danthrax, the first wop to escape the matrix.

Unless you know a millionaire patron ready to promote you… any hope that you have as an artist will depend on you. Your grind.

The biggest enemy will be obscurity. You might be tempted to refine your work for years and years. But that means your work of genius will only be known by your  immediate friends. You need to work just as hard at building your audience.

Your friends can give you support. But you need to connect to a real audience. A group of people who share a common passion.

That almost always means starting as part of a scene. If your city doesn’t have a scene that suits you, you either need to build one, find one online, or move. And in that scene… quality of the audience matters more than the quantity. One passionate blogger is better than 20 buyers. One good partner is better than one busy venue.

And the key to success in that niche is not to be the best. It’s to be different. To be the first one. To be the only one.

Someone who follows all the rules might fit their niche. But they’ll never lead it. And they’ll never have that X factor that lets them break out of it.

Find a niche, master it, and blow it wide open. That’s it.

Theme Music: YoungBloodZ featuring Lil Jon - “Damn”