End of the day I'm trying to establish my place in the world. I've clocked an insane number of hours writing and now that I know people will read this blog, it's go time.
Up until mid-December I had the safety net of gainful employment. The last few months have me facing my first run at chasing hustles for realsies.
YouTube is cool but apparently I need a portfolio. Something about proving to future employers I CAN write and do it fast. Still there's more to it...
The culture needs documenting
I've been a part of the Montreal scene since June, 2012. There are 3 writeups that include me and I've been on maybe 5 interview platforms, total.
I'm not trying to say I'm special or anything, but I did do a couple of cool things. You figure at some point someone may write about you. For me that didn't seem to happen.
As I asked around, I found out I'm not alone. The PRSPCTV is there is a sufficient lack of journalism, in English, focusing on us. There are quite a number of people who's first interview is a Bridge the Gap episode.
There are other people you should know about:
There are definitely more people making media. These are the people I see at events.
I think Montreal produces an incredible amount of raw and beautiful music. When it comes to our Hip Hop corner, I don't see enough people capturing the essence and sharing it. There is so much history here to take pride in.
It needs to be documented.
Pics or it didn't happen
My performances get shared to a bunch of "Stories" on Instagram. I see people filming stuff during most people's sets. Those "Stories" are fleeting, but for 24 hours or so the news of what we did has spread.
I do see more and more people putting the effort into having people in the crowd film their set. Or we ride solo and lean our phones against glasses of water. A couple of my live sets are just me finding somewhere to put my phone and hoping I stay in frame.
This content can be used to promote ourselves and prove we can perform. When we push this content, it tends very us centric.
Somehow the events aren't being covered the same way. There doesn't seem to be anyone pulling up 5 nights a week at different events with the specific goal of documenting them. There isn't exactly a source we can go to for a real landscape of the underground.
Each of the institutions out there play a different role in building our culture. Whether it's promo, radio, intrerviews, each one plays a part. But like the dark tabloid site of Montreal used to provide, there isn't a lot of writeups on small events.
Rather than sit there and whine about what's missing, I'll try and contribute.
Make the Montreal Underground look good
That's a big part of the mission. I am certain I can find a lot of things to criticize. I did just go on about sound check in a recent post.
However, my goal is to make the event, or the experience sound good. I want to highlight the wins and show off how much fun I have when I'm out.
There are so many people that make up our scene. It's impossible for me to go somewhere and not run into a bunch of people I know. This is a community we have built and it's pretty dope.
Old man that I am, I spend a fair bit of time on Facebook. If you were to really scrub all the Facebook statuses from local artists, and do a sentiment analysis on the tone of the posts, I predict it would be very negative.
Lately I see more positivity. That may be my algorithm or it may be we actually are more positive. Either way, if the fans only see us complaining, why are they going to want to pull up?
The more excited I get about the scene. The more I share how much cool stuff I see, the more people take interest in what we are doing.
Attract em with honey thoughhh.
I do need to make bags too
Turns out you need a portfolio when looking for creative roles. I am not getting callback's like I want for a job. Therefore, I need to up my portfolio.
I applied for a bunch of writing jobs. If you Google me, you can see that I podcast a lot. You'll find music and interviews and album reviews.
Somehow, the professional writer I am, never put anything in my own name publicly. I don't say professional writer as a flex to impress you. For the most part, I earned my day job money off my skills as a writer.
If there was a new policy or process at work, I would bust open the MS Doc file and write that ish up. I've written project proposals, knowledge base content, blog articles, voiceover scripts, emails, landing pages, social media posts & more.
The main thing I'm trying to prove is that I can bang out an article almost every day, on my own. By doing this, it proves that I really can deliver on time, under pressure.
I'm also about to invest time heavy into learning more about Reel/TikTok length content. Adapt or perish.
Long term I want to write books
I always knew the day would come I'd have to focus on writing longform content, for myself. This is different than an assignment. I once wrote 55 iterations of the same page to play to different keywords, it was for money.
This blog is about my life. It's the precursor to my memoires. There is already so much I have forgotten as time passes. Each new and exciting experience trumping the significance of things that happened 7 years ago. I barely remember performing at Just For Laughs, I wish I had written about that day.
Writing a book is going to take a lot of focus and effort. Now I can always go back to this blog, grab content from any article and repurpose it later.
Another book I want to write will be called, "An Oral History Of Montreal Hip Hop". To prep for that I started an interview show that captures the origin stories of people in the city. A lot of the things I'm doing now are based on my 10-year plan.
I want to complain less in person
I need a way to avoid the gossip mill, but still express myself. People have figured out how to bait me and inevitably I will get punched in the face for running my mouth.
You can't control how people twist your sentiment. Writing these articles allows me to address the things I want to focus on without the emotional fluff. I'm personally exhausted from the he said, she said name dropping stuff.
Do I end up gossiping? Yes. I would like to be a person who has the self-control to refrain. I've gotten way better at not saying things about people and focusing on behaviours.
Writing these articles gives me a sense of release. I can throw in a section where I can talk about stuff that bothers me. I can respond to something I saw on Facebook.
I can do all this without going on for 15 mins ranting about 27 things in convoluted tangents. I want us to come together. I don't want to be part of the divisive corny stuff.
I like how 7:30 from Regulators put it, coasting the grey zone between all the nonsense.
Practice makes perfect
I will close this off by stating I need the practice. To achieve my goals I need to keep my writing pen sharp. From what I hear I have developped a pretty good tone for this.
I also want to be the guy you feel inclined to take along on your adventures because you know these blogs will come. I can write this on my phone in the car between cities, just saying.
I also hope to inspire more people to do this. But to do this without acting like there's some petty contest between us. No one's competing with me, I'm super weird in my own lane. I don't see how anyone is going to Out-Holden me.
Everyone else is my peer that I want to work with to build. Simple as that.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone.