We caught up with the brilliant and insightful WOP Tamii a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, WOP thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I’ve been fortunate enough, throughout the few short years I’ve been actively pursuing my music career, to be involved in a couple different projects that I like to feel as though were important in their own respects. But to speak on the most meaningful project I’ve worked on up to this point, it would have to be my debut mixtape that I am currently in the midst of working on and finishing. I’ve spent the last 4 years of my music career sort of blindly, and naively navigating a business, not knowing the full ramifications and responsibilities that it entailed. As I’ve been blessed to be able to work with and gain lessons from multiple different professionals in their respective areas of expertise, I’ve learned and developed an effective personalized process for my music producing and releasing strategy over the years. My debut mixtape is my most meaningful body of work for me because I believe I’m taking more time to introspectively dive into myself and what I’ve experienced in my pursuit of this career as well as what’s transpired in other areas of my life because of this pursuit. I’ve found myself opening up about more topics that I haven’t felt vulnerable enough to express in my older music, as I’m learning the more vulnerability I’ve allowed myself to express, the more my fans connect with my music. Also, I don’t believe I’ve ever worked this hard to curate a tailored feeling through the listening experience of any song or project I’ve ever worked on before, while incorporating the new knowledge of the business aspects of my career I’ve learned.
WOP, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is WOPTamii, I am a 23 year old songwriter and recording artist/engineer coming out of the South Jersey/Philadelphia area. I started out playing the trumpet through junior high before beginning writing freestyles and recording music with my cousins. We were 14 & 15 years old in the basement of my aunt’s house in North Philadelphia. At the time, none of us knew we’d end up actually pursuing music careers years later, we were just having fun remixing songs we loved and finding “free beats” on YouTube to throw rhymes over since it came easy to us. While going through high school, I ended up neglecting music altogether for like 3 years, 2 of which I spent in pursuit of a sports career, the last in pursuit of a sports medicine career. I ended up dropping out of college after my freshman year, even though I had a full academic scholarship, once I rediscovered my passion for music following my return to school for the second semester of my freshman campaign. Borrowing a classmates Blue Snowball Ice USB microphone and using GarageBand on my school-issued iPad, I was able to record myself from my dorm room and teach myself what I believed to be the basics of mixing my own vocal tracks. One of those tracks is still currently my most streamed single I’ve ever released on SoundCloud. After dropping out and deciding I wanted to actually give myself a legitimate attempt to pursue music as a full-time career, I was able to reconnect with a group of individuals I once worked with prior to taking my years of hiatus. Through collaborations with them and continuing to gain new following & fans, we were able to garner the attention of Chris Schwartz, founder of Ruffhouse Records, which turned into a short-lived distribution deal partnered with Symphonic Distribution in which we released 2 singles with one accompanying music video. Unfortunately, as I said, that deal was short-lived only lasting 1 year, in part due to pandemic restrictions, but ultimately due to unfulfilled contract obligations. After terminating that contract, the group as well as myself began to reestablish ourselves with single and visual releases over a 2 year span, while also presenting 2 live performance shows ourselves with local venues & collaborations with local talent. This past year, I have decided to hone into myself and my personal career, establishing myself as a solo artist as well as improving my engineering skills through lessons from respected colleagues of mine in the engineering space nearest me. During this time of honing into my personal career and learning what exactly my personal goals are, I have not only built new relationships in new markets that I’ve expanded my fan reach to, but I’ve also sharpened my skills in engineering to the ability to record & mix my own vocals and those of my close collaborating partners. Moving forward with my career, I have my clothing line currently in the works which I plan at this point to have the first series releasing this coming Fall/Winter. Also, I am working on reestablishing my own studio space that will be available for booking for music recording as well as a full media studio. If I was to have something that I was to be proud of at this point in my journey, I would have to say it’s my most streamed single of all-time entitled “Spiritual Healing” produced by @1five8producedit my Australian kinfolk. Being one of the first tracks I allowed myself to allude to more vulnerable topics in my music, I am often surprised at the fact that it resonates as much as it has and continues to garner me long-term returning fans of my music.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
As an artist, in my opinion, there is no more rewarding feeling than the full completion of a project being worked on including all components pivotal to successfully releasing the project, for whatever success may mean to you in regards to the project. I believe once you have fully executed the original idea concept you developed from your imagination into the fully finished product in this physical form, that is the most rewarding aspect of being a recording artist. If I was to attribute the most awarding aspect of being a creative individual altogether, it would have to be my ability to be open to experimentation within the creative process and my ability to learn from those around me who are able to teach me techniques and give me knowledge from their own personal experiences that in turn help me to further my career and my music.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wouldn’t say there is necessarily any particular resource I wish I had knowledge of earlier in my creative career. I would be more inclined to say I would have appreciated understanding there is a business side to the creative industry that allows it to be the entertainment business. Early on in my career, I was not aware or interested in learning the intricacies of the business aspects that go into making a creative career. I did not take into consideration the fact that there is work being done behind the scenes that makes the creative process profitable and takes a hobby & turns it into a active career. Had I had the knowledge I equip now at the earlier stages of my career, I believe I may have made some different decisions at important points in my journey that could have propelled my career further than I am currently, though I do not regret any decisions I’ve made in my career or any experiences I’ve been through because of said decisions.
Contact Info:
- Website: woptamiimusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woptamii/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WOPTamiiMusic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wop-tamii/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/WOPTamii
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCjhbH_HU_yB5ttSFk8KmCA
- Other: Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/woptamii318/1533319465 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1HxpdPiA532lV2xoTw8rRp?si=-JkR071mTAmZIrsutwx4MA
Image Credits
Kori Stevenson; Jake Fedkiw: Fusion Life Photography: Sway Jimenez