Becoming a DJ: why it’s hard to do it without a mentor
Within the entertainment industry, the phrase “mentor” is thrown around pretty regularly. Whether it’s teaching production, marketing, or anything else, they have become synonymous with success as a producer. Many people within EDM seek out professional mentors to help guide them to the next level of their career, and ultimately achieve their ambitions. In this article, we’re going to discuss what a mentor is, and how they can progress your career.
Generally, producers are not always focused on growth. Instead, their mindset is almost always based around production, and improving their craft. Despite setting ambitious goals such as playing a set at Tomorrowland or gaining a million streams, the majority never seem to be able to accomplish their dreams due to the lack of mentoring. They continue to pontificate about being successful. Yet when it comes to putting in the hard grind, they can be extremely lazy.
But when we think of successful people within the entertainment industry (and beyond), people always have some form of mentoring to guide them in the right direction and grow their artistic brand. To achieve success, you often must be willing to take advice and criticism in order to further your career. Unfortunately, you probably don’t have a lot of the answers, and so mentoring is the best route. After all, they will help inspire and motivate you to achieve your best. Moreover, a good mentor will undoubtedly foster self-awareness for you within the music industry, and respect for others. For example, the likes of Moe Shalizi and Scooter Braun have guided dozens of artists to international stardom.
One truly amazing benefit of having a mentor is the idea of you staying in demand. If the mentor is genuinely skilled within the industry, they will be ahead of the game when it comes to social media strategy etc. By constantly being where the eyes and ears of the consumers are, you are propelling yourself into the top tiers of the music industry due to the vast amounts of attention. Also, mentoring provides an opportunity to gain a friend in a very harsh field of entertainment. If you’re looking for gigs, they can probably help get you some. If you’re looking to get into a playlist, they could have contacts. You get the idea. Despite providing guidance, an experienced mentor within the music industry will also be able to help with introductions so that you can progress your career at a rapid rate.
As well as helping out your general career, there is a high probability that the guidance from your mentor will lead to bigger revenue streams within the music industry. For example, they could recommend that you partner up with social media influencers in order to increase exposure of your song. As a result, your Spotify streams increase 10x because of the (potentially) millions of people listening to it on social media. They are also likely to help shape you into a better person. By giving their honest opinion on their strengths and weaknesses, It will give you a lot of self-awareness so you can understand what needs to be improved.
Once you spend several years in the music industry building a vast array of contacts across multiple fields, there is a chance that you too could potentially become a mentor for an upcoming producer. After all, with the rising presence of technology within music, it makes sense that you will begin to naturally develop knowledge on different subjects. It is certainly hard to become a successful DJ alone. But with the right team, anything is possible.