. One of my ride or dies is definitely Chris (also know as Aoster & Pianist/Saxophonist for Israel Arcade), we learned music together and now we tour together with Israel.

Website: https://akamusique.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayookudaa/

Other: https://linktr.ee/ayookudaa

https://open.spotify.com/artist/45uC5V81q1xfonxOqoUglH?si=XCEQjg_fQh6AmFAxECVtYQ

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutSoCal is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.