Moving to LA on Monday finally! Driving out 40 hours from Philadelphia! (Lived in Orlando for college!)
Super, super, SUPER nervous but incredibly excited. All of my creative friends/industry friends have told me that this is where I need to be - and I've dreamed of being there since I was eight!
I have a place to stay with a family friend for a couple of months. $750 a month for a room - which I am not complaining about at all. I don't have much savings or anything though, but I am blessed to have a supportive family and am willing to work my ass off to make ends meet.
Quick question though. I know everyone says how important networking is out there - but just exactly what does that fall under? Do I have to have the person on speed-dial, or is it more so of who you have interacted with out there? I'll give you guys an example I guess.
So, I have a fairly decent online presence on Twitter thanks to my music and films/documentaries. I've had my work featured on BILLBOARD, COMPLEX, MTV, BET, etc. I did a full length Rihanna documentary about a year ago that went viral, and a friend of mine who worked with her, Farren Jean Andrea, let me know that she watched it and loved it (she ended up following me on Twitter)! More recently, a mashup that I did of upcoming artist Normani and R&B sensation Aaliyah, is currently being performed by Normani on Ariana Grande's tour right now. She followed me and her choreographer let me know that they were really into my stuff! And even MORE recently it was revealed to me that Beyoncé & Jay-Z were originally going to perform a mashup from my 'Bey-Z' mashup tribute album that went viral in 2017 during their OTRII tour, but it was scrapped along with a number of her songs due to time constraints. But due to the fact that the original setlist was posted with the mashup title there, as well as video of her rehearsing the mashup, and the fact that (thank goodness) I somewhat have a platform, I was notified immediately by plenty of fans/supporters when it was posted!
I'm lucky that a lot of the creative people involved with those artists are really excited and are pushing me to head out there but I feel as if dinvr I don't "know" them just yet that it doesn't really count.
So, I say that all to ask - does that count as "networking"? If I were to say to someone that Rihanna is a fan, or Normani is a fan - would that technically count? I really suck at selling myself but was just hoping for clarification before I really jump out into the waters out there.