We were lucky to catch up with Christopher Toussant recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Christopher , thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I learned how to write and compose music by studying from other musicians that has inspired me, I’ve only completed three years of music at two different community colleges, but with that training has also helped me to understand what my next moves should be in creating music. Honestly I’ve learned more working on my own, with YouTube , trial and error teaching more than any institution could. It has taken me a couple decades in true to really figure out who I am, and how I would like that to come to light within my music, and I’m still on that same path trying to learn who I truly am to this day. I want to give the audience the same magic most great artist, and very few achieve, and that is authenticity, and that amazing window into ones self creating that bond of humanity as they say keeping it real. At then end of the day I’m no star, or some super human being, I’m just a person that loves to create music, and feels that the best should be given of me at all times so that who ever chooses to listen will experience the same, hopefully feeling and seeing the same within theirselves. With that being said, I am still learning, learning who I truly am, and what message as well as what sound I would like to give my audience, this is truly a blessing for me, and it’s important to me for my audience to feel the same. I haven’t even begun to achieve the level that I would like to be on, and oddly enough it’s far beyond being a star, honestly I have no desire for that, my real desire is to simply create and be apart of some of the worlds most prolific creators, I want my music to out live me and whatever so called legacy that can be created from that, simply put just good music that will have the masses standing up to dance for ages to come, generation to generation. The one obstacle I’ve recently found that stood in my way was me, I know that peer pressure, and the influence and needs of others to be accepted is one of life’s downfalls, and for a time for me it was, but that was the past, people are people and we may never be able to change that and their opinions of us, but I have learned that we can change ourselves, in the end God like he has others have given me the power as well s tools to do so, so with that I say to anyone listening as I had the privilege to learn. Someone may have planted the wrong seed in me, but at a certain point it’s on me to learn that I have the power to cultivate that into new growth that benefits me, we can’t change what bad things happened to us in the past, but we again do posses the power to change the way we let these things affect us moving forward. People often ask me, how are you so happy, why are you so happy? Simply put as my wife and I often say, it’s because I choose to be happy, obstacles are nothing permanent, it’s not the end of us or our journey, and it’s only when we can learn that… that we can begin our journey to get around them. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that it is easy, but you do need to adopt the right attitude and discipline to learn to continue to tell yourself that it can be done, and arming yourself with the right tools to get over those walls, I know it can be done life has showed us all time and time again so why should it be any different for any of us, this being my most essential skill beyond me learning any DAW, or instrument. I don’t believe in speeding things up, honestly I’ve found that to actually be an obstacle more than some goal or time management plan for achievement, time is a very powerful thing everything that exists needs time to grow, and if approached incorrectly can actually prove to be fatal, especially when it comes to making music. Some of the worlds biggest musicians from Hall&Oates, to even Dr. Dre have taken decades to create songs resulting in the hits that they have become today, actually proving that time is of the essence, so to quote one of my most true lines from my song ( Late Bloomer) “it took me fifteen years to figure out I’m this great, and I’ll take fifteen more to make my hits straight”.
