Last Tuesday around noon I went to the KCR studio to meet up with Camelle Sison, the first responder to my new call for DJs to interview. She was very enthusiastic to do the interview just how she quickly responded to my post. I had met her once before in line for basketball tickets last semester with Denise Chang, our current blogging manager. I remember that Camelle didn’t have a radio show at the time, but she’s since moved on to host a show in addition to being a KCR blogger. She was very jovial and always had a smile on her face while talking about her show. Normally I note when my guest laughs but for Camelle I would have to do it almost every line because she was so positive and quick to laugh. I’ll let her do most of the talking now, so on to the interview:
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Cameron Satterlee: So I am in the KCR studio with Camelle, welcome.
Camelle Sison: Thank you.
Cameron: Alright so let’s start it off, when’s your radio show and what’s it called?
Camelle: My radio show is every Thursday from 2 to 3 pm and it’s called the It’s Glam Cam Show!
Cameron: It’s Glam Cam, alright. I’ll ask about that in a bit, but how long have you been with KCR?
Camelle: I’ve been with KCR since last year, about the beginning of last semester. So probably sometime by September of last year.
Cameron: Mmm hmm, yeah I remember, but you were just blogging back then.
Camelle: Yeah.
Cameron: So this semester is your first semester as a DJ right?
Camelle: Yes yes, first time!
Cameron: Awesome. Well how are you liking it?
Camelle: I love it so far. Well first it was hard because I couldn’t find a cohost and I thought it would be very very difficult to not have one and my first two shows it was kind of hard, just transitioning from the music to talking to figuring out the dials back and forth. Compared to if I had a cohost, I could just talk, and my cohost could do the dials for me. But for the most part I got the hang of it now.
Cameron: Oh don’t even worry about that. I’ve talked to over a dozen DJ’s at this point and the first show is always tough.
Camelle: Yeah it is.
Cameron: But so, you have this fashion blog, I wanna cover that for a second, so what do you do?
Camelle: For my fashion blog, it’s called Fashion of the Week: Aztec Attire, and basically I go out on campus and I just try to interview anyone on campus because I don’t want to single out different styles. So basically whoever you are, if I catch you at a good time, I will stop you to ask if I could interview you for our school’s radio station blog. And I will ask about your outfit. “Why did you choose this outfit?” And everything like that. “Why did you pick those shoes?” “What’s your favorite clothing item?” And not only that but I try to get some of their personalities so I ask “what is some random fact about you?” It doesn’t even have to deal with fashion, cause my main purpose of this blog is to promote the diversity on campus. And through outfits that definitely shows some type of diversity.
Cameron: Yeah awesome. You’re pretty much the only DJ I’ve ever interviewed who also does a blog, which is what I do, so I think that’s pretty cool so that’s why I wanted to bring it up.
Camelle: Yes definitely it’s cool.
Cameron: So you have a fashion blog and a music show, so do you try to bring in some of your blog onto your show?
Camelle: Yes I try to incorporate a lot of fashion into it. The fact that a lot of listeners aren’t so into fashion, especially if I talk so girly about fashion, I won’t get guys to listen to my show. So I try to incorporate it, but to the best way where it will reach out to every type of audience. So I’ll talk about what am I seeing more on campus right now, everyone transitioning from winter clothes to summer clothes, what you’re seeing now, or the things that I blog about. Even not dealing with the fashion sense, cause I blog for other outlets, so I’ll put that in lifestyle blogging. I’ll talk about things dealing with lifestyle, so I incorporate pretty much everything. My show is entertainment and music.
Cameron: Yeah, awesome. So getting over to the music aspect, what’s the music you play for the most part?
Camelle: For the most part I play any music that I hear on the radio that’s very popular and mix it in with hip hop because I love hip hop music. So I try to incorporate both so I have something that I love, cause it is my radio show so I want to put in my own personality into it, and then also for everyone else, usually just one of the top hits on the billboards at the moment.
Cameron: So you said you like hip hop music a lot, and you try to have a good blend of I guess popular top 40 music and hip hop, how did you come about to liking that music?
Camelle: Since I was little I guess, maybe because my older brother was into hip hop music so I always got into hip hop music. Hip hop/R&B. And also that my friends listen to that type of music so that’s pretty much how I got into it, growing up with it. And also I play throwback Thursday songs on my radio show just for the fact that my show is on Thursdays. So I’m like “okay, throwback Thursday songs too!”
Cameron: Yeah that sounds familiar.
Camelle: Yeah that songs that you listened to back in the day. There was a time when I even played an NSYNC song.
Cameron: Oh wow. So why—I want to phrase this correctly because your show is a bit different than the normal music shows because you do music and entertainment—what made you want to do this sort of unique blend of your interests on the radio?
