Takin' care of bidness myself

A lot of local recording artiste complain about the various reasons of their failure. I am one of them. Or at least I USED to be one of them. They complain about the radio not playing enough of them, the record label not promoting them properly, the fans not responding, they not getting enough shows, etc. Most of the time all these things ARE true.

I used to be this kind of artiste. Guilty as charged. I'd like to think it is because I got to where I was then quite easily compared to the rest of the other grinding musicians. And I tasted fame and fortune when I was barely in my 20s. At the height of Poetic Ammo's mainstream success back in 2000, I was only 19 years old. Most guys my age were just fresh from school going to clubs. I was sick of partying then cos I performed in clubs when i was 16.I was touring the country, 5 star hotels, doing shows to thousands of people, getting groupie attention, endorsements, TV, radio, newspapers all had us on them most of the time.

And all these great things happening to an Ipoh kid who was living in poverty all his life. So me being the young ass as I was, spent most of the money I earned on all the wrong things, got lazy, got egotistical (a bit), lost my fire, lost my focus, heck I even lost my desire to be a musician.

I was thinking of retiring at the peak of my success. I think deep down I figured all my dreams came through and that being a musician for the rest of my life was not a secured thing to do. So when I was on top, when any hungry artiste would capatilize the moment and further build his career, I drifted away from it.

Bad choice. Competition came in the form of other hip hop groups, and they were HUNGRY! SO hungry they got to the top faster than we did. Its a fact. I'm speaking personally here, but I think this fame hit most of my group, and we all got lazy and lost our way.

I lost my way careerwise. But the tipping point was when I lost people I trusted as friends who for the sake of fame and fortune betrayed me and left me to rot. I will write about this topic in later post.

That was when I said "Fuck this music shit!". At that point I was already cynical and jaded, like how I started this post, I was blaming everything and everyone for everything. I quit the music game late 2003. To me, at that time, that was it.

I was lucky enough to have gotten a scholarship in design from my days in AMMO and set out to the coorporate world. A whole new game. I never had a job other than being a rap star in my life. In the begining it was scary. But like a true Scorpio, when I'm passionate about something nothing can stop me.

I'll leave my working life part to another future post cos' I think I need to get back to my point(no pun intended) of this post.

Flash forward today. I feel like I'm starting from ground up. I need to pass radio my shit so they hopefuly play it regularly. I need to do all my promotions myself. And you know what? I love it. I look at the whole music business today in a different light. I have learned so much before coming back into this and now I feel that if I fail, there is no one to blame but myself. If radio don't play me, I'll make them. If the press don't write bout me I'll make them. If the consumers don't buy my shit, I'll make them. How am I going to MAKE all this ppl give a shit? We shall have to see if my strategies work.

What I am most inspired is with the internet generation of musicians. Its a different ballgame compared to my time. Artic Monkeys and Gnarls Barkley are proven success that the internet is such a gift from GOD especially to musicians. SO here I am, at the brink of my comeback, telling everyone out there, musician, newspaper boy, CEO , executive, if you want shit to REALLY happen? YOu gotta pull those sleeves up and JUST DO IT yourself! Remember the famous saying, Only GOD help those who help themselves. Peace.

p/s: Special thx to Kugen for postin' the internet release bit on bazement.net



Some online promo flyer flooding ur mailboxes soon:) Special thx to Uncle REAL for the design!