Brothers and BTMM alumni Matt and Craig Clizbe aren’t letting their disabilities get in the way of trying to make it in the music and media industries.
Craig and Matt Clizbe pose with recording artist Robin Thicke (C).
Clizbeats.com is much more than a music blog.
In some ways, it started as a way to quiet the naysayers. In other ways, it’s the bedrock of limitless dreams for the future.
Founded by Matt and Craig Clizbe, BTMM ‘07, it’s a creative outlet, an inroad to the music industry and the basis for a career.
Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age, the Clizbes, who are triplets (along with their brother David), have faced numerous challenges along the way, both physical and from others around them.
The brothers attended Wilmington College their freshman year before being welcomed to Temple’s School of Communications and Theater.
It was yet another moment in their young lives in which “we achieved a goal that some people didn’t believe we could achieve,” Craig says.
Bringing with them some experience in radio broadcasting in high school, the Clizbes knew SCT could provide them the knowledge they needed and Philadelphia could provide numerous opportunities to put that knowledge to practice.
“If you think about where my career is with the web site, it all started with Temple,” Craig says.
As an example, Craig’s internship with Q102 introduced him to many music industry professionals, with whom he networked and remains in touch. It also taught the brothers how to design a web site from scratch to fully be able to control how their product looks.
Both Matt and Craig had originally been lined up for an internship at Virgin Records in 2004, but after the company bought out Mariah Carey’s contract to end their association with her, it tightened its purse strings and axed its internship program. As they scrambled for another opportunity, Craig took the only internship spot open at Q102, but Matt was unable to find anything else. What was first received as bad news soon took a turn to the positive. With so much passion for the music industry building up, Matt needed a creative outlet. That’s when he conceived clizbeats.com.
Through the early stages of clizbeats.com, Matt and Craig tapped into the resources around them – mainly their fellow SCT students – as they created the web site.
“I didn’t have an internship, so I created my own,” Matt says.
Craig and Matt Clizbe with Bad Boy records R&B group and MTV reality stars Day 26 together at Atlantic Records.
Their first interview was with Omnisoul (now called The Crash Motive), a band from Newark, Del., who appeared on the Fantastic 4 soundtrack. They’ve since interviewed Robin Thicke, Justin Bieber and a number of artists under the Bad Boy Records label, founded by Sean “Diddy” Combs.
While their obvious priority is to be able to sustain a career related to the music and media industries, the side effect of helping others launch their music careers is one in which they take pride. “Working with up-and-coming artists is always exciting,” Craig says.
Matt agrees that music and entertainment reporting “makes the most sense” for their futures.
The Clizbe brothers dream big when looking at the future of their company. They can see it evolving into music promotion, a record label or producer of movies about the music industry (like Notorious). But, in the same breath, they’re realistic about what it takes to achieve success and are working hard to find financial backing to get their company off the ground.
Matt says they’ll integrate their disability into their brand to create something not yet seen in music.
“What our site is about and what our product is about is something that hasn’t been seen before,” he says.
Even more, the Clizbes hope to open doors into the music industry for others with disabilities. Craig says the music industry is extremely diverse, yet disabled people are “an underrepresented minority.” Their success would be “something that would give the disabled community something to look to.”
