We were lucky to catch up with Q Prodigal recently and have shared our conversation below.

Q, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Music has been apart of my life since the minute I was born. My mother was a talented singer and would make mixtapes for me and my sister. I wrote poetry a lot growing up and performed in talent shows dancing. All of those things came together after I graduated High School and went out into the world on my own. I had to make the decision to leave what I was doing in college and follow the passions that had followed me my entire life subconsciously.

Q, 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?

My name is Q Prodigal, I am a 25 year old musician based out of North Carolina. I was born in Rochester, NY in 1998. As a child my mother served for the US Army so, I moved around a lot before returning to Rochester to begin school.
That feeling of wanderlust never left my spirit, so after college I moved all over the country learning more about myself and meeting other musicians to work with/learn from. At the start of 2018 I moved to NYC and began learning to construct beats, and hone my craft as a songwriter. In 2019 I released my first mixtape “The Prodigal Tape”, and moved to Colorado to begin working on my first full length album “Loneliness Only Opportunizes Pain and Sadness” (aka LOOPS). From that point on I would live in North Carolina, Buffalo, NY, and finally Rochester again. Each stop bringing new connections and inspirations for new projects.
I think my music resonates with so many people around the world because it is all driven by inspiration I take from everywhere I go and my most vulnerable moments and thoughts. It’s raw and filled with pain and emotion and sometimes pride. The thing that makes me the proudest of my craft is when someone contacts me telling me that my music helped them through a rough time in their lives because it does the same for me.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Back in late 2019 I was approached by a fan who wanted to manage me out of Texas. I gave him a trial run and within days he had me booked for a show in Austin, Texas. I booked my flight and we went half on an Airbnb. At the last minute he tells me he has to cancel because he can’t get time off of work and he canceled the Airbnb without talking to me first. At this point I had already taken my time off of work and booked my flight so now I have to scramble to find a hotel close to the venue since I won’t have anyone to drive me around the city. I find the funds from friends and family to help me get the hotel and then the day of the show the promoters tell me they are missing equipment needed to do my set only, and that they aren’t going to get it. So now I am running all over a city I’ve never been by myself trying to get the needed equipment. I get the job done get to the show and absolutely kill it and they paid me $33. That’s the story of the first show I was ever paid for, as treacherous as it was from start to finish (throwing up right before my plane home), I would do it 10 times over, it showed me how much I really want this.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My ultimate goal is to be able to make a livable wage just doing the things I love most, being creative and spending time with the people I love, who also happen to be creatives in their own right. I don’t need the accolades and the mansions I just want to be able to put all my time and focus into my music and my future brand ideas that I’ve been dreaming up since I was 13 and heard the word “Prodigal” for the first time in an Earl Sweatshirt verse who later became something of a peer in the field of music I’m in today. It’s a blessing. Besides that, I really wanna do an international tour with my best friends because they’re all amazing musicians as well and they make me better.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/qprodigal?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_prodigal/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2P3EuASY1EqvYDhYWbz_GQ

Image Credits
Instagrams: @chainstays @pukeiswar @itsfulf