Christopher , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My journey is actually our journey, and I say that because none of what I have going on now would have been possible without the support of my wife, and my son Shawn Beats, “you should really look him up”. It started 10 years ago for us out of a small trailer in rural Alabama creating some of our first work ( Late Bloomer), as well as our music label Covenant Muzic. We chose to be independent due to the industry not being a fair one, we’ve known several people that the industry absolutely destroyed, and all though it’s a much harder way to approach the music business and not quite as lucrative, it still allows us to be who we are, and once we do achieve that chart toping track, we won’t owe any shady label millions of dollars for our hard work. My discipline is like that of any artist, studying new and old music, while continuing to work at perfecting mine. I’m a normal guy with a nine to five that supports my family actually longing for the day that music will be the main bread winner. We’re in the midst of developing our brand, to then be able to offer that in the form of merchandise to go along with my music, my wife and manager is also an artist, her field is painting and we hope to merge the two to hopefully give our audience a great new experience with art and music. Our latest projects “Basillo Dinero”, and “No Rides”, have been our biggest hits so far, and we are most proud of that because it shows the growth in our production skills, Shawn Beats created the tracks and I wrote, and engineered my own vocals on both songs, my manager handles all of our promotion and online accounts, and we would like to give a big shout out to Symphonic, our distribution company. They have also been along with us on this journey, and this actually our 12 year anniversary since we signed up with them, and we can’t wait to make them proud of us with a real blockbuster some day. At this point the only thing that keeps me separated from others is that I’m not a mumble rapper, and although I respect what others do in music, I really don’t care much for trap music, my staying true to being old school in the way of my delivery, and form is that part of me that I will always keep, although that is also part of my journey with now learning to transition into adding a bit of what’s new in what we create because growth is a good thing, as I said before I’m still perfecting me, and who and what I will actually be delivering to our audience, I am really anticipating the moment that actually happens, I’m currently working on new material and very excited to get things finished and released , but like I said time will have to determine that. The things to know about us at Covenant Muzic is that, we are a God first label that chooses to accept, and love everyone, judging no one… but please don’t take our kindness for weakness. This business can be so raw, heartless, and discouraging… but we won’t be giving up anytime soon.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I believe that society needs to stop marginalizing independent artists, as hard or crazy as it may seem, let’s give everyone their fifteen minutes of fame. To often we allow these huge labels to pay for, and bully their artist to stay on top for ridiculous amounts of time, even once the masses have spoken and said, “okay that song was awesome can we please hear something else now”., there is so many people in this world that produces awesome music, and It’s simply not fair to keep this trend going, it’s not to say that these artists should stop giving to music and end their careers, but how about lets take a step down off your precious thrones once and while and help out the little guys you share you care so much for, I get that you must prove yourself before you’re noticed, but what happened to helping someone else develop who they are, there is no true comradely in life anymore only judgment and backstabbing is the new norm, you got major artist stealing material from the little guys simply because no one knows of them yet, and believe me we have real receipts we can pull to prove this, but we’ll save that for another interview. So simply to wrap this one up, society can stop turning a blind eye to these things, and help us all out more, I’m sure there’s a struggling artist out there like myself that would agree.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn was about family, and the misconception of that. I’m sure you all know who is my half sister I won’t name on this particular article, but needless to say that also was a big delay in me starting my career. The back story is during the mid 90’s’s my relative I mentioned above was involved with one of the worlds most feared and biggest record labels even to this day, again search my history, google me because I’m trying not to mention certain names. Back to the story, as time went on, I’m trying to get put on, and get help with my development, but instead of getting the help and support that I thought I needed, all I was met with was sabotage, and lies to further stifle my growth and career chances, I was told that I wasn’t gangster enough to be accepted even though I’ve never tried to be that, my style of music has always been more along the lines of old school hip hop, and I really couldn’t figure out what was wrong with that it truly left me stuck. Fast forward two decades past the pain, and harsh lessons learned, reality hit, and I finally began to learn me and love me with the help from my wife, kids, and a few other blessings God sent my way. That being said, I was finally able to translate those horrible lessons of failure, into lessons of growth, and renewal for not only the sake of my sanity, but also truly understanding that having the right support system, and family that truly loves and supports me goes a long way in creating my music, and truly finding who I am in music to again also translate that message to the audience. So now with this lesson unlearned, You can find the quote to this lesson in my song with Shawn Beats (The Beast) “I always had these weak thoughts we’d get it together, but see there’s strengths in this solo shit that makes it better”
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soliarii/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Soliarii/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-toussant-90795774/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m5iCuyZNtKkVDUF5mtJPkRaJ-s5uPb-gY
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/soliarii
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2LPBRsYxiXu3pRP47gN7vC
Image Credits
Indya Photographer