This one's about refusing to let the day job suck the artist out of you. We get into Michael's taste, his references, the artist hiding inside the strategist, surviving a creative life mid-career, and more.
On this page:
Who Michael is, in one paragraph and where you can connect with him.
The rabbit holes, every reference from the conversation, linked.
Chapters, timestamped, so you can jump to what pulls you.
About Michael LaVallee
Michael is an award-winning creative brand strategist with ten years across creative, connections, and GTM strategy, 360 campaign execution, social (paid and organic), thought leadership, experiential, and digital content. He’s been called a scrappy strategist who doesn’t settle for “good enough,” a creative team’s best friend, and a “yes, and” collaborator who’s never scared to be the hand raiser in the room. He’s worked across CPG, retail, gaming and entertainment, music, cloud and tech, B2B, and healthcare, for a client roster that runs Google Cloud, Live Nation, PlayStation, Oreo, TUMS, ChapStick, Hanes, Champion, Nexium24HR, Amazon, DSW, HBO, Halls, and the IL Lottery. He studied theatre at Columbia College Chicago, planning to act, before a senior-year solo performance class rewired his whole relationship to creativity (see: the steak). When he’s not doing strategy, he’s producing music, singing, songwriting, and shooting and editing content for his solo project, Kyzr Blue.
Music: Stream + watch Michael’s music
Instagram: @KyzrBlue @thatscreaminggay
TikTok: @Kyzrbluemusic
The rabbit holes
Everything we referenced, for your own falling-down:
Ionnalee (also known as iamamiwhoami), the Swedish electronic artist Michael kept secret for years. Visual-album pioneer.
Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, specifically Winter, Michael’s favorite. He played upright bass for eight years and somehow made first chair without ever practising, a mystery to this day.
RAYE, “Winter Woman”, off This Music May Contain Hope, which samples Vivaldi’s Winter. Michael’s bridge for anyone who wants the classical thing in a modern wrapper. Play both back to back.
AI cat soap operas on TikTok, the joy-core rabbit hole. Fat cat gets dumped, hits the gym, revenge-bodies his way back into her regrets. Now episodic, now voiced, now with villain cats stealing fur. No single link, just go find them and lose an afternoon.
Group 7, the TikTok experiment from earlier this year where an artist promoting a song split the whole app into “groups.” Everyone wanted to be in Group 7. It made headlines and died in a week. A perfect little case study in how fast a thing can get born and buried.
Cruise culture, the one trend Michael will cop to being late on. Cruise-tok is a whole universe and he wants in.
Conversation chapter list
00:00 Meet Michael LaVallee, and his creative diary called Kyzr Blue
03:00 The monthly trend roundups, and the “hot gay POV” that started it all
04:15 Quick hits: night owl, cooked-for, film over photography, concert girl
10:00 Eclectic taste, and why he thinks visually first
12:00 The steak: a solo performance piece that rewired everything
16:30 Joy-core, AI cat soap operas, and cruise-tok
23:00 Ionnalee, UK Garage, and the music he kept secret
29:00 First chair on the upright bass, and a case for Vivaldi’s Winter
31:50 The strategy advice he thinks is wrong: stop piling on the data
36:00 AI, corporate America, and losing the plot
44:30 “Thank you, Diva,” on trying to be AI’s bestie
45:45 The notes app: a niece’s gift list, a lyric, and a spider haiku
51:00 What the work gives him, and the accidental path into strategy
56:00 The version of Michael that hasn’t made it to the work yet
