A Quote by Kaytranada
I know a lot of people who jumped into a record label right away, dropped an album, and then nothing happened for them. Build your fan base first, and follow your gut.
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Success happened for me when I dropped my first major label album for Def Jam, 'Live From The Underground.'
I fail all the time, but we are all just human and imperfect, but you know what's best for you, so follow your gut. That's probably my biggest life lesson, follow your gut.
In some ways, I value specificity. I think that there's power in, once you know who your fan base is, being able to speak to them. I hope to cultivate a fan base of black girls and black people and people of color, women of color, queer people, people who are are marginalized in general.
I hear people telling me a lot that the production of that particular record - 'One Part Lullaby' - really influenced them. I'm like, 'What? We were dropped from the label after that!'
People want to be the first with the record, they want to be the first to know which songs are on the record, all that kind of stuff. So I like to just stall them a bit. Personally, I love the idea of an album that's completely new, that no one's heard any free downloads, any pre-record releases, all that kind of stuff, and nothing's been played on the radio. Totally virgin, you know, a sealed record. That's my ideal, but it's very hard to get anybody else to agree to do that.
When I first started playing the banjo and miraculously fell into a record deal in Nashville, TN, there was a period when I didn't go to China. It hurt. Like a pain in my gut... that pain you feel when you know it's time to connect with your parents or your God or your child or your past or your future... and you don't do it.
The only way to build a fan base is to have a lot of material out there for readers to find. You can't manufacture a fan base. You create it, one story at a time.
I base a lot of decisions on my gut, and going with an independent label was a good one.
Most entrepreneurs are very gut driven - they have to be because the odds and data are often stacked against them. If your gut says something is the right thing to do, then do it.
I think of going back to the sports field again, and let's take a baseball game. Well, you have cracked out a grounder and you put in your last ounce of energy and you just happen to make first base. But you don't stop there. First base is the beginning. Now you call on all your alertness, your skill, your energy - and you count on your teammates, you count on the people that are working with you. And the purpose of that getting on first base was to get you around to count a run.
The first album is a special one for most bands or most artists in general. The first record is your whole life, and then after that you have a couple of months to write stuff and get it for the next record.
I don't have a massive fan base. I don't have Patton Oswalt numbers, but the fan base I have is incredibly generous, and of the 22,000 people who follow me on Twitter, I think almost all of those people participate.
You have to follow your gut and believe in your film. Nothing else matters.
Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.
'Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.
It's hard when you have a lot of naysayers to know when they might be right or when to ignore them and go with your gut and do something that may seem risky.
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