Sydney’s Guard
If your career won’t shine in this Gen Z era, then when?
In this Gen Z era, many creative opportunities are at our fingertips. But only the smart, hardworking, focused, clever, and lucky chaps can be let in to share on the pie of this exciting computerized, internet-automated age. If one can unravel what most have not been able to locate but, surely, it serves people’s needs then they have got a gem. We can pay for products or services and get them instantly. I am an artist who can showcase my creativity online and get supporters the world over in real time. The era which the “good old days” folks have cursed is a period many of us embrace.
For sure this is the time of AI when the “good old days” generation has lamented most for having lost jobs—cursing how the computer ruined their careers. While still at that point, a few years later there was the advent of the internet which hit them harder. I would accept that those two ruined their jobs. But sorry for those who were affected; they were only performing tasks. The ones who did jobs were handed the gadgets (computers) to use in performing the respective tasks. The “good old days” folks wanted tasks executed in a longer period of time so they could be paid for wasting time. In my opinion, computers and the internet eased it all for us. We don’t have to waste a lot of time like in the old times. The time taken in executing tasks was reduced, meaning more tasks can be worked on. Hence, an increase in the volume of results. This would sound good for the employer and bad for the time-wasters.
The era is realizing many rich young people who are being labelled virtual millionaires. The clever young people started with their own new software-based companies, elevating them to millionaire corporations while recycling old ideas or coming up with totally new concepts. Of course admirers and haters also sprout out in the groups of “wannabes” and the likes of “jealous mongers”. Every era has its own problems and finds a way of solving them. The clever old company owners had to get rid of the old folks and replaced them with young people who had creativity, drive and ambition to change from analogue to software.
Well, so much has dived to virtual reality now. I will cite the current virtual music industry which has produced some good online influencers who have never stood in front of an audience of even a hundred fans. But from virtual performances many are earning, at least, either survival or a decent living!
A not-so-young multi-talented artist, I lived my teenage at the fading time of the “good old days”. I am so lucky to have escaped it and sneaked into the Gen Z era where much can be realized online in the DIY mode. My case study is based on the entertainment industry, at least, where I managed to plunge myself with a sink-or-swim attitude. Meaning I did not simply try to check if it worked out so I could stay or if it didn’t and I move on to elsewhere. Since the age of 16, when I made that vow to myself that I had to end up as a musician, there is not a single day when I didn’t think of how I would make it. I don’t mean hanging around with wireless mega bass headphones. But being that creative who crafted intellectual property. Ideas keep flowing even when I am in awkward places I shouldn’t mention here.
Looking back at the time of my decision-making and comparing with right now, I can’t imagine if I would have got any gap anywhere in the music industry of the “good old days” generation. Thank the savior who invented the computer and later the internet.
It was in 1992, in St. Kalemba Secondary School, when we were all these energetic and flamboyant young ones with extra calories just to waste around. Getting used to secondary school life while trying out any sort of experimentation. Many students were intrigued by the M.C. Hammer kind of dancing in their devised Hammer pants while for others it was the Vanilla Ice rapid rapping. Being shy at the time I would never step anywhere to start dancing. Again having that slow tongue I could never imitate Vanilla Ice. But the fire inside me was always burning. I felt that I had to be doing something creative. Maybe I can recall the young age of writing on banana leaves with ink pens. For those who know the lines on banana leaves resembling those on lined paper sheets, it must have been part of self-discovery in creative writing.
As usual we would break off for holidays from school back home and return after a few weeks. But at one time we returned and one student had brought with him a small cassette player. He had collected some tapes too, full of the 90s soft and rap music.
In the evenings, after classes, we would go with this student at one side of the football pitch and swam around him. He would insert cassettes as we listened. So one evening he brought a tape which had this song, ‘Sacrifice’, by Elton John. When that piano riff started playing I got some kind of exhilaration in me.
It was slow enough unlike the usual rapping we listened to and I heard no word at all but simply enjoyed for the fact that it was fun. Taking into consideration that the applied language was not a mother tongue. Yes, with ‘Sacrifice’ at least the words were audible enough. I felt that I could sing it too. I could gibberish some words here. We used to get song lyrics from Smash Hits and one day I came across it with one girl. I copied the words and started learning while trying to mime it in hiding.
That was the time when I made the decision of becoming a musician wherever I had to end. From that time on, whoever asked me what my ambition was, I mentioned that I wanted to become a musician—signed and sealed!
At that time, back here in Uganda there was nowhere to find any pop music school. Not even a parent who was in favor of such a career for their children. But having grown up as an orphan I made up many parental decisions by myself. And a career was one of them. No one ever pushed me to become anything like parents have always done to their children. It was a blessing in disguise! So amongst the subjects I did, Fine Art was my favorite.
Years went by and I joined Namilyango College for my A. levels in 1995. A single-sex boys boarding school it was to my relief! At least there I had space to experience and experiment in the choir without being shy! Through those hymn books I struggled to teach myself the basics of lyrics writing by pastiche—I didn’t know it by then but it’s what I devised. My writing talent just flowed naturally whenever I tried writing