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Why We Fail As Artists and How We Will Succeed

My biggest regret in my music career is taking a hiatus. To be real, it was quitting disguised as making an informed life decision. The recording studio that I put all of my savings in, the studio that finally started to gain steam with ended with a raid by the local police. My shady evicted landlord failed to tell me that they were in financial trouble, probably because they did not speak a lick of English. No, I did not have an agreement in writing, just one of the many lessons I have learned along the way. But the biggest lesson I have learned thus far is the value of perseverance. Five years have passed since that disgraceful day. Five years of rationalizing why I could not make it in music. Five years of trying to forget. During that time span I went to business school with hopes of running a business the right way. After some serious soul searching for what business that should be, I realized that the answer was there all along and I did not need an education to learn how to succeed because I already fucked up in so many ways.

1. Putting too much focus on completing a project or album. It is actually a good thing to be obsessed with your craft and to enjoy the process of making the music. However, the production aspect isn’t everything. People have to hear it. I rigorously worked on albums with my rap group only to run out of gas by the time it was complete. Not only did I pay almost no attention to promotion of the music, but I also neglected to assign the task to someone else if I was too busy for it. We would release the CD and initially our friends and family would purchase it. Once we recouped the money spent to produce it. We ended up handing the surplus amounts of cds out for free. We thought that we could just churn out an album and somehow we would magically get a call from an indie label that would book us shows and do the promoting for us.
2. Posting music online and just hoping that it gets views. This appears to be a common mistake. We would all like to believe that our music will speak for itself and that if people just heard it, it will spread like wildfire. This goes back to the challenge of balancing promotional work and production work. If we were manufacturing something T-Shirts, you understand that the shirts don’t sell themselves. You need to get them online yes, but the description and the page need to sway buyers. You would have to convince department stores and boutiques to purchase your T-shirts for their stores. It takes a lot of hard work to create something worthy of posting and a lot of courage to actually post it. But people aren’t going to click on it just to be compassionate. Yes, you can spam your friends and fam to get you to that quick and respectable 1,000 plays. But the idea is to build a fanbase and chances are that most of the people you already know don’t necessarily fall into your target audience. They might think what you’re doing is cool but you are looking for the people who wait for you to release something and are willing to buy whatever you are selling because they are true fans. Consider the artists you are a fan of. Have your ever went to a concert? Bought a t-shirt? Got a paid subscription to Spotify and listened to their channel? More about getting plays for a purpose later down the list. The point is here that you can’t just post something and hope to get plays. Some legwork needs to be put into meeting the right people that will repost your music and give you access to a new audience. There is a whole nother grind that goes into networking within the influencer economy. I have found success in expanding past the “friends and fam” circle by collaborating with artists that have a good amount of clout going on for them. For one particular rap group I produced a song and music video for them. A rap artist that I followed released acapellas of her album and I jumped on the opportunity to remix them with my beats. When I worked as a recording engineer, many independent rappers would pay rappers like San Quinn, E40, The Jacka, The Hoodstarz, etc. hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars just to write 16 bars and record a verse on a track. Featuring a well known artist on your own songs gives you more visibility but you need to make sure that their audience would be a good fit for what you are producing. The same goes for influencers on social media. You can pay some of them to post your stuff for their followers but again, research must be done on their audience versus your target audience to make sure it will be a profitable investment. But nothing beats building a genuine relationship with the people you meet and getting them to support you by reposting your work. You never know who is going to blow up one day. So be nice to everyone. We are all trying to make it. Make sure you do everything you can (short of spamming) to get plays.
