Growing up on the Southside of Chicago, I idolized the rappers that my city helped create. From Lupe Fiasco to Kanye West, Hip-Hop culture was very prevalent all around the city. It should come as no surprise then that my friends and I would often make it a ritual to freestyle at lunch tables or after school. We all wanted to feel like our favorite rappers, but we always knew the reality was we could only ever hope to be one of them, because although it was fun to dream, being a rapper was just a dream. But in 2016 there is every reason to keep the dream alive.
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In the past if a person wanted to become a rapper it was an intense and time consuming process of making music, perfecting the craft, gaining a following, and, finally, getting a major label’s support. These days the process is relatively simpler. Yes, studio time is still costly and hard to come by and yes, gaining an audience is tricky, but neither task is still as hard as you may think. My friends, for instance, are pursuing rap careers and they have managed, together, to build a home studio which requires nothing more than a computer, a quality microphone, and some acoustic set up work. There is also plenty of software for beat making as well as audio mixing that even the most technologically illiterate person can use well. As a result, production isn’t as hard as it once was.
Distribution of music has also made strides in becoming much more artist friendly. Street campaigns like gorilla marketing, performing at open mic events, and giving away music for a low price if not for free are still effective, but not there are many alternatives. Thanks to the popularity of YouTube, a rapper has the potential to get their work shared worldwide and be sent on their way to stardom. It is all but difficult for an artist to upload their work online to any number of music sites and release their music for free as a mixtape in order to gain a following. And aside from being easy to upload, mixtapes have a huge audience with even lesser known local artists receiving thousands of downloads. Thanks to social media if an artist’s work is good it can easily spread like wildfire
Don’t get me wrong, becoming the next rapper to command the attention of a world of music lovers is by no means easy. Thousands of people are all trying to become an established artist every day and It requires tireless effort, dedication, passion, and some rejection before an artist can even begin to make a name for themselves. And unfortunately not many people have the talent or work ethic to continue trying. But, to be cliché, nothing worth having ever comes easy and we live in a world where music is mere clicks away from becoming the next big hit. A friend of mine recently uploaded a mixtape of his work on SoundCloud and who knows, S. Joey’s 15 Minute Stretch EP may be the first of many tapes people look back when they reminisce about his rise to fame. So, to any and all aspiring MCs, I say keep rhyming and keep your dream alive.
