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Meet Neva Failin Jermaine Murphy of Spring Urban Fest in Greater Atlanta Area

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Neva Failin Jermaine Murphy.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in Cobb County, GA. I was born in Selma, Alabama and moved to the Atlanta area when I was six years of age. When I first got to Georgia things were tough, my mom and dad were on rocky terms and eventually, it would just be me, my mom, and my two sisters. I just remember being called bad, suspended from school every other week, even being expelled at times, having to go to a completely new school.

I just used to love fighting. We moved towards Fulton Industrial in Atlanta, where I attended Lindley Middle School. I remember everyday getting off the bus knowing me and my friends would probably get in 2 or 3 fights before we got home, it was a war zone in middle school and we didn’t avoid a single conflict. Times were different back then though, it wasn’t social media and people being posted over and over for losing a fight, I would say the beef was a lot more genuine back then if that makes sense, you say the wrong thing and you had to own up to it immediately. There was as much gun violence from the youth back then. It was almost fun once you learned how to fight.

I remember times where the entire cafeteria would break out in a fight, clique against clique, lame against lame. Eventually, my mom became afraid for my life and she was a bus driver in Kennesaw at the time, so we moved to Powder Springs and I began going to school towards North Cobb for high school. My mom never made it seem like we were struggling though, I remember that vividly, there was never a day where we went hungry. During the summers, we would go to our cousins and just play sports all summer until I was about 13 years of age. Going to school in Kennesaw was a culture shock like nonother, everybody had new cars. Every house was like a mansion.

There were probably 2 or 3 fights in a whole school year. That moment changed my entire perspective of life and showed me all those years I was a victim of my circumstances. I went from failing every class in middle school to honor roll regularly. I went from not being allowed to play organized school sports due to conduct to being a defensive starter on the varsity football team. My senior year, I was named top 12 football players in Cobb County, which was a huge honor considering the level of competition. Some of my temper issues were still left intact, but I eventually learned that I didn’t have to act on my anger all the time, I could let things go without feeling like I needed to physically do something about it.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of my biggest obstacles as a youth was my ability to let my anger control who I was at times. Another obstacle was knowing who was really down for me and who was there to use my name for the benefit of themselves. Before going to college I remember vividly, me and my best-friend Craig Davis, known as CEO Gamble on social platforms were the most recruited players from our high school our senior year, Craig was a running back and I played defense. Going into college signing day, I only had a few offers to play college football and he just like me were amazed that we didn’t gain more nationwide recognition from our great play at the varsity level. I eventually signed with Georgia Southern University and Craig accompanied me to South Georgia as-well. So as we’re wrapping up our last couple of months of high school, our head coach pulls us into his officer and hands us grocery bags full of mail. We are both surprised and want to know what exactly are in the envelopes.

We open the bags and it’s hundreds of letters from colleges around the country, we’re both like where was all this before we decided we were going to Georgia Southern, our head coach explained to us that my attitude was not good enough for him to cosign on me being highly recruited and Craig didn’t focus in class enough to put his name on sending him to these well-known universities. At that moment life hit me in the face, one of the most hurtful points of my life, the coaches that we went to war for everyday were not willing to go to war for our future. I became cold to the politics of sports at that point, almost lost my passion in some regards. I would say the biggest struggle I incurred on becoming the man and entrepreneur I am today revolved around being focus on the objective and sustaining the momentum to accomplish big goals. For the majority of my youth, I gave everything I had to sports, football more specifically.

Once I graduated from high school, I attended Georgia Southern University on a football scholarship to play strong safety. Two years into my college career, I had played every game at Georgia Southern with hopes at a starting position my junior season. When things were all said and done me and the coaches did not see eye to eye on where I thought I was on the depth charts and I then sought to transfer to another college where I’d have a starting position. That semester before transferring to New Mexico, I found my passion for music. I never looked back from that point in. I began recording engineering music whenever I had an opportunity outside of class. Not only did the art of making music intrigue me, but the business of branding and building an established name intrigued me as well, I then changed my major from psychology to business administration, which honestly was my true passion outside of sports. Once I finished at Georgia Southern, I moved back to Atlanta and began producing music with a group me and a few friends created. From there, we pursued music for years and most of our crew fell out of love with the process and the goals associated.

Spring Urban Fest – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I am the CEO and Owner of Spring Urban Fest in Atlanta. We are an event-based company that focuses on independent artist development and marketing. We believe in the force of music and believe that all young artists and entrepreneurs need a springboard for success, especially in our urban community. Before the COVID 19 pandemic, we were slotted to have at least 30 events on our calendar this year, 2020. The company was fiat established as an artist showcase in 2016 and is now one of the biggest event platforms in Atlanta today. Not only do with work with some of the best independent artists, we also work with some of the more reputable signed artists in Atlanta as-well, from booking shows to PR to music and video production partnering with our sister company ALways Brand-U. We are known for our huge independent events and showcases.

Throughout any given year we’d have Several community givebacks, Celebrity Basketball games, Mall events for kids, Vegan festivals to promote healthy living, stop the bullying school tours, power-shoots for rising brands and models that need more exposure, we’d host professional sporting events where we’d provide the performance talent and staffing and much more. We think the sky in the limit for our platform and believe everybody plays a huge part in any business or brand becoming well known. We are most proud of our ability to mentor our youth and give back to the community. I believe giving back is a lost art in the entertainment and events industry.

Everybody wants to have an avenue to help someone else, well at least the majority of people have empathy for their surroundings and those are the ones we love to pair with to make great things happen. There’s in no other feeling like bring a performer to a school and the kids are screaming to the top of their lungs in excitement because they feel special at that very moment. Every kid or even taking it a step further, every person does not have the luxury of going to expensive concerts and festivals, so we do ours do diligence to make everything affordable for all parties involved. I think that sets us apart from all platforms with notoriety, instead of expecting the consumer to fund our efforts we dive into other means of branding to fund the majority of our events to make it family and consumer-friendly! Follow us @Springurbanfest!

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me in determined by the amount of people you were able to make successful along with you. Some people do it for different reasons, but in life, I feel like we are all one change connect. How could I consider myself a success if the people around me struggle to make ends meet or can’t find the value in their lives. I believe true success in creating something anybody can call their own and allowing them to develop through the platform you’ve created. Money is always a factor, but like the old saying goes, money will not buy you happiness, family, lifelong friend or business partners.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Photographer: Deuce Griff

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