This interview is particularly close to my heart personally, as it has developed over a long period of time and comes with an intensive backstory.
In this interview, we talk to Bjarne. He is a videographer at 6pm, founder of Undergrndsgottalent, today known as Flexburg, artist manager of the Kansas City underground artist Reed, graphic designer, and animator.
His beginnings in the creative world were between 2017 and 2020, when American friends introduced him to the fashion and music scene, which has strongly influenced him ever since.
Initially, the Instagram page of today’s Flexburg was used to offer free artist promo in order to build a network, which then developed through his own initiative into a broad channel between songwars and interviews.
This network (Flexburg) led to many interviews and also to Bjarne’s first in-person interview in Copenhagen with King Univxrse, facilitated by UID Marius, a creative and underground show host, Emwell (journalist at Our Generation Music), and many others.
Through this network of artists, he eventually also started managing the American rapper Reed, as Reed recognized his passion and his understanding of music.
After graduating from high school, he began studying in Kiel, but he never took it too seriously from the outset and didn’t even try to settle in or feel comfortable in Kiel, because it was never part of his plan to stay there for long.
And that is exactly what happened, because shortly after the start of his studies he got the job as a videographer at 6pm.
Even though he currently has less time available for Flexburg, he is sure that he will revive the page, and he has plenty of material for it.
For example, a Flexburg documentary is in the works, which looks very promising as it will feature a lot of video material from interesting encounters.
Bjarne stands out for his unique path, which shows that simply thinking things over and meticulously calculating situations does not always bring the best or even the desired result.
Sometimes the events that shape a person’s destiny are events that appear “weird” or risky to other people, while as a person with decision-making power, one is more aware of the possibility of the positive than of the possibility of loss.
Bjarne’s inspirations come, as already mentioned, from the 2017 Hip-Hop and Freshman scene around Juice Wrld and Cole Bennett.
This influence comes through friends who gave him the early impulse to ultimately engage with fashion (the Hypebeast scene back then) and music.
In Bjarne’s opinion, the fashion and music industries influence each other, and so strongly that he describes them as inseparable.
And this point is very interesting, so I would like to add a small personal assessment here.
Music is something that unconsciously accompanies us humans almost every day, but if you learn to use music to your advantage — as Bjarne does, for example, to gather creativity for projects or to apply it to another creative field — it has a much greater benefit than just distraction or background noise.
At the same time, I think that music changes a lot in terms of emotional states and that people should handle it more consciously.
Back to the interview.
When I asked Bjarne how he discovered his creativity, he told me that it felt more like a thread running through his entire life and that he had always enjoyed working on creative projects, even as a child.
This also explains well why he actually enjoys the stress of his work, because he has consciously chosen this path and understands that stress and work come with rewards, even if it is sometimes uncertain when one’s own efforts will bear fruit.
One aspect of the interview that I had to think about for a long time because the statement affected me deeply was the following: On the day Juice Wrld died, I recorded my first song, because he had always expressed my struggles so well and made them relatable, and from that point on I simply felt that I had to do it myself now.
This sentence makes clear to me how strongly the new generations of this world (to which I also belong) see art and especially music as a place of refuge, and that when this place of refuge disappears, it can lead to one’s own creativity but also to extreme decline, since not every person has the gift to express their thoughts in creative form.
The downfall of idols through cancellation or their death is a phenomenon that has existed for centuries (death even longer), yet it is extremely amplified by the global networking of the internet and leads to more emotional connections — also through statements by the artist that only gain meaning after death.
In the end, all I can say is that in my opinion Bjarne is an extremely creative and interesting person who can express his creativity through his understanding of his own path and thus also gives expression to his work.
Throughout the entire conversation, I kept seeing parallels to Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” and I think this alone should show what kind of authentic character we are dealing with here.
But more on this thought about Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” in the next blog post, where even more parallels to this interview will be drawn.