By Staff Writer
Dear brethren and sistren, I come in peace but I mean business
The crazy thing about being an artist and pursuing your goals as you envision them is you meet people that seem to see it too, but their goals can change from the ones you shared with them and that can take a toll on you in more ways than many people may think…it’s why you find some artists have different band members, team members than you first met them with. It doesn’t mean that person has a problem, it’s just that their goals didn’t align at some point..
Now, the way that they deal with this from within is what matters most. Not to the other party, but to THE artist coz artists need to keep a healthy mind and spirit and need to protect that at any cost. I for one experienced
1. POOR TIME MANAGEMENT which is equal to lack of respect for one another
We all have things to do, we all wanna go home and just relax with nothing on our plates, we all have meetings to attend. If one of the team members shows up late, it disorganises everyone mentally, spiritually and also as far as everyone’s schedule is concerned, we all fall back including the practice venue owners. So it is very important that we respect each other’s time and meet as is agreed
2.COMMUNICATION
If you suspect that you are gonna be late even by 5minutes, it’s a kind thing to let your team leader know about it, hence saving everyone the stress of wondering if you will show up. Also on that note I recently encountered a band that had a team leader who never communicated the practice schedule to the rest of them. This wasn’t a pleasant thing to encounter at all and having to be in a position to tell them wasn’t something I enjoyed but it was necessary or otherwise they may have dragged me down a rabbit hole with them. Secondly I am not perfect so I have been late for my own practice too, and the thing about it was my band called me out. I respected them for that because they treated and saw me as their equal we were one and that was a very humbling experience I tell you. If they never did that, I would never have changed and I will always respect them for this
3. LISTEN TO THE MUSIC
The reason we do practice sessions is because we need to put into reality what you listen to through your headphones
It’s not a nice thing to come to practice and kill 30minutes each time teaching you a song all over again…it’s frustrating. Remember, practice time is always pre-booked and it is expensive. Anthing we do beyond the pretty-booked time has to be accounted for. It’s not fair that you put everyone through that considering some of the jobs we get don’t particularly favor our pockets when we need them to. Some of these jobs are to help us get to the next level we all want to get to. They aren’t done for profit gains. I know that everyone is on a hustle and I respect that personally really, but if you chose to commit, do it whole heartedly.
4. ARTISTS LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER
As I work, I listen to the band members, I take their ideas in and try them when suggested, If a practice venue owner tells me am out of time, I will request for alittle more if there’s no other band coming after us. It’s sad to walk into practice at your alocated time and find another artist taking 30 more minutes, and the venue owner doesn’t stop them because the other artists are a bigger deal than you are. It’s. Not. Right!
Another thing is as artists we are co-existing with depression, stress and all the like, I will say this coz I have been to a point where I took it out on a lot of people, but I was told and I apologised. Be remorseful. We are all human and are bound to make mistakes but don’t be proud when you are told, these people tell you coz they actually care about you and if they didn’t they would leave without a word or maybe you would get fired or something like that. Back to number (2) communication. This creates a huge bond you can’t replace between you and your band and it always shows
5. MANAGEMENT
A lot of people ask about artist management and living in in a place where (I mean no offence to anyone honestly) the artist management system isn’t something that is very clearly defined, most of our managers are learning on the job and you have to appreciate that. As an artist I would in my humble opinion say, if you meet some people that see your vision and are with you the whole way use that to your advantage because they know how to do certain things way better than you do and you gotta respect that at the end of the day. The managers can show up later and they will know what to do when you meet them.
This is a crazy place we are all in (the world I mean) and the only way we can create some likeliness of unity is how you deal with the people immediately next to you…
And always remember never to be ungrateful because you would never be who you are without them
Your team and that includes the people that totally support you art (I hate to call them fans…not a nice word in my world)
So always REMEMBER you aren’t perfect. Nobody is. In this whole process those few people that love you will always love you
You can go check my website
www.apiomoro.com out and feel free to share your reviews on there. Thanks for all your love and support
Have a goodnight
