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Roxanne Blanford is an African American freelance journalist, marketing communications officer, publicist and music reviewer born and based in New York City (Brooklyn, to be exact) and affiliated with several online music sources including AllmusicGuide, MusicEmissions.com, and the independent Impact Music Publicity and Journalism 'Zine.
Biography
Early life
Blanford, the youngest of seven children, was born in Brooklyn, New York to an interstate truck driving father and a stay-at-home mother. Blanford attended elementary school P.S. 260 in Brooklyn, New York, on a full art scholarship. She then attended the Packer Collegiate Institute's upper school on a full academic scholarship through A Better Chance, known for granting scholarships to academically high achieving minority students. She went on to New York University, The New School for Social Research, City University of New York, City College, and State University of New Yorkat Empire State College, emphasizing communications, liberal arts, cultural studies, history, psychology, philosophy, media studies and literature.
Career
Initiated into the world of media at publishing conglomerate Conde Nast Publications in 1990, she worked her way up from receptionist to executive advertising assistant at Self Magazine in New York. During this time, Blanford embarked on a freelance career as an entertainment journalist covering music, writing reviews, interviews, profiles and bios, later expanding to film critiques. Blanford's first published musician interview (with The Phoids) appeared in the pages of Extreme Magazine, a Canadian-based rock music 'zine, in 1998. Since then, she has interviewed artists such as Kittie, Sondre Lerche, Ben Jelen, Nile Rodgers, Godsmack, Train, OK Go's Damian Kulash, My Morning Jacket, The Beta Band, and singer-actress Mandy Moore (when Moore was just fifteen years old). Blanford had also been a frequent press attendee at the College Music Journal Marathon. In 1999, Blanford joined internet start up, Real Media, Inc as an online advertising sales proposal writer. When the dot.com bubble burst, she moved on to interactive market research sales and new business development at eMarketer, Inc.
Coinciding with all this, Blanford had established the music publicity and promotion venture, Impact Music Publicity, where upon she successfully marketed and promoted independent musicians from Columbus, Ohio. She then narrowed her focus to concentrate primarily on local, unsigned artists from the New York City area. Subsequently, Blanford branched out into the field of business and corporate marketing communications, working as a freelance contractor and also at Colgate Palmolive in 2006. In 2007, she was the online content editor and marketing communications coordinator for Link2GlobalLuxury.com, a luxury brands advertising portal, during its launch phase. Citing technical issues, as of January 2008, the website had not yet gone live.
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