I’m getting so tired of the amount of unsigned rappers that claim they’re better than *insert rapper of the moment*. Honestly, shut the fuck up. I’m so glad Kanye said, “And if you can do it better than me than you do it”. You’re not better than anyone. You tweet all day about your mixtape that’s “coming soon” and no one cares. Then you shoot a no-budget video and tweet it to me and every other tastemaker hoping someone will listen. No one cares. There’s way too much noise. I have trouble keeping up with what major artists are doing to keep up with you’re upcoming mixtape.

Now before you boil over, I don’t want to discourage you, I love that you’re passionate about becoming an ARTIST. But your passion is misdirected. INSTEAD OF TRYING TO BECOME FAMOUS BY EMAILING AND TWEETING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP, WHY NOT TRY TO CREATE SOMETHING THAT YOU WILL BECOME FAMOUS FOR. Said another way, you can’t email you’re way to fame. You have to make songs (and videos) that are so amazing that people want to retweet your links, want to share your song, want to tell people about you. This is what we call “organic growth”. It’s something natural, the people have decided you are what’s hot. I know this might be a hard concept to grasp, but it’s really not.

In rap especially, it’s so hard to get attention because “everyone’s a rapper”. But mostly everyone’s garbage. You want your product to stand out from the crowd. But how do you do this? Because hip hop (and music) has gone global, you’re literally competing against every ‘hood in the world for attention. And that attention is decreasing. Fans are becoming more and more jaded. We are dying for great music that’s why when we do find something that’s good (not great) we go ape shit. You shouldn’t be discouraged by this, rather use it as an opportunity to make BETTER MUSIC. And by better music, I don’t mean just a little better, I’m talking about mind-blowing leaps better than the competition. Besides if everyone is garbage to average, what’s going to make you stand out?

Stop bothering bloggers to post your stuff, if it’s amazing they will eventually (and naturally) get wind of it. If it’s not, don’t worry, keep it moving and make something better. You have to look at the actual songs you have and ask yourself if they can compete with the top artist and more importantly if they are giving the world something new. If they don’t, why are you wasting your time? Why are you wasting my time? Nothing else matters. No one cares how much talent you have, how cute you look, how much street cred you have, who your dad is, where you’re from, how much dope you sold, how much you spent on videos, how many shows you did, who played your song, which blog posts your video. All of that stuff doesn’t matter anymore (and probably never really did in the long term). What matters is THE MUSIC.

We all know there is very little money in music anymore. If you are going to be a rapper, you are in this for the long haul. You better be able to record in your house, be able to mix and even produce your own stuff. No one’s going to do it for you. Dr. Dre isn’t going to reach out of the sky and take you out of your ‘hood. It’s honestly not that hard. There’s millions of youtube videos on the subject. If you really want it, you’ll teach yourself. If you’re doing it for the fame then you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. If you’re doing it to get out of the ‘hood, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Sure you can have a hit single, but then what? How many artists can we name that are one hit wonders? They weren’t in it for the long term. THEY AIN’T IN IT FOR LIFE. Being an artist isn’t a job, IT’S A CALLING. When you start looking at it like this, that’s when you see what you’re really made of.