{"id":295844,"date":"2026-05-02T00:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295844\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T00:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T00:33:24","slug":"san-diegos-newest-soundtrack-has-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/295844\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego’s Newest Soundtrack Has Arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego doesn\u2019t usually inspire a spontaneous drive<\/a>. But when SHAVONE. (born Shavone Charles)\u2014local entrepreneur, author, and musician\u2014got a call from San Diego FC<\/a> about a potential partnership, she got in her car, pointed it south, and started driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dropped everything,\u201d Charles says, laughing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I reach her over Zoom, she\u2019s wearing a plain black T-shirt, a black-and-white bandana tied over her head, and her long straight hair spills over her shoulders. Her smile is bright and easy, and even from my computer screen, I get the impression she\u2019s someone who can bend time to her will.<\/p>\n

Part whiteboard session, part creative experiment, that initial meeting with the club was the starting line for a project that grew into a song, a music video, and ultimately a demonstration of what can happen when local artists are given room to lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result is \u201cSDFSHE<\/a>,\u201d a women-centered song created as a soundtrack for the football club that reverberates far beyond the room of its inception.<\/p>\n

The result is part of the Playmakers Music Collective\u2014an offshoot of SDFC\u2019s Playmakers Artist Initiative<\/a>, a program designed to bring local creatives into orbit with San Diego\u2019s new MLS expansion team. Inside the meeting room, that context felt secondary. SDFC and the Playmakers were the engine, but Charles was the vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charles and team didn\u2019t have an instruction manual, let alone an obvious outcome. They coalesced around a pin-prick of an idea to create something that featured local talent, centered women, sounded international, felt regional, and connected San Diegans to one another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been to a soccer match, you get it. The drums. The chants. The music. A night at Snapdragon with SDFC<\/a> is a thrilling sound-and-vision bath that, match by match, seems to be healing the collective wound left by the Spanos family when they took the Chargers north. Like jilted lovers finally able to move on, here we are, nearly a decade later, ready to rally around a team that\u2019s rallying around and investing in us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were kind of building the airplane as we were flying it,\u201d says Tony Martinez, founder of Barrio Junto<\/a>, a community-based lifestyle brand and creative design studio. Martinez was an integral partner on this project, along with Sebasti\u00e1n \u201cSeb\u201d Mor\u00faa, senior vice president of SDFC\u2019s Brand & Innovation; Rhea Garcia, creative director of Playmakers; and Ramel Wallace, artist and host of Creative Mornings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Charles, the lack of structure was the appeal. She stepped in as both artist and organizer, and the initial idea (make a song) quickly expanded to include a music video. With Women\u2019s History Month approaching, she began thinking about which women artists to pull into the project and how to create something that could live both visually and sonically as a representation of multiple voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of music isn\u2019t my personal sound,\u201d she says of the song. \u201cMy sonic identity, at its core, is industrial. It\u2019s definitely alternative but grounded in hip-hop and R&B and also classical and jazz. So I had to step outside my own creative box and think: \u2018What does a record for such a global sport sound like?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That question is the result of a life and career that has never stayed in its lane.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of SHAVONE.<\/p>\n

From the block to center stage<\/p>\n

A San Diego native, Charles was raised in La Mesa<\/a> and Southeast San Diego in a family of entrepreneurs. Her mother ran a hair salon for decades, and her father owned a restaurant in the community for 40 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family has always been really entrenched in giving back and social impact and just community service in San Diego<\/a>,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve always felt accountable for the community [and a responsibility] to represent the community well but also [to] pull people up as you climb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Music was another family tradition. A classically trained flautist, Charles has been playing since the second grade, learning to read and write music long before stepping into a recording studio. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of my early entrance into all things songwriting,\u201d she says. \u201cI try to integrate it across all of my music, to help inform melodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her path, however, hasn\u2019t been linear. After graduating from UC Merced, Charles moved into tech, taking roles at Twitter during its early IPO days and later at Google, TikTok, and Instagram. Along the way, she wrote a book, The Black Internet Effect, published by Penguin Random House.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually haven\u2019t been at any of my roles [less than] than three years\u2014which is a long time in the tech world! It\u2019s like dog years,\u201d she says. In each of those roles, she was often the first woman, definitely the first Black woman, so she had to navigate spaces that required her to define herself in real time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been the person who has to come in and navigate ambiguity and create the job and figure out how to bring value to the business. I would never go to a place where I don\u2019t think I can fit into what the business needs at that point in time,\u201d Charles says. \u201cIt\u2019s how I think about songs and songwriting or, you know, creative collaborations. Is there room for my voice or my perspective? How can I show up and bring value to the table?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of SHAVONE.<\/p>\n

