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

Alright, Marcus thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I initially came up with the idea for The Content Island website, during the pandemic. While doing a call with a few friends, we started discussing the issues content creators in the islands were facing, with the lack of access to authentic Caribbean music, photos and videos. While there were some companies globally offering royalty-free Caribbean music and photos, we felt that they didn’t authentically represent us. Those 3 friends (Kira Mohammed, Kevin Beharry and Maarten Manmohan) soon became my official business partners on this venture and as proud Trinis (Residents of the beautiful island of Trinidad & Tobago), we are making it our mission to ensure that Caribbean content is represented appropriately worldwide.

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

I’ve been in the music industry since I was a kid, entering local talent competitions and at the age of 15, I recorded my first song in a professional studio and by age 16, my music was being played on the local radio airwaves.

I took a few years off being an artist to focus on learning the business side of the industry, being part of a management team for an artist, studying law and opening my own digital marketing company. In my mid twenties I completed my LLB (Law) from the University of London and returned to the industry as an artist, performing on the underground circuit as a rapper and with a rock band called 5 Miles 2 Midnight. While doing the local circuit with this band, we were able to open for international artists such as Evanescence and Stephen Marley.

In 2013, alongside friends XplicitMevon and Yung Rudd, we created a popular style of music called TRAPSO, mixing American trap music and Trinidadian soca/rapso lyrics and melodies. For four years our songs took over the airwaves in Trinidad and we even ended up in a studio session with American rapper Fabolous in New York.

In 2016, thanks to my collaboration “Galaxy Ranger” with EDM dj/producers Bad Royale, I was offered the opportunity to tour with them in the U.S , including a performance at the legendary Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago and Miami Music Week in Miami, opening for Steve Aioki.

That experience really opened my mind to the global music industry and I started experimenting with Library and Production Music, thanks to one of my mentors and now friend Ty Frankel of Shutdown Music. These opportunities really shaped my interest for Publishing and Licensing and with my law degree and experience as a singer and songwriter, it all started to make business sense to me to continue along this path.

During the pandemic, I had a lot of time to think and started formulating ways to bring my international experiences in the music industry to the Caribbean and this birthed the The Content Island; a website where Caribbean musicians, photographers and videographers can now have a platform to earn extra money, especially for their unused works.

Our main focus, as we prepare to officially launch is to provide royalty-free Caribbean music with instrumentals from genres, such as soca, dancehall, parang and reggae. We also offer royalty-free Caribbean landscape and scenic photos on the website, as well as Caribbean themed sound effects. Upon launch, we plan to expand our library and also work towards getting high quality Caribbean themed stock videos including drone shots, available for license on the website.

It’s easy to license the content, we accept Paypal as well as debit and credit cards globally.

The Content Island is the first website in the Caribbean to offer this service and all these products, and I’m proud of my entire team for seeing the idea through and continuing to work towards our goal of providing a much needed service.

This website is also For Caribbean Creators, By Caribbean Creators. And we are also proud of that, as it’s important for us as creatives to understand the importance of ownership and entrepreneurship.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

The name of my digital marketing agency that I have been operating for over a decade is IKE (I Know Everybody) Consulting and as Trinidad & Tobago is a such a small island, I quickly gained a reputation for being someone who is very connected on the ground and is also a pretty good networker locally and globally.

What really helped me initially get known is that I would just attend a lot of events in my 20’s. I was never close minded to only attend one type of event or stay in my comfort circles or comfort zone. Even though I was mainly in the entertainment industry, I would attend networking mixers for young professionals, as well as business conferences. I also started being known as “the social media guy” as friends would always recommend me to clients and I never had the need to really go heavy with advertising for my business. My last name, height, dreadlocks and fashion style also helped me stand out whenever I went and people would always approach me to try to figure out who I was and what I did.

I’ve always been a people person and this made me popular from since I was a teenager, but my popularity was elevated to another level, when my songs became regularly played on the radio airwaves and my music videos were shown on local television. Also all the consistent newspaper articles and television interviews definitely helped me become somewhat of a household name for a time period. I was always smart enough to use this popularity to help launch other business ventures such as doing events, launching a clothing and now creating the Caribbean’s first royalty fee content licensing website, The Content Island.

I’ve also tried my best to maintain a reputation of being pleasant, honest, respectful and a man of loyalty and integrity, traits, I learned from my father and mother, who were always my biggest supporters.

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

Since I was younger, I’ve always been told by older people and even peers my age to “Focus on one thing”. They would always tell me I would end up being a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Everyone’s journey is different and as much as I really tried to take their advice, my natural path, especially in my twenties took me into a wild ride of exploring so many different industries including music, events, marketing, fashion and law. But it’s only in my mid thirties I started realising that all my experiences and knowledge from all these industries were finally starting to come together to make business sense for what I’m about to do and where I am today.

What I would say I learned is that structure is important and even if you are juggling several careers or ventures, you have to focus on each of them, one at a time, so, it’s either you section off hours of the day or days of the week to focus to each of your passions/ventures. Time management becomes so much more important, especially as you get older and responsibilities increase and time gets less and less in the day. So I also had to unlearn living every day just going with the flow and start to really schedule every single day of my life and every single task of my life including leisure. Still a work in progress as as a creative we hate too much structure.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thecontentisland.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecontentisland/ https://www.instagram.com/braveboy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecontentisland
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-braveboy-b3b8a631/?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2F&originalSubdomain=tt
• Twitter: https://x.com/realbraveboy

Image Credits

Main Image of Marcus: Photographer: Chandra Maharaj