[uh-oh]

i started making beats because of the uninformed rumors when you're a youth of people getting 1 million dollars per beat. dre/storch/timbaland etc

then i realized how difficult it was. so i started learning. in learning i realized how dope so many people were who were nobodies. in becoming respectively average i learned along the way my hero's made around 5k a beat if they got on a legit album and maybe some royalties as well if they actually produced the track.

the i turned 18 and realized it was a hobby, but i remember dave chappelle saying on inside the actors studio that when he told his pops he wanted to be a comedian his pops was like wtf, you can't be eddie murphy, but i think his pops was a teacher? and he was like i don't need to be eddie murphy, if i'm a comedian that earns a teachers salary i'd be happy with that cuz im doing what i love

so i was like word word. if i could make 20-50k a year i would be beyond happy.

my entire process changed. i began viewing making beats as a chore. since i got the hang of it a little bit, the end goal changed from "lemme make something that makes sense" to "lemme make something i think is dope in the hope others think its dope" to "aight i make stuff people think is dope, lemme make stuff people think is dope and will pay for"

CREATIVE PROCESS DESTROYED

it was then i did the free beat tapes, which hit with more success than i initially thought. hundreds of thousands of plays/streams, thousands of downloads. but my whole thought was i made all this shit i can't sell it, lemme just give it away. it also hit when blogs were everything. and i was put on a decent amount of those.

but yea i just never got the joy out of it after receiving those minor successes because it was all an illusion anyways. just because people like your stuff means NOTHING. its the same dopamine hit i get when someone i respect on twitter likes one of my tweets. its fleeting. i get more pleasure listening back on shit i forgot i made than shit that either made me money or garnered some type of respect. because who cares

but basically i wrote this novel with the intention of pointing out the only way to make money is to perform, or be massively dope and known, leaps and bounds above your peers, and even then, if you don't perform you're making that teachers salary anyways. but in making that teachers salary you don't realize you've turned what you love into something you hate

thats why i rarely even dabble in it. theres a mountain of shit feelings to wade through to even begin. what was a fun hobby became muddled and ruined by self delusions, and even viewing it as a hobby doesn't matter anymore, because of that moment in my teen years where i wired my brain into thinking it was more than a hobby

godspeed