We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Blake McCowan-Martin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Blake below.

Hi Blake , thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I think I kind of always knew since a pretty young age, I’ve always been super into music and art, but I think the turning point was probably like 5th or 6th grade, that’s about the time I realized I wasn’t gonna make the NBA lol, and I really started honing in on music. Been in love with it since, and I really started putting action behind it my senior year of high school, putting music out for sale and even making some money off of it for the first time.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into making music at the age of 9, I’d go to summer school and make beats on garage band, we’d burn a CD of the beats and play it off my grandmothers radio, we’d record the beat with one flip phone and record raps on the other and then combine them. It sounded atrocious lol, but, that’s really how I got into music/rap. Later on; my freshman year of high school, circa 2014, I started my first “record label” back then it was called “the480squad”, it was a small collective of artists, mainly my cousins and my sister lol. But that ended up being the brainchild or first prototype if you will, for my small business/record label/artist co-op “480 World”, which to date has generated over 45,000,000 streams across platforms and has been responsible for charting artists on iTunes over 5 times! A huge success in comparison to a record label with only family members on it lol.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

The idea seemed cool, and I think done correctly they could be cool especially for artists, but, the NFT/Crypto market has yet to earn my trust. It’s definitely a “get rich quick” scheme and a lot of people lose their life savings on these things because of lack of knowledge or being outright scammed. I personally think NFTs/Crypto need to be regulated at a government level.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Seeing others thrive as a result of collaboration/hard work. It’s always awesome to win, but it feels even better to win and also see a friend, or a colleague, or a fellow musician win with you!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/480world
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/blakeshawn480
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@AsAPBLAKE

Image Credits
Image credits: Amelia McCowan-Martin