How Can a Rapper Get Discovered?

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I see talented artists everyday with good material and little to no fans and I ask myself why?

What separates those artists who have thousands and even millions of fans to artists that barely have a handful? In this post, we’ll answer the age old question: how can an unsigned artist get more fans?

(1) Create great material

Think about it, you’re competing against a million other people doing the exact same thing.

If you’re a rapper you’re competing against Drake.

If you’re a singer you’re competing against Adele,

If you’re a rocker you’re competing against Coldplay.

The point is you’re competing against acts that are better funded than you, have a bigger fan base than you and probably work way harder than you.

What’s going to allow you to compete is your material and it better be damn good.

How do you know your songs are good?

When you play them for other people they beg to download them, they follow you on Instagram and Twitter, they subscribe to your Youtube channel and they for sure stream and follow you on Spotify or Apple Music.

Your material has to create a reaction in others, if it doesn’t you’re toast.

Also make sure you get your hip hop songs mixed and mastered.

(2) Get your material out as fast as possible.

When you get signed and have a hit song and actually have a fan base, you can’t just release a song whenever you feel like because the labels and artists like to be “strategic”.

But they’ve become too smart for their own good. The advantage an unsigned artists has is they can release their song, their video and their album whenever they damn well please.

In today’s world where a video only lasts a day, you should create a schedule for releasing material on a regular basis.

This will not only help you get more fans, it’ll help you learn how to release songs.

You’ll come to realize quickly what isn’t working and what is, most things you try wont work.

The main thing is getting into the process. I recommend dropping something every month.

(3) Shoot videos for all your songs

Don’t think about the “quality vs quantity” argument just yet.

These videos could start of with just you on your webcam and then gradually work your way up to paying some whiz kid to shoot a $500 video on his DSLR.

Better yet save up for a camera and shoot the videos yourself.

The main idea here is again the process. By constantly putting yourself on camera, you’ll get better at it and if you’re good you’ll gain a few new fans along the way.

(4) Entertain

This is the entertainment business.

You have to be able to entertain people through your art.

That should be your sole objective.

Forget everything else.

This is the key to make it today.

If you are not giving fans an experience when they listen to your music, you’re just adding to the noise.

Look at every rapper or singer that has made it over the last 3 years, they have all been extremely interesting.

Notice I didn’t say “talented”.

Talent doesn’t matter. What matters is: is your music interesting?

(5) Promote

Last but definitely not least is you have to promote your music and by promote I don’t mean you post about it once on Instagram or make one Tik Tok video and you’re done. I’m talking about paying for promotion. But don’t just give your hard earned money to anyone offering to promote your music. I’m talking about taking out ads on social media such as Instagram and Youtube to promote your music.

If you don’t have the funds to pay for promotion, I’ve written about 16 Proven Ways to Promote Your Music and can almost guarantee that if you do everything on that list and don’t have any new fans, then something is seriously wrong with your music. But that is okay because you learned your music isn’t cutting it and can fix that. Always remember the first rule of music promotion: create great material!

More Ways to Improve

Photo by Chase Fade
 

 

Andre is the head audio engineer at ADG Mastering, which he helped found in 2012. For the last 10 years, he has made it his mission to empower aspiring artists and musicians from around the world. You can see more of Andre's writings on our Blog.

11 Comments

    • Cool I just wanna be noticed by lot if people. I just want to be like my favourite artist Nasty c
      Well one day I will be known as lil T
      Or Temptation Red
      Just wish because this is my dream
      I need to live by rapping and rapping live with me and by my side I a cool rapper

  1. but i write them and ih ave no one to sing them to so i just write but if i was to get a phone call home i would be so happy and would hit sum bars real quick

  2. I wanna be put on. I write but I can also freestyle off the dome. I have made some of my own music already just want it put out there. I would be grateful to make my family proud.

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