Marketing should be the last thing you think about, the only thing that matters is the music. If you're truly passionate and you've got the skill then just focus on that. You should never go into it dreaming of success, you should go into thinking this is exactly what you want to do and that's why you're doing it. Eventually you'll be able to pay your bills but an artists life is the struggle of trying to make it, always pushing ahead, always having the music be #1 in your mind.

As soon as you think about marketing, agents, money, success, etc. you're creating reasons why not to do it and compromising yourself in the process by trying to appeal to what you think people want to hear, not what you think is dope and want to create.

Of course don't be a sucker and sign the first contract that gets thrown in your face, read it carefully and weigh your options. Sometimes going independent is the better route if it means having more creative control, sometimes mainstream deals work out but all of that goes without saying. In life and everything, don't be stupid.

Passion is the only driving force to personal success, I say personal because it's not and shouldn't be monetary, everything else is secondary in that regards.

I couldn't disagree more. If you define your success as doing a few small gigs here and there and uploading tracks online then great knock yourself out. You said mainstream success though, and that's not mainstream success. Building your brand is everything.

Unless someone walks up to me and offers me a contract for millions of dollars I don't give a shit about mainstream success. I'm not going to compromise what I like doing so I can appear on the radio for morons to enjoy unless it's for a really large amount of money.

I think you can achieve both though. You just have to build a group of people that like your music and you do that through marketing.

Nah. Marketing is everything. You can still create the music you think is dope....you just need to learn how to connect and seek out the audience that has similar interest as you. I see so many talented people- whether it be art, music or writing- that never end up becoming remotely big because they don't sharpen their sales and marketing knowledge. I don't think most people realize they're only a couple skills away from becoming well known/earning a lot of money. Honestly, I realize most people just want to focus on their craft and not be bothered, but sales and marketing are literally the most important skills for success.

learn how to use social media. And I don't mean just dumping links and stuff....each social media platform (twitter, Instagram, youtube) operates differently and you need to learn how to effectively utilize each.

^ Been saying this and I've talked to Punk about that kind of shit