Although I am a big fan of EDM music, my heart has always been with the rap/hip hop scene.  When freshman year started, I began to use this streaming service called SoundCloud more and more each day.  SoundCloud is a free streaming service where anyone can make an account and upload music, while you’re still able to find your favorite artists.  Comethazine; birth name Jahmier Velazquez, has been my favorite rapper for more than a year and a half.  Born in East St. Louis, Jahmier began uploading music to the streaming service and was able to quit his job as a mechanic.  I respect him for the fact that he was able to make good music without the right tools and earn enough money to get himself out of the mud.

One of the things about Comethazine is that he knows how to use his resources to his advantage.  Since SoundCloud is a free streaming service, the app hasn’t always had the best functionality, so when users were able to discover a glitch where you could override different tracks, there was money being made.  How the glitch works is like so: let’s say you were to take the audio of one of the most popular songs ever and post it on SoundCloud.  When people see the name of the song they click on it because of its familiarity.  Once your song – let’s call it God’s Plan by Drake – accumulates enough plays on the app, you can then replace the audio with your own song and also rename it, while keeping all the plays.  Therefore, your music will look more popular, drawing more attention to your name.  This is exactly what Comethazine did.  The artist took the audio from a popular song titled ‘Bounce Out With That’, gained all the plays, and then put his own song in and titled it ‘Bands’.  9 months later, the song peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Although Valazquez cheated the system, I believe he is smart for having the confidence in himself and in his music to go to that extent to have it heard.  Instead of cracking tires out at a mechanic, Jahmier is one of the hottest growing rappers in the game right now.  After dropping 3 albums, (Bawskee, Bawskee 2, and Bawskee 3.5) the rapper had only improved his work again and again.  His first album peaked at 153 on the charts, followed by his second peaking at 61, and then 53.  The artist is also very good at branding himself.  Without a single meaning behind the word “Bawskee”, Comethazine has turned this slogan into an entire clothing brand, and also has the letters tattooed on his forearm.  This shows that he is dedicated to his dream of supporting himself and his family by creating this lifetime for them.  I respect this because the first thing I would do If I won the lottery is buy my family presents.

Overall I think there are a lot of things that we can learn from Jahmier Valazquez’s critical thinking, and simply how to have confidence in yourself.