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News 12 Staff

njspotlight9amCM_2025-04-26-09-21-36

Singer songwriter Genevieve is my guest here on Spotlight New Jersey. She has a line in her life that I really love. She lives life unapologetically and with intention. This Jersey girl from Brielle, tell us about that. The Jersey goes wherever you go. It does. It has a habit of following you around. Um, I always, I used to have a t-shirt that said Jersey only the strong survive, and I thought that is, I feel like it has carried me through. I mean, I, I survived eight years in South Africa in a game reserve with, you know, lots of game reserves, you know, knowing not like not having a clue what I was doing and somehow managed to get out of there alive. So I feel like Jersey taught me well. Jersey taught. It also helped me navigate the music industry, which is a whole other jungle. So now, do you write about that jungle in your book? Let's talk about it. Um, so yes, so I did write a children's book. Uh, it is about a praying mantis that I legitimately did. I did. I raised him. He's real. That's him. That is him, really. Yes, that is really him. He does have a name? Santiago. That is like. That is the true I mean the true tales of a little bug in a big world is not a misnomer. It really is based on a praying mantis that I raised. It was a fluke thing. I was living in South Africa, you know, you're surrounded by wildlife and nature, and I happened to have some flowers that I brought in one day, and he was on he was this tiny little nymph, little teeny baby. Hiding in the flowers and I found him and um my partner at the time I called him and I said what do I do you know he's like, he'll be fine. He's like praying mantis they because they're natural carnivores. They come out of the littleuthaka like ready to go. So I said, OK. And then he never left. He just never left and I didn't like I started feeding him little. I would find like I would, I, I'm sure the people who worked around me thought I was. Insane because I'd be bent over trying to find little bugs on the ground to bring back to him and offers like sacrificial lambs and because they're carnivores and um yeah so he just never I mean I think he just figured out he had a good so he never left and I had him for a year and he came on and I mean it was ridiculous. It got to the point where it just became a thing. He came on adventures with us when we went to interview for a job at a gate um. To run a volunteer program at a game reserve, he came with us on a road trip. I have videos of him watching trucks go by, and he was like a part of the family, like a little person is what it sounds like. And you know what it is about prang mantises too, because they can turn their heads like most insects don't have that capability. Prang mantises can swivel their heads, so they look like little humans in many like a weird alien type of human.

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spotlightnj12pmCM_2025-04-26-12-20-11

just A demon I always Singer songwriter Genevieve, who grew up in Brielle, just another nobody, that song just touched me so much. It's a painful song. It's based on a true story too. It did legitimately happen to me. I was in college in DC. And I was taking the train home one year for Thanksgiving and I was running through the train station and some guy kind of grabbed me and he was like, Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, and I said, I, you know, I said I gotta catch a train and he said, I just, I, you know, you're exactly what I'm looking for and I was like, what does that mean? He's like, have you ever wanted to be in movies and like film and TV? And like who says no to that, you know? And I was like, yes, this is my moment. Oh my God. And then he hands me his card. He's like, I just need people that blend into the background that no one would notice. And I was like. Ouch. Oh ouch yeah. So yeah, so that is literally based on a true story of a person who came up to me at the train station as the we get it, Harry just another nobody. We have those days. Nobody wants to have somebody say, nobody wants to feel like a nobody, so no, you left, you went to LA, then you wound up in South Africa. Yes, yes, found yourself in both places, I'm assuming. I, I. Yeah, I find it seemed to be hard to pin down. Um, I, yeah, I went out to LA I, and, and funny enough, it wasn't because of the music stuff. It was because I liked warm weather. That will do it. Yeah, I'm a big palm tree fan and beaches and, and, uh, so I, yeah, I went out to LA and that's where I started my music career as a singer-songwriter. Um, and then I I burned out by the last year that I toured, I played like 200 and something, almost 250 shows, and this is South Africa here, that is South Africa, yes, yeah. So I got to do some crazy things back when I was still a brunette, um. I, uh, yeah, I had a friend that lived down there from college and I'd always wanted to go and as a little girl I had my mutual dreams of either I was gonna be some like rock star or I was gonna be like the next Jane Goodall and as you can imagine, hard to really combine the two, and so I had done those sort of rock star side of things and I needed a break and I so I went to visit her and then never left for eight years, uh, as you do, I just kept finding ways to get like to find jobs.

