By: All’my’love Ross (‘20)
The music industry is not an easy career path. A lot of hard work and dedication goes into every song. Whether it is producing music or creating it, the studio time never stops.
Senior Kuryous Ward said, “My boy was making beats and I just hopped up in the studio and went ham. You gotta [sic] have heart and confidence to do this,” he said, referring to the process of producing rap.
Other students related similarly.
Junior Jihad Goines said, ”Rapping has been a gift I always had. It just took me until last year to start getting into it.”
Many of these student artists say that the most challenging part of making music isn’t the music itself, but the audience. Getting people to listen to their music and creating a fan base is very difficult. However, SoundCloud seems to be the most active platform for their advertisement.
According to an article by Hugh McIntyre on the Forbes website, “ It has at least 175 million registered users to its credit… [and] millions more listeners than the next music-only option”.
SoundCloud crawls with many open listeners from all across the world. The Berlin-based streaming website is very convenient and free, attracting many young artists to turn to it to promote their music.
“It’s where everyone starts. It’s so easy to stream music and get people to listen,” Goines said.
The music streaming business embraces these artists and their music.
Soundcloud states on their website that they are “an open platform for both listeners and creators. Anyone can still listen for free and anyone can upload tracks, as long as they own all the rights to do so”.
However, Soundcloud isn’t the only platform for releasing songs. Apple Music is also a well-known in the music business however, it is more for artists who want financial income rather than exposure.
Goines explained, “Apple music is popular but Soundcloud is better. It gets more people to listen.”
No matter how many other corporations emerge, Soundcloud seems to remain in that number one spot.
Many young artists feel insecure about promoting their music or simply don’t know what steps to take to get their songs heard by the public. However, these two aspiring lyricists have become experts in the advertising aspect of the music business.
“Be yourself, don't listen to what anyone else says, just do what you want,” said Goines for tips towards other youthful artists.
Every artist realizes that the music industry can make or break them, according to Ward, so artists have to have thick skin and true love for their music to really be successful.
“Just keep going. People are listening, even if people don’t like it, they're gonna mess with it a little bit,” he said.
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