Hey, it’s Lee again. I’ve noticed that many of my new TikTok supporters on my Fangly Music account are young – teens and young adults. 

I want to say again that I greatly appreciate your support and in return for your support, I want to impart to you some thoughts and advice as you start off in your life’s journey.

First, I believe that everyone is born with an innate gift. Some are lucky enough to discover that gift early on. Others struggle to discover what that gift is. But I believe you have it nonetheless.

Second, if you discover that gift – it could be athletics, music, acting, comedy, gaming, medicine, engineering, politics, entrepreneurship, etc. – work hard to develop it to its full potential so that you’re at least in the top 10 percent amongst  your peers.

Third, if you want to stand out amongst a crowded field and ascend to the top 1 percent of that field, a good starting point is to observe what your peers are doing and DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

For example, your typical indie musician will release a single every 6 months on Spotify, spend a wad of money producing a music video, practically beg people to pre-save their Spotify release and spend another wad of money on Facebook ads to promote their single. This gets REALLY expensive if you’re doing this every 6 months. Especially since Spotify basically pays artists next to nothing for the streams they get. And most indie artists have resigned to accepting the “fact” that people don’t buy music anymore.

In contrast, I haven’t released any music since 2021 (my album Melodias), I refuse to put my music on Spotify because of their shady business practices, I don’t release singles – I only release albums, I spend zero on music videos and ads because the music videos I create to promote my songs consist of me performing my songs live in my apartment whilst in my pajamas.

In my case, my counterintuitive approach worked.  Dreaming, which is the second track from my newest album, Love Is a State of Mind, has 1.4 million views on TikTok as I write this. And it was only posted on September 23rd 2025, just over 2 weeks ago. Moreover, several people have purchased my album, Love Is a State of Mind on Bandcamp.  People WILL pay for music in order to show their support to a music artist if they truly love what that artist has created.

What follows is going to be specifically targeted towards any young and aspiring musicians out there. There are many things that I see indie musicians do on social media that I believe to be self-sabotaging and I’m going to describe them so you avoid these pitfalls.

First – avoid following other indie musicians to such an extent that when you get follow-backs, almost all your followers are indie musicians.

Why? Because the content that will get the most approval from your indie musician followers are posts about how hard it is to make it in the music business and if life was fair you’d be a big star headlining Wembley Stadium right now. Almost every indie musician feels this way so of course you’ll get a lot of positive feedback when you create such posts.

But it’ll be a HUGE turn off for a general audience. Because it reeks of self-pity and entitlement. People will be so turned off that they won’t even give your music a chance. 

Think of it this way – it’ll be much easier to fill Wembley Stadium with a general audience than it will with a bunch of musicians. So you need to reach the average music listener rather than other indie musicians. Therefore, don’t fall into this trap of the Indie Echo Chamber  that’s so prevalent amongst indie musicians on social media.

Second – you wanna be a singer? A serious singer? Then learn how to play a chordal instrument such as the piano or guitar. And learn how to play it well so you don’t look like a hack.

Many of the greatest singers in history were also highly accomplished instrumentalists. For example, Little Richard, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder and Freddie Mercury were all highly skilled pianists. Jeff Buckley was a highly skilled guitarist.

As you pursue the mastery of your chosen instrument, you’ll develop your ear and you’ll be self-reliant because you’ll be able to compose everything yourself instead of having to rely on other people who CAN play an instrument. And more importantly – you won’t have to split royalties with them.

Thirdly and finally, be grateful. This is the age of social media so time and attention is now the most precious resource on Earth. 

Think of it: there are 24 hours in a day, 8 of them are used for sleeping, 8 of them are used for work or school.

That leaves only 8 hours for the average person to give you some attention. And many of those 8 hours will be allocated towards playing video games, watching and playing sports, watching Netflix, etc. so you’re competing will all of those other pastimes for the average person’s attention.

Therefore, if you ever to blow up on social media, you should be eternally grateful for the attention that’s been showered upon you. Don’t become full of yourself and start acting haughty – I’ve seen too many social media “stars” end up like this only to see it crashing down on them when people realized what a dick they actually were.

Anyways, that’s it for now. I appreciate all the love and support I’ve received from you all and this was just my way of giving it back to you. 😀🙏♥️