Rabbit Mac - You Should Attract the Opportunities on Your Own (Rapper, Malaysia)

I started my entire music journey by joining a choir group in my church when I was younger. Pretty unimaginable that Rabbit Mac was in a choir group. Later during my teen, a group of my friends and I wanted to form a boy band, but that didn't work out as planned. However, I took the whole idea of making music so seriously, I became Rabbit Mac and I was the only one from my team who made a career out of music.

1. Tell us more about your background and journey.

As cliche as it sounds, I was a small-town boy with big dreams. I grew up in Georgetown, Penang, and spent most of my years there before moving to Kuala Lumpur in search of my dreams to become who I am today. Trust me when I say the journey wasn't easy.

With no background or knowledge in music, and just a hungry passion to succeed in this industry, I knocked so many doors for opportunities - which was by the way really rare during my time - and got turned down every single time. That is when I learnt that in this industry, you need to be self-built. I learnt music (self-taught every step of the way) and released my first album, Ma Carrotz in 2009, which introduced a fresh groove into the Tamizh hip hop scene in Malaysia and globally. After that, things fell into place and the journey, although rocky, has taught me so much career-wise and also in life.

2. When did you first decide you wanted to pursue music and how did you start?

My dad was a huge music fan. He had a record/vinyl player at home and always played fantastic beats. I guess that had a huge influence on my passion for music. You might not believe this but I started my entire music journey by joining a choir group in my church when I was younger. Pretty unimaginable that Rabbit Mac was in a choir group. Later during my teen, a group of my friends and I wanted to form a boy band, but that didn't work out as planned. However, I took the whole idea of making music so seriously, I became Rabbit Mac and I was the only one from my team who made a career out of music.

3. Who is your favourite artist and why?

Eminem. One of the finest rappers in the world. He lured me into being his huge fan with his lyrics - which were straight from his heart, no filters, just pure thoughts. Fun or emotional, his lyrics gave me some sort of realisation that his music is alive. Em is King. Em is God.

4. Can you throw some light on opportunities one gets as a rapper?

From experience, I learnt one thing about opportunities in this industry. It's everywhere, but it won't come to you. You should attract the opportunities on your own. During my early ages, I did not have the luxury of social media to blast out my content or reach out to labels or investors through my work. I had to physically knock on doors, many many doors. When my first album released, I physically walked around the streets selling my album to generate income. Today, young rappers are blessed with a huge opportunity called Social Media, which can be used to post, market and promote their contents, garner followers and attract investors, labels, or big artists. My advice to young rappers, make a lot of music, create a lot of contents that are of good quality, post it on social media and tag big names. Your talent will take care of the rest.

5. Is format training required or can one train themselves purely on the basis of talent?

It depends. If someone is blessed with the talent of music, then a lot of it can be self-taught. But there are people who are crazy passionate about music/rapping/singing/producing but are not gifted with the "natural talent", they will then need format training. But don’t worry because I did my own format training too, by learning it all through YouTube. Everything is available on the net and everyone can learn music. All they need is not “natural talent” but the hunger to learn and undying passion. With that, you can make good music any day!

6. What piece of advice would you like to give to future and aspiring artists?

This question is my favourite one in every interview. First, see yourself and only you as a competition. Forget about others. That will fix your focus to cater content directly to your fans with zero distractions. Second, as I said earlier, create opportunities, don't wait for it to come to you. One of the triggering or shall I say inspirational lines from Eminem’s song ‘Loose Yourself’ - “ If you had, one shot. One opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment. Would you capture it, or let it slip?” made me realise the value of opportunities. Make tons of opportunities for yourself instead of waiting for one. I can truly say that this is actually my secret to success.

No matter how good of a quality, fun, emotional or engaging your contents are, just make sure it caters to your audience and always remember to monetise every opportunity that comes your way. A career in music industry can be a good money-maker if you do it right.

7. What are some of the challenges and roadblocks you have faced along your journey?

I think the biggest challenge I had to face was the lack of support because during my time, music wasn't considered a "real career". It took me a lot of time to prove to my family and people around me that I could build an entire life revolving around music and actually earn a living. Sometimes magic happens, by passion, hard-work and of course by being smart enough to monetise and focus on the economics of your passion *winks*. Fame in this new era is temporary, but the right time, the right content, the right support, the right people, gods blessing, a ‘yes’ from your parents and of course, a little bit of luck gives you “EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER WANTED”.

- Rabbit Mac