For this week’s last Deep Dive Series of the year 2021, we are interviewing a talented Clapper creator: @cmakfromseattle.

Cmak is an incredible musician and content creator. In this Deep Dive interview, he told us about his musical journey from rap battles in the courtyard at school, to having his first two singles on Spotify. On Clapper, his content revolves around his music and his commuity. Cmack is really a dedicated creator filled with positivity and creativity, and in this interview we really dug deep to understand where he draws his inspiration and strength.

Keep reading this Deep Dive Series to find out more about this creator’s amazing story. Make sure to tune in every Friday at 4pm CT on our @Clappertalks account, to listen to the bonus questions that will only be available on our live radio show: Clapper Interviews.

Enjoy this deep dive on @Cmackfromseattle.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What does a day look like in your life?

I have 7 kids so I try to spend time taking care of them. I try to take opportunities we might have to give back to people on Clapper. I’ll try to set up events to keep our events rolling because we have some amazing shows that I’m pretty sure we’ll get into later. Pretty much a whole bunch of marketing. Pretty much my day is whole bunch of marketing, watching kids, pretty boring.

What made you want to get into the music industry? How would you define the music you create?

The reason I started getting into music is kind of funny. I was wanting to east-coast-rap when I was very young, like Eminem and 50 cent. You know Eminem was a battle rapper when he came out with the 8 Mile movie. That was such a motivational movie because he was the underdog. I love underdogs. Haters really drive me to go way harder. At school people used to do the little freestyle battles and stuff. I didn’t want to get clowned all the time so I started come up with little rhymes to get people back in case they were going to get me. Ended up being really good at it and I kept writing. Eventually, I fell off music for a little while, didn’t always have the best past, so I took a break from music. I ended up coming back because I met some people with great qualities. They invited me to the studio, I recorded my first song professionally and kept creating music since then.

What has been the most challenging part of your journey as a musician?

I would say the top two things that frustrated me a whole lot was that is a dream to a lot of people. A lot of people don’t think that is a realistic thing, but I feel like I think bigger than the average person that I come across. I am always trying to shoot as high as I possibly can. What was really hard for me was fighting off all the negativity and everybody thinking that I can’t do things when I know in my head that I can. When I was younger I never always made the right decisions either, so it was a mixture of real life and trying to zone out not let people tell me what I couldn’t do.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Where do you draw inspiration for your songs?

Pretty much, we go into the studio sometimes our producer will have a whole list of beats and we’ll just sit there and jam. We are all really competitive, we try to motivate each other to go hard. Sometimes we’ll battle for who gets the chorus. We go to the studio and we feed off each other’s energy and it makes great music. It’s a vibe because we all connect in and outside of music. When you are solo is harder. My thing is I don’t stress myself out when I feel like there is a day when I just don’t feel creative. I’ll do something else that week. I’ll make something that makes me feel like I’ve accomplish something that day and then, I’ll come back to the music.

We were excited to hear the songs you’ve summited on Clapper, every one of your submissions was absolutely incredible. How do you think Clapper can better support artists on the platform?

I really like those email notifications with the new things for the new week. I eel like for musicians they would like to be able to a little bit more easily navigate to their favorite music. Like a search bar instead of just scrolling down the list.

So, When did you join Clapper? How did your journey as a creator begin?

I got on Clapper 8 months ago and at first when I just started my influencer career, I was getting tired of the local stuff on Facebook and Instagram. I’ve been doing it for a few years and didn’t see any real growth. I felt like I needed to make a change. DjTwixx told me about Clapper first. I was like “Man, its for adults?” That’s all I need it. I got my Clapper account but my TikTok account was doing so much better at the time. But one day they banned me for 30 days and I thought this was time to really get to know Clapper and see what I can do. At first I was doing all the wrong things and I realized I had to switch everything I was doing. I started talking to people more and it was working. I met a lot of great people.

What is your favorite feature on the app?

I gotta say the groups. Honestly, I update my community every single day. I am always in the groups making sure that there are no concerns within the group. Making sure everybody’s doing okay. Everybody in the group also does the same. They communicate with each other. Whenever something is wrong we make sure that person knows we have their back.

We saw that you put together a super fun event, called ClapFactor? Would you share with us what made you create this event and why?

I am so happy you asked this question. One day, I was just doing a regular livestream and somehow bugs got mentioned. I have no idea where this came from, somebody said something about eating bugs. I was like, “wait a minute, you thought that comment would pass me. Are you telling me you are ready to do this right now?” and they were like, “yeah let’s do it”. I asked a few times, I couldn’t believe it. We went to get these crickets and worms and nobody chickened out. Nobody did. They made sure there was nothing left. It was a random idea and I didn’t think they were really gonna do it so I told them I was going to promote this for the next few weeks.

What advice would you give new users that want to be successful on Clapper?

Keeping a schedule and a bunch of consistency so people know when you are active. You want everybody to know what’s going on with you. Constant communication with your followers is key. I thought it was going to be a slow grind for me, but now I understand how it works. Literally, my team got me all the way to the checkmark. Over time I build actual personal relationships with each and everyone on my team. It’s a family, it’s more comfortable. People are more willing to want to support you. Don’t wait for people to support you, it makes me cringe does who expect support. It’s a grind, you can’t expect anything. You have to give them a reason to support you.

or our latest deep dive on @BigOleTexan, read here.