When I first began pursuing a professional career, I really didn’t have any idea on where or how to begin.  As a result, I spent a lot of time trying to find my way by doing lots of different types of things related to singing. From these experiences,  I learned a lot about myself and where I did and didn’t fit in. More importantly, I allowed myself to step outside of my own box in order to find out what really worked for me and my voice. As a result, I believe that I have finally found my niche as a singer/songwriter.

The best piece of advice I can give any singer who wants to create a career for his/herself is as follows…”Do everything, do nothing, and then do something”. I am basically saying explore and make some decisions about what it is you are willing to do and what it is you don’t want to do. This is not the “American Idol Fix” you see on TV but this is a methodical, sensible way of exploring the possibilities of a music career.

For more information Contact:

CLP Company

(707)704-7968

marketing@tamikanicole.com

 Tamika Nicole Celebrates First Round Grammy Nominations

With Live Performance at Yoshi’s San Francisco

San Francisco, CA, October 23 2009 – On Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 10:30pm Tamika Nicole will be appearing at Yoshi’s San Francisco. Tamika will be performing music from her latest release “The Art of Letting Go” which recently made the first round of Grammy nominations. Dr. Dee Spencer, Professor of Music and founder of the Jazz Studies Program at San Francisco State University, will also appear as a special guest during the performance.

 Tamika Nicole is capturing the hearts of music enthusiasts with her latest release “The Art of Letting Go”. A 2010 First Round Grammy Nominee, she is carving a niche market for independent artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tamika’s newest project, “The Art of Letting Go”, has been burning up independent music charts in Europe and is a favorite amongst Internet Bloggers and Music Enthusiasts all over the world.

 Tamika Nicole, the Oakland, California native, began her music career in Open Mics, Jazz Jam Sessions, and Musicals while being gainfully employed as an Educator. Sitting in with such notables as Dr. Dee Spencer, Tamika began forging a solo career by creating her own unique sound fusing Funk, Rock, Blues, and Gospel. In 2001, she released her first project “My Message”. Earlier this year, she independently released “The Art of Letting Go” with production from Jamie Hawkins (Tramaine Hawkins, Walter Hawkins, Donnell Jones) and Jimi Fischer(The Temptations, Steve Winwood, Aretha Franklin), which explores life’s experiences and what it takes to overcome its pitfalls.

Tamika will be appearing at Yoshi’s San Francisco on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 10:30pm with her full band. Dr. Dee Spencer will also appear as a special guest. Tickets are $10.00 in advance and $14.00 at the door. For more information, please visit www.yoshis.com. For information on Tamika Nicole, visit her website at www.tamikanicole.com .

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Peace Out-TWC

Yes, it is hard to work full time and pursue music. Lately, the way the market has been going, you don’t really have a choice. The days when benevolent patrons pay for you to pursue your art are over. If you want a career in music, you need to create a product.  Products don’t just fall out of the sky, you have to pay for them.

I once dated a musician who worked every single day. He had good benefits and received a paycheck every two weeks.  Whenever he interacted with other musicians, he never told them that he had a day job. It was like he was ashamed of that aspect of his life.  I actually really respected that aspect of his life. It showed me that he was responsible, dependable, and more importantly connected to the outside world. It is just a shame that he couldn’t see that it was valuable to him.

Now don’t get me wrong, I want to be a full time singer/songwriter myself but I understand the greater value in getting your butt up everyday and going to work. Benefits, health insurance, and sick time are important. Who wants to go to the local county hospital or free clinic when something is wrong? More importantly having some economic stability is what really makes your art grow not being destitute, living with random people, or not being able to put gas in your car.

In essence, striving for your dream seems magical, mysterious, and even intoxicating. It especially seems that way when you are an outsider looking in. I remember I used to sit in my grey cubicle at “Large Healthcare Company” and fantasize about how great it would be to pursue music full-time. I pictured the pursuit of musical dreams to be a place where singers, musicians, and writers held hands and made some of the funkiest and most enlightened music ever. The thought of money and resources never entered my mind until I decided to create a product myself.

As I was creating my first CD, I realized that I needed money in order to really produce the type of project I wanted to. It was my first dose of music business reality. I learned if you want something bad enough, you need to invest in yourself. At times, I have worked jobs that have been beneath me or really stressful just to make my music. In short, I had to do what I had to do. I am still in the same mindset.

Eventually things have started to turn around for me. I still do invest in myself a lot. However when I work with other people, they are also willing to make an investment in me. They know I am going to work hard to produce positive results.

Bottom line is if you want to make it, you need to first invest in yourself. No one is waiting with a bag of money to hand over to someone who doesn’t believe in themselves enough to make the first investement in their own dream. You need to know and prepare yourself for all of the costs involved in your dreams. Remember it is your dream, not Bill Gates’ or Oprah Winfrey’s.

I remember when I first began singing professionally. I literally dived in head first. Even though I was working full-time, I made sure I immersed myself in music.  I took classes to improve my craft and in the music business , I sang at Jam sessions and open mics,  I learned multiple styles of music, and more importantly…I was willing to invest in myself- I created my very own product. I approached the music industry very much like a college student would approach getting their degree.

I don’t believe my path is the only way to creating your niche but I do believe one needs to have the same zest and determination if they want to see their own success in this business.

Over the next few posts, I am going to discuss some of the ways I have created a career for myself as singer/songwriter. Because I often had to search for information, I have decided to share my story. I hope that you can learn from my experience how to create a career for yourself.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15965_6-music-industry-tricks-that-must-die.html

Rap and Bullshit

http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-01-07/music/rap-and-bullshit/

Today’s R&B is pure garbage.

