Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Benj. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Benj thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

If I could go back in time, I personally would have started my career later. I began rapping at the age of 14 years old. Growing up, I was always surrounded by music in some way, whether it was attending my father’s band practices, watching battle rap DVDs with my older siblings, or listening to r&b with my mother as we cleaned the house on Saturday mornings. So it didn’t really surprise me when that love for music transformed into me wanting to make my own. It all started in my parents basement on our old Dell computer. I wrote my first few freestyles to some popular beats at the time and showed them to my brothers; it was history from there. The response I got from showing my art made me want to continue to do it but on a higher level and that’s when things started to get muddy.

When you first start chasing your dreams to be a musician, most people are telling you to reach for the stars while some may have their doubts about you. No one speaks about how messy and political the business can be and as a 15 year old who was just starting to get a hint about who they were, that’s a bit much to deal with. Everyone is telling you who you should be like, who you should sound like, what you shouldn’t do or say – but no one asks how you feel in those same moments. Thankfully, early on in my career, I was able to shake everyones preexisting thoughts about who they think I should be or what I should sound like and do my own thing, my way, regardless of how long it takes. At least I’ll know I didn’t have to sacrifice who I am to my core.

Now at the age of 25, I can honestly say I would have started my career in the latter half of my teen years around age 18 or 19. This would have given me time to actually figure out what type of artist I actually wanted to be because at this age I had more sense of who I was than when I was 14 years old. Although I would have preferred to begin my career later, I believe in everything happening for a reason. I learned some valuable lessons at a young age that gives me a different lens when navigating through this industry.

Benj, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

So I go by the name Benj and I’m a 25 year old musician and photographer from Philly. I began making music at 14 and I started doing photography at the age of 21. Music has always been a first love for me especially since I grew up only knowing how to express myself through music and eventually was able to tap into my own feelings and put them in song form. I think what sets me apart from others within in music is that I’m not gimmicky. With the way social media has changed how people consume music/content and how they interact with artists, it’s crucial for me to never get caught up in the trends. Everything is authentic with me and I try to convey that in my art across the board. With photography, I kind of just fell into it. When I was in college, a lot of my friends studied film or had photography as a hobby so I inevitably began to pick up the camera myself. When I first started, I knew I wanted to capture people in their day to day lifestyle with an editorial twist to it. I wanted to be the lens that allows the world to see them as they see themselves. My first project that was creative directed by me with a friend of mine (El) helped me settle on this style. We did a chained theme to pretty much represent the struggles with their identity. I purchased about 70lbs of chains in various sizes and put them all around their body and we went to work. My whole purpose for this was for El to feel as comfortable as possible and really be seen in the world how they want to see fit and I think that mission was complete. That’s what honestly sets me apart with photography. I want people to see themselves when they look at my photos, not some over edited picture perfect version.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I was about 19 years old, I was living in Winter Park, FL attending Full Sail University. At the time, I was enrolled in the Show Production major to learn live mixing and lighting. About 10 months into the program, I realized I genuinely had no interest in learning the material. It’s not that it was challenging or anything, it just didn’t speak to my soul. This is when I changed my degree to Entertainment Business instead. As someone who has dealt with a bad contract and janky managers, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t enter this business again without understanding at least the basics of how all of this actually works. This revelation also happened around the same time that I started to understand the type of artist I wanted to be and having the knowledge to navigate the industry until I built a team I could trust meant the most to me honestly.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that you have to stay happy. This was a recent lesson for me actually. I pride myself on being an optimist and always thinking positive but I didn’t understand how much that prohibited me from allowing myself to experience other emotions at the same time. I was treating happiness as if it was something that we chase for a while and once we finally get it, it stays forever. That’s not how it works at all and that was a reality check for me. I would find myself constantly depressed when I was going through rough patches in life or if things just weren’t what I expected they would be, it would feel like it was the end of the world sometimes. On the other side of that, when things were going great and living up to my expectations, it would feel like I was on a cloud – until something goes wrong and then I crash back to reality. The toxic positivity showed itself in my music and the lack of vulnerability. I was so obsessed on speaking about my accomplishments and positive things that were going in my life, it was challenging to tap in to those feelings that fell into the darker categories for me. Allowing myself to just go through all emotions has been helping me stay balanced lately.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/187benj/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/187benj_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_5At5sU3sgXS5r1YPUUrbQ