How to start your music career

Having a music career is not a fairytale. It takes hard work, patience, talent, timing and the x-factor. There are a lot of talented people out there who have no clue about how to start their career. In a bid to help the upcoming acts out there, we have outlined five steps to help budding acts out there.

Know You Have Talent - Everyone sounds nice when singing in the shower. This is not the kind of talent that I am talking about. I am talking about the real deal, a good singing voice or authoritative rap vocals. Stepping into the music scene for an active career requires real concrete talent that can be worked on. Don't let anyone deceive you, real talent is needed in order to have a great music career. Make sure you have talent before picking up the mic.

Fine Tune Your Talent/Image Till Its Marketable - Once you have determined that you have talent, you have to work on yourself continuously. It was said Bob Marley would practice with his guitar till he slept in the morning before he became a music star. If you do not work on yourself you can't get better. You cannot be signed or be discovered until your talent can be packaged as a commodity that can be sold. Many people have good voices but it has not been polished or harnessed to a level where they can become stars. Also talent is just ten percent of it. When working on your talent, do not forget to work on your image and brand. Remember talent is just ten percent. The remaining ninety percent boils down to branding and image.

Find A Team - Every artiste needs a team of dedicated individuals whose main job or goal is to promote the act. For every Beyonce or Jay Z, there are hundreds of people whose main job is to make sure they remain relevant and keep producing hit singles and albums. Get a dedicated team that can take you from point A to point B. Ideally it should be a mixture of young passionate people and experienced veterans. The team should consist of a manager, and publicist at least.

Perform, Perform, Perform! - Get yourself on the road. Perform at any event possible, be it a street carnival, an open mic show, Industry Nite, One Mic Naija, Bogobiri, etc. Just make sure you perform as many times possible. This will help you perfect your craft, and get your name out there. Today's biggest stars are great performers. They didn't get there by spamming social media with links of their new mixtapes. They got there by taking their art on the road. Perform for peanuts. Perform for free. Perform for nothing till you get to that point.

Release Materials Consistently - If you want to get noticed, release materials consistently. Record day and night and flood the scene with your songs. Release mixtapes, EPs, covers, albums, songs and unofficial remixes constantly till you build a buzz around yourself. Flood the market with your materials till you are discovered. Don't drop one song and relax. Go into the studio and record a lot of materials and release them, whether online or through physical copies.