Saturday, November 27, 2010

No Overnight Success: Create Something Great, Then Wait

A lot of you think that success in this rap shit is going to come over-night. It’s not gonna happen! Yeah you may occasionally see a rapper, out on nowhere, create a new dance and appear to blow up instantly. But trust me, even that artist has a story of struggle to tell.
Don’t get it twisted. Just because you may feel that he’s on some lame comercial bullshit, it didn’t make it any easier for him. I’ve seen about 30 different rappers trying to break through with 30 different dances in my city, this year, alone. Most of them won’t get pass double digits in YouTube views.
You should be focused on making some of the most incredible music you can, release it regularly, and develop a kick-ass stage show. Everything else is built off of this foundation. Cultivating success didn’t begin and end in the music business. It takes time develop and grow any business. Let me  give you a few examples and put a few things in perspective for you.
About 10 years ago Tim Westergren founded the now successful online website, Pandora. About 2 years into it, he lost almost all of his funding and he continue to build that company on faith, credit and a some employees that worked for about 2 years with no pay. He is just now, after many struggles with major labels and other obstacles, enjoying some of the fruits of his labor. His story is an educational and inspiring one. You should check out this interview.
It took Facebook almost 6 years to become the giant it is today. Twitter, after starting 4 years ago is just now starting to explore ways to profit off of it’s very popular service. I could go on and on with similar success stories. What these startups have in common is that a lot of time was spent on building a great service first before trying to cash in on undeveloped idea. Myspace abandoned this principle and quickly lost its value.
You have to stop whining about the field being crowded with too many artists. There’s an abundance of tap water yet it didn’t stop them from putting it in a plastic bottle and successfully selling it. Be innovative, keep creating, keep building, keep collabiin. We’re all given the same amount of hours each day. The successful just chose something different to do with their’s.

No comments:

Post a Comment