Shit You Wanna Say But 2 Scared 2 Say

As an artist, you should have a story to tell. No matter if its about your life, about your grind, hell, if its about somebody else. Have something to say, other than just club, bitches, and money.

Nowadays you keep hearing that so and so aint rapping about his life. That may be so, but he is doing a damn good job of portraying a lifestyle and delivering it in a unique way.

Whether the story is about your life or not, have 1. It makes it easier to market your music, to build a brand, and relate to fans.

- Dely, GRIND HEAVY

Drop, drop, drop! Thats what a serious artist should do when it comes to making songs. Continue to drop material. If you are reading this, you are not at liberty to have old songs out and expect your fans to wait around for new material. The more you drop, the better.

A fan of a new artist needs new songs constantly. The more material a fan can listen to, the more chances they have of passing it on to their friends etc.

I’m out of town right now, so I may add on to this later or maybe not. I’m still one blog behind anyhow, so i probably wont and just add a new one later this week, sorry.

- Dely, GRIND HEAVY

Practice, practice, practice! I can’t preach that enough. You should first off know your entire song before even thinking about performing it. Nobody wants to just see you rapping on stage like a stiff. Nobody wants to see you overdo it and have the song itself playin in the background while u dont even attempt to rap along.

A hype-man work wonders! In the same sentence, your hype-man NEEDS to know your song! He also needs to know you. He will need to know where you will be taking breaths and need to know when to get the crowd involved.

A weak song in your show can really throw the entire set off and have fans leavin with a sour look on their faces. I always suggest a ‘freestyle’ over a popular beat to get ur set started/get the fans to react.

A weak show will ruin your chances of performing at that venue again, will ruin a promoters trust in you, and will definitely hurt your career tenfold. So, again practice your show!

- Dely, GRIND HEAVY

One thing you need to know about hot songs is that most hit songs from relatively unknown artists is usually bubbling for over a year. A song from an unknown has to make it’s rounds from the underground, college radio, and so on.

Don’t give up on a song that your camp feel is THE ONE. Promote the hell out of that song. Back the song with a lil bit of money. You don’t want to let that hit fall by the way side cuz it’s been a year and a half from when you recorded.

Something you must remember is that the song isn’t old to anybody that hasn’t heard it.

• Dely, GRIND HEAVY

Networking within the music business has been around forever. It should stay around forever as well, but some artist tend to not use it to its full potential. The saying about, ‘its not what you know, its who you know,’ remains true.

Networking could be something as big as doing a track with a big name artist, or something as small as passing somebody a contact of another artist. In the end, that source knows he can trust you and know you will share whatever information you have. In return, he/she may do the exact same with you.

Sometimes that cycle gets broke up and the middle person gets cut off, but don’t let that discourage you from continuing to network.

So at the end of the day, make sure you know how to communicate with people, don’t burn any bridges, and also keep something on you to hand out (IE business cards, flyers, cds, etc). Your break could be walking past you and you don’t even know it.

- Dely, GRIND HEAVY

This is something that every serious artist should be attempting to do. A brand separates you from your music. It gives you an identity. It gives fans something to look forward to. It’s a moniker. It’s you WITHOUT your music. It opens up doors for endorsements.

Now building a brand is not the easiest thing in the world to do. It takes a lot of time to even come up with a brand, that you as an artist, is comfortable with.

For example, when Nelly first came out, he had the bandaid thing. Son had his own line of freaking bandaids! Souljaboy had the superman thing to go along with crank dat. Nicki Minaj has barbies, etc.

Once you build a brand, you then focus your music around that brand. Something simple that every fan will remember well after they are done hearing your music. If you are able to throw it in songs, thats even better.

After you finish reading this, just sit back and think for a few hours of what kind of brand would go along with your image and go from there.

- Dely, GRIND HEAVY

I believe this is something every artist should try nowadays, creating a visual. When I say create a visual, i mean within the track itself. Like the song should create a video without a video being available for the current song.

With that said, dont say something in the third verse that should of been said in the first verse. Do it in kinda like in a chronological type of order, that way every event falls in order and a fan is able to keep up with the song.

This type of strategy make tracks a lot more enjoyable and keep the listener attention tenfold.

- Dely GRIND HEAVY

This is a touchy subject for me, mainly because some people are just assholes and times i dont wanna deal with them at all. But in retrospect, u never know where somebody will be, say 2 years down the line and had u not burned that bridge, u could very well use them to your advantage.

A burned bridge can be acquired a number of ways, but my main thing is just to basically watch what u say. If you giving your opinion on somebody else music, keep in mind they love what they do just as much as you love what u do. So dont only give the bad, also give what u liked about what they do. Just flat out sayin this sucks is a bad move on all parts, no matter how bad the song is. Give a lil positivity in it.

Fucking over someone is probably the easiest way to burn a future bridge u may need. Or making false promises as well. A lot of people hold the word ‘promise’ very high, again, watch what u say.

Now dont get me wrong, some bridges u may just have to bite the bullet and let that bridge burn to hell. A lot of artist try to force feed their music to people and WE hate that. Day after day, week after week, sending/tweeting you wack music after wack music, not even trying to correct some of the things u suggested and expecting your opinion to change. At that point, its just time to let it go and not even care about them, since they not even trying to take your advice into consideration.

With all that said, just choose what u say wisely and know when to JUST give up on someone.

- Dely, GRIND HEAVY

a lot of ppl are always looking for handouts. like somebody supposed to help them, opposed to them goin out and gettin it themselves. the one’s that went out and got it themselves, are the ceo’s and president’s. and the others arent even the one’s thats working for them, they are still waiting….

shotgunnoblitz:

So young… it’s tragic.

never live off what ifs, you are disregarding what u can create now

-Dely

when the thought of me leaving for iraq comes up, i really dont think much of it to be honest with you. but i know as the time nears, it will finally hit me that i will be leavin my family for a full year. its a fucked up situation, but i knew when i joined that i would have to go over there. i joined to give my family a better life and so far thats what we have. the iraq situation will make it even better. a lot of ppl dont agree with it, but ultimately im just doing my job. it is what it is

I left Houston for Kansas a lil over 3 years ago. When i left, my cousins were workin dead end jobs, had i stayed i would’ve been workin the same dead end jobs. When i decided i was gonna join the ARMY, i pitched the good and bad things about it to them and they shrugged it off. I went through basic and AIT and got back to Kansas to my wife a new person. I called my cousins up to see what they been doin the past 3 years, and they still workin the same dead end jobs, livin paycheck to paycheck. What i’m tryna say is, make ur own path, dont expect shit to fall in line the exact same way your dream happened.