By Adeyinka Oluwamayowa

Society has always opposed those who try to do something different or innovative. When someone starts to think differently or gives new ideas, they have to face harsh criticism and resistance.

So, it requires a great deal of resolve to bring your innovative ideas to reality. What matters is not giving up despite facing these obstacles and keep on going until you achieve what you set out to achieve.

As Sir Chigozie Chukwudi Okafor, realtor and GMD Dynatech Group of Companies, likes to put it when mentoring youths in business “A lot of young entrepreneurs start out in business believing money will be made immediately or even assume their ingenious ideas will fly instantly.

But sooner than later, they realise that there is an incubation period for every idea and every business. Self-discipline, mentorship by experts, and proper business education help shorten this incubation period while bringing success in the horizon”

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It goes without saying that the logic in the quote above applies to the music industry. As you may already know, the music industry is pretty harsh and does not usually allow alteration in the prevailing system. You either cope with the system or leave. So, as 23-year-old Hannibal Brumskine III sought to bring changes into the music industry, he basically had to challenge the entire system.

Hannibal is the creator of the company The Music Business .com Hannibal started this company to help independent musicians grow their careers by giving them access to music industry experts. His goal was to focus on artists who weren’t signed to record labels and who didn’t have vast resources, connections or experience to build their careers upon.

Such artists get confused because of the lack of experience and attention. For example, an artist that is signed to a record label might be able to quickly get a marketing campaign setup for their single release, while an independent artist might be completely oblivious to those strategies and tools.

This company provides such artists with the chance of overcoming this difficulty by forcing them into relationship with real- life experts in the music industry who have either previously worked at record labels or helped artists once in their position grow their music career.

Born in Alexandria, Virginia on April 28, 1997, Hannibal grew up listening to music and aspired to give something back to this world one day. He started off doing freelancing work for small businesses in his area, independent artists, and small to medium sized record labels.

This gave him an insight on how businesses and record labels used specific strategies and resources to grow the careers of their artists – strategies that most independent artists knew nothing of.

The idea he had has to give independent artists access to some of these strategies and resources by connecting them with the bright minds that were behind them. But, for a man his age at that time, starting his own company was no easy task. Forming his own start-up that early in his life meant he was going to be up against people in their late adult years with a lot more knowledge and experience than him.

All he had was an idea that he believed would work one day. The entrepreneur world is filled with money hungry hustlers and scammers. Without the right guidance and looking out for yourself, one can get devoured by the business world. So, the fact that he started off his company at that age and built it to its current scale single-handedly is no small wonder.

Motivations are important in business. Hannibal knew that what he was doing would help independent artists in the music industry one day and that kept him going. The passion he had for music stopped him from giving up and he resolved to bring his idea to reality.

His competition was the veterans of the music industry, most of whom had started their businesses much later in their life, but the real-life person to person communication he was providing was what attracted the youth of the industry to his company. People who hold their music dearly appreciate people who understand their music and respect their goals. Hannibal and the team of experts he put together were those people. Being from a business background himself, he understood the essence of the music industry and what type of offering would benefit independent artists the most.

This platform seems to fill a huge void for independent artists. Except for the ones who get signed to record labels, most artists don’t have a team of music industry experts behind them. By giving artists access to the bright minds of the music business, artists can receive support and guidance that was once only reserved for the top 1% of artists that happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Vanguard News Nigeria