A couple of months back, when I saw that viral “The thing goes skrraa” video for the first time, I honestly thought it was an upcoming artiste whose “village people” finally succeeded in making him blow his chance to “blow” (word!) on one of the biggest stages in the UK – BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Fire in the Booth
with Charlie Sloth.
Eventually when the song went viral and I realized it was just a comedian goofing around I decided to dig a little deeper into his story. Curiosity is my middle name. To everyone who thinks Michael Dapaah is an overnight celebrity or just one lucky chap thanks to Instagram, come sit down.
Watching his interview on Inner Circle, I realized “Big Shaq” has been keeping a vision board for years. He edits images of what he wants to happen and sticks them to the vision board, and after he accomplishes anything on the vision board, he takes it down, and replaces it with a bigger one.
According to him, when he had just over a thousand followers on Instagram, he had the image of his bio with a 100k followers. About 8k views on YouTube, he had the image of a
100k views on YouTube and according to him, he had it at the back of his mind that it must happen in 2017. He didn’t know how, but it would just happen.
Today, Roadman's got 20million+ streams on Spotify, 980k followers on Instagram, 100million views on YouTube, and the most globally accepted song of 2017. Thanks to a couple of minutes in the studio on August 29, 2017. That wasn’t his first or second strike, but it was the strike that hit gold. That’s a receipt to the validity of his ideas. Isn’t it?
Just because you haven’t seen the desired result to your ideas, your creativity and your persistence, doesn’t mean you aren’t working or you should stop working. Awilo Logomba, who went against every advice given to him by his management back then and marketed his songs to various African countries is still reaping the fruits of that labour till today. They told him it’ll be a waste of time, energy, and money, marketing his music to countries who wouldn’t understand jack from what he’s singing. Thank God he didn’t agree (who understanding epp?). Imagine those years without “Lepa Gau” groove. Hehehe.
Your ideas are valid. The cumulative effect of the years you’ve remained on your path, and stayed true to your dreams can make you “blow” in an instant. Even though it’s beautiful and adorable in the sky, it takes 2 hours to plan 1 minute of fireworks. Keep working and keep grinding. Who said it’s too late for it to be this very year?
Again, your ideas are valid.
Happy new month everyone.
Cheers!