Although 10 out of 10 artists that we come across on social media sing, rap, and compose in English, they’re not all American and they pay the price for it. They have it so much harder than their American counterparts albeit following the same rules. And sometimes, even when they put out higher quality music and better content, they have to spend more, promote more, and work harder. Here are just 5 surface reasons why you are breaking your back and it’s taking you nowhere. Or, if you wanna stay on the positive side, 5 reasons why you should count your blessings as an Indie American artist.
5. Most tech companies create social media apps with the American public in mind.
If two artists release an album on Thanksgiving Day, the one with the American IP will get prioritized in views and organic push over the artist in Africa for example. Because the algorithms are set to push the American users to the front and they’re based on the idea that they have the best content out there. Very few non-American artists manage to break that invisible wall and usually, they have to do it via comedy or parodies. Non-American IPs NEVER get pushed to the American public. So if you’re an artist in Europe trying to market your music organically to American users, we got bad news for you. Won’t happen unless you pay for it.
4. You are not aware of the immediate trends prioritized in the US thus you are too late with your posting and lose even local viewers.
We already know that if you’re in Portugal and do a viral challenge, only other people from Portugal will see your content. What you may not know though is that by not living in the US, you find out about the upcoming trends days later when already tens of thousands of videos have been created by American users and international users emulating the American trend. Unless you have your notifications turned on for an American Influencer so you can catch the newest trends as they happen, by finding out too late what hashtags are hot, you lose visibility even in your local area giving up the front spot to an American musician for example.
3. Your primary language is not English.
The algorithm knows what language you post in and if usually you speak Spanish in most of your videos, even if your music is English, it’ll only be other Spanish-speaking people who will get to see and hear your content. You might as well try to make Spanish music primarily and only about 20% of your catalog in English as it’s futile trying to organically amass an English-speaking fanbase just off the algorithms. Not gonna happen.
2. Your type of music is too Americanized.
We’ve seen it happen more than we’d like to admit. Incredibly talented musicians drown in anonymity because geographically they’re in countries that are simply not interested in the type of music they do. If you are heavily influenced by American musicians and you live in Russia, unless you incorporate some Russian elements into your songs that are certain to gain favor with your people, you’re gonna get a lot of dislikes and hate for being a sellout. In your people’s defense, the entire world is already consuming mainly American entertainment (movies, TV shows, books, comedians, etc) and music is one of the few things not completely patronized by the States so non-English speaking countries support nationalist artists first and foremost even if sometimes they suck.
1. You seem too foreign for your own people to know that you live in the same city or even country.
We’ve seen Italian rappers who emulate the likes of Future and Tekashi 6ix9ine so good that never in a million years would you think they’re not born and raised in Atlanta or Brooklyn. What makes this scenario a disaster is that when they create content on their social media and keep playing into the Americanized image along with captions and tags in English, their own people think this is an American so they don’t bother following them and supporting them as they deserve. That happens because they think to themselves that they’ll never get to actually meet this American artist. So if you’re too good at playing American, remind your people you’re from X city, Y country. You might be surprised at the reactions. Also, you’ll have to balance out your origins and geographic location with your American influences to find some form of artistic sustainability.
Blue Rhymez Entertainment ©2021
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