On Dec. 5 at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills nine up-and-coming artists shared a stage in honor of suicide prevention. This first time event was called the Sad Flex and was organized by Moorpark College Alumni Anthony Foté.

Each artist took the stage for about 30 minutes and performed an assortment of hip-hop, pop and punk music. Donation boxes and suicide awareness merchandise were scattered around the lounge area to raise money for The National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

Foté spoke about the motivation behind putting Sad Flex together.

“It is our responsibility to support each other and heal the broken with the power of music,” Fote said.

Maxwell Fink, a performer with the stage name of MVXMILLI explained what the independent music collective that formed Sad Flex meant to him.

“We’re all troubled artists and Sad Flex is something that we need because a lot of us pour or hearts out into our music and it’s hard to do that,” expressed Fink. “Sad Flex brings troubled souls together in a comforting way because we all understand and we are all there for each other. We wanna let people know that they’re not the only ones going through those emotions.”

The artists of Sad Flex have been preparing for the show since mid October. Agoura Hills was a great location for the event because over half of the acts grew up local to the Ventura County area. Hills earlier on if you’re going to reference it here. ” class=” collapsed”>

The Canyon Club is a hot spot for local college students to hang out, making it perfect for Sad Flex.

Danny Garmanian, a manager for one of the performers, is also a Moorpark College alumni. He said that Moorpark prepared him in some ways for his job.

“Moorpark College partially set me up for success because I learned discipline and to manage time well among other things,” Garmanian said.

People wore dark stylish attires as requested by the event organizer. Things kicked off at 7:30 p.m. when the first performer, Baby Sneaky took the stage and went until 10:30 p.m. when Oli Outside ended the show. Performers also included I’ll $werve, AM:PM, Cassius Cobain, No Limit Creation, F*ckme Princess, MVXMILLI and Jherz.

Ruby Fletcher, an audience member admired the talent the musicians had.

“I didn’t expect them to be this good. They really are up-and-coming because they make genuinely good music. It was a lot of fun to dance to it all tonight. I had never heard of many of the performers but I will continue listening to their music after today. Fletcher said.

If anyone is interested in attending the next Sad Flex tickets can be purchased for $10 online or at Rarehouse Productions in the Los Angeles Art Center for the December 27 show at 7:00 p.m.