I have a few informal rule for this music ish, I don't write dem down or nothing but I always have them in the back of my mind like Rosa Parks before she stood up and decided to make noise. One of these rules is "Thou shall not hate", as in, you should not waste your time hating on people. And trust me, sometimes you go feel it.
People do it all the time. How many times have you heard a song that is really popular and the general consensus, even though they bumping it 24/7 to their own apparent chagrin, is that the song or artiste is real mess? And that may be right and it's fine for normal people but me as an artiste, I cyah waste time with even that. I have to dissect that song to find out why it is popular as well as rightly give that soul a pat on the back because even though it may have solely been luck, he/she found a way to advance which is what we all want to do.
Which brings me two paragraphs down to my point: this professional music thing is a game in which we are all competing, jumanji style. There are limited spaces in the vip balcony of success so if you want to be financially successful, whether you like it or choose to acknowledge it, you're competing like Manning and Kamla for those vip seats. And I'm definitely saying that financial success shouldn't be your sole goal unless you wanna work for 96.1 or something but if you want to make money then it will become a concern.
I can see why but it's still kinda strange to me why competing musically has gotten such a bad rep. I have numerous friends who are artistes within my genre of Trinidad rap music and yet I compete with all of them. All of them I'm sure, strive to be the best and yet at the same time I don't hate when I see them getting success and actually try to help them be successful as much as I can. It's almost like a duality, a weird tighrope, where you balance competing hard with helping your adversaries but in my mind true success can never come from a back stab because then you're not really the best; you're just Panday before fate dealt with him. In my opinion, if every artiste in Trinidad, was competing to be the best artiste in Trinidad then there we be a lot of better music.
But we don't compete for that particular accolade. What we compete for is more myopic goals like who could be best friends with radio djs. Or who could win road march. Or who could get the most likes/comments on their facebook video. With exception to the first, nothing is wrong with these smaller goals but they have to be framed within something bigger because it's pretty impossible to not be petty if your main goal is a petty one. Trust me, if your goal is to be the best artiste in Trinidad, likes on facebook is just a small aspect because there are artistes in Trinidad who aren't on facebook but they rough and yuh don't want to follow after they perform and done rip a crowd.
Some of you may still not understand but that's fine cause this is me. And that's why one of my rules is "Thou shall not hate" because it's too easy to lose focus when competing. The focus should be on improving your skills to be the best; not breaking down people who are better like fresh cane to make yourself the best by default. And with that said, I gone. This week I have some videos below for you to check out including the much praised "Stress" video as well as the earlier released "Raining Shots" video so enjoy. Face out.
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