Today we’d like to introduce you to Young Go.
Young Go, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My stage name or rap persona is Young Go. Young Go was originally an acronym, G.O., meaning Get Off, which is a slang, meaning I rap well or my bars are hot/fire when I rap. I’ve been writing music from as young as I can remember. I began recording my music on my brother’s laptop back in 2006. At first, I was just happy to be able to record music and I didn’t have any thoughts about putting it out there or pursuing a rap career. I didn’t think it was viable due to not many Polynesians making it in the rap industry. From 2006-2014, I’ve been recording music and released it on MySpace, burning cd’s and giving them out locally. In between that time, I was also incarcerated on a few different occasions which halted my career at many different points.
In 2015, I released “The Retro EP,” a hip-hop project on the SoundCloud platform with an emphasis on bars and delivery and it had local success. However, I was experiencing a stall in my music career and almost gave up when my family decided to help me build up my team and from 2018 till now, I’ve seen the most progress and gradual success. I am happy to say today that my brand and company is all family run and owned and we have been really building a buzz and my audience and fan base has been growing. My music is the engine and me and my family have begun to build an enterprise around my music with merchandise, music production, digital marketing and promoting, among many other projects and businesses we are still developing. Alot of things are still in the works and so I don’t want to reveal them prematurely, but we’re definitely working and building.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There have been many struggles and obstacles along the way. Pursuing anything meaningful will always be challenging and so we’ve dealt with all the pitfalls of pursuing music as a career like no money for the studio, barely any money for gas to get to the studio, being in and out of jail and prison. Deaths and incarceration of family and homeboys and homegirls. The pressure of needing to get a stable job to help out at home. Being one foot in the streets and one foot in the rap career. As far as the building up of the business around my music, that is still fairly new, we are understanding and becoming wiser about economics and understanding supply and demand. We are also figuring out how relationships with different vendors, shops, retailers, etc. is very important, sometimes more important than getting the cheapest deal on materials and printing and stitching. Overall, we are still learning and we are operating on the gift and curse that is ignorance, meaning we have incredible ideas and ambition and we think we can do anything, sometimes life slows us down and we regroup and sometimes we make the right guess or fall on the right hunch and it hits. So there is a balance and we are excited about the ride.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
Our company is not yet a company in the true sense of the word. We are still very much a start-up in a very literal sense. Our main focus is music and the other way we generate income at the moment is through the merchandise. We allow the music to spark interest and we leverage that to build interest in the merchandise. We notice that when supporters are drawn to the music and feel attached to the artist, they will want to support in any way they can. We were starting to see turnouts and shows before Covid-19, but we can’t speak to how successful that has been because we haven’t done enough shows to give an accurate picture. We do have ambitions to leverage the music for so many other things and as I said, I rather not speak on those things as they are still developing.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
There’s two and they are probably synonymous if not interrelated, that is hard work and perseverance. I’ve been at this since 2006 and I am just now seeing a little success. I will continue to build on it but I used to believe my talent is what would take me far, the truth is, my talent is only a small part of the equation. Me and my team are working very hard and diligently to further my career and all our own business ambitions, we have stayed persistent, dedicated, responsible, resolute, and we continue to work hard and persevere through all the ups and downs.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/gotime102?igshid=5cxyhdsyncat
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010464610536
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/youngGo102
- Other: https://youtu.be/dKNVO0FWHZg
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