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

Alright, Chink thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

Ok, the first dollar I actually earned from my music was not that long ago. In 2018 I debuted my first single called “Blicky” on the streaming platforms through TuneCore. I actually can’t tell you when I accumulated the actual first dollar because when I came back to check my earnings a few weeks later my sales from streaming had accumulated about $8. It is next to nothing I know but I was very proud that I had generated even that much because artists only get about a penny per stream max today depending on which platform the listener uses and it was even less than that then. It just reinforced my drive to keep going.

Chink, 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?

Well, I’m from the northeast part of Baltimore city but I have also spent time living in west and south Baltimore respectively growing up. I got into making music the same way almost anyone who has ever thought they could rap has. I just tried it haha. No seriously I was watching tv with my brother Tion one day when we were kids and an Usher Twix Commercial came on. We imitated it a bunch of times then I realized I could write my own little song and immediately started going through countless composition notebooks. That’s kind of how my dream was born. I seen somebody else do it, imitated it, got good, and the rest is history. I hip hop music for anyone who has ever gone through something or for those who feel like they wanna talk about their pain but can’t express it. Don’t get me wrong I make it sound decent and often you can hear me having a good time in these records but if you dive deep I’m really crying for help a lot of times whether it’s my experience personally or someone close to me.

The project I’m most proud of is my Fuhrer ep I dropped in 2020 because I sold the most physical copies and made the most money from it to date. If any artist says it’s not about the money they’re lying. I put in thousands to bring that project to life so seeing some return was satisfying even if I didn’t break even.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn was, it literally doesn’t matter how good you think your content is. If the people you are trying to reach don’t hear you then you are no better than the run of the mill artist who is chasing the sound of the times. The backstory from that comes from every time I interact with someone who has just discovered my music for the first time and they always say “You’re music is actually good. I thought it would be trash.”. That’s when I discovered it’s not just about the art but what you are willing to invest so that people see the art.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I am currently going through the process of rebuilding my audience on social media because somewhere along the line my audience became skewed and I wasn’t reaching as many people as I should. On top of that I wasn’t able to run ads for a while. My only advice to anyone just starting to build a presence is be hands on. Don’t let anyone run your account for you and always try to watch your metrics so you can target and retarget the people who are most likely to support you whether it be monetary or not.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chink_jones/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/outlaw_smutty
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@outlaw_smutty

Image Credits
D Rose Shotbyswish