TLDR: I built a working relationship and friendship with one of my favorite artists (Grieves) over the years and he eventually asked me to put a verse on one of his songs.
I started making music in highschool. I was listening to a lot Grieves on my walks to school. Dude was easily one of my biggest inspirations growing up.
In 2017, I saw that he was playing a local venue and I shot his manager and the venue talent buyer an email to see if I could get on as local support. I actually didn't hear back from anyone, but bandsintown alerted me that I was playing the show. Shit was wild. At that same show, there was another local who was being an absolute PUNISHER to Grieves at the merch booth after the show. Begging for pics, features, future shows, etc. I recognized that this dude was blowing it, and just kept it chill. Grieves and I chopped it up after the other dude left and he was actually tryna put me onto some game. Even made sure the venue didn't skip out on paying me (I had never been paid for a gig before). Just a humble, normal ass dude.
A year later, his team actually reached out to me to open up for him at the same venue. Around that time is when I really started getting into videography. I shot a quick little show recap and him and his team loved it.
A year after that (2019), him and Chris Webby were on the road and had just dropped a song together that was doing pretty well. I popped out to their Berkeley show and more or less shot a whole live music video for their track "Man Down." Shit did pretty well on YouTube.
COVID
We kept in touch and became better friends over the years. He was always encouraging me to take my music more seriously, but it's always been mad tough for me to stay consistent. I'm talking a song every couple years type shit.
After doing a few other videos for him along the way, he asked if I had any interest going on the road with him for a short run while he was opening for Prof. Just to do video and run the merch booth. I've bartended for over 8 years, so selling merch was fucking light work. I was hyped. These were MASSIVE shows and showed how much of an asset I could be to his team.
That was a little over a year ago, and now I'm his merch/video dude for every tour.
Before his annual headline tour (Out Cold) this year, he hit me up with a beat that was a bit out of my wheelhouse and was like "Yo, this shit slaps. I think you should get on it and we could perform it every night of Out Cold." I was freaking out man. I never wanted to be the dude who was asking for a verse from bro, but here he was asking for a verse from ME! Fucking nuts.
We've now performed the new track at over 30 shows and the track just came out on the 1st. I'm fucking proud of it, and it's really inspiring me to create more music.
SO, the main takeaway is this. If you're good at what you do, you're pleasant to be around, you're not causing problems, and you're not a fucking weirdo, you can do this shit. I obviously got mad lucky because I'm an asset in more than just being a decent rapper. But yeah, I just wanted to share my story with y'all since I used to be in this subreddit all the time. Love you guys. Keep making shit.