3. Taking on too many different projects/skills. In other words starting a new project or idea when you haven’t finished the one you have committed too. As a creative artist, new ideas come up quite frequently. I fell into this trap when I finally had some money saved up to buy some new gear after I just completed mixing and mastering a full albums for two separate clients. At the time I was working on expanding my beat producing skills so I had a free version of Ableton. I decided to buy an APC40 controller and quickly agreed to perform with a band. With money still leftover, my shopaholic self decided to buy a DSLR camera also. Adding an expensive hobby on top of another expensive hobby, the story of my life. After one performance with that band, I did not really touch Ableton Live anymore. The APC40 however, was put in display in my recording studio and placed on “light show” mode to impress my clients. I ended up picking up videography quickly and was able to secure paying gigs. I now have a full time job as a video editor. However, looking back at my studio days, part of the reason why I was never able to break through was due to juggling too many hats. I was a music video director on Monday, a beat producer on Tuesday, an audio engineer on Wednesday, a rapper on Thursday, and a YouTube show producer on Friday. Nothing exactly took off like I hoped because I lacked intense focus on one specific area. Starting a new endeavor was the perfect distraction for reaching a challenging point. It felt noble to take on video production on top of running a recording studio but at the time I was trying to avoid the pains of taking the studio to another level.  Even as I am embarking on my current venture, I am constantly resisting the urge to take action on other brilliant ideas.
4. Setting result-based goals. Setting a lofty goal seems feasible when you are motivated as you are writing it. However, when the going gets tough, an unrealistic “reality” kicks in and all of sudden the goal appears to be overly ambitious. A couple years ago I took my production gear out of storage and declared that I was going to get back on the horse and start beat making again. I set an ambitious goal of making 100 beats for the remaining six months of the year. I burst out of the gate cranking out a beat a day for the first 2 weeks. I was texting my old rapping buddies and sending over hot tracks. They returned with words of praise and encouragement. Then for reasons I can’t even remember I slowed down until eventually, beat making didn’t even cross my mind anymore. An entire year passed until I turned the production laptop back on again. But this time, after understanding my past behavior and the unpredictability of my behaviors,  I placed my focus on a process oriented goal. Rather than aiming for a mountain to climb, I merely committed to spending 30 min a day minimum sitting in front of my laptop working uninterrupted on music for 40 days straight. It didn’t matter if it was whack or if it was just to get familiar with the program again, I was going to get on it. The first couple weeks were challenging because I have a full time job, a pregnant wife, and a toddler. I couldn’t do it when I got home from work or even the weekends because that was reserved for quality family time. Late nights were out of the question because I had to get up in the morning. Then I finally decided that I am going to have to get my music making done in the early mornings. I set my alarm for 5am. It was tough to get used to but then I began optimizing other aspects in my life in order to make the early start time work. I meal prepped my family’s breakfast and lunch the night before. I cut out watching binge-worthy tv series (other than Westworld of course). Instead of putting on a Netflix movie to fall asleep to, I read a chapter of a book right after I read a bedtime book to my son. This nightly routine ends with me in bed at the same time as my kid, 9pm. However, I found that waking up at 5am, although easy to do once I made adjustments, was not giving me an ample amount of time to knock out my beat making. Rather than go back to being my former overambitious self and declaring that I wake up at 4am, I decided to set another process oriented goal. I started with an alarm at 4:57. Then the following week 4:54 and so on until I settled on a 4:45 start time which gave me enough time to brush my teeth, have a cup of coffee, get a good 50min in for working on beats, take a shit break, then cook and eat my breakfast all before my wife and kid wake up. I start my day refreshed and already feeling accomplished. With that type of productivity you can set bigger result based goals from there.
