Building A Brand: Perception vs Authenticity
Recently, I took the time out to hang out with an artist who had invited me over to his place for a listening party. He had dropped an EP and wanted as many ears outside of his immediate circle to listen and give some feedback. He’s not a person I knew too well, but someone I had met through mutual friends from an old job. We’d had maybe 5 or 6 conversations in our entirety of knowing each other, and everything we knew about each other probably came from Instagram posts.
During the party, somewhere between Tekken matches and blunt circles, he and I got into a general conversation about his career plans, his next move, and future music. Somewhere in that conversation he said something that struck me as interesting and became the basis for this piece. He told me how his friends recommended that he do something stupid online to draw attention to himself. They believed that with his look and his style of music, he’d go viral in a heartbeat. Honestly, they’re probably right. The artist is a cool looking guy with face tats, and he’s always draped in designer wear and the newest fashions. But the artist doesn’t want to stoop to such tactics because it wouldn’t accurately portray who he is. Essentially, he doesn’t want it to taint his brand.
Adam from No Jumper recently made a valid point about how music culture has shifted to becoming more brand-centric. We live in a time where your brand is everything. It’s the seed from which an entire product, business model, and lifestyle can grow. Just look at Lil Yachty. These days, having someone be a fan of your music is cool, but having someone become a fan of your brand can be life-changing. It means they’re basically a fan of you as a person and are along for whatever ride you choose to take them on.
But what is a brand exactly? Simply put, your brand is how others perceive you. It’s the idea of you, an image that pops into a person’s brain when they hear your name or see you. Your brand as an artist is influenced by your encounters with people and everything you choose to make public. Your style of dress, your opinions, who you associate yourself with, your music, what you post on social media, and even your show performances help make up the core components of your brand.
To build a brand you have to start with a certain level of self-awareness. Knowing yourself and where you want to go can help tremendously. I believe that when building a brand you’re faced with two options: create a character, or be genuinely authentic. Creating a character, though I’m sure not many will admit it, seems to be the more popular of the two. It allows the artist to distance themselves from qualities they don’t like and build an ideal version of themselves, becoming who they wish to be. To their fans or the general consumer, this is who they are. It’s not an inherently bad thing, as artist’s are really no different than actors. It’s all performance art really. The problem comes when you build a character and become trapped in it. This happens when you don’t allow yourself to grow or change because of an image you’ve created. Or worse, when fans won’t allow you to grow or change because of an image you’ve created. Keeping up a persona can be exhausting too, especially when you don’t have the resources or the willpower to keep doing so. Ask yourself this before deciding whether or not to create a character and push a certain perception: Could I keep doing this? If I blew up tomorrow, am I OK with the world seeing me as this?
The other option is to be genuinely authentic. This can be the most difficult, as some find it hard to be vulnerable. Pouring yourself out to complete strangers can be weird and awkward. However, the benefits of building a brand of authenticity are having people become fans of who you really are. We all want someone we can connect with, and connecting with you is how casual listeners turn into die hard fans. You also won’t have to hide behind a facade or always be on guard to someone exposing you. To an extent, you still have to characterize yourself, but at least you’re doing so with real elements of your personality and being. It’s hard but it works! Artist’s like XXXtentacion and Vince Staples have built their brands and careers off of continuously being open, honest, and themselves to the point that their audiences feel like they are best friends. And no one supports you like a best friend.
Your brand building starts from the moment you start to publicize yourself as an artist. Think carefully about how you want to be seen? How do you want fans to see you? Corporations? Potential business partners? All of these are factors into how you could present yourself, based on your ultimate goal as an artist. Simply put, think of your brand as the reason people would want to become friends with you. Would you want someone to friend you for who you are, or who you made them think you are? Neither is bad, and both can yield success.
