Siena Vreugde and Kalam Hussain love coming to the mic, and they love doing it in support of voices all across Oakville. That's why they created the Oakvillainz podcast
Podcast creators Vreugde and Hussain, along with their producer Sabin, originally wanted to create a social media following to promote themselves to the public.
That's why these three Oakville residents created their own podcast, with the goal of giving the people of Oakville a platform to tell their stories.
Siena is an aspiring artist who recently released her first music video, and Karam is an MMA fighter who will fight in his first official match this weekend, on Nov. 9.
But as they went on with this idea, they turned their vision into a podcast that provided a place for people from all over Oakville to come onto their show and tell their own stories about what their passion is.
Both Siena and Kalam work at a local bar and have met so many people while working there and they realize that everyone has a story no matter how popular they are or how many followers they have on social media.
"Despite having our degrees, we are following our passion," said Kalam. "We want to go after what we want to do, we want to pursue what means something to us. I want to be a fighter and I don’t care if I’m great, I believe in it."
The name of the podcast came from Kalam because his Instagram username for a long time was "the Oakvillain", as opposed to the actual term of Oakvillean.
But there is more to the name than just Kalam’s username, the name stems from the motto of the podcast which is "going against the grain" - like a villain.
Although someone may look at this podcast title and think it may promote hate-filled content due to its name, the real theme the team wants to showcase is the exact opposite: passion.
All three, Siena, Kalam, and Sabin, want to show driven people who have been inspired to go after what they want in life even if they know they will not see much money out of it in the immediate future.
"We have had country singers, influencers, and fitness promoters on our show," Siena said. "We love hearing from people who are driven and following some sort of passion."
"The world is full of interesting people who don’t get a chance to tell their stories because there is no space for them to do so."
What the Oakvillainz have done is provide a place for everyone to tell their stories no matter their popularity, which is an amazing way to give others a voice.
Episodes of the Oakvillainz podcast can be found on YouTube and Spotify.