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njspotlight427256amCM_2025-04-27-10-21-12

Genevieve, who grew up in Brielle, is my guest here on Spotlight New Jersey. She is a singer, songwriter, author. She wears many other hats as well too. Let's talk about all those jobs that made you who you are. Oh, so many, so many, uh, besides the music, obviously I've always been a writer, so that's really where I started out doing, in fact, my first job slash internship was for National Geographic because I was in college in DC, and so that's where it started. Um, and then I was able to parlay that through the music and then when I moved to South Africa because I had a communications background as a writer and as a photographer I could continue to find ways to get work because everybody needs like at this point with the world being what it is you need a social media presence you need someone. Can communicate especially with the science world with, you know, I worked in environmental um conservation and with environmental science and wildlife they needed someone who could take the 12 syllable Latin words and turn it all into sort of generic content that people could just anyone could understand. Because no one's people don't care about things necessarily unless they understand it. It's hard to get people to really get behind something if they have no idea what you're talking about. It's got to resonate with them and so it was my job in a lot of cases was to make the really challenging, difficult scientific stuff more accessible and to use the photography, um, and as a musician because I, you know, could. I was so used to performing and being around people from all different backgrounds. I could just talk to anybody. So it brought me, I, I went over there to do volunteer work to visit a friend, did priority species monitoring, um, on a game reserve, following around cheetah and black rhino, wild dogs. That's so cool. Yeah, it was wild and I got out there and I was like, I do not, I mean, I don't belong. I feel like I should be here, but I don't think I belong here because I'm gonna probably die any day. Uh, and then I ended up working with them for a while and then that parlayed into running a field guide training camp with my ex-South African partner and so he and I essentially trained the people that take people out on safari. And you love being behind the camera. Oh, I love being behind the camera. Yeah, I don't necessarily love being in front of the camera, but I love being behind the camera. I just love, I just, I think the world is such an amazing place and there's so much beauty and even the tiniest little things, uh, and I just. That's why you like to get into documentaries, music composition. Yes, tell us about that. Yeah, so I've documentaries. I grew up on documentaries. That was my like thing I again like I said. The two different career paths was music and then Jane Goodall and um so I always thought about maybe getting involved in doing documentary work and because I was a musician that I could work in starting to do music composing as well and then kind of cover all bases because I can write the script. I can talk in front of a camera. I can do the photography and videography and then do the music for it and then package it all and put it out to the world on social media. So it all comes full circle eventually, yeah.

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njspotlight427259amCM_2025-04-27-10-21-41

lift up your head and your Every journey takes a single step to yourself. we, but before the dawn. You must believe. It'll be You can Oh. Oh. If you have this. Oh, she touches me every time she sings. Genevieve, singer songwriter, yes, you can soar. You have a little Patreon community that you spread that message with. Explain, yeah, so the Patreon community, um, is based around the behind the scenes of my wacky wildlife, uh, so there's you get some. It's all sort of everybody there's a monthly tiered service fee and depending on what tier you're in is what you get in terms of the levels um but I will share first listens to songs that I'm working on or songs that are in production that nobody else has heard before or even songs that I will never put out but they will only you can hear them through that. Uh, creative writing that I do, um, snippets of new book of a new book thing that I've been playing around with, uh, photography stuff, stories about living in South Africa because everybody seems to love all those stories, um, and the whole point really is to give people a space to, to, you know, to just be themselves and like embrace who you are and and all of your quirks because I am a. Very quirky person and uh you know just like be yourself and know that there are other people out there that are like that and I'm like whimsical and weird and like I said quirky and it's so I think it's OK so I'm gonna make sure that you think it's OK it's more than OK in your bio it said you're like your music is like an old friend with a ready shoulder yes yeah. I grew up as I'm the youngest of 5 kids, which you'd think there would be people around all the time and there were, but I there was a big age gap between all of us and so my brothers were 2 years apart my sisters were twins and they were 16 years older than me so like they were in college when I was 2 so I grew up very much alone and just circumstances being what they were, I tended to spend a lot of time alone just because that's where I was and and. So it was a lot of having to like to learn to depend on myself and not necessarily knowing who to turn to and it wasn't necessarily for lack of people being there it was just not having the common, you know, ground or age, um, and so the whole point of you can soar is really just you got it in you, you know, and I have to remind myself of that daily like morning affirmations, um, that you got it in you. It's just sometimes you can be your own worst enemy often we are, you know, and you can get in your own way.

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njspotlight4272512pmCM_2025-04-27-13-25-04

Lift up your head and your. Every journey takes a single step to stone. In your wheel, but before the dumb is. You must be You can. You can They If you have That Because And you have the strength. But to the sunshine. You got I Because you can I you. has at least one. to find out. Thanks behind you. To Because you You If you had the. Can You can If you're on the right. If you have the. If you have the fee. 2.

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Jennifer Vitanzo, also known as Genevieve, of Brielle, joined News 12's Della Crews to discuss how New Jersey helped guide her through her career and life as a singer, songwriter, author, educator and photographer.

Spotlight New Jersey: Singer/songwriter/author Genevieve

Jennifer Vitanzo, also known as Genevieve, of Brielle, joined News 12's Della Crews to discuss how New Jersey helped guide her through her career and life as a singer, songwriter, author, educator and photographer.

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