Today we’d like to introduce you to Kayla Aniah.
Hi Kayla, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story started way before I knew what to call it. I was the kid who loved music, dance, performance, visuals, all of it. I was a competitive dancer, tried to start a singing group (yes, really), and had a natural pull toward the creative world. Then life happened, as it tends to do, and somewhere between growing up and getting “serious,” I let the art of it slip away.
During my senior year of undergrad, studying business management and digital marketing, one thing was clear: a corporate job was NOT it; I just couldn’t see myself working in a cubicle. So I went back to my roots and pursued my Master’s in Music Business at Berklee College of Music, and it was genuinely the best decision I’ve made. It opened my eyes to how many ways you can live inside this industry without checking the boxes everyone else told you to check.
Even in school, I was still figuring it out, but every step was quietly doing its job. While earning my degree, I was working alongside a brand strategist, learning how to operate a camera, and becoming a visual producer through photography and videography. At the time, I was just trying to make money and keep things moving. I had no idea how foundational it would all become.
In my final semester, we had a capstone project: take everything you’ve learned and apply it to something real. I built out a concept for a creative music agency focused entirely on the visual side of an artist’s career, music videos, cover art, branding, just the full picture. It was so fun to develop and talk about, so like, why not?
On June 11th, 2024, I officially launched Aniah Experience. Since then, I’ve worked as an agency owner and lead creative director on album rollouts, social media content, brand photography, videography, and even graphic design. I believe that if you’re going to lead and build something expansive, you have to understand every layer of it.
People often tell me to niche down. I disagree. Creating in all its forms is what I love to do, and I plan to keep doing all of it because I am HER.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth road? Please. I was crying at least ten days out of the month, and I say that with full transparency, not for sympathy.
My biggest struggle was simply not knowing what came next. The creative field doesn’t hand you a clear, straight path. There are a hundred different roads to the same destination, and that freedom can feel suffocating when you’re the type of person who wants to get it right. I was so deep in my own head that I became my own obstacle.
A big part of it was faith, or more honestly, my resistance to it. I struggled to surrender the idea that I had to figure everything out on my own. Trusting that God had it handled, that the path would reveal itself, was not something I could easily accept. I wanted a plan, a timeline, a guarantee. And when I didn’t have one, I literally just stopped everything.
On top of that, I had this deep fear of getting stuck, which sounds productive until you realize it was actually keeping me still. That fear stopped me from pivoting when it was time, and from creating things outside of what felt safe and familiar. I was so afraid of going in the wrong direction that I wasn’t moving at all. The road has not been smooth, but I’m so grateful for the lessons I have learned because it means God has big plans for me!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a creative director and visual producer, and I always make sure to say both because there’s a difference. Many people can dream up a great idea. But I wanted to take it a step further and be the one who dreams it up and then actually shows up to make it happen. Start to finish, concept to camera, I’m there for all of it.
My world is music. I work with artists and music professionals to make sure their visuals aren’t just consistent with their brand but also eye-catching to the audience. So when an artist is preparing for an album drop or a single release, I’m the call they make. I build the world around the music: the concept, the creative vision, and then I oversee the team that pulls it all together.
I’ve also been venturing into film and business branding, specifically commercial directing, because honestly, staying in one lane is not my thing. Every new space teaches me something that makes me sharper everywhere else.
Which brings me to my creative eye, my eye is what sets me apart from others, no question. I notice things that other people genuinely walk right past, the tiny detail that changes the whole feeling of a shot, the thing that makes a viewer feel something without knowing why. I’ve always had it, and I’ve spent years making it even sharper. It’s kind of my superpower, and I’m not shy about it.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
The creative industry is one of those spaces where you blink, and something has shifted in some way. Nobody is sitting still. Everyone is constantly pushing to stand out, to do something that hasn’t been done, to make people feel something new.
One of the biggest shifts I’m seeing right now is how deeply audiences are being pulled into the creative world itself. It’s not enough to just release music anymore. Fans want to be part of the experience, not just witnesses to it. I was watching a video from a fellow creative director, Angel’s Creative Diary, and she was talking about how tours are evolving, artists aren’t just building a concept around their music, they’re giving their fans dress codes, turning the whole show into an immersive world that everyone steps into together. And I thought, yes, exactly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kaylaaniah.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kayla.aniah/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylaaniah/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@theaniahexperience?si=mCUP_TqZzAbMh0F-
- Other: https://kaylaaniah.my.canva.site/
