While it can be a double-edged sword, you can’t deny the power of digital marketing and online audiences in today’s music industry.
At its worst, social media can detract from attention spans and empathy. At its best, it allows us to connect ‘cross seas and reach new heights with the insights we can gain from expanding our worldview. Authenticity on social media can create real connections and foster community.
A Stitch In Time Founder Sara Engelman had a chance to connect with T the Wiser, aka TJ Schweizer, about his music project and how he’s utilized social media to reach more ears. States away in Colorado and Texas, respectively, they used the power of the digital age and chatted via video call.
Sara Engelman: Can you tell us a little about the T the Wiser project and how it came to be? How do you describe your sound?
T the Wiser: When I first started making music, I had no alias. It takes years of sucking really bad and trying to figure out what you even want to do, what sounds good, how to engineer these sounds or instruments.
[Early on], I was going by a couple of different names. At one point, me and a friend had a project called “Rave Couch.” (laughs) We never released anything under it but we had fun with it.
Then, at one point in time, I started thinking, how can I actually describe the music I'm making now? And I came across this philosophy:
The biggest influence in my life is hip-hop. Going as far back in time as I possibly could, I started noticing that there were common words being used like cipher, devil, and god. Artists were using the word “knowledge,” in a way where it was split into “know the ledge,” wisdom they were splitting into “wise the dome.”
I was hearing it in so many different songs throughout the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties and I was intrigued by the commonalities. A lot of these commonalities harkened back to the Five Percent Nation, and throughout hip-hop history, Five Percent Nation lingo was so strong. I ended up finding out about their numerics “Mathematics” and how they described moving through life, the cipher, which is just repeating 1 through 9, each number correlating to different aspects of “Knowledge of Self.”
You start out with 1= knowledge, and when you gain knowledge you convert it to 2= wisdom, and then when you combine wisdom and knowledge together you get 3= understanding. And understanding is essentially like manifestation, the power of the mind. So you cipher between those.
Obviously, there’s more [to the cycle]: culture, freedom, power, refinement, all the way up through cipher, which is zero, essentially.
I started seeing my life as a repeating cipher. I started noticing that I was coming through these different parts of my life, and there was a recurring pattern.
Like “wow, am I in knowledge right now, am I in wisdom, or am I in understanding?”
It was at that part of my life when I started seeing and refining who I was and my knowledge of myself. I started seeing that cyclical pattern elevating to making my art more in and of itself congruent with what I was looking for and representative of honest self.
Long story short, after years of gaining knowledge and figuring it all out, I found myself on SoundCloud and I found this one artist called Keem the Cipher. He immediately inspired me; his beats were so raw. Out of nowhere, I was like, T the Wiser. It just makes sense. At that point in time, I felt like I was more in “wisdom” as opposed to “understanding” in [terms of] music thinking. The knowledge I gained started to solidify itself into my being.
So, a little nod back, my first record I ever put out was called, “My Cypher,” and the first song is “The Ledge,” the second is “The Dome,” and the third is “The Truth.” There's this little clip in the second song right at the beginning where there’s a whisper and it says, “this is the beginning,” because I started to learn about all of this from the wisdom of other artists.
SE: Wow, that's really cool. I had no idea that it [your name origin] was so in-depth.
TJ: I mean, obviously, as a white guy from New Jersey, the roots of that movement didn't necessarily apply to my demographic in particular. But I think the power behind the point of it can resonate regardless of demographic or culture.
I think my takeaway is that you can empower yourself by truly knowing who you are, going as deep down as you can, and figuring out how your mind works. If you don’t know how your mind works, how are you going to use it to your benefit? You have to be extremely ugly honest with yourself about everything.
SE: Too true. [Switching gears], on your SoundCloud profile, you identify as “an accountant who vibes.” How does your day job impact your ability to focus on your music project, and what does it mean “to vibe”?
TJ: It [my job] impacts it heavily.
I work at one of the “Big 4.” There are four big accounting firms that basically do all the work for a large majority of Fortune 500 Companies globally. So, it has this massive corporate culture with it.
Career path-wise, it's a fantastic thing to get into. I do enjoy accounting, I enjoy tax work, I enjoy learning about different cultures’ laws and whatnot. But the impact that it has on music is that I am tired all the time.
If I just worked a 9 to 5, I can tell you right now, I’d easily have enough energy to do 9 to 5, 5 to 9 five days a week and all through the weekends just to get the music thing going. But I work until midnight a lot of times, getting up at 9, working til midnight again, working all weekend 8-9 hours at a time.
I started this project my sophomore year of college and did it all the way through my Master's. I’ve built all this while, you know, simultaneously going down a difficult career path. Juggling the two can be difficult, but I’ve found the little tricks that work.
