We recently connected with Lovey The Don and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Lovey The Don thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

I’ve always created things and wrote music since I was a young kid. I didn’t start writing rap music until I was about 15 years old, which originally started as me just writing poetry in private to express my emotions. I was raised in a religious household where I wasn’t exposed to Rap music outside of the 80s stuff my dad used to like. So when I started rapping on my own, I deep-dived into all things HIp-Hop from the 90s and beyond to truly understand its history, origin, and styles. I was always a little unorthodox in my style which came through in my raps so I was nervous if there would even be a place for a weirdo like me in rap..Until I watched Nicki Minaj’s “My Time Now” documentary on MTV. Seeing how weird and unique she was but still had such hard raps amazed me, I told myself “there is a place for me in rap, I can do this” so I did it but I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to continue so I told everyone I “quit” rapping. Fast forward to my sophomore year of college. I had just gone through my first break-up and heartache at 19 years old. I was so depressed it led me to write music again after not writing for 2 years! I called my old engineer that same day, set a studio session, and dedicated myself to music again seriously this time. I’ve been making music ever since.

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

I am Lovey The Don, I’m an Alternative Rap Artist from Greensboro, North Carolina. I also do Creative Direction for multiple types of projects. I started doing music seriously in 2015 after releasing my debut EP “The Futuristic EP” and I’ve been self-managed during my whole music career. I create music for all people to feel empowered, uplifted, seen, heard, and celebrated. I think what sets me apart from other artists is that I don’t fit into one type of aesthetic, sound, or look. Every song sounds different, and has a new feeling or perspective. I’ll always try to challenge my listener’s mind even if it’s a fun party song. I am most proud of the way I’ve learned to execute all of my music releases with intention and hard work. Being a self-managed independent artist can be challenging but I’ve learned how to present myself just as any other bigger artist with a full team would. I’m also proud of learning the importance of asking for help just because you’re an independent artist, it doesn’t mean you have to take everything yourself all alone!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I definitely had to learn happened for me towards the end of 2019 going into 2020. I had to unlearn the narrative that there can be “only one” in Rap. I had always had this vision or plan that I would be the first Black female rapper to really bring the “alternative style” to mainstream hip-hop and embody my natural way of living in both my feminine and masculine energy. I wanted to break those barriers because I hadn’t seen it done before until the rapper “Rico Nasty” popped in 2018. While I love Rico, she was accomplishing all of the things in Rap that I had set out to do, I was nowhere near successful in my career yet and I felt like a failure because of that. When Rico became successful I felt like there was no reason for me to keep trying or like I no longer would have a place in rap. Since me and her favor somewhat have similar badass energy I was starting to constantly get compared to her by others who obviously meant no harm. But inside It was killing me because I was having a whole identity crisis as an artist. I gained my confidence back after a long soul searching and I realized there doesn’t have to be just one person famous for one thing in Rap. I feel like especially as women we are forced to think there can only be one of us on top but that is just not true. There’s success for ALL of us, always.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

There’s a lot more to being an indie music artist than just making good music, which is what a lot of upcoming creatives starting out don’t understand because I definitely didn’t in my early years. Making great music is important but if you really want to make a career in music you’ve got to focus on the foundation, promotion, marketing, etc. After getting comfortable with my musical abilities, I zoned in on how to correctly market myself as an artist and my music back in 2020, and its changed everything about I release my music now. I became a student of “YouTube University” and found a great music marketer, producer, and author by the name of Jesse Cannon. He’s phenomenal at what he does and he’s helped so many artists elevate their career. His single-release strategy is something that I have lived by for the last year and a half and it’s changed so much for my music rollouts. Having a set plan and learning to engage audiences by telling stories around my music has worked wonders for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: withkoji.com/@loveythedon
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loveythedon/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loveythedon
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/loveythedon
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LoveyTheDon

Image Credits
Personal Photo shot by Brendan McLean. Last 4 photos shot by Devin Lane