#1 Way To Build A Fanbase As An Upcoming Rapper Or Independent Artist

By Gamerro Music

Do you want to know how to build a fanbase as an upcoming rapper or independent artist?

If so, you’ve come to the right place!

In this article you will learn about:

1. The easiest and best ways to build a good fanbase as an upcoming rapper and independent artist

2. How to build a fanbase the right way

3. What you shouldn’t do when building your fanbase

Where it all starts

Building your fanbase as an upcoming is something you don’t need to wait for until you can record in big studio’s or have the dopest music video’s. The biggest artists of today all started out just by putting out their music into the world. They started with releasing videos of covers of popular songs on Youtube like Ed Sheeran or Justin Bieber. And Also The Wknd started out with just releasing his music with a picture throughout the whole video on Youtube.

Through covers or remixes of popular tracks you can easily start building your fanbase fast. This also counts for upcoming rappers. Just do a lot of remixes of popular tracks. People already searchin for the original track and might like your remix also!

You can really go big with remixes just see the recent example below of a remix that blew up:

The point is that if you want to grow your fanbase as an upcoming rapper you’ll need to start right away and be smart and consistent with it! Getting new fans and interacting with your old fans is part of your everyday life and is always possible on YouTube – no matter where you are in the world. YouTube got billions of users worldwide. Youtube plays a cruicial role in the success of upcoming rappers and artists.

With these tips, you can strengthen your relationship with your fans, increase the number of hits and subscribers, and ultimately influence how your music is shared and recommended.

✔ Find new fans (through remixes and cover but also release some original music)

✔ Be consistent in posting on Youtube

✔ Show fans that they’re important to you

✔ Find support for moderating your channel

✔ Interact with fans through community posts

About covers

Covering popular music and uploading them on YouTube and other channels can boost your fan base. In this way, you are just lifting on the publicity of another artist.

Note that just covering is not always enough. You also need to be proactive and must use appropriate keywords and timing is also crucial. By choosing the right keywords and releasing a remix at the right time, your music video may pop up in the same results as the popular original track! You dont want to release a remix when the hype is at its end. The best time is to release it when its just blowing up or even slightly before!

So now you know one of the easiest ways to start building your fanbase. But if you develop a big and fast fanbase doesn’t only depend on your music! So I’m going to tell you what you shouldn’t do when your starting out with building your fanbase.

What you shouldn't do when building your fanbase

A lot of upcoming rappers and independent artist who are just starting out or even been making music for a little while all try to get fans through directly putting their music in front of peoples faces. Like sending mass DM’s on Instagram and most of the time even without a friendly message to check out their music!

This is something thats really annoying also because everybody is doing it cause it seems like the only way to get heard when you’re just starting out!

So I get it, I can relate to that cause I’ve been in that same position when i was starting out as an independent rapper! But I’ve learned that it’s not the way to build a fanbase or be heard as an upcoming rapper! And in the worst case you’ll even get blocked by somebody and they will not become a fan of you anytime soon! So you’ll even achieve the opposite of what you wanted to achieve in the first place which is: getting more fans!

Have genuine conversations to build your fanbase

So instead of directly asking people to check out your music (or not even asking and just putting it in their faces) you can have real and genuine conversations with people. Ask them questions about themselfs.

When you ask them about themself and really listen and respond to them they will eventually also ask more about you. And now you can just tell them about your music and even let them hear something of it! Now its more likely you’ve gained yourself another fan!

See the difference between this strategy and the previous one?

In the beginnning your music plays a smaller role in getting fans. It is all about making genuine connections and building relationships with people that like you as a person. The more they like you, the more they will support and promote your music! And this is crucial in the starting fase as an upcoming rapper to grow your fanbase fast!

Once you’ve build yourself a small true fanbase who promote your music on all their social platforms, other people will be curious why they’re promoting your music so much and will look you up! They might also like your music and start promoting. Now you will grow even faster!

Give your fanbase a place to check out your music

A little side note: If someone asks you for your music, it’s perfectly fine to tell them where they can listen to it ofcourse! You just not want to force your music on people!

Never released your music on a streaming service before? I’ve wrote an whole guide about how to make money with your music online where I discuss how to upload your music to streaming services!

My favorite services to distribute my music on is Ditto Music.

Okay, so now you know how to get your first fans and what you shouldn’t do. Now you need to maintain your fanbase and grow it even bigger!

Give your fanbase a reason to keep supporting you

Once you start building a little fanbase you’ll need to give your fans a reason to keep supporting you!

Your fans are investing their time and money in your career so you’ve got to make sure their getting something in return for their effort. And this is not only about consistenly releasing new music.

You might know Machine Gun Kelly.

He has build a community for his fans through a private Facebook group where only his fans have access to! This is a great ”reason to keep supporting” because he gives his fans something exclusive and a comunnity to belong to. He uses his Facebook group to:

✔ Strengthen the fan loyalty to him and allows him to build real relationships with his fans and let fans connect with each other.

✔ Update his fans about his career, his personal life and everything else what fans want to know about him. So his fans feel like they are in a personal realtionship with him. They even get exclusive information or previews of music that isn’t released yet.

So the main lesson from this examle is to give your fans something extra besides your music. For example a community they can belong to or something that makes them feel special and sets them apart from the main listeners of your music!

