Making it in the music industry isn’t a day job. It requires hard work, focus and lots of determination. Mostly, my advice to musicians or let me say upcoming artistes is to go and hustle, maybe academically or by learning some hand jobs.
Normally in the world we are today, we need money to make more money, and the same procedure applies in the music industry, you need cash to make the fame. Making it in this industry requires money. If you are an artiste, there are lots of artistes out there, and what competitive edge do you have over those ones. Now listen to the advice form the King;
- Have nice composing; compose every of your song like it’s what will let you make it, don’t have any whack sound or any uncool music composed. I use to say, the kind of music you do will attract your own type of fans
- Use good music producers; Some people produce music for 3k or 4k. What do you think? Can you compare what will be produced or the sound it will give to those songs produced for like 30k or 40k. NEVER!! There is no good production that will require 3k, when the producer is no family of yours. Even if he is, he can produce for free rather than charge you such amount. Because you are upcoming and you don’t have much, I’m not saying you should start looking for expensive producers, all I’m saying is that look for very good producers. I’m not into music production price, all I’m saying is that you’ll know nice sounds or nice productions when you listen to one. Sing songs using nice productions and nice beats. Let someone listen to your single track and know you have done something great, than listening to 15 tracks and still can’t get a nice music in what you do.
- Promotion; this is mainly where money is involved. Promoting music doesn’t just mean putting your song on blog sites and maybe Alaba mix and think you’ve done it all. There are many songs by many artistes at different sites, yet the artistes are nowhere to be found. Many people just go to those sites to download songs of stars and superstars. Just a few people download songs from upcoming acts. The bloggers can promise you 10,000 downloads, which is very true, you can get 10,000 downloads when your songs are at very popular sites. But what is 10,000 listeners compared to the millions of people that should listen to your song so you can make name. Putting your songs on sites is the number one promoting step though, in fact it’s just the first step, but there are many other things to be done. Note that ‘the more money you spend promoting your music, the more viral your music goes’.
When you make it, you’ll make money, but before you make money, you’ll spend money. I just laugh when I see some people with 10 tracks and they are still up-coming. It’s just because they keep repeating the same promoting procedures all over and over again. Some will say they have been recording songs for years, they’ve been up-coming for like 10 years, and they are still up-coming, when on earth will they get there.
It’s not like I’m saying music is for the rich alone NO, but if you really want to make it, either look for money, get a sponsor or best a recording company or label. Getting labels these days is not easy, that’s another talk for another time, but if you really want to make name in the music industry, money is very involved. God bless you all.

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