Toyota and UPROXX have teamed up for The Next Gear, a series that puts emerging creatives in the passenger seat of the All-Electric C-HR, a vehicle ideal for tech-savvy creatives who care about cutting-edge features, convenience and innovation.
Joining the emerging creatives is Grammy-nominated DJ, producer, and songwriter Illenium, who served as a mentor for “Next Gen Ideators,” like DJ and producer St. Mary, LA stylist and designer Toreno Winn, and singer, songwriter, and producer Otis Kane — three young creatives all at different points in their careers with big ideas.
Across four testimonials and five creative workbooks, presented in partnership with Toyota, we’ve laid out all the career advice, tools, and strategies for burgeoning creatives who want to take their careers into The Next Gear. For our final testimonial, we pulled quotes from each of our Next Gen Ideators about what a vehicle means to them at this current era of their career.
Let’s dive in.
St. Mary: “At this point in my career, my car is pretty much everything to me. From listening to demos and testing out my mixes… it’s really important for me to be in a space that has really good sound and connects very easily to Bluetooth. I also travel a lot lately for shows, and oftentimes I have to drive to the airport or drive to stores to pick out outfits.”
St. Mary: “It’s really cool to be in a space that feels really comfortable and very much me. Even lately with doing music video shoots and doing photo shoots for press photos, I just love driving in my car and scouting locations with friends and the production crew that I’m with.”
Otis Kane: “My vehicle for me is really home base. My studio is at home, so it’s a way to get out of the house. If I need to listen to a mix, I listen to it in the car. I get to turn it up and see how it’s going to affect people when they’re in their car driving and listening.”
Otis Kane: “It’s where I take my meetings. I feel like when you’re on the road and things are happening and you just kind of zero in on the business, everything else fades away. Also leads me to food. When I need to eat, I jump in the car, go grab something, go to the grocery store. It’s everything.”
Toreno Winn: “It was cool being in C-HR because there’s so much space in the trunk. I can lay out samples. The charger portal allows me to work from the trunk of the car and have my own little portable office. But also I really love the electric aspect of the car. It really allowed us to have good intimate conversation while still feeling a smooth fluid drive.”
Toreno Winn: “To me right now in my life, a car is special to me because it’s just a place where I have everything. It’s a home base, it’s a closet, it’s an office as well. I take calls, I make calls. I get quiet time if I want it. I also can sync up with my favorite song at the moment. To me, it offers special alone time at the same time as being able to get work in. It’s a beautiful thing for me.”
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