Bay Area music artists pose with a technician at a MusiCares and Kingmakers of Oakland health services outreach event in Oakland on Dec. 7, 2024. Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for The Recording Academy.

OAKLAND — Kingmakers of Oakland is best known for its work with local school districts and communities, with a strong emphasis on music and art. But on Saturday at its West Oakland design center and production house KOO Labs, that focus pivoted from recording studios and video production to health and wellness for those in the local music industry.

The day-long event was a collaboration with MusiCares, the nonprofit outreach arm associated with the Recording Academy, and spoke to a much broader conversation around healthcare within the music community and arts scene.

“It’s really hard to get good healthcare, as an entrepreneur, as a musician – it doesn’t really exist,” said Bay Area musician and audio engineer Karina Flonnoy, who makes music as Xarina. “You gotta get the government ‘bare minimum’ situation, or you get the Covered California situation where you’re paying astronomical amounts every month, so it’s good to have stuff like this exist for the community.”

The event featured five free services – eye exams and glasses, chiropractic, custom earbuds, mental health providers and massage therapy – and was open to anyone with five years of employment within the music community or credit on at least six commercially released records.

Theresa Wolters, MusiCares’ vice president of health and human services, said the event was important for several reasons.

Karina Flonnoy is fitted for custom ear molds at a MusiCares and Kingmakers of Oakland health services outreach event in Oakland on Dec. 7, 2024.

“In the music community, people are not accessing preventative healthcare,” she said. “The data is really concerning and so we’re trying to use a public health model to offer one-stop shop services that get people in the door and offer a range of healthcare. Whatever we can do to instill preventive care and preventive services when people are young and entering this industry, they’re going to be so much healthier and sustained better in the long term.”

For Kingmakers of Oakland leader Jahi Torman, health-focused initiatives like Saturday’s give local artists access to both physical and mental healthcare.

“Music itself is therapeutic [and] therapy. But even the musicians themselves … need therapy,” he said, adding that he sees a direct connection between accessible, preventative healthcare and artists’ ability to “manifest their dreams.”

“If you are healthy and well, then you have the opportunity to have creativity and imagination. And [this] is where possibilities can go from a spark of an idea to manifestation,” Torman said.

The event highlighted how the demands of being an artist can result in neglecting your their health.

“We do kinda sleep on ourselves and we do kinda fall short with our health, mental, physical, all of it,” Flonnoy said. “It’s just good to have reminders and events like this to make us pause and be like, ‘hey, have you got your eyes checked lately? What are you doing about your ears?’ Because we’re so busy! I think it’s really important.”

Vallejo native and musician Azuah, the draw on Saturday was the free eye exam and glasses.

“My glasses are broken and I found out they were giving out free glasses, so that’s cool,” they said. “All the services that they’re offering; massage therapy, chiropractor and mental health—and then we walked over and they even told us they’d help us pay rent and things like that if we need it, so this is amazing, for sure,” they said.

Tyler Bertani, of Studio X Recording, which has a studio in Oakland, said she was most excited by the mental health care offered on Saturday.

“As the winter season comes around, I think my brain has jumped through the hoops, and it would be nice to talk it out with someone who can help,” she said. “And ear molds! A lot of music, a lot of hours of the day, so those would be nice to have.”