Music isn't just about taking up your instrument or getting on Ableton. Honestly, that’s not even half of it. A big part of it is just consistency.
Since a big part of my day goes towards my job, I try to do little bits here and there, and they end up compounding to create the practice I need to be pushing forward. It doesn’t have to be me consistently “making music.” I'll consider it practice if I’m on YouTube and watching somebody design a patch on one of the synths, or right after a meeting, I'll pick up my guitar and play through a couple scales and play with some ideas.
I’ll consistently try and find a space where I can incorporate a little bit of music knowledge and this kind of micro-learning happens. I’ve found that, say, I don’t touch Abelton for two, three weeks, the next time I do, with all that micro-learning, my music exponentially gets clearer and better. It's all just combining together.
But! Very soon, I should be in a spot where I can leave my job for a period of time where and dedicate that time to the studio. Just to see if I give it my absolute all, how much further I can push that envelope.
SE: Music is obviously the most important part, but how has social media played a role in marketing your project? How have you used it to start building an audience, quite literally at shows and online with followers?
TJ: Instagram, specifically right now, is pivotal. As an artist, the odds are so stacked against you to do well financially and set yourself up for retirement. Even while having multiple income sources, because at the end of the year, you’re probably going to pay about a fifth of it in tax. On top of that, not many artists understand the tax code deductions process well, so you need to pay a CPA and aggressively track your business expenses.
When I started doing the whole thing on social media – like everyone else – I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. The same 20 friends and family were liking my posts, and I was fortunate enough to have at least that leg up, right? The people who support me support me heavily. I think that’s pivotal in what I'm trying to do.
My goal is to go brick-by-brick with this thing. I don't want 1,000 followers that don't give a shit about me. I’d rather have 100 that will buy my merch, come to my shows, share my stuff, even drop a like. It’s not about the numbers, it’s about the quality.
I truly believe that even if it took me 50 years to get where I want to be, if I built it brick-by-brick, those people would be rocking merch and listening to music long after I’m gone.
With that strategy in mind, I had a friend recommend this program called Indepreneur. It’s this platform built by independent musicians. It combines like every element of the process artists can think of and provides comprehensive lessons. It taught me how to run ads [and other aspects of self-managing].
I realized that something as small as $1 or even $5 to $10 a day, correctly used, targeting audiences I can connect with, can end up making that revenue back in streams, merch, and ticket sales.
When it comes to posting and stuff, I’m honestly not great at it [yet]. Luckily, I have my boy Blaise (@imagine_further) who does a lot of filming and editing and stuff, but being states away, we can’t always work together. So, you know, I’ve got to do it myself and sometimes have to make some relatively low-grade videos to get my point across. But, at the end of the day, social media has so many ways to utilize it, even on a budget. If you can put $30/dollars a month into it, it can lead to exponential awareness over time.
Social media has increased my listeners. But more importantly, it’s brought people to the page, where we can have conversations and develop relationships.
I talk to people for months sometimes. I'll say, “hey, you’re cool, what do you think about this new track I’m going release next month” and give them this incentive to continue building the relationship and connecting with the music.
The most important thing is about that connection, and bringing people together. If you can be authentic, it doesn’t matter what medium you use.
But right now, Instagram seems to be the most popular tool.
SE: Instagram is powerful. You get those long-distance connections or connections to people you've never even met in person. But they can be so authentic.
So how long have you been using this new platform?
TJ: Oh man, less than a year now.
Prior to this, every year I would work my ass off to build a collection of music and release it as a record. It would barely get played, two songs would get played out. After a while, I started releasing less and less. First and foremost, this is the worst thing that an artist can do.
I started that program and, within the first 5 minutes of the first video, the guy (Circa) said, “If you don’t have any ongoing consistency to your releasing schedule, don’t watch any more of these videos because nothing will work.”
At that point in time, I’d had 11 monthly listeners on Spotify and my SoundCloud is pretty dead. I thought, “I’m actually in the perfect position to rebrand myself because it's not gonna catch anyone by surprise because no one’s listening right now. It’s perfect!” Sometimes, being back at square one is actually the best place to be because you have the advantage of literally picking whatever route you want to go.
Instead of looking at is as “damn, why isn't this going anywhere?” I saw “Yes, an opportunity to figure out how to get this to go somewhere.”
So I sat down for about 6 months, said “let me develop a plan and let me stick to it.” My plan was, at the bare minimum, once a quarter, release a single. No EPs, no albums, until I have enough pull that would actually be listened to. I went from 11 followers a month, and my peak of my last single is 72 and now my low is 40. While those are still small numbers, I look at that as a 400% gain over my previous strategy. Can’t expect those results all the time but, you know what? That’s a success.
So I'm just gonna keep on doing it, not gonna stop until I need to go back to square one again, restrategize, and shoot in a different direction.
SE: You are essentially doing what managers do. Do you plan to get a manager at some time or do you like doing this yourself?
TJ: You know, it’s a catch-22. Sometimes, I think a manager would be fantastic. But then I think, “[A manager] is gonna take X amount of money. Is that money going to be worth it?” If I can do a lot of that work by myself right now, for where I’m at, I don’t think it’s necessary yet.
I do have some friends who are managers that have been helping me. One in particular has been gung ho, giving me nearly all of my gigs. He's just a good friend, hooking me up because he believes in my project and we’re friends.
As of right now, all I'm trying to do is just figure it out by myself. But if it gets to a place where I can't, I’m the first to recognize when I need an expert. No ego in it at all. In that case, if you want the best quality, you gotta get the best people.
SE: Sometimes our friends are the best people for us. That's why I used Blaise [for the A Stitch In Time PL Dillon Preparty]. He made such a great video of the event that you played, and I knew him through you.
Those connections can help us along the way as we help them as well, as we all work to build our brands or music or what have you.
TJ: Something you said just clicks really hard. One of the numbers in the cipher stands for the build or destroy. The purpose of that can be put in a bunch of different contexts but the way that it was explained to me is that it means that things in your life have to destroy to create room to build. So, it's funny when you mention that we’re all building together – it's because we're all in this cipher together. All three of us, [you, me and Blaise], have a common goal: doing what we love. I wouldn’t be able to do this with y’all if I didn’t destroy things that go in the way of it.
I've met people who are good at what they do, but they don't do it from the heart. And even if that would increase my awareness or my profit or something, I won’t work with them. If this thing was about money, I would just stick to my day job and work on building that. I do this because I love it and coming from the heart is where I find peace.
I think that's the only way to do it. If you go from the heart and you work with people who create from the heart, it's gonna build itself. All you're doing is enjoying your time building, and that’s time well spent.
SE: We do it for all the love of it.
So, what is your favorite streaming platform to release music on?
TJ: Everywhere, man. I don't necessarily have a favorite. I personally like Spotify's algorithm. Soundcloud, you can monetize from now and that’s huge. I'm still trying to figure out how to get exposure on there, but they're all pretty good.
I can tell you my least favorite: Apple Music. The point being is that they are so strict on sampling because of how large their catalog is. I had a song that used a sample and I thought it was barely noticeable, like, it was barely there, and it got my whole track cut. And then I was like you know what? No thank you. Honestly, that's a war against hip-hop and sample-based music.
And I know that intellectual property is a deep and intrinsic thing. But It’s abundantly clear that music will be sampled, and even sampled music will eventually be sampled.
You talked about me being my own manager? I can’t tell you how many record labels I’ve contacted for samples and it’s an ugly, ugly business. To get things cleared, you either have to pay big bucks upfront or you have to get lucky with the people you talk to. That’s why most artists just say “fuck it,” and just release it - worst case it gets taken down, best case no one says anything about it or you make a deal. You know, it's just, that's the climate. It's like a “don’t ask, don’t tell” you just do it and if it blows up, then the wolves come out.
Don’t get me wrong, not all record labels are money-hungry people about it. Perfect example, this new remix I just did, I actually got clearance from the original band. Their said, “the band loves it, treat it as a cover and put the proper clearances on the backend and we don’t need a split.” That’s what it should be about. I’m not trying to steal someone’s work. It’s about expanding the message from what I felt to be a different demographic.
But there's been times when I ask the record label, “hey, can I use this sample?” and they ask me for $10,000 and 50 cents on every dollar it brings in. I found out later that’s actually the industry standard.
SE: So you're just very, careful about the samples you use?
TJ: So, to be honest, within the electro-soul realm, I just don't think the community, as a whole, is bringing in enough money or exposure, to REALLY get mass attention from the sample holders. It’s not even close to as big as hip-hop, and that didn’t even start to get destroyed by labels until the 80’s, long after its birth. But, yes, I try to be careful with where I pull from without inhibiting my creative urge.
It’s crazy though, because a lot of music today utilizes shared royalty-free samples through apps like Splice, or where you can pay for the use of a sample like Tracklib.
And listen to this shit cause this blew my mind: there was a period of time where I was getting hundreds of shazams on one of my song but it was getting no plays. One day, this girl DMs me and she’s like, “there’s a Twitter war going on about you right now. They’re saying that the band BTS stole your music.”
I have this guitar lick in my song Emineye, and I spent close to 40 hours listening to this damn guitar lick, I know the timbre, I know the EQ of it. And I found out that BTS used that in one of their tracks. It turned out, depending on where you Shazaamed it, the frequencies would pull me, BTS, or this other K Pop band called Monster Massive.
So I figured, if the biggest band in the world is using something like Splice, why not. We all use it, we all love it, it’s the shit. If they’re using it, I’m proud to use it.
