We caught up with the brilliant and insightful B.R.A.$.$ a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, B.R.A.$.$ thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

When it comes to asking friends and family to support my business, I don’t look at it like they have to. I see it as a blessing when they do, a lesson when they don’t, and a call to step up my game if they don’t even notice. I think a lot of people assume that when they start a business that their family should automatically support them. In a perfect world that is true, but don’t live your life heartbroken or angry if you find out that it’s not that simple in your case.

This is where I draw the line though, for example with the Renaissance tour by Beyoncé. People enjoy what they enjoy but let’s be honest, if you can spend $800 to sit in the high nosebleed seats of a stadium and watch this woman and her daughter do their routine from a distance or on a screen, it should not be so hard for you to put $10 on your cousin who sells shirts and has been making music for years. People will spend hundreds of dollars to see their favorite artist, fun that person‘s career and lifestyle, but then look down or turn their nose up to their cousin who is making music for the love of making music and making it actually sound good. I feel like you’re overstepping if you can criticize that person or family member for that passion knowing that you will find someone else’s and not even look their way. I know you have these people that sit on social media and scream about tactics and tell Artist that “this is the real world and people don’t have to like you nor love you nor support you”. Yeah that’s cool and all but in the black community we believe that we’re rebuilding not only our identity but our economy to. That doesn’t happen if you are feeding into the system that doesn’t even care about what you’re doing over the people around you who would be directly benefiting what you’re doing, and that’s just one perspective that I have. Think about it, out of all those big names that we know how many have actually revitalized a neighborhood, their immediate area, or anything like that. I’m not saying that they don’t exist I’m saying look at the number compared to the latter.

What influenced my view really is my my life and the things that I’ve had to go through as an artist and an entrepreneur. I appreciate my journey and I’m not someone who came in to it expecting it to be easy. But I can’t help but notice people‘s perspective of how this is supposed to work compared to the reality of it. For example I was doing shows and events for years, then one day I had a family member say “is there anything else that you want to do with your life“. At first I was a little mad, it was like in my mind I was only thinking “can you not see what I’m already doing, or is this not enough? Why does it matter to you? You already don’t support me fully anyway”. In my heart I know what I’m doing is really trying to change how my family sees wealth and actually obtain it for us, change our situation and benefit my community. But the frustration was that even though it was me, like this is your “Nick”, at first they could only see the same story that other brothers had play out. But I’m not them, and they’re not BRA$$. I’ve always felt like I’ve been proving that point over and over.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

For me to start it with wanting to be a writer for an artist or multiple artist in the music industry. I didn’t know anybody that was in the music industry nor had any experience dealing with any people in the industry but my determination told me that I could put in the work and one day be that person in my area, in my family, in my circle that I had that experience and work with those guys people. When I went to college the hunger only grew, and that grew into a promotional team and that grew into a label. I didn’t necessarily know what I was doing , I was 18 years old and new to the world just like all the people that were involved with me. But I had some good guidance that I ran across, kept God first and pushed every day. Same thing that I do now. When you’re from a place like wild from the accessibility to certain things that would help you elevate in the entertainment world is not always present . So you have to branch out and meet people and get to know another side of the world in life that you might’ve not been introduced to while growing up. I find myself having to branch out a lot and along the way I’ve met a lot of great people.

What’s sets me apart is my tenacity and my persistence. I don’t look at someone else’s work and think I can’t top it. I take it as, I got to dig deeper and continue my pattern of growth. I like competition and I look at words like weapons. This is why my flow changes. In my mind I’m like a warrior, with different fighting styles.

What I am the most proud of is my consistency with my music and the improvement that I have witnessed. Originally I didn’t think that I was really good artist, but then one day I became someone’s favorite artist and that really inspired me. Hearing people tell me that they enjoyed my music and the things that I’m involved with is really the fuel that keeps me going. Before the world even knew I was interested in music I was writing for years, but I get a real rush when I perform and sometimes I hate to come down off the stage.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Being with the SOxNY team was not always the easiest. Everything was off the muscle and funded by the members of the group as you would expect with any band or group. So all of those trips to New York and surrounding areas was on our shoulders. I was a college student when I started who had already been through having his own label and his own face in Greensboro, North Carolina. But I did all of that without having a real job. But we made it work.

I remember on one of the trips we actually got kicked out of a hotel room while it was a blizzard going on in New York City. We got kicked out for smoke related reasons and we still laugh about it today. But we had to walk with our suitcases and really no money and actually pull something together to get a new room and be able to maneuver and still made our interview on time. There’s so many stories I could go down the line and tell.

Even before the SOxNY days I was running a team and we had a night where someone randomly shot into our house, killing two individuals. October 2, 2016 “Shooting at College House Party” was all over headlines and the news. It wasn’t even a real party. Someone dropped our address on social media and then hundreds of people showed up. That day really broke my heart. It felt like my dream hurt people that was close to the team and that was never the intent. Ahmad and Alicia should be here today. I don’t want anyone to forget their names. It was hard to push through that and I eventually ended up in the Air Force as a means to get my life right. But then I was discharged for the most unknown of unknown reasons, some military downsizing stuff. So I was back out in the world, so-called knocked off track and still not where I wanted to be. My mind quickly went to changing that. That’s where SOxNY came in.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn the idea that who you start with is what you need to finish with. Because that’s not true. Yes when you grow and you are continuing in this business do you want to keep a route do you want to keep your team together. But kind of like the NBA, just because some players got traded or retired doesn’t mean that the team name changes now. Neither does that mean the mission of winning a championship changes either. Do you have to work with those who have your best interest, a passion for what the mission in the goal is, and a mindset that brings on winning. There’s nothing easy about the business, and there’s a lot of people that are just trying to find the easy way out of life. You have to avoid those people at all cost. They can cost you everything if you’re not careful.

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Image Credits
Arshad Frazier