Today we’d like to introduce you to Lil Bird.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Before I moved to Atlanta, I was living in NYC playing in multiple bands. I had gotten disillusioned with the scene up there. Part of it was the “indie” nature of the culture up there at that time. If you took your craft seriously and wanted to make a real career of music, they called you a sellout. I also felt like the work ethic was lacking. Music was people’s hobby, not their passion. I had been turned on to Atlanta’s music scene for a while. I heard a song at a party with an energy so ecstatic that I ran up to the DJ to ask what it was. It was “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” by Jamie xx featuring Young Thug. I looked up Thug and then entered a deep vortex with his music. I listened to 10 of his mixtapes and became obsessed with his evolution as an artist. He was the gateway to me for other Atlanta music. I listened to all the major and minor artists coming out of the A during that time. There was a quality in all of that music that I didn’t hear up north. I learned that the way they wrote music in the south was different. They don’t use a pen and paper and work the lyrics out ahead of time. They go straight into the studio with no plan, pull up a beat, and go into the booth. With headphones on, they write the song on the mic, going line by line, building the song like bricks in a house. After years of pen and paper style writing, painful long hours trying to make things perfect only to have the seams in the poetry glaringly obvious when you finally go to sing it. I had fallen out of love with writing music, and was finally fascinated with the process again. I visited my friend and now frequent collaborator Derek Ramirez (aka DROK) in Miami who has a recording studio. We made a beat on an old MPC and I said I wanted to try something in the booth. I half typed on my phone and half free-styled a verse in mere minutes. It didn’t sound like me. It felt like I unlocked a new person inside. DROK was surprised and asked me how I did it. I was hooked! A couple months later that friend moved to NYC and lived in my apt. We worked on music every day and compiled a large amount of songs and beats. His girlfriend then got a job in Atlanta and he was going to visit. I decided it was time to visit the motherland. I went to pack up my recording equipment so we could make music while in Atlanta, but got locked out of my studio due to the card reader running out of power. I called the managers at 11pm in a panic saying I needed my equipment and was heading out that night on an extremely important trip. There was no way to get the door open before the morning they told me. After a long back and forth, they agreed to compensate me for having to rent equipment for my trip. We hit the road and started looking up studios. We found an affordable studio in the neighborhood of Little Five Points, and booked it for a whole week. We drove all night listening to a mixtape DROK had learned about on Instagram from a French producer called Brodinski. It was a compilation tape featuring a bunch on young rappers from the southside. Most of them were just starting out an unknown. We loved the tape and decided to reach out to these guys on IG. By the time we reached Atlanta and got settled in, we had sessions planned for the whole week, but we were sure if anyone would show up. We offered them free studio time and beats and hoped for the best. To our delight, every single one came out and made music with us. It was an insane and magical week and we left Atlanta with 25 new songs on our hard drive. I finally got to see the process I’d learned so much about first hand with kids who grew up in its influence. Magical is the only word I can use to describe the experience. After that trip I was just biding my time until we could go again. A month later we made the same overnight drive, rented out the same studio and put in work. I shot two music videos that week as well. I felt accepted in Atlanta. The scene welcomed me and praised my sound. They liked that I was different, they encouraged me to be more different. After another months I released my first mixtape “Bird Watching”. It was made with a combination of writing on the mic, and touching things up later with pen and pad. I’d found the missing piece to my creative process, and a key to unlock dormant abilities. After dropping the mixtape, I told my girlfriend I had to move to Atlanta. Lucky for me she agreed to come with! That was 3 years ago this summer. The first fall of moving to Atlanta I had a record deal offer from a local label. It ended up not being the best situation but it motivated me to study my craft harder, and I performed at every open mic I could find. I learned the hard way that the Atlanta scene was not to be seen through rose tinted glasses. I won a competition at a strip club that I later discovered was rigged, and found out that a mysterious LLC had registered my music and was collecting royalties on it. I had to hire a lawyer to get it taken care of, and in the process starting my own LLC and began learn the basics of releasing music from a business perspective. The first full summer I spent in Atlanta I released a song every week, and the 12 songs became my 2nd mixtape “Bird Watching 2”. Each time I released new music, I came in contact with new collaborators, and new industry professionals. I learned to become more and more confident in my uniqueness, and as I embraced it my music gained depth. in 2018 my song “Truck Stop” landed itself on New Music Friday, one of Spotify’s biggest playlists. It skyrocketed up and got my name buzzing a little. Many A&Rs reached out to me to lay their groundwork. After the song died down a little, so did the attention and I was back on my own. I needed to start promoting myself better. I teamed up with a company called Organic Music Marketing and started promoting all my releases through them. The owner Cody is a fan of my music, and always gave me generous help and encouragement. One night at his house I ran into Genius (K Camp’s DJ and artist) and Miguel Fresco (Artist and executive at K Camp’s label). They asked to hear the song I was there promoting, and loved how different the sound was. We exchange info and stayed in touch. Eventually I got a call from K Camp himself asking me to come to his studio for a session. I was nervous but ready. All the work I’d done in the previous 2 years prepared me for that moment, all I had to do was go make some songs, just