Twenty-three year-old Melissa Giles is the nation’s youngest entrepreneur to have formed a comprehensive media platform catering to today’s Urban Latino market.

Half Venezuelan, Melissa moved to Miami as an infant and grew-up in almost all of Miami’s urban neighborhoods during her high school years and assisted her father with his music event management company Awesome Events. At the tender age of 16, Melissa began working in street promotions with local marketing companies for clients such as Def Jam and Loud Records.

Melissa recognized a gap in the market and formed Miami’s first all-female street team and gained accounts with national brands including U.S Army, HBO and Phat Farm.

Melissa’s reputation in Miami’s Urban Latin market, one of the nation’s biggest, began to grow and she became known as one of the few who were able to ‘reach’ this audience and deliver a significant response. While still maintaining her street marketing and promotions company ‘MISTO L.E.S’, Melissa explored the idea of staging the nation’s first annual urban Latin music festival.

Soulfrito The Urban Latin Music Festival, now in its fifth year, attracts some of the biggest names in music and generates sponsorship interest from major blue chip companies including General Motors who put forward Pontiac as the festival’s Title Sponsor in 2003 (visit www.soulfrito.net). As a result of the festival’s continued success, Melissa is considered one of the nation’s foremost opinion formers and influencers within the Urban Latin market and is regularly approached by the media for commentary.

SOULFRITO THE URBAN LATIN MUSIC FESTIVAL

Under the ‘Soulfrito Holdings Inc.’ parent organization, Soulfrito The Urban Latin Music Festival is the nation’s first festival tailored to the Urban Latin culture and the 12-35 year-old demographic. The festival is the first entertainment platform of its kind to showcase the visual arts, sports, fashion as well as popular and new / up-and-coming urban Latin music acts within the genres of Hip hop, R&B, Reggaeton, Neo Soul, Merengue, Tropical, Salsa and Bachata.

Since its launch in 2002, the festival has become one of the nation’s major attractions on the Latin music calendar. Well-known national and international urban and Latin acts now recognize Soulfrito as a significant stage and advertising outlet for current and new album releases and as part of an integrated marketing strategy to help boost record sales in the southern region and within key Latin markets nationwide.

While Miami is considered one of the most brand-promiscuous markets in the country to penetrate, Soulfrito is providing a major promotional vehicle for blue-chip multi-national brands that wish to tap in to this niche audience and increase regional product and service sales. Brands such as Pontiac, GMAC and Jack Daniels, to name a few, have all benefited through their own customized Soulfrito sponsorship programs.

By way of its unique content and diverse range of performances over a 12 hour format, national broadcasters are turning to Soulfrito each year to provide the type of content that is attracting a new audience. The festival in 2003 was broadcast to over 30 million households nationwide in over 75 different markets. As a result of this demand, an annual DVD and CD from the festival will be produced and become available by way of national retail distribution in 2005. Leading radio broadcasters are also being targeted with Soulfrito Mix, a unique Urban Latin radio mix show that is currently in production.

One of Soulfrito’s primary goals is to identify, develop and help showcase new Urban and Urban Latin talent. Soulfrito has provided a stage that has enabled undiscovered talent to perform to a nationwide audience while additionally putting the artist under the media and industry spotlight for the first time. Subsequently, the Soulfrito brand and its format of live music, DJs and poetry / spoken word is anticipating a roll-out in to clubs around the country in mid 2006.

HISTORY

Established in 2002, the event was introduced to bring together Urban Latin music talent and audiences that represent the existing blend of second and third generation multi-cultural Latin communities in the U.S. The inaugural Urban Latin Music Festival took place at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami. Hosted by popular New York radio broadcaster and hip hop legend Angie Martinez, the event drew over 6,000 teenagers and their families and featured popular acts including Aventura, City High, DJ Tony Touch as well as a number of local breakthrough acts. Associate sponsors included Bud Light, Bacardi, Coke and United Airlines.

The festival achieved its initial goal of helping to ‘blur’ the lines of cultural segregation that exist between minority communities by providing high quality entertainment while promoting the Urban Latin culture. Over 50 local, regional and national media outlets attended the event and the festival was acclaimed by the media as the first of its kind in the country.

The Pontiac Urban Latin Music Festival Presented By GMAC played host to an attendance of over 8,000 Urban Latinos for a second year at Bayfront Park in downtown Miami in October 2003. The event was filmed as a one-hour television special hosted by MTV presenter LaLa and featured some of the biggest names in Urban Latin music including Lumidee, Gangstarr, Aventura, Huey Dunbar, Frankie J, Yerba Buena, Fulanito and Majic Juan. The event gained front-page headline news in the nation’s number one Hispanic newspaper The El Nuevo Herald.

As the Title Sponsor after only the festival’s second year, Pontiac capitalized on its ability to attract the Latin youth segment. Pontiac was exposed to an estimated 100 million people as the result of complete sponsorship integration with the extensive pre-promotional marketing and PR campaign, on-site festival presence and broadcast sponsorship within the one hour television special on Music Choice.

The festival in 2006 promises to be the biggest ever, with an estimated audience of over 15,000 people attending Bayfront Park in Miami on November 7th. Renowned radio broadcaster and hip hop artist Angie Martinez will again host the festival that will feature the biggest names in Urban Latin music.