A lot of music artists I have met in life reveal that it can be quite difficult to get grass-roots support from their family, friends and inner circle. However there is also a fair share of artists who are grateful to their inner-circle for always being able to count on them for support.
I was inspired by The Genius documentary on Kanye West’s rise to stardom, where a friend of Kanye called Coodie Simmons filmed his friends with an intent of documenting his journey and helping him promote his brand. It is evident that Donda West , the late mother of the hip-hop mogul was also very supportive.
Other good examples of this at play are the synergy between Drake and 40, or Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff. However we understand that not all friends can helpdirectly in the creative process as some friends are lawyers, teachers, hustlers and so on.
This article is not about Kanye entirely though he is mentioned (he was click bait). However it intends to equip friends and family members of artists with advice on how they can be helpful in elevating the dreams of their own. If you have a friend whom you believe to be a great and talented musician here are some ways you could raise their value and help them on their journey to stardom.
We have a moral obligation to aspire great things for our friends and play a role in things that benefit them. Those aspirations must be reflected in our actions.
Note that, some of the tips may be obvious but small gestures, yet you may realize that you may have rarely done them for your friend(s). i want you to read number four carefully.
#1 — Invite your friends to their Facebook page
In order for any artist to grow and sustain a career they need to retain a growing audience of potential listeners. Whilst there is no guarantee that all people invited to a page will accept or be engaged by the content they find there, by taking the effort to invite them you raise the probability of them doing it to any number above zero.
If many of their friends did the same gesture as well, even if a fraction of people accepted it would give them a slightly bigger audience than they started off with.
#2 — Offer your skills and resources to further what they are building
Sometimes a good artist is a few fundamental pieces away from becoming some of the brands you see distantly or on TV and admire. You and your friends can create synergy and co-own media assets by investing together where you can invest your resources whilst they invest their inner-resource which is talent.
Resources may refer to money, skills, services or consultancy. What resources are to you will largely be based on what you were abundantly gifted with. This does not also mean you cannot be compensated where work is done, but it means that you can work out a deal that prioritizes growth of something that you both stand to benefit from.
Don’t be afraid to sign contracts or discuss terms if you feel that you may one day want in on the action.
#3 — Share their content
Besides helping them with invites to social platforms, you can go further to sometimes share their posts or music related content without being asked to. You can even blog about their content if you are a good writer and if you don’t have a fully operational blog there are numerous blogs that will be willing to post guest articles.
It is actually in their favor to have one more piece of content (of course if you decide this, it should be well written in a format that does not wreak of cheap promotional bias).
Remember it was Kanye West’s friend’s that followed him around to document his journey in the inspiring Netflix documentary, Genius . You can offer to shoot a video even if it’s with a phone whenever they perform.
#4 — Give them encouragement
Confidence is courage expressed and the process of instilling courage in someone is called encouragement. Encouragement may come in the form of words, and this is the most common route people are aware of. yet encouragement may also be showing up for their shows when they invite you, buying their CD or merchandise as a token of support or even buying them a simple tool on their birthday that helps them in part of their journey.
Praise them in their presence so that they also get the external validation of the work they are doing. as human beings sometimes when results are not yet materializing it is easy to feel that our impact is not being felt especially by the people we expect to be the primary ones to have their back.
Even when an artist has a small Youtube channel, be one of the 50 views and 6 comments. The initial social proof.
Do not be the 933rd comment and millionth viewer only after they blow up to come and say, “I shared a room with her in college”.
#5 — Introduce them to Audiocus
Audiocus is a streaming service we made with independent and rising artists in mind. You can encourage your friends to freely sign up and and upload their music, new or old for discovery by people who are tired of the propaganda being force fed on major streaming services by Major labels who have a stake.
The algorithms in Audiocus is none discriminatory, however when your friends do upload all promotional techniques such as sharing their work as mentioned above are encouraged. (Tell them to click the link in the description to register)
Here are some of the artists on Audiocus curated by Denzel Sambo in what he calls the Madhu-dooh-char Playlist
