We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Idriss Al’ Rashad. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Idriss below.

Idriss, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

I have had a few but the most influential was my immediate boss while serving in the U.S. Navy, First Class Petty Officer Christopher Larrison. He was well decorated and highly regarded by his superiors. I admired his decisive leadership which was perfect for the job function in a very stressful and chaotic environment. This was important to me because life comes with many surprises and decisions that must be made on short notice; decisions that can influence the trajectory of your life. I recall that his independence from political ideologies allowed him to view things objectively.

The most pivotal moment came when I sparked a political debate about unemployment rates. This is where I would come to learn the art of thinking clearly and how confirmation bias can influence irrational thinking and the spread of misinformation. He informed me that my viewpoints were biased and he gave me two weeks to find an unbiased source to support my argument. I visited the library to read up on any nonpartisan books I could find on politics. I couldn’t find what I was looking for but I did pick up some good government books that I own to this very day because the library was having a two dollar book sale. Understanding how the government works helps me bring ideas to City Hall or the Texas Music Office that would offer more opportunity to the local music scene and heritage that also increase economic development.

As it pertains to my life in the present day, the library and local bookstores have ever since been my primary source to seek knowledge and I always maintain an active library membership. I have become more rational in my decision-making and proceed only after becoming well informed of all the potential risks involved and with those risks, being able to mitigate them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

My name is Idriss Al’ Rashad, an R&B Pop Artist residing in Austin, Texas. As an R&B Pop Artist, I create music based on themes of aesthetic appreciation, adoration, sexual desire and romance to express my brand message of love and compassion. I hold a firm belief that in a harmonious union between spouses there should be a higher purpose that transcends self-interest. It’s that higher purpose that maintains its presence when love is absent.

I was involved in other creative activities prior to music. Among them was with an aviation content creation brand I formed which is now temporarily dissolved. Under the brand I functioned as Managing Director and Executive Producer overseeing creative direction, filming, photography, aesthetics and brand campaigns for flight schools and other small aviation businesses.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Out of the various fields in creative arts, music is the most demanding and time-consuming in my opinion and R&B is very expensive in the sense that it is expensive to create a quality-sounding R&B song. It is also an expensive mistake to release an underproduced and unpolished R&B song. Either way you go about it, it is expensive. In R&B there’s more of a focus towards your emotions, storytelling and tempo. Each studio session requires a performance as close to perfection and it can honestly take over 30 minutes to sing just one line repeatedly until the note is sung correctly.

Learning has also been at a slow and steady pace since I refrain from gaining knowledge through YouTube. While I’m sure that there is valuable content on YouTube, I prefer learning by referencing textbooks until I fully understand the correlations of musical terms and how to apply them effectively. My reasoning is that I see it best to learn the “why” of things so I can determine “how” I plan to approach in order to deliver the desired sound as well as being able to replicate it with any given software, or studio equipment.

Another thing to understand is the perception of consistency. Many people define consistency as posting content all the time but the term for that is frequency. I personally define consistency as keeping the brand message clear, concise and uniform across all products without compromising my view of love and compassion. When artists go silent for some time they are simply trying to ensure that the music is authentic to them. I think as artists’ we also make it seem as easy as writing a couple lines, recording it and delivering it to an audience; however, this is absolutely not true and it can take a significant portion of your day.

I modeled my music creation around Chick-Fil-A. It’s a business that has limited menu options yet customers make the drive just to order a simply-made, yet, quality-tasting chicken sandwich. That has always been the strength of R&B – timeless music that brings the listener back.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My journey into music was an unexpected yet abrupt turn in life. It took a great deal of convincing to temporarily push my pilot career to the side for the music business. I found myself in a quarter-life crisis situation from Summer 2021 to Spring 2022. It was a time of confusion, loss of identity and purposelessness. I was motivated but without a mission. It was like having lost the energy source that powers many functions, operating solely on a standby power source to keep things running but I kept moving forward thanks to the guidance of Allah swt.

Through the chaos I needed to find reason. I came across the Japanese method of finding purpose in life called Ikigai which was very insightful. I was able to assess what I love, what I am good at, what the world needs, and what I can be paid for to understand why my life circumstances seemed to be taking me away from my childhood passion. I spent lengthy periods of time in self-isolation reflecting on any life events from youth to present day that were indicative of my true purpose in society.

I had initially aimed towards becoming an executive producer, artist manager or A & R because of my skill set and having been a major supporter for other independent artists’ music. I wanted to be the one to break out artists’, bring opportunities and provide assistance in the studio and on the grand stage just like Jermaine Dupri and Scott Braun. However, I came to understand that becoming a music artist was a necessary step in that process to better understand what it takes to develop industry music artists. I had to navigate the process as an artist myself to understand the setbacks in music production and strategies to address those in a timely manner.

As of currently, I have resumed college once again, in dual pursuit of both a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and an Associate’s degree in Music Business with an audio engineering specialization while making music and taking on several acting gigs. Being a licensed pilot has also been an advantage. I can fly into different Texas cities for the furtherance of business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alrashadmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idrissalrashad/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlRashadMusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/idriss-al-rashad-471183188/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlRashadSpeaks
• Other: Scimitar Dreams Page – https://jghezzal.myportfolio.com/work