interview: maliq veal

By Jesse Guardiola

On Tuesday afternoon, I had the chance to interview a senior here at Reagan who performed at the Virtual Coffeehouse. Maliq performed for the coffeehouse partly because Mr. Murphy wanted him to perform and partly because he wanted to perform. According to Maliq, “It kind of gets you out of a bubble, is the way I think about it.”
    Maliq has been playing the trombone for about 7 years. Maliq feels that it’s important to not only perform musically, but  in all artforms. Maliq stated “We still do those throughout the pandemic because for the simple fact that those are people's outlets to kind of escape reality…”
He’s never had a specific genre, but he really loves classical music. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky being some examples. Some more modern artists include Earth, Wind and Fire, The Temptations, Tupac, Biggie Smalls, etc. As well as many more artists. He isn’t restricted to a certain style of music. Some of the musicians that he looks up to are Michael Jackson, Prince, and Joseph Alessi.
When I asked Maliq how music has changed him, he gave these beautiful responses “#1 it’s just helped me enjoy life a lot more…”, “...and then 2, I think- when you’re a musician- it’s helped me carry myself as well”, “...It’s kind of given me a meaning to life, you know? And not to say that I didn’t have one before, but before I wanted to be a heart surgeon.”
    So, that was my interview with Maliq Veal, the marvelous musician. You can catch the Virtual Coffee House on Wednesdays at 1:00 as well as past performances. You! Yes, you can also perform. Don’t hesitate to sign up. You can do that all at this link: https://tinyurl.com/reagancoffeehouse. 

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