Camelle: I think mostly to inspire. Because I didn’t want it strictly to be music, I wanted people to have a little bit of my personality, know what I’m about. Although I’m a journalism major, I love inspiring people just without having to write journalistically. Instead of writing hard news and stuff like that. I love using the passion that I have for writing to inspire people, to uplift them. So there’s a lot of things I do on my show like quote of the day, and in between a song I’ll be like “okay it’s time for the quote of the day,” and it’s usually a quote that’s really uplifting. And then I have my input on it afterwards. My last quote had to do with being honest and I’ll put my input on there like “being honest will lead you to this, this, this, this, this” and I just want to make sure that everyone that listens to my show, when they’re done listening, they feel good about themselves and just inspired.
Cameron: Yeah and it’s great that KCR, with its whole you can do whatever you want type format, its allowed you to have this real interesting sounding and unique show. That’s just awesome.
Camelle: Yeah, thanks. I love it.
Cameron: Yeah, so I think I want to ask a couple more questions.
Camelle: Okay.
Cameron: Since you play popular music for the most part, what have you sort of been really playing lately.
Camelle: Lately I’ve been playing Maroon 5, their Sugar song is really popular at the moment. What else? Love Me Like You Do, Chris Brown songs, that’s pretty much it.
Cameron: Alright.
Camelle: I’m gonna write my script for this Thursday so we’ll see is on the top hit billboards.
Cameron: Wow you’ve even got a script, awesome.
Camelle: Oh yeah well I try to wing my show but I make sure I have a script too, to make sure I don’t get lost.
Cameron: Oh yeah I think a lot of people have that.
Camelle: There’s some people who literally wing their shows and I can’t do that for a full hour.
Cameron: Yeah I know what you mean, especially when you try to incorporate talk with the music like you do.
Camelle: Yeah exactly.
Cameron: So this is the last question, I usually try to end with it, it’s a fun one. How would your perfect show go?
Camelle: My perfect show go? That’s a tough one, tough but fun. Are you saying how I would want it to go?
Cameron: Yeah.
Camelle: Pretty much how it’s already going. But basically how it goes with more involvement, more people calling in. There’s quite a few people who do listen in because I promote it on my Instagram and on my Instagram I have 10,000 followers, they come and listen. Not only that but I have the most supportive friends and family ever, they’re always tuning in. One my cousins actually makes sure she has no meetings from 2 to 3 pm to listen. The perfect show would basically be everyone listening and breathing in everything I have to say when I actually talk. So everyone listening to the carpe diem part which is to live your life to the fullest and the quote of the day which helps to better your life overall. Basically that, hoping to make sure that everyone truly listens to the parts where I talk and call in afterwards! Yep.
Cameron: I just want to say it again, but you have 10,000 followers Instagram. That’s really impressive.
Camelle: Yeah so that’s why I love this radio station too, I want to make sure that not just college students at SDSU are listening, that I have a wide range of audience. I don’t even know how many people around the world are listening, but I know I’m advertising myself on Instagram and that’s a way for them to get to know me other than just seeing my posts. Because it’s my fashion Instagram, all my posts of me in my clothes that I love and just all these fashion posts so instead of seeing me just like that you know in one dimension, they can see me through hearing me and everything that I do.
Cameron: Yeah well that’s great, you must do a lot of great promoting for KCR too. With your huge audience. That’s really cool!
Camelle: Yeah.
Cameron: Alright I think we’ll end it on that, you’ve done a great job promoting KCR.
Camelle: Thanks.
Cameron: Thanks for sitting down with me, this has been a great interview.
Camelle: No problem, thank you thank you.
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And so there’s the interview! Afterwards, Camelle and I talked in the studio, we both had class at later so we thought we’d beat the heat and stick indoors. We were joined by none other than Joey Bautista, who came in early for his show at 1. Joey of course was half of my first ever interview, so that was a great coincidence. The three of us talked for a while before going our separate ways. Camelle was a fantastic interview subject, she’s doing her own thing and dedicated to her vision for a great show. She’s taking full advantage of what KCR has to offer and I’m sure her large audience is also helping us out.
Here are her blog posts for KCR: https://kcr.sdsu.edu/author/camelle-sison/
As well as a couple of posts from the other blog she contributes to:
http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/03/10/carpe-diem-with-camelle.aspx
http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/03/17/carpe-diem-with-camelle-go-dancing.aspx
http://www.qtee.com/blog/b/inside-qtee/archive/2015/03/24/carpe-diem-with-camelle-road-trip.aspx
Be sure to listen to her show, every Thursdays from 2 to 3, only on KCR College Radio, the Sound of State.