Besides that you’ll also need to give your genuine support yourself to other people that can be good relationships for your music career. You’ll need to come to the attention of people with influence or experience who are able to push your career to the next level.

Actively connect with people and get noticed

Now you’ve come to the point in your career to build and leverage the right connections. You want to get noticed by people who will bring you to that next level. People like managers, event organizations, good rap producers and popular artist. This way you can collaborate with them and broaden your audience of listeners and fans.

In today’s world you can achieve a lot by just connecting with people on the internet, but nothing beats the connections you make face to face. So you’ll need to attend events in the scene and been seen and connect with people in your local area. The more people see you the more they will get interested in you and the more people will find out about your music.

Eventually somebody with the right influence will pick it up and introduce you to other people or make something happen for you. Also the more valuable connections you have the more credibilty you’ll have as an upcoming rapper or independent artist.

Once you’ve reached this point and you’ve made the right connections, or even just before you are making the right connections its key to have quality music by now. So maybe first connect with good rap producers like me lol 🤣😆

Deliver high quality content/music to your fanbase and listeners

You’ll not only want to deliver great quality music to your fans by now but also want to deliver great quality content around it!

Think about content like photos, videos, social media posts and even content like articles written about your. So at this stage you will also need a good photographer and somebody who handles PR work for you. In this stage it’s all about getting your branding on point!

A lot of high quality content and music will give you more credibility and make you look more famous than you might currently are. Especially if you’re still an upcoming rapper or independent artist. You will need to create content of the same quality of popular artist so people will think you’re on the same level already!

Grow your community & fanbase

Okay, now it’s time to grow your community which we discussed before. You’re now able to provide your community with way more value then you did before. Your fans should now get a lot of benefits from being in your community.

Some examples of benefits they could get from your community is:

✔ Free tickets to your events (might even turn in to a contest to win some VIP tickets)

✔ Free merchandise item (so they will promote you buy wearing it)

✔ Exclusive info and previews of unreleased music (so you can gauge the potential of new music by reactions of your fans)

Did you noticed anything about the benefits I pointed out above? The benefit is mutual! It’s a win-win situation for both the fans and you as a rap artist! This is why community building can help you grow your career to higer levels!

Community building is a lot of work, but once you have a die hard fan base and a strong community it’s hard to lose it and it’ll do great work for your career!

It helps to build a strong community if you’ve got something unique about you like the way you dress, certain hobbys or the way you walk and talk. Certain people with the same interest as you will be ever bigger supporters cause they can relate to you!

Show your real personality and emotions to your fanbase

Whether you’re an established rap artist or an upcoming rapper or independent artist, showing your vulnerability can help building trust with your fans and even bring you new fans cause it’s something that is shared a lot if it awakens a lot of sympathy in people. People love touching story’s and also love to share them! 😉

A lot of upcoming rap artists don’t show that they are vulnerable and like to act like they be poppin champagne all day and got a lot of woman around them and no worries whatsoever.

Ofcourse this can be considered as a startegy to fake it till you make it but when it comes to building real and strong relationships with fans this doesn’t really contribute a thing!

So you’ll need to find the balance between showing your vulnerability, for instance when you fail at something, and still have your privacy and image preserved.

Make sure you have a strong image

Once your career grows a strong image is definitely something you’ll need to develop! The way you look and present yourself will determine if people want to invite you to certain events or if they’re willing to give you something!

Your image is created by two factors: your appearence and your behaviour.

Your appearence consists of things like:

✔ Clothing and fashion items

✔ Jewelry

✔ Hairstyle

✔ Logo which you can get designed on fiverr

✔ Online content

✔ And even your body type: Skinny, fat or muscular

The stronger your image is, the more attention you will get. As an rap artist or independent artist you should look exactly like the artist you want to be that matches your personality.

For example, Ed Sheeran is the artist next door who is very relatable for everyday people and this is also what he looks like. He knew he wanted to be this kind of artist because it matches his personality and thats also what he looks like. Now even he made millions, you will not see him wearing designer clothes cause it doesn’t matches his image.

On the other side of image you have the way you behave yourself. This is how you act in for example interviews or the statements that you make online. This can make or break you as an rap artist so you got to be aware of the things you say or even think of something you can say or act like everytime you do an interview.

For example Kanye West is known for his ridiculous statements that create a lot of attention!

Exclusive fan events for your fanbase

This can really help with building a strong fan base. Exclusive fan only events can be events like meet and greets but can also be real events and stuff that you would also do with your friends like invite fans to a music video shoot or invite them to a exclusive listening session of your new album or mixtape. You can even do personal gaming sessions with fans or with all your fans like Offset during quarantine! These events doesn’t have to cost a lot of money and can build a strong relationship with your fans.

Last thing about building a fanbase

Building your fanbase is an ongoing proces! Don’t expect to build a big fanbase easy or fast! Keep working on it and focus on how many peoples lives you touch instead of the number of views or plays you got on your new release!

If you want to make it big in music or any other business, you’ll need to take the law of affection in consideration! The more lives you make better or entertain, the more fans and money you will receive for it! So always make sure to strengthen the relationship with your existing fans first before you focus on the numbers!

Gamerro Music

DJ, Producer & Entrepreneur