Centering women creators\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those same questions are what Charles brought into the studio. She showed up prepared with sonic references (her flute always in tow), with ideas about tempo and instrumentation, and with a sense of how the track should evolve. The result is disciplined and expansive; provocative, even. Kind of like a soccer match.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I could think about was the World Cup,\u201d says Charles. \u201cWhat does a record for such a global sport sound like? How can we do something that puts women at the forefront of sports<\/a> and something that\u2019s [\u2026] well-rounded and shows just how much of a melting pot San Diego really is?\u201d<\/p>\n

For \u201cSDFSHE,\u201d Charles brought in local artists and women of color Santa Mykah<\/a>, a rapper and the first woman to qualify for Red Bull Batalla USA; and singer\/songwriters Ms. Connie<\/a> and Isaura<\/a>. Together they found a distinct rhythm and presence. The music video threads in real fans and footage from the pitch as well. I dare anyone to watch the video and not want to be part of the scene.<\/p>\n

Sonically, the track is all energy with chant-like percussions, synth and reverb, hip-hop married with global club sounds. The lyrics shift between English and Spanish. It\u2019s very San Diego and also very Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Buenos Aires. The track was executive produced by Matthew \u201cBeazie Beats\u201d Arellano alongside SHAVONE. and her Future of Creatives<\/a> organization, a platform for creators without clear pathways forward. And people say you have to go to Los Angeles for talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a stigma with San Diego music that we do music for play or for fun [\u2026] and we\u2019re a joke,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth.\u201d That perception is shaped by a city whose creative output hasn\u2019t always been met with the same level of investment<\/a> as larger markets. \u201cWe can write hit songs,\u201d she says. \u201cWe can compete with the best of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Projects like this become evidence of what\u2019s possible when local artists are given the resources<\/a> and trust to define their own sound. A San Diego musician named Nebula<\/a> came up with the title of Charles\u2019s track. The pair didn\u2019t know one another until Playmakers brought them into the same orbit and now, Charles tells me, the two will be collaborating. The possibilities are limitless when creatives are creating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for what Charles hopes the audience takes from the track? \u201cI hope they see themselves represented in the art form in a way that can make them proud and that feels real [\u2026], whether or not they cross over to where that little kid in the barrio or little girl in Southeast San Diego sees me\u2014or sees any of the other artists\u2014and feels like, \u2018That\u2019s me. I\u2019m seen.\u2019 That\u2019s the connective tissue to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does it mean to represent San Diego with her music? \u201cIt means everything to me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to pull the curtain back and shed light on everybody; to show the promise and the potential of what we can do and who we can be\u2014that we\u2019re worth the investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charles has new music on the way, including original releases, an EP mixtape, and collaborations across San Diego and Los Angeles\u2014work that continues to build on experimentation, live instrumentation, and local creative partnerships.<\/p>\n

PARTNER CONTENT<\/p>\n


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For Charles, her instinct to act, to show up, to build something before it\u2019s fully formed is a reminder that sometimes the most important thing isn\u2019t the plan (or the traffic) or even the destination. It\u2019s knowing when to go all in and simply create.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[Disclosure: San Diego Magazine owners Claire and Troy Johnson sit on SDFC\u2019s Playmakers board.]<\/p>\n

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