like I do every day. K Camp was a gracious host and an inspiring collaborator. We made two songs that evening, one of which was just released on the RARE Family album (“Wait A Minute”). After that night we stayed in touch and I sent them a project I had written and was shopping around. It’s called “Yellowbird”. It gets its name from a goat farm in TN, that I stayed on while making the record. It was my first solo retreat for music. I’ve done solo retreats for meditation before, but never music. I brought my studio equipment and set up in a tiny house, miles away from anybody. The songs reflect the journey I went through that week inside myself. They loved the album, and told me they wanted to release it on their label. It was released this May on RARE Sound and now I’m finishing up my upcoming project entitled Trap Bob Dylan. I’m also in the process of building my own studio, which is going to be my creative temple, and a little slice of what I found in the Yellowbird cabin. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had so far and all the wonderful people I’ve come in contact. Now the real work begins. It’s time to double my efforts and show the world what I’ve been honing these past 5 years.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The road has been anything but smooth. The music industry is a treacherous place. People will smile at you while offering promises, only do back bite in the fine print once you get the contract. You have to be very wily and alert. At the same time, your energy is your passport, and if you get too caught up in the tense reality of business, doors of collaboration begin to close. You have to walk a fine line of allowing your life force and curiosity to shine through with everyone you meet, while maintaining a keen awareness of every situation and its moving parts. It took me forever to figure that one out, and it’s still a work in progress. There’s also the doubt. These days every young kid wants to be a musician, and now almost every one can afford basic recording equipment and make it happen. The barrier of entry is extremely low, and it’s honestly not too difficult to make a decent sounding track. You have to face this over saturation daily and deal with the reality that no one cares if you make it through the fog. You’ll also have countless meetings with industry people telling you where your numbers are and where they need to be. The constant rejection is maddening at first, but later it becomes empowering as you learn to become process not outcome oriented. Even so dealing with the business side of music is a nasty reality. It’s a kind of psychotic juxtaposition, where in the one corner you have these sensitive naive artists who are chasing a dream they’ve have since childhood and care so deeply about their music that they’ll do or spend anything to get it out there, and in the other corner you have business men who are in the business of selling music where songs are the products and artists are the brand ambassadors. The two will never understand each other, and yet have to learn to work together. Luckily there are hybrid types out there to smooth the landscape. Executives who used to play themselves, so they understand the struggle, or musicians with business majors who have a knack for branding and understand the basics of marketing. I am neither. I’m just a musician who checks in every week and asks myself if I still want to keep going. And so far, the answer has always been yes.
Tell us more about your work.
My stage name is Lil Bird. I got the name from Bob Marley, my favorite artist, and his song “Three Little Birds”. I loved the image of a little songbird, who sings from purest intention, unaware of who might be listening. I think what makes me different in the Atlanta scene is the unique mixture of my influences, and my ability to tie them into what’s going on today. I was raised on music from another time. Lots of Motown, folk, soul and rock. Most kids today haven’t even heard of a lot of my favorite artists. I studied songwriting always most of all. I understood that it’s a person’s songs that make them, more than their voice, image, or dancing ability. I never saw myself as much of an entertainer, but I knew if I wrote great songs, I could make it as a musician. What I bring to the table is a focus on timeless songwriting, a nod to the great composers of the past, and a playful energy. The hip hop scene is so serious. Everyone has to be macho all the time, no one is allowed to be goofy or show vulnerability. I struggled for years to show those sides of myself too, which is probably what aligned me with the hip hop scene. But I found that when I didn’t embrace those sides of myself, my music didn’t resonate with people. What better battleground to exorcise my inner demons than a stage where a facade in the main attraction?
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is probably always there at the scene of any person’s success. But overtime my view of luck has changed. I don’t see it as random blessings anymore, I see it as an opportunity, that as long as I’ve been paying my daily dues, I’m able to exploit. I can say that I’ve been extremely lucky to have met such good people in the industry. It could have gone a lot worse. I’ve also had some guardian angels keeping me away from bad career moves. I’ve learned that if I try to sacrifice my authenticity for success, my angles will block my career and destroy the path I’m on. In one example this literally meant that while I was at a session with a potential label, the speakers caught on fire while I was engineering. I was asked not to return as an engineer and later ended up parting way all together. As long as I stay true to my personal and spiritual beliefs my career is allowed to advance. Ever since I’ve learned that rule, things have been relatively smooth.
Pricing:
- I’m pressing a limited run of vinyl for my album Yellowbird. We are only making 300 copies and it’ll be printed on beautiful neon yellow vinyl. It’s $26 a record and you can purchase one at this link: https://qrates.com/projects/20973
Contact Info:
- Website: lilbirdtweettweet.com
- Phone: 6788276406
- Email: lilbirdbooking@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/lilbirdtweettweet
- Facebook: facebook.com/lilbirdtweettweet
- Twitter: twitter.com/lilbirdgotweet
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTH7s3-DHAsQDabYjYMCF0g?view_as=subscriber
Image Credit:
West Side Eddie, Jonathan RARE Sound
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