The best part though, is that girl who DM’d me, also sent me an article of the guitar player of BTS saying “I heard that guitar and said, I can pick that.” (laughs) I’m telling you right now, he did not replay that lick. It was dragged and dropped from Splice 100%.
SE: That is funny though. You got to the bottom of that real quick.
With regards to the T the Wiser project, do you think of it as a brand or do you like to just think of it as this is “my music?”
TJ: It's an important thing to think about your brand because it's your message, what you’re putting out to this world. But I personally wouldn’t look at it and call my brand, right?
I’ve been kind of trying to switch that paradigm a little bit because the brand is inherently going to be me (TJ), and I don’t necessarily want T the Wiser to reflect TJ. I more so want it to reflect the message that I received from other artists and use my flavor to articulate it, “life is sampled.” My part of the message is, I’m doing this because I do what the fuck I want, which should give you permission to do whatever the fuck you want. Because you might only get 60-70 years on this planet.
I try not to make [the project] about me. Inherently, I’m one guy, but I’m trying to make it so the “wiser” part of “T the Wiser” is about the idea that you can do whatever you want as long as it’s aligned with who you are.
I didn’t start making music ‘til I was 25. I didn’t pick up guitar seriously ‘til last year, though I’d tried getting into it a bit as a teenager. All of this was because I took the time to go back into my past and say, “what did I like when I was a kid? What did I truly enjoy doing?”
You get convoluted as you grow up. Culture attacks you and says “you can’t be who you are.”
Rediscovering your truth, that’s where you’ll find what you love to do. And that process is what made me wiser, it’s what made me T the Wiser. I took a bit of myself and found out what my truth was through rediscovering my roots. What the truest version of “I” naturally was drawn to.
So it’s not necessarily a brand but it’s a message. I want T the Wiser to be about bringing people together and maybe inspiring someone to realize that it’s never too late to find your truth and do what you love.
I’m trying to position that in a way where I take on any genre. This next track I’m working on, it’s a remix of a screamo song. But I did it in a way where it’s aligned, and it still sounds like the type of soulful stuff I’m doing. Ultimately, I realized that the Emo/Screamo genre had soul, too. Soul isn’t just about the 60s – you can find it in every genre.
So, I don’t gun for genre-based production, I look for soul and how can I bring that together in a way that’s based in hip-hop, and the type of Pretty Lights type of music, and whatever the fuck else I like at the time. Maybe in ten years, my sound will be completely different but the essential element is that it’s always going to be soul music.
SE: Personally, my favorite brands are brands that are grown organically; I don’t necessarily think “the brand” itself should come first. It grows from who you are, what you value, what message you’re putting out there.
TJ: If I had to put it into words, my brand is “cultural freedom”. Fuck culture, break out of it. It’s a box of separation. People are fluid and genre is unimportant nowadays.
Authenticity and alignment with your truth is essential. I tried making popular-sounding music before and I hated it. I hated making it, I hated listening to it. I have entire records that will never see the light of day, not because I don’t think they are good, but they just don’t align with what I want seen.
Other artists might hear to this and think, “damn he’s dumb,” but my truth in music is more important to me than anything else. Art is the highest expression of self, and I refuse to compromise that for an outcome.
SE: Right - creating what you want as opposed to what you think others’ want. Some of my favorite artists have just stuck to their sound, whether they were or not getting enough “attention”. Eventually, people start to understand it, they see the vision.
TJ: Time is irrelevant when you’re doing your own thing. I don’t care if my music ever reaches a point where people think it’s successful. I could care less about playing more shows or making more money. The fact that I’m living my truth is all that I needed to accomplish my goal and feel successful. Honestly, releasing as T the Wiser isn’t even really a part of my main reason for doing it.
Bringing people together is great and that’s the only reason I put music out, but I didn’t make [the music] for that purpose. I make it to express my truth, and release to resonate with other people’s truths. And, if they dig it, bring them together so they can live their truths at a show for that 1 hour. When I played with Marvel Years and Phyphr in Austin this year, I opened with a tribute to my late friend Goldsberry. He committed suicide and I remixed a country song in tribute to him, “Somewhere with You.” A friend came up to me after the show and said she went through something similar recently and it resonated strongly with her. She said I gave her a space to feel something she was working through, that’s the exact reason why I even release music in the first place.
I’m an artist to serve people but I create my music completely selfishly.
SE: I loved talking to you throughout this whole thing. You went very in-depth. You have a plan, you know who you are, you know what you want your music to sound like. I love your whole project and I can't wait to see what your future holds – especially if you get to quit your day job!
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Want a taste of T the Wiser’s hip-hop influence and inspirations? Check out the October Ask Your Friends playlist, curated by TJ.