By Ben Westhoff

published: January 07, 2009

As one of contemporary R&B’s brightest stars, John Legend possesses Grammys and hits galore. But could he be any blander? His twinkling tunes about love and relationships are at best serviceable, and lyrically he treads the same ground as a hundred other singers. His status as a genre top dog says plenty about the state of R&B itself, which has become crummy and pointless, derivative and boring. 

In terms of social relevance, innovation, and pure originality, no one approaches the titans of earlier generations like Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding, or even Michael Jackson and Prince. R&B is missing a transformative star, but seems unlikely to find one right now because, as a genre, it barely exists.

Though always something of a hodgepodge, R&B was once a formidable format, a combination of soul, gospel, and funk whose best artists didn’t hesitate to experiment with style. But in the ’90s and ’00s, R&B has become pigeonholed. Attempting to piggyback on hip-hop’s popularity, its artists use rap beats and hire MCs for guest verses, resulting in a sound virtually indistinguishable from rap. (Try turning off the vocals on Legend’s “Green Light,” for example, and see if you can tell the difference.) One of R&B’s biggest names, Akon, is so strongly associated with hip-hop that he’s sometimes mistakenly referred to as a rapper.

Fusing genres was traditionally a big part of rhythm and blues — hell, Ray Charles initially made a career out of it. But since New Jack Swing injected a street mentality and rowdy backbeats in the 1980s, R&B shows little desire to evolve or take creative risks. Its crooners have become largely separated onto urban radio stations, inspiring one mildly successful, format-following clone after another.

The watering down of the genre is one reason it’s been disparaged as “Rap & Bullshit.” Another is because it’s artistically moribund. The vast majority of R&B lyrics are disingenuous and clichéd. Enough already with testaments to mothers, to promises of everlasting fidelity, and to female empowerment anthems written by women with multimillionaire husbands.

The most successful R&B artists aren’t artistically compelling. Take Ne-Yo, a decorated singer-songwriter who had an even better 2008 than Legend. His recent album, Year of the Gentleman, is a commercial smash and has been well-reviewed by the likes of Rolling Stone. And yet … were we not so starved for R&B possessing even a whisper of creativity, we might have more soberly assessed this banal work. Ne-Yo’s monster hit “Miss Independent” is arguably the most derivative piece of pop in recent memory. Profoundly asserting that women who have their own thing going on are cool, the song rips off a concept espoused by Webbie and Lil Boosie last year, by Destiny’s Child in 2000, and by Susan B. Anthony in 1852. The track’s beat is stolen wholesale from Justin Timberlake’s hit “My Love,” while Ne-Yo’s singing is filled with grating melisma. I’ll give him credit for collaborating with New Kids on the Block — it’s hard to resist “Single” — but let’s be honest. If Ne-Yo were to stop making records today, would anyone remember him in 20 years?

In truth, Ne-Yo and R&B’s other reigning king, Usher, are little more than bland, well-dressed Michael Jackson wannabes with good choreographers. Neither has done as much to push the genre forward as sexual nonoffender R. Kelly, who at least is willing to take musical chances. (Unfortunately, he doesn’t qualify as a respected R&B icon because he hasn’t made strong albums, and his legacy is tied up in his perversions.)

As for queens Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé, and Keyshia Cole, they offer little more than overproduced girl-jams only discerning fans can tell apart. None seems to take any pleasure in craft. While all three women have fascinating life stories — Cole’s mother was a prostitute and drug addict — you’d never know it from their bland discographies, full of boilerplate love-lost laments and CVS-friendly stay-strong anthems. The music from second-tier soulstresses like Ciara and Ashanti, meanwhile, doesn’t hold up without the benefit of gruff male voices to contrast their meek vocals. (If you’ve heard Ashanti’s latest album, The Declaration, you’ll know this.)

Crooners like Anthony Hamilton, Robin Thicke, and Raheem DeVaughn have gotten critical kudos as well, but they all fall short. Take DeVaughn’s latest album, Love Behind the Melody. Though almost universally praised, it contains the most basic, clichéd lyricism imaginable. His Grammy-nominated hit “Woman” is about — get this — how great the female gender is. The words aren’t even original; lyrics like “You a lady in the streets and a freak when it’s bedroom time” should be credited to Ludacris, and “I appreciate so much/Like the ‘I love you’ feeling girl when we touch” should perhaps be credited to a poor translation of an Italian Hallmark card. Meanwhile, DeVaughn’s offer to “appetize ya or main course ya” on “Customer” is less poetry than soundtrack to a porno flick filmed at Carl’s Jr.

I make no claims to have heard everything out there, of course, and I’m not contending that the entire genre is devoid of anything worth listening to. Erykah Badu remains an influential, endearing talent, although her recent New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) veers closer to neo-soul and psychedelic funk than to R&B. Inventive Detroit producer-singer Dwele and Philadelphian Jazmine Sullivan, meanwhile, have found success by taking risks, and Atlanta’s Janelle Monae’s brand of retrofuturism is refreshingly eccentric. She dresses like a robot and inhabits an alter ego named Cindy Mayweather, for starters.

None of these artists fit the bill, however, as an R&B icon for the new millennium. It may be a lot to ask for another Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke, both of whom pushed for social change and helped revolutionize the role of the black singer-songwriter in the music industry. It may be too much to ask for another purple one or gloved one, both of whom affected everything from rock and pop to popular culture and marketing. But is it too much to expect a single standout talent? I don’t think so, and, as a result suggest we change the “Rap & Bullshit” moniker to simply “Bullshit.”

Since I am a natural analyst and scholar , I like to study things, pick them apart, then put them back together better than they were before.  Because I love music so,  I have decided to study the pursuit of music in the SF Bay Area (particularly forms of African American popular music i.e. R & B, Funk, Blues, Gospel, and Jazz). I am hoping that I can learn some things that will help others and myself in the pursuit and fulfillment of our dreams.