Arts and Culture

Meet Raja Weise, Creator of Spotidol

Published

5 years ago

April 25, 2019

Picture a vain king who wants a statue of himself, and he demands that it be created by the greatest sculptor in the land. How does he find the sculptor with the greatest skill? Maybe he’d hire a sculpting professor, who wrote the book on sculpting. Maybe he’d hire the most famous sculptor, who has the most fans.

Raja Weise thinks that the king, if he were wise, would hire neither of those sculptors, because the professor spends most of his time writing books, and the popular sculptor spends his time marketing himself. The king should hold a competition, Weise says, and hire the person who has developed the greatest skill by spending most of their time on their craft.

That’s why Weise created Spotidol, a digital competition platform, where you can “be the top anything of anything.”

Spotidol is the first app Weise has developed, and it launched in February 2019. With Spotidol, users can create or enter competitions. Some of them are just-for-fun, low-stakes contests that are free to enter, and winners get some recognition and bragging rights. Others offer cash prizes, and charge a small entry fee.

Weise, 25, is from south Florida. He moved to Oakland in 2017, where he found himself between two seemingly embattled worlds—the tech field and the creative field. Weise originally studied music composition and physics at the University of Florida School of Music, where he created everything from classical to reggae to electronic music. He still makes music in his free time (of which he has very little).

Raja Weise

While taking a semester off, Weise found himself thinking of ‘the king and the sculptor’ scenario. He wanted to create something not so much for the king as for the sculptor—to find a way for skilled creators to make their skill known without taking time away from their craft.

He went back to school for business and economics, and that’s when he had the idea to create Spotidol. His mother is a software developer, and had taught him basic programming when he was a small child, so he started developing a website competition platform. Suddenly, he was spending all of his time programming.

When he first moved to Oakland two years ago, he tried to secure a place to live at a Bay Area commune. Members of the commune had to be unanimous when accepting a new tenant, and Weise was turned away. They said it was because he was in tech.

It wasn’t until that moment that Weise realized he was in two worlds that, in Oakland, are often at odds. Tech is often seen as a villain for long-time Oaklanders, because the wealthy silicon valley spillovers have displaced their neighbors, family members, or themselves from places they used to be able to afford.

Weise doesn’t work for a tech company. He is up all night and day creating, tweaking, learning, perfecting—his lifestyle right now is more that of a starving artist than a wealthy techie.

And Weise says that the tech aspect of what he is doing is a tool. It’s a way to make it easier for creators to jump the hurdles of monetization, purpose and curation. The way he sees it, creators get blocked from creating when they need to make money, when they don’t have a purpose to create, and when their work is not being distributed to the people who would appreciate it.

And its uses are proving to be plentiful.

Recently, Berkeley Unified School District used Spotidol to facilitate their oratorical competition. The audience of the live event used Spotidol to vote for their favorite performance, and judges scored the performances.

On Sunday, Oakhella will use Spotidol to host a style competition, where people at the Oakhella festival can submit photos of their outfits, users can vote, and the winner gets $150. Other open competitions include the free-to-enter ‘Photo of the Week’ competition, and the $2 entry fee ‘Best Travel Story’ competition.

And coming soon, the Oakland Post will host competitions to spotlight local businesses and artists. If you want to vote in or enter these competitions, download the free Spotidol app, or make a free account on the website at spotidol.com.

Enter your visual artwork in our ‘Artist of the Week’ competition. Winners will be featured in the Oakland Post! Submitting is easy! Click here to learn how.

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Arts and Culture

Faces Around the Bay Dr. Carl Blake, Pianist

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999. One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Dr. Carl Blake

By Barbara Fluhrer

Born in Liberty, Missouri, Carl Blake, a virtuoso and respected pianist, made his most recent migration to the East Bay in 1999.

One might have seen him performing recently at Noontime Concerts in San Francisco, or at the Piedmont Center for the Arts in Oakland. He is Director of Music at The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He was also co-organizer and collaborative pianist at Herbst Theater for The Majesty of the Spirituals concert in 2022 and has held several church positions in the Bay Area.

Blake obtained a Bachelor of Music from Boston University and continued post-baccalaureate studies in Jamaica before earning a Master of Arts in Music at San Jose State University. He was the recipient of two Fulbright residencies in Honduras and completed a third residency at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia. He has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University.

At age 19, Blake, then an undergraduate piano major at Boston University, was “discovered” by Impresario Dr. W. Hazaiah Williams, who is the Founder and Director of Today’s Artists/Four Seasons Arts.

Williams honored Blake by awarding him the first Marian Anderson Young Artist Award. Anderson personally presented the award at the Masonic Auditorium in S.F. Subsequently, Blake was presented by Dr. Williams in his San Francisco debut at The Herbst Theatre. Williams subsidized a year of study abroad for Blake at the Paris Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Williams sponsored Blake’s New York Weill Hall debut, where he has performed twice since. Blake performed several times at the Yachats Music Festival in Oregon.

Blake continues to perform nationally and abroad. His hobbies are reading, baking and travel. He says, “I’m still pumping ivories, as Belgian pianist Jeanne Stark described the disciplined practice of concert piano.”

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Arts and Culture

Oakland Jazz Great Offers Master Class as City Declares “John Handy Day”

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city. Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

(L-R) Del Handy, John Handy, Roger Glenn, and Joe Warner celebrate John Handy Day at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, Oakland. Photo by Lady Bianca.

By Conway Jones

World-renowned jazz master saxophonist John Handy, a McClymond’s High School graduate, was presented with a Mayor of Oakland Proclamation declaring Feb. 12, as John Handy Day in the city.

Handy is most notably known as the featured saxophonist for Charles Mingus on “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the album “Mingus Ah Um” (1959) and on “Hard Work” from his own album “Hard Work” (1976).

“John Handy is a jazz icon and an inspiration to musicians everywhere,” said Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old Oakland tenor saxophone player who is enrolled at the Oakland School for the Arts.

In celebration of this day, the reception in downtown Oakland at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle was a gathering of artists, young and old, coming together in his honor and celebrating his 91st birthday.

Handy presented a Saxophone Colossus free masterclass for musicians. This class afforded a rare opportunity to learn about the saxophone from an aficionado. The class was free and open to all – saxophonists, vocalists, aficionados, students, and casual listeners.

“As a longtime friend for over 60 years, and fellow musician who has had numerous opportunities to share the stage with John, it has always been a pleasure performing with him and hearing his creative interpretations of the music and his gift of ease inspiring the next generation of jazz musicians,” said Roger Glenn, a multi-instrumentalist.

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Arts and Culture

Musical Chronicling Life of Betty Reid Soskin Set for Bay Area Debut

Betty Reid Soskin’s storied 102 years includes time spent as a WWII defense worker, activist, business owner, songwriter, National Park Service park ranger and so much more. Now the Richmond icon is the subject of a musical based on her incredible life.

Published

2 months ago

February 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Betty Reid Soskin. Photo courtesy of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.

The Richmond Standard

“Sign My Name to Freedom,” a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company (SFBATCO) production which will focus on the life, music and writing of Ms. Soskin, will premiere at San Francisco’s Z Space Friday, March 29 and continue through Saturday, April 13. Tickets range from $15–$65 and can be purchased online at https://www.sfbatco.org/smntf

The musical is directed by Elizabeth Carter, while playwright Michael Gene Sullivan integrates Ms. Soskin’s own music throughout dialogue between what SFBATCO calls “The Four Bettys” as they progress through a century of experiences of this awe-inspiring American woman.

The cast of “Sign My Name to Freedom” features Tierra Allen as Little Betty, Aidaa Peerzada as Married Betty, Lucca Troutman as Revolutionary Betty and Cathleen Riddley as Present Betty Reid Soskin, according to Artistic Director Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. and Managing Director Adam Maggio. Other casting will be announced in the future.

Jackson said that having Soskin’s blessing to steward her life’s story is an honor and career highlight for him and that her journey stands as “a beacon for Black Americans, women and people of color all across the world [and] is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.”

San Francisco’s Z Space is located at 450 Florida St. in San Francisco. Check out the trailer here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-ap9N2XBB0