Check Out Traé Scott’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Traé Scott.

Hi Traé, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started writing music when I was 13-14 all stemming from me loving poetry in middle school and I loved for all my poetry to rhyme. With my grandfather being a musician, playing the piano for Sunday services in Pittsburgh and being a music teacher, my mom, dad, and grandmas love for music all kind of pushed me into having such a huge passion for all music. Football was my first love that i felt kind of let me down and through high school i was enjoying the music as a side gig to my football life but once i got closer to college i started to take music serious linking with a grammy nominated producer/engineer before i left for college and in college freshman year i was talking to my roommate and he asked what i was doing at my desk and i said i wirte songs, he didn’t believe me so he said let me hear what you doing got and i rapped it to him and he said man forget football you need to be doing this. Met a lady who worked at the school who knew a producer and he just gave me all thr equipment to record myself and it was up there. Dropped my first song in 2008 and my first mixtape in 2009, started my label in 2015 (Ill Abstract Minds “IAM” LLC) after having a couple of single deals and big show placements, dropped first streaming album in 2017 and now we are on Album number 5 (The Art). Faced a lot of adversity inside (mentally) and out as a independent artist and label owner. But the one thing that always stays with me is the passion to create images with words! There’s nothing like telling a story over a beat w/ the wordplay to disguise it. Relatable mysteries

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The struggles for me as an independent artist has always been trying to find the people that complement my style and see my vision and believe in my vision. I’ve always been a business strong let’s do it as a team type of player/person, I guess from my football background I know most things in life aren’t achieved by 1 man doing all of the work. So its been very hard to navigate who is for me and who is for self. I’ve done some bad deals that wasn’t going nowhere and because of those deals I’ve messed up some good deals. With the landscape shit from cds to streaming and not trusting anyone it became really tough to see who was trying to really help because they believe in you. On top of dealing with the sharks, you realize the people who know you as the person you were from high school, middle school or birth and not as the artist or business owner or even general manager of a small business, will never be a fan of yours. Because they’ll never look at you as the artist in there eyes no matter what you do you are just the man they knew/know. I’m the type that will support anybody with a dream and I think people put people in boxes they see them as so when you deviate from their perception of you its hard for them to support it.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a rapper, songwriter, producer and label owner! I love making music whether it be for me or for somebody else. I love the creative process of making music. I would say I specialize in songwriting and album production. Putting together a collection of songs for a specifically themed album or a song with a concept. Honestly im most proud of my journey and the will I have to make the label, my artistry and my vision as big as possible no matter how long it takes or however many times the field changes. Just the love to continue to find a way! The one thing I think sets me apart is the passion. I really love what I do and if I never made a huge run I would still create songs and albums and build up my label until God takes my last breath. This isn’t just something I want to get rich off so I can do other things. I honestly wish I could get rich off something else so I could just stay in the studio all day and perform in different cities because I just love everything about music.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I think a lot of artists will start to use the j. Cole approach to selling music and we’ll go back to word of mouth and person to person connections over the internet/social media hyped artists. I think major labels will become less and less of a factor unless they find those passionate artists and start doing artist development again. I’m not saying streaming will die out but I would like to keep an eye on it and see how it effects the newer acts verses the major acts who were already big before streaming. I see a lot of positive shifts as well like the dying of aging out hiphop artists and the trends of the real music coming back. Seems like fans are getting tired of the revolving door of artists that are hear today and gone tomorrow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://illabstractminds.com/album/4025786/the-art
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamtraescott?utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1AEppEsbFA/?mibextid=wwXIfr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@traescott4217?si=zfNAA6B2ruglnbwa