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New NYC record label provides a platform for differently abled artists
By
Precious Fondren
Published Jul 21, 2023
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Courtesy Daniel's Music Foundation
By
Precious Fondren
Published Jul 21, 2023
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A new record label based in New York City is providing a platform for differently abled artists. It’s called Just Call Me By My Name, and its first release is out today, marking Disability Pride Month.
The debut offering, an EP titled “Just Call Me By My Name, Vol. 1,” highlights the talent and stories of the five artists signed to the label, rather than their disabilities. The EP spans a range of styles, from pop, rock and rap songs to an opera aria.
Ken Trush, the co-founder and managing director of Daniel’s Music Foundation, established the label in partnership with media-distribution company The Orchard. He hopes it will reshape how the public understands people with disabilities.
“We thought that music was the great equalizer,” Trush said. “We felt that if people, music lovers — and almost everyone's a music lover — understood the talent, maybe judgment would lessen, and they would just sit back and enjoy the music.”
Daniel Trush, Ken Trush’s son and the namesake of Daniel’s Music Foundation, says there’s a message behind the label’s name: Focus on the person, not on the disability.
“Don't call me a brain aneurysm survivor or a stroke victim,” he said. “Just call me Daniel, Dan, Danny, or Dan the Man from Manhattan.”
When Daniel was 12, he experienced weeks of back-to-back headaches. Ken says he thought nothing of it until he was watching Daniel play basketball one day.
“He took a shot,” Ken Trush said. “He held his head, and he started running towards me. And he just collapsed.”
Daniel had suffered five aneurysms and ended up in a coma for 30 days.
“The doctors did not expect him to survive,” the elder Trush said. “On the second night, they said, get your wife to say goodbye. He's not going to make it.”
Ken says he sang and played music for Daniel while he was hospitalized.
Daniel, now 39, says his connection to music strengthened his memory and helped him relearn how to walk and talk.
In 2006, the Trush family started Daniel’s Music Foundation, a center where people with disabilities could learn to play instruments and bond over their love for music.
Daniel says instead of feeling isolated during rehabilitation and in life, he wanted to be social and surrounded by people. He wants the same for others.
“Music therapy was always one-on-one,” Daniel said. “We wanted to make Daniel's Music Foundation more group-oriented, so that people could be with other people of their own age, their own ability level. And what we found is that that's therapeutic in its own right.”
Iolanta Mamatkazina. "Winning the Danny Awards made me feel special... I was a blind person that can do anything.”
Courtesy Danny's Music Foundation
In addition to Daniel Trush, who recorded with songwriting partner Gerry Powers, Just Call Me By My Name signed artists James Ian, Devin Gutierrez, Iolanta Mamatkazina and Jake Nielsen. They were selected from The Danny Awards, a yearly competition hosted by the foundation.
Mamatkazina, who appears on “Vol.1” singing the Puccini aria “O Mio Babbino Caro,” lost her sight as a baby. She started singing when she was seven and is a two-time Danny Award winner. Mamatkazina, now 12, says the competition reminded her she’s unique because of her ability to captivate an audience with her voice, and not her inability to see.
“I feel like people underestimated my ability and they didn’t see me as a performer – they saw me as a poor blind person that needed help,” Mamatkazina said. “But winning the Danny Awards made me feel like I was special and I’m not just a blind person that needed help; I was a blind person that can do anything.”
Richard Gottehrer, co-founder of The Orchard, has been in the music business for decades and served as a judge for the Danny Awards. He says executives are familiar with successful blind artists, like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder.
Now, Gottehrer said, he hopes Just Call Me By My Name will encourage the music industry and audiences to be more inclusive of all artists: “people in wheelchairs, people with autism, people that have things that on the face of it you would think might limit their opportunities in life, but they don't look at it that way.”
But Gottehrer says Just Call Me By My Name's main focus is releasing great music.
That goal is welcomed by singer, songwriter, and producer Lachi, a founder of Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities, an organization that works to amplify the visibility of musicians with disabilities in the music industry. The organization runs its own record label, but Lachi welcomes the idea that people with disabilities will have more options now.
“I believe that one of the biggest proponents of accessibility is choice,” Lachi said. “If I Google ‘record labels for artists with disabilities,’ and more than one comes up, then the world is getting better.”
“Just Call Me By My Name, Vol. 1” is available now.
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Music
Precious Fondren
Precious is a former WNYC & Gothamist culture reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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