YOUNG ARTISTS WITH ATTITUDE

Few days ago, a singer friend messaged me and asked, “As a producer, what are you looking for in an artist?”. His question was actually very hard yet very easy to answer! I, same as most other producers, managers, labels and promoters, are looking for fresh talents with proper attitude. Here is why:
At least when it comes to Entertainment industry, when they say one is having some "attitude" problems, it is not only limited to being arrogant or ignorant or full of themselves, but it also includes issues such as bad time management, lack of commitment, not having a good common sense and in general anything that would make a person not very lovely! Remember, it’s entertainment. If you want to be shitty, and you can’t entertain even yourself to be a good person, how do you want to successfully entertain your listeners?

One thing each and every new artist must know is that no matter how good and talented you are, you still aren't the one and only good artist in the world. You're most probably not going to like this, but the fact is that you must learn where is your place and what are the red lines. No label, manager, producer or anyone else would die if they stop working with you. The world will still be turning and guess what! It is not revolving around you! Do not treat them as if they owe you something. Respect everyone and see how the magic happens to you and your music career. 

Due to the nature of my job, I had been dealing with countless artists from different levels and different backgrounds, and I learned one thing from seeing all of them. The more successful one is, the humbler they are. Let's say it this way, a few months for Flipside's blog, we started a new category called "Artist Interview" where we interview the established and/or experienced artists and they'd share their experiences with the readers. For kick starting the blog, I sent an invitation to about 50 of the artists I personally know. Some of them are established celebrities, and some are not known at all, but they are talented and the would deserve to get some publicity! After I sent the invitations, the next 2 days were very interesting for me. In fact, the responses to my invitation started coming in, right 30 seconds after I sent the emails! The first one, let’s call him Artist A, was the biggest name in the list, and his response in 30 seconds? "Sure bro, I'm all in. Is it okay it I talk about my new coming single?". Very simple and yet polite that even though it’s his interview and to be frank interviewing him was helping me to bring more views to our blog and both of me and him know it very well, yet he was simply asking if he can talk about his new song to promote it! How beautiful was that?

The more responses came in, the more it amazed me! All the big names and successful ones answered in less than 2-3 hours and said they are keen for the interview.
Those "so-so" ones said they're not interested or these interviews are too small for them.
The "nobody" ones (whom from the first step decided to help them by interviewing them) completely ignored and did not respond at all!!
 
What I learned from this was that the humble artists were the successful ones and the losers are arrogant and over confident and maybe that's why they still are in this current stage despite years of being around in this industry!

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 14 years of experience in music production, mix and mastering, recording engineering, live sound designing/engineering, lyrics writing and music arrangement. He has produced more than 800 and written more than 2000 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.