Jordan Blair and Tandrea (Tangie) Hawkins launched Fusion of Light Entertainment over the summer. Both are Music Business majors in the Business and Entrepreneurship Department at Columbia College Chicago and are now learning how to navigate their new company through the coronavirus pandemic.

What inspired you to start Fusion of Light?

Jordan: In the middle of quarantine, I was feeling really depressed because I was trapped inside my household and systemic racism was very prevalent. As a result, I wanted to hold an event that could be very uplifting, and I thought a festival would be amazing to have at Columbia due to the copious amount of talents. I messaged Tangie to ask if she would perform because she is a rapper named T Star Verse. The next day we started talking about a company that was able to uplift people during a time of darkness, create events that people can enjoy, and showcase the variety of talent that’s not only in Columbia but in Illinois.

Tandrea (aka Tangie): During quarantine, I was really thinking of ways and things that I wanted to do to become a millionaire within the next 2 to 3 years, and I heard the word “Festival.” When I heard that word I immediately thought, “How is that going to happen?” Then that night I received a Snapchat from Jordan asking me if I’d be interested in performing at a music festival at Columbia and I was like “OH MY GOSH this must be fate.” So I responded back to Jordan and was like, “Girl I have to call you tomorrow.” And the rest was history!

Tell us more about your vision for the Fusion of Light and what your goals are.

Jordan: Tangie and I always joke about how in the near future there will be a fusion of light bases around the world! However, our goals for the next year are to find a charity to partner with so a certain amount of our revenue will go to a not-for-profit here in Chicago. I see our company finding new ways to showcase different talents and finding a way to let different people network. When I say different people I don’t mean new artists I mean hairstylists, makeup artists, and stylists. There’s a certain group of people behind the scenes that we forget need to network as well and they are people that artists need to work with.

Tangie: Yes, everything that Jordan said plus we also plan to throw an arts festival with up-and-coming and underground talent being the headliners of the event. We want our company to be like the Spotify of live events where audience members will be able to find and fall in love with new art and artists!

You are both Music Business majors at Columbia College Chicago. How have your courses and connections at Columbia helped you run your entertainment company?

Jordan: My music business class and marketing classes really helped when we first started in order to understand forming an LLC. As of right now, accounting is the class that’s helping us the most.

Tangie: A lot of my classes have really helped me understand how the music industry works and how to really analyze consumers’ behaviors and what they might want, as well as understanding how to read contracts and write them, how to properly build a team, building a great brand, and last but not least accounting all those expenses until the revenue really starts to flow in! Our connections at Columbia have helped us throw our first in-person event as well as give us platforms to speak about all of the work that we do now.

You started Fusion of Light over the summer. Can you tell us more about the challenges and opportunities of launching an entertainment company during the coronavirus pandemic?

Jordan: The first issue that we ran into was how to have events in person? How were we going to make money? What venues will be open?

Tangie: Everything that Jordan said!! But, all of these challenges made our minds expand because we still needed people to be able to recognize our brand without the normal ideal way of seeing us, so we really thought about ways to still get people to connect with us. Social media platforms like Instagram really helped with that.

How can people connect with Fusion of Light and get involved?

They can email us: ​fusionoflightent@gmail.com​

Dm us on Instagram: @fusionoflightent

Facebook: Fusion of Light Entertainment

Twitter: @fusionoflight1

And eventually we are going to have our official website up and running so look out for that very soon.