Which are you: artiste or businessman?

Yes folks, nuff praise to Jah for bringing me back to post for another week. I haven't watched Digicel Rising Star for like two weeks so expect a delayed post if any at all on that. Right now, I'm going to speak about something that has been on my mind for a bit which has been inspired through the observation of our local music industry and through interaction with other aspiring 'artistes'. All of the singers/rappers/whatever I know, aspire to be famous/rich but not all of singers/rappers/whatever I know, aspire to be artistes (or they just think they do). And oh yeah, please remember that other golden rule people...do not sleep with you mouth open in public. It's the youtube era.

One of the most frequently used sequence of words (aka phrase) when speaking to aspiring 'anybodys' in Trinidad is "eat ah food" which, for the non-trinis, means that I'm going to see about myself...make sure that I profit...get mine or what have you. Normally the statement goes something like this: "hoss, I just want to eat ah food yes". Having heard this phrase so much in recent months makes me wonder as an underground artiste; what really is the basis for the struggle? As an artiste you perpetually find yourself trying to achieve two sometimes incompatible goals; producing quality work and making money. Thinking about it some more, I've determined that no sensible musician can ever hope to be successful in the long run by pursuing only one of these two goals but whether you can be classed as an artiste or businessman depends on which one is your main goal.

For example, take Soulja Boy. Dude deliberately promoted himself using the tools available too him...mainly the Internet. He crafted a catchy dance on a woefully minimal beat made from the most basic of tools and used so few sounds on it you would think he was getting charged for melody. Listening to his music, it is clear that he works more on creating himself as a product than on his technique; his lyrics are laughable and his concepts are basic but the punchline is that Soulja Boy is self-aware enough to know all this and not care. In his interviews he constantly lauds his own album sales figures, ringtone downloads and itunes numbers using that data as evidence of his influence on and importance to hiphop, his genre of choice. His main argument is that an in-demand product, however shoddy, is the mark of being a successful artiste. Is he right?

On the other hand, we have Kanye West. Mr. West was already a successful producer (both critically and financially) before he decided to rap. He had no serious monetary reason to so since producers of his stature tend to make hundreds of thousands of US dollars when in demand (which he was) and at the time, he had already made a name for himself. However, Yeezy persevered with his dream against conventional logic and has, at this time of writing, released three critically lauded albums and has been lavished with numerous awards. Nevertheless, Kanye constantly seeks more acclaim and has been known to throw tantrums and/or bomb rush the stage when he doesn't win or get the acclaim that he feels he deserves. Now as we all know, it's clear that Kanye uses a mirror that returns an inflated image of himself but we can't say that we don't know his motivation. Kanye West views his success as indicative of him being a master of his craft. Is he right?

Which one is right? Well if we're talking about a successful artiste then Kanye is. The online merriam-webster only has two definitions of the word "artiste":
1) a skilled adept public performer; specifically : a musical or theatrical entertainer
2) an artistic or creative person
After a quick read of the definition it's clear that I would be wasting words if I proceeded to explain why Kanye West is a successful artiste and Soulja Boy isn't and I highly doubt that Soulja Boy would even care. However, to survive there is a part of us that needs to get our Soulja Boy on. Even though Kanye West is successful, he surely doesn't perform for free and every one of his albums has sold around three million copies. Creating a quality product is only the first step and after that you need to market it (online and off-line), network and build good relationships, try your darnedest to get it played on radio, perform to promote it, do some photo shoots and whatever it takes to let the world agree that your sh*t is good. Making your product successful takes a lot of business skill and rappers like Soulja Boy who focus mainly on this aspect should be considered business men rather than artistes. Their product is specifically crafted with sales in mind.

With all that being said, I reckon that Trinidad has a whole heap ah business men posing as artistes. Bringing back soca songs with the same/similar melody as previous ones, repeatedly sampling pop music in generic ways, bringing back soca songs with the same/similar concepts as your previous hits, aping popular concepts by other artistes, recycling decade old concepts, constantly quarreling about lack of airplay for lame songs, undercutting other artistes' performance fees, being in the industry for years and not improving or innovating even after financial success; all these things seem like a whole lot ah business to me...and not even the good kind not that I'm minding their business. It's getting to the point where the term "soca artiste" is becoming an oxymoron. In an age where home recording is easy and cheap and home promotion isn't rocket science (thank you myspace), Trinidad business men have not even reached Soulja Boy levels. I still hear complaints about how "de Chinee man eh playing mih music" when a full production cost $3500 and a blank cd costs $1 (the word is self-promotion). The moral to take home is: understand which one you are and do you as best as you can. Don't complain when you're critically panned as a businessman and don't whine about poor sales as an artiste. If you're smart you'll combine the two though...ask Jay Z.