5. Viewing rejection as a bad thing. Who wants to be the guy that has bad breath and doesn’t know it. Maybe you need to be rejected right away so you can become more aware of what you are doing wrong. Sometimes it’s not even your music that’s the problem it might be a character or personality issue. Back in my recording studio days, the owner flew in an r&b artist who was fresh off of an appearance on American Idol to record her demo. I was tasked for recording her session for the week. The first session, just like with any big rapper that came through the studio, producers lined up to play their beats for her. As her recording engineer I had the obvious advantage to get a placement. I was going to be the one of the last producers to showcase my hits and blow the other guys out of the water. Right after me was our head of security who also made beats, an imposing presence who looked like he can play offensive line for the 49ers. When he walked in the room he turned on the charm and got her giggling before I could even press play for his beats. While my beats and others were received with a stoic response, his joints lit up the place and she danced to the beat and proclaimed “that’s the one!” Don’t get me wrong it was a sick beat and he was extremely talented but so were all the other producers. The thing that set him apart was personality. I proceeded to record her demos for the week and when it ended I thanked her for her time and joked around a little bit. Later that afternoon I received a tweet from her thanking me for my service followed by a “not so mean after all.” The message was a wake up call that I need to make better impressions and step out of my comfort zone when interacting with people because my current zone was putting people off.
6. Trying to impress the people who have nothing to do with your potential success. Not considering the customer or target audience. When starting out friends and family are your initial audience but there comes a point when you need to venture out of that bubble and nail down a niche. With the myriad of subgenres for every genre, including hip hop, every type of music has a following. A fanbase could potentially exist outside of your country. However, I was caught up trying to impress the homie who was into my rivals or I was trying convince my hipster cousin who never pays a dime for anything, especially for music, to go to one of my shows. Again, this goes back to understanding your own self and the niche that fits you.
7. Disregarding other artists and not seeing his or her potential. You never know who will “make it.” Imagine how it would feel if the guy that you thought was whack became a big time producer? Dan Lok said “man’s worst fear is meeting that man that he could have been.” Have you ever clicked on an old acquaintance’s music page and found that they have over 10k followers and 100k plays on each of their songs seemingly overnight? Well it didn’t happen overnight. When you were binge watching Game of Thrones they were honing their skills and networking. When you hit them up, they don’t remember you and even worse, they aren’t familiar with your work. So how are you going to ask them to retweet your music now?
8. Putting a time limit on your career. The notion that music making is for young people is a misconception especially for Hip Hop. There are hundreds of sub genres and niches out there so there is a need and an audience for all types of music. Do you know the ages of the people who produced the music that you heard in the background of the last YouTube video you watched? It doesn’t really matter. The music scene is typically associated with a rock star lifestyle of late nights at clubs with drugs and alcohol but it is possible to be a musician who is a responsible adult.
9. Focusing on numbers and especially other people’s numbers. In other words, I would get caught up in how few downloads my album got and get intimidated, discouraged, and depressed over how many more plays another local artist would receive. During the early years of YouTube immediately after posting a video, it was a race to spam everyone I knew until the video received a “respectable” 1,000 views. In hindsight, I realized that the numbers don’t matter in the marathon of making a career out of music. Worrying about play counts and views meant that I cared too much about what other people thought which is an easy way to get on the fast track to quitting. The only number that matters now is how many consecutive days I can stay consistent with my productivity.
10. Not collaborating enough and when you do, not giving your best. Some will quit when it seems like no one wants your beats or wants to fuck with you. But when you did have the opportunity did you give it your best effort? Did you share your best beats with that rapper? Did you spit your best lyrics? Around the time that my beat productivity began its slow decline, I aimlessly posted beats. Discouraged by the low level of interest, I failed to read comments and my inbox. I missed a dozen messages from rappers and producers who wanted to either purchase beats or collaborate. A good way to become irrelevant is to ignore your messages. I can count another half a dozen times that I was in talks with collaborating with a rapper and not having a song produced because we lost contact after they did not pick anything out of the first round of beats I sent them. Like I mentioned before, you never know who will blow up or who will hear the music so give it your best. If you are worried about wasting your best beats the simple remedy is to just make more heat. I got attached to my best hip hop instrumentals because they were so rare. You will easily part with gems when you are confident another hit is on its way.

My Experience As A Rapper & Why It Didn’t Work Out

What is considered a successful rap career? Getting a song on the radio? Getting signed to a major record label? Reaching 1 million views on YouTube? I have seen rappers achieve one or more of the aforementioned milestones yet never make a living, or end up fading away into irrelevancy. There are tons of ways to define success and different individuals have different goals. In my opinion, a respectable career involves longevity and the creation of a fan base that will buy your music and attend your shows. If my goals were that simple, why I am I here now writing this blog as a beat producer talking about how I used to rap? Today, I am happy with my decision to focus solely on production but the big reason why I did not reach my targets in the first place was because I gave up. I accepted every excuse that I could think of to justify my unworthiness. In hindsight there were several adjustments I could have made. Here are a few reasons why my rap career did not work out:

1. Didn’t Work On Stage Presence. Performing live is the perfect way to gain new fans and gain some recognition. The point of a live show is to entertain the crowd. What to people find entertaining? Charisma. A sense of humor. They want to see passion. They want to be inspired. They want any hint of personality yet I displayed none whatsoever. I would stiffen up to the point where I couldn’t even nod my head on-beat and when it was my turn to rap, my arms would start flailing around as if I was getting my first swimming lesson and I was pushed into the deep end. My eyes were glued to the floor preventing my from making eye contact with anyone. The image I projected made me forgettable thus making my music forgettable as well. The purpose of performing at a gig is to make a connection with your listeners. Over a five year span I was able to land live gigs up and down the California coast with my rap group, many of which were paying gigs. It was a fun experience but I can’t help but feel like they were wasted opportunities due to my shortcomings in my stage presence. With time and work, it could have been improved upon.
2. Stayed In Comfort Zone. How does an artist continue to improve his or her craft? The path to excellence is through personal growth. One way to grow spiritually and intellectually is to force yourself to step out of your comfort zone. During the heydays of my rap career, I only interacted with people that I knew well. I rarely made the effort to build relationships with the people I met. I only recorded songs with my group and rarely collaborated with other rappers. As for the content of the music, I did not challenge myself lyrically. We rapped about rapping and focused on developing tongue twisting rhyming combos where an entire bar rhymes with the entire subsequent bar. If I wanted to improve my rapping perhaps I shouldn’t have stopped free-styling. I stopped joining in cipher sessions and stopped entering emcee battles because they were challenging and required me to work harder. As for promoting my music, I made sure I was as comfortable as possible, literally. I’d be at home in my pajamas submitting emails and posting music online. Nobody likes spammers but on the other side of the spectrum nobody will know you exist if you don’t get outside and meet people.
3. Made Excuses. When things didn’t work out such as landing gigs or selling CDs, I would put energy into justifying my failure. I would say things like “If my band mates would just put more effort in promoting…” “If I had a bigger budget…” “If people in my city weren’t such haters…” “If my own friends weren’t such haters…” “If I just had more time…” All of these excuses had one thing in common. It placed blame on other people instead of myself. We all hate excuses but we often find comfort in them because it gives us the illusion that the responsibility is taken out of our hands. If I had just owned up to my shortcomings and mistakes, I could have addressed them head on and made some progress.
4. Acted Too Sensitive. I was ready to make music but I wasn’t ready to take on the criticism. I once had a gig and noticed some drunk kid in the back flipping us off as we performed. As soon as our set was done I rushed off the stage and confronted him. We were separated but I looked like a fool. What was even worse than criticism for me was the lack of interest from others. When my music didn’t rack up play counts and comments online I would take it personal. The negativity would eat me up inside and my productivity suffered. Instead of taking the feedback and turning it into positive improvements, I would take the blows, hit the ground, and stay down. Failure, mistakes, and critiques are actually cheat sheets to instant improvement if you learn to develop a thick skin. When I say “thick skin” I mean not giving a damn what people think or at least not putting so much energy in something that you cannot control.
5. Didn’t Find & Cultivate an Audience. Remember how stage presence helps you engage with the audience? So does your online presence. It sounds obvious, you can get a feel for who your true fans are by who leaves comments, what they say, and what they purchase. I failed to compile some sort of mailing list of people who were willing to buy anything we put out. I failed to respond to positive comments on our music pages and videos. Once we figured out who our audience was, we did not really put an effort into creating music for them. In other words, When we wrote our music we did not solidify our identity. We gained some fans because they really dug our tracks with singing. Some fans really liked battle raps and others liked the inspirational songs. As far as content, we were all over the place, making it difficult for fans to know what they were getting, preventing them from becoming loyal long term fans.
6. Unrelatable Lyrics. Once I found my voice and mastered the art of rhyming, I was able to rhyme multiple combinations of words and have it all make sense. My writing focused on this skill excessively. While from a technical standpoint it is impressive, it doesn’t appeal to listeners on an emotional level. One blog reviewed one of my last albums and referred to our lyricism as being a bit too “cerebral.” Writing relatable lyrics and connecting with the listener begins with what I discussed earlier, personal growth. People relate to stories not techniques. I wrote one of my best songs after I visited my grandmother’s province of origin in the Philippines for the first time. Discovering my roots and getting in touch with my family history inspired me to write. It is one of the few songs that fans sang along to when I performed it. The key takeaway is that impactful lyrics come from the heart.
7. Did Not Eat/Breath/Sleep Rapping. If you are a rapper, embrace it as part of your identity. If you are too embarrassed to tell a coworker or don’t think it’s appropriate to tell a stranger how are you going to muster up the courage to pitch your music to an industry professional. Are you writing raps everyday? Do you scribble rhymes on napkins? Are the margins of your math homework riddled with punchlines?
8. Did Not Challenge Myself. One of the biggest excuses I gave myself was “I am not hood enough so I can only go so far.” Being a musician is about creatively expressing yourself. I kept focusing on a limitation that was a figment of my imagination. All my rap development needed was growth. As I discussed earlier you grow when you put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Right out of college, I moved back into my parents’ house while I tried to make it as a musician. Perhaps moving to Hollywood would have motivated me more. Trying to make a living in New York city might have given me a new perspective. Maybe relocating to a foreign country would have forced me to experience the adversity that my personal development needed. Challenging yourself as a rapper isn’t just about writing better lyrics. The words you write are a reflection of life and your experiences. Experience something new everyday. Your lyricism will benefit from it.
9. Walked Away When It Got Tough. I will never forget the string of events that led to the demise of my rap career. My rap group which was once ten deep, was now just me and one other rapper. We were polar opposites. He was making a name for himself on the battle rap circuit and I was on the same grind but with beat battles. We got to a point where we were performing at 2 gigs a week. Then the bookings became fewer and fewer. Then we finally got three gigs in three days. It was a glimmer of hope. I showed up for the first gig and I wasn’t even on the list. We even had to pay $20 each to get in the club. Humiliating. I then receive an email, notifying us that our next gig was cancelled. Strike two. Deflated, I pick myself up because the third show booked that week was at the UC Berkeley campus. We always had success with crowds in Berkeley as well as on every college campus we ever performed on. This was going to be the slam dunk to get my confidence back. As we walk up the steps to the Zellerbach hall, the friend who booked us the gig to perform for the school’s Filipino student association greets us right outside of the venue. “I have bad news” she tells us. She didn’t even have to explain any further. I somehow already knew that it was just our luck that the set was cut for time. I sat on the steps right outside the hall and contemplated my career up to that point. The latest strikeout showed me that it was time to hang em up. It was a choice that I don’t necessarily regret but I do wish I had a little more perspective back then.You are going to get rejected and ridiculed at some point. It’s just the nature of the business. The same goes for the good times. It is easy to revel in a big accomplishment such as opening up for one of your idols or getting airplay on the radio and expect the good times to keep rolling. At some point it will get dicey and you will experience some adversity. I now realize those bumps in the road are positives, signs that I am heading in the right direction.