We were lucky to catch up with Braden Rickwood recently and have shared our conversation below.

Braden, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

The time where I truly felt I should take this more seriously only started a few years ago, Ive always made music before hand but just a few years ago is when I wanted to take this more seriously and turn it into a career.. Thats when I decided to start being more professional with my music all around, I upgraded my equipment, started writing more rather then freestyling, releasing albums, singles on all platforms and performing at events all around Ontario. These are things I would of never seen coming my way. So when they say hard work pays off or dreams come true.. Its the truth dont give up at anytime..

Braden, 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?

As I was growing up during my childhood days around the age of 14, I had friends that would come by almost everyday, we were all young teenagers that would smoke cannabis,drink alcohol, and listen to Hip Hop a lot of the time. One day 2 of those friends came over to my house and had asked me to put on an instrumental (I had no clue what that meant at the time). Once the instrumental started playing they started freestyling, I was very intrigued as I have been listening to Hip Hop since I was child. Unfortunetly for them they werent too great but they could still rhyme on beat out of no where.. So as the next few days went by they came back to hangout and started freestyling again, that day they decided to ask me to freestyle, I said “I cant do that but give me a couple days to write something” this way I could have a little taste of how to catch a rhyming scheme. I would practice everyday writing random “bars”, with me having such a small vocabullary back then it was hard for me to come up with rhyming words so I would start off with small words such as Bike, Hike, Like simple words. Once my homies came over again, I showed them what i had written, it wasnt good, I was off beat so many faults, but all those faults lead up to who I am now. Now that was just the start of everything, Me and my friends were only having fun with it, I didnt think of turning that fun into a career at any point then, sometimes I wish I did because I would be more improved today.

Like I said as of a few years ago I started to move towards a more professional way, this way I could try and make this a career, this lead me to bring out the creative side in me, even though I was focused on releasing singles, I found there is more things I could utilize to help me move forward at an affordable rate. I started working on GFX (Graphic Designing) which is a service I provide to others aside from performing live as well, but the main reason I started to dabble in other areas was so I didnt have to pay for these services that could cost an arm and leg, such as Mix and Mastering, Videography, VFX, Photography, and GFX, instead of having to pay out a price that I cant afford, I decided to buy all these things that I could use to independantly create for myself (for free). Once I mastered on how to use everything, I then proceeded to offer my services for a cheap rate to those who are also looking for affordable.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I find the people around you could be the most rewarding aspect depending on whos around you, for myself its like working a 9-5, the thing that motivates me most to work is the enviroment around me, meaning the people. If theres good energy around me and people are happy, having a great time, then thats the only reward I need..

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building your audience through social media can be really tricky I have yet to figure this out myself. Huge audiences arent just going to pop up out of no where, they always start out small in the beginning. Personally my audience isnt all that big but its still an audience, its still people that are interested in what im doing/creating. So if your just starting out and youre trying to build an audience my best advice to you is try and be consistent with your posts on your media, interact with them as much as possible weather you know them or not, another thing is if you have only say 5 people interacting with your media presence and your not happy with that number, I wouldnt even worry about it, I used to be the same way, being unhappy with your numbers isnt going to change anything. Things take time..

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/officialakeh
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/indigenous_akeh/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsRickwood
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8VWlKOTMO0FsmtUhmcKaLw
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ak-eh
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6n5YOQPPNjH68eeVjJnXWq?si=vNLKzj9_SCeFFddrMl-zqg