Category Archives: Music

Human as I am, I realise that we do often make mistakes. As much as I like to try being on the right path, in the music world, it can often be a constant fight of steering clear of time and energy wasting events that can sometimes become costly.

Being someone who strives to be in control of my destiny and calling the shots, I mistakenly let my passion for living my dream get the better of me. I had become blinded slightly to perceiving a “harmless competition”; which is suppose to spot good hard talent and an artist, who has a good following with a track record behind them and give them exposure and the opportunity to perform on a prestigious stage at a venue such as the O2 as well as a promising recording contract. Any artist who would want a helping hand in boosting public status would see this as harmless, after all “what have you got to lose?” so goes the phrase.

I normally try to avoid these competitions like the plague and refuse to enter them, despite the numerous times of being asked or in fact told “ You should go on X factor you know, you would win!!” Well turning down time and time again these opportunities, decided to say “what the heck” and gave into a promoter who as far as I knew, thought it would be good opportunity, seeing as he had seen my performances and rated me highly. Seeing as he had hosted this UK Unsigned and so forth before, he knew that with an act like mine would wipe the floor with that competition. I figured he knows the deal so I thought ok, let’s give it a go, if I don’t win the most I will gain is a bit more public exposure online. And so the voting started, I aced it!

Coming top in the top ten chart with over 505577 votes in the first week, getting all my online and offline fan base to continue texting in their votes, which by the way cost 50p per text, all the way up to the deadline, I was in high ranking, which by the way the deadline seemed to keep changing the more popular I became on their site and the further on the competition went. It all started to become confusing as to how the competition was being run. Long story short I win the votes. I come top in my category and by me contacting them, not the other way round, was invited to perform at a shabby venue in Ilford (far out from anywhere and by no means the easiest of places to get to), to battle it out in a final performance with whom I thought had been the top 3 finalist in the top ten as advertised on their site, however, this was not the case, there were many hopefuls who had been chucked in the mix to make up an entirely new competition which from this, the winner would then go on to perform at the O2 (see what I mean about confusing?).

Now I had been told differently, that as I had won the votes and was in the top ten I would be going on to perform however had to give a performance to the audience and judges and based on the performance and votes by 9pm would determine the winning result. After winning the votes and seeing my position had not changed from first place I still did not win? Their excuse had been that because I had used my own mic and it had cut out in the beginning part of my performance, they were unable to get a true feel of my performance. Despite singing live while dancing full routines to my own song, which had also been written and produced by me, as professional as I had come across and with the clear following, I still in their eyes was not quite good enough.

However they happily took the fees from all registered artist, excessive costly votes from all artist fans and apologising for the poor quality stage venue, equipment and organisation putting it down to only having a small budget they had been left with, which had been spent and put into the Gr

and Final show…yeah right!  Although I managed to enter without having to pay, I’m sure there were many artist who had felt cheated by this competition. I spoke with an artist, who said he had entered back in 2006, yet he also did not go through despite his great talent and song writing ability and his profile is STILL up on there site, as if he is still competing. He said the following “I’m trying to work out how to take myself off their site as we speak” I said to him I feel it’s a huge scam,

He replied “I agree. I did it back in 2006 and thought the same thing then.

Everyone paid for the DVDs of the shows too and they never sent anyone the DVDs!

they make false

promises; and they change dates, and change prizes.

I do feel bad for all of those who had voted and showed so much support, it’s almost as bad as someone like Teedra Moses going in for a pub singing competition and then not winning! However the positive from this, is that it affirms my strong beliefs about these competitions and Talent shows and I know that it’s a mistake I will never make again. I also met so

me other artists and gained a little more online exposure, however I now know that with where I am at, I need to be even more careful as to how I am exposed as I don’t wish to jeopardise my good reputation of what I have worked hard  and for so long to gain.

My advice to other artist who are trying to make it would be try not to let your desperation and passion for getting somewhere blind you to others, who see this as a means to make money out of you without you gaining any real benefit. Find yourself a good manager who really knows the business and has connections that will really take you places and with a certified track record of good successes. UK Unsigned do not seem to have winners who have really gone on to make it anywhere and online blogs and write ups clearly back this fact. They hummed on and on about Leona Lewis being a winning contestant on UK Unsigned, howe

ver if this was the case why is it that she then had to go on to compete and then win the X factor in order to obtain a recording contract? What did UK Unsigned really do for her that boosted her career that much? hmmm

Moving on…Some good news

The SRT Show went live last week Friday on Kbit radio.com showcasing fresh music from the UK and International artist in the industry.

The show’s host myself (Double R) and Selicious aim to deliver the show with such a vibrancy and exciting enthusiasm, that we seem to keep our listeners locked in for the whole show! as well as presenting great music for various listeners tastes.

Every week we feature up and coming artist who we feel will make an impact and produce a good following of their music.

We interview artist from all sorts of genres and keep it light hearted with a few comedian guests now and then. It’s a good opportunity for ourselves as artist as we have the platform to air our own songs as well as network with other artist and create our own following. That aside we know how hard is it to be heard and or seen in this industry and so create the opportunity for other artist too, trying to make it.

You can check out the show each and every Friday evening from the hours of 9.30pm to 10.30pm on www.kbitradio.com

This week we shall be featuring Ozzie B’s and the GMTA new single Maybe Ting refix due out 1^st August and they will be appearing as a live guest for interview on 13^h August so be sure to lock in for an exclusive show. Also this week we will have up and coming rapper Razor from South London talking about his mixtape and featuring his track “Is There a Case” which tackles the topic of knife and gun crime in the community.

Till next week, mucho love peeps ©