Monthly Archives: September 2014

10 Things You Need Before Embarking On A Rap Career

Leave a reply

audioboard1A STORY

What kind of story you ask? Well, it doesn’t matter…just make sure you have one. It’s going to be difficult to create in a studio if you have no life story to work from. You might ask: doesn’t have everyone have a story? Sure, technically everyone in this life has a story, but is your story interesting enough to captivate audiences and “pull them in?” Is your story a Kanye West tale of a “College Dropout” with music dreams? Hov’s crack dealer turned multi-millionaire entrepreneur? Eminem’s corny looking white-boy growing up in a black neighborhood who gains the respect of his Hip-Hop peers? What all of these stories (and many others) have in common is their is some vividness to them that captivates people and draws them to the music (and ultimately, whatever else the artist is selling).

A BACK-UP PLAN

I know, I know…you routinely read interviews where artists say “there is no plan B…this is it.” Well folks, this is stupid. Everyone, regardless of what industry you want to be in or what career you want, should have some sort of back-up plan. This doesn’t mean that if you want to have a Rap career, that your back-up plan can’t relate to music. Maybe your back-up plan is to get into music marketing or accounting if the Rap career doesn’t work out. The point is, if you don’t have a back-up plan, you are going to be discouraged around every corner if things don’t always fall your way. A back-up plan actually allows you to take more chances, grind harder, and work smarter. Get an education of some sorts and have something to fall back on, because the reality is you probably aren’t going to be a superstar Rapper…but even if you do end up being Hov, an education never hurt anyone.

A LONG-TERM PLAN

Do you know where you’re going? No, not tomorrow…a year from now. Look, if you are just having fun making beats or recording raps in your bedroom studio, cool…nothing wrong with that. But if you are investing time and money with the hopes of carving out a career in Rap for yourself, you need to formulate some sort of plan. How are you going to pay for studio time? If you have your own studio, do you need to upgrade your equipment? How much time will you have weekly to invest into your Rap career? If you are going to try and do it full-time, how much savings do you have and how long will that allow you to not work? (I wouldn’t recommend doing this). How will you get press? Do you need a publicist? How long will you need the publicist for? How many albums/singles will you release this year? Who will handle your artwork? You catch my drift…which leads into the next point…

A TEAM

I am going to give you some very important advice that will save you from a failed attempt at a Rap career. If you are serious about a Rap career and haven’t built a solid team around you, you…will…fail. This isn’t a “you might fail”, this is a you…will…fail…guaranteed. If you can give me an example of a successful Rap artist who didn’t have some sort of team around him, please email me at brokencool@gmail.com and I will eat my words. So what is a “team” you ask…well, I feel you need at least 2 of the following 4 things from the start:

– Manager

– Music Business Consultant

– Publicist

– Production team

A combination of any 2 of these 4 things should allow you to plant a solid foundation from the start. My recommendation (and a formula that I’ve seen work and is working now in many instances) is to align yourself with a production team and a music business consultant. A consultant is somewhat of a pseudo manager and someone that can give you a solid place to start from. Aligning yourself with a talented production team that believes in your music will not only motivate you to succeed but will (hopefully) provide you very cheap (or even better, free) studio time. It will also give your music some sort of consistency and you can begin to build your sound.

MONEY

Spend money to make money. For the purpose of this example, time is also money. So, either have all the time in the world or money (like the $ kind). All joking aside, before trying to start a business of any kind (and yes, your potential Rap career is a business), you need to have funding of some sorts. You are going to need to pay third parties to help you along the way. By no means do you need to be “caked up” in order to give this Rap thing a try, but ensure that you can pay your bills, have cash flow, and can fund what could be an expensive road.

AN IMAGE

Before (and I stress before) presenting yourself (and your music) to the public, have your image under control. Now you might be asking, isn’t my image just who I am? Do I really need to dress it up? The short answer is no, you’re right. Ideally, your image is simply you as a person with the volume turned up a hundred notches. In professional wrestling, they say the best characters are simply the wrestlers own personalities but turned way up. I believe this is the same for the music business. Take Rick Ross for example; did he dabble in drug dealing in the past? Likely, but was he a kingpin in the drug business? No, but he has built an image for himself and turned his own persona way up for the public. Hate him or love him, he created an image. Yes, he struggled with that image at times (fake sunglasses, police photos) but he stuck with it and said “this is who I am”…even though that isn’t completely true. Be authentic…but still be creative.

AN AUDIENCE IN YOUR HOMETOWN

Before trying to conquer Japan, start by conquering Minnesota (or wherever you’re from). This is one of the things that I don’t feel has changed much since the inception of the Internet. Even though you can reach audiences the world over now with a click of the mouse, I still feel it’s important to have built an audience in your hometown before trying to conquer the world. Unless you live in Toronto (screwface capital…although Drizzy did it), your hometown audience will be the easiest one to build anticipation and a buzz with. Having the backing of your backyard allows you to say you have a “buzz” (even if it’s local) and will create your own influencers who can talk about you and your music online and hopefully bring others on board.

GOOD MUSIC

If you are unsure whether or not your music is good, try this simple exercise and put yourself out there: go to a mall and find a group of teenagers that look like they might be down with Hip-Hop (so pretty much, any group of teenagers in 2013) and play them a few songs. Ask them what they think of your music. Do they like it? Do they think it sucks? Is there a part of it they like but would they change the beats? Does your flow need improvement? etc. Look, one of the biggest problems rappers have is that they never play their music for a discriminating audience. MC so and so decides to embark on a Rap career, records a few songs and then gets high and drinks with his homies and plays them the songs. Everyone parties and are like “yo son, you are way doper than 2 Chainz..you need to get this shit out ASAP…we gonna be rich”…or something like that. Before deciding whether or not your music is good enough to embark on a career in music, play your music for some people…BUT NOT YOUR FRIENDS. People are your friends for a reason…because they let you do dumb shit and don’t hassle you for it. Think about the last time you got drunk with your friends and puked on yourself…did your friends call you up the next day and lecture you about not drinking? No, because as long as you aren’t doing anything to hurt someone or bringing irreparable damage to yourself, your friends are there to have fun with you. Friends are most likely not going to tell you your music sucks (they should, but they probably won’t). Find out if your music is good first. And definitely don’t ask the media (and that includes bloggers) “is my music good? do you think this track is good?” Find out first and don’t waste peoples time.

Have To READ “ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS”

All-You-Need-to-Know-About-the-Music-Business

REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

I already wrote on this to some degree. But to reiterate, set some realistic expectations of what you can expect out of a Rap career. With a lot of hard work and determination, you may be able to build an audience and a career out of your music…but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be rich or wealthy. You may be able to feed your family and live comfortably, but the likelihood of you making a $100 million from this are slim to none. That isn’t meant to discourage anyone, it’s meant to bring some reality to a world of Bentleys, $1000 bottles of champagne and beach houses.

Article written by Broken Cool.