THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU: Yes! The kind of people you surround yourself with, determines how far you will go in your career. Remember that popular saying “show me your friends…..”? some of you will rather hang out with friends and party all night long wearing blings with silly hair cuts than spend time working on your craft. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have fun, but when you spend 80% of your time, energy and resources with friends who don’t contribute meaningfully to your development as an artiste, then there is something seriously wrong!
You need to re-evaluate your associations. Surround yourself with talented, serious minded and focused people. Hang out with people who are successful in their own fields. Friends who care about you should care about moving your career forward and not drawing you back.
LAZINESS: Get one thing straight, Lazy people will never make it in the music industry! Success does not come cheap, and it sure doesn’t come on a platter of gold. You have to be ready to do the grunt work. Some of you are where you are right now because you sit on your lazy ass and expect everything to be done for you. You want free recoding, free promo and free PR, free Video shoot, Free everything! You need to wake up to reality. Go out there and WORK!
Laziness is a disease you should never allow. Take out time to learn new things about your career. Do research on the internet, listen to music from different genres for inspiration, take voice training lessons, work on your song writing skills, take dance classes and practice your stage performances, KEEP WORKING!
LACK OF VISION AND DIRECTION: I feel very sad whenever I listen to an artiste tell me “ma, I just want to blow! Please help me”
Guys, that kind of mentality will NEVER get you anywhere! How many of you upcoming acts actually sit down to analyze why you’re in this industry? Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 20 years?
If you are serious about your art and you have a vision for your career, it will be very evident in the way you handle everything related to it, and it will even show in the kind of song you write and the way you brand yourself. You need to sit down for a minute and ask yourself, “Where am I going with this?” You need to also have a clear understanding of your goals and don’t get sidetracked by outside influences, people, or problems.
NEGATIVE ATTITUDE: Attitude is everything! Yes you might have encountered several difficulties trying to break into the industry, but carrying that luggage around is not gonna help you. You need to approach every new contact with a clean open mind because trust me, when you come around expecting to be treated badly or snubbed, you most likely will. So loosen up and relax! Be resilient. Don’t allow the negatives that happen along the way cloud your vision of the positive that is just around the corner.
PRIDE: It’s quite unfortunate that so many budding careers have crashed as a result of pride or arrogance or “swag”. Whatever you choose to call it, you need to watch your behaviour, especially with industry people and fans!
As an artiste, ignoring your fans in the name of “swag” or “celeb forming” will definitely get you burned. Remember without the fans, you will not even have a career in the first place.
As an upcoming act, you need to keep your head down and ditch the attitude because no matter how much money you have, with an attitude that stinks, you won’t get anywhere. You can throw around all the money you want, industry people will collect it and will still leave you hanging!
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If you’re just coming across this article, you might want to check my precious blog posts for the first part.
1 comment:
Thanks Ma,
God bless you.
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