Today’s top recording artists have expensive sound equipment and a team of professionals helping them to manufacture the perfect sound.Teenagers Keenan Bailey and Hollie Hassell have nothing more than a small production room at The Berkeley Institute and a laptop to get their name and music out to the public.The musical duo aren’t letting that stop them from reaching their goals and will be releasing a free mixtape of some of their best pop and hip-hop cover songs in May.Keenan said he was hoping to be an inspiration to other young people and wants to reach the level of other local music producers like John Woolridge, Steve Easton and Donald (Detrimental) Robinson.The 18-year-old said: “We are looking to get noticed, being that we are young, Berkeley students that have been able to put together a good bit of work for this project.“We are doing it all on our own, including the music, video recording process and promotion.”Fifteen-year-old Hollie grew up singing around the house; her mother encouraged her to take the hobby more seriously and she started recording herself doing renditions of songs like Liona Lewis’ ‘Bleeding Love’ and putting it on YouTube.She eventually met and enlisted schoolmate Keenan to help with the technical side of things; she would send him audio clips, which he would then add to an instrumental background.For Keenan his love for music started with the piano, before he tried his hand at other aspects like singing and producing. Coming from an entertainment oriented family — including musician Wendell (Shine) Hayward and comedian Nadanja Bailey — he was inspired to follow that same path.Then in 2010, he started using a free recording programme called Audacity and taught himself the basics to music’s technical side.”No one taught me, it’s all self learned,” he said. “[The software is] very easy to understand and user friendly and most people my age who want to record, Audacity is the first thing they use.”For the past two years, he has just been finding my style and growing as an artist.He said: “As I compare my work from then to now I have progressed greatly and I think now I’m more confident in myself then I was two-years-ago.“First I was just singing slow love songs, now I believe I can do it all, whether it’s rock, country, rap, R&B, pop or gospel.”Just last year he decided to seriously pursue it as a career and plans to attend the Art Institute of Vancouver in the not-too-distant future.In January, he and Hollie debuted their music during a youth open-mic event, held at Chewstick’s Neo Griot Lounge. Since then they have been putting together the finishing touches on their mix tape, particularly during lunch times and free periods.Keenan said: “We have been recording since January and by February part of the body of work, or a majority of the songs for the mixtape were complete.”They describe their music as “very diverse” and have included covers of songs by international recording artists like R&B singer Jay-Sean, country artist Hunter Hayes and rapper Drake in their offerings.The young music lovers are also in the process of writing their first song together, a love-song entitled ‘I Want To Go Home’.Hollie said they have had mixed reactions from their peers, but want to continue honing their talent.“A lot of people at school already take us seriously,” she said. “We have some people who hate on us, but also some people who support us and even teachers from the school who like our music.”They are hoping people will give their music a chance and encourage people to watch their clips and follow them as they work to complete the mixtape.For more information on the young artists, visit their Facebook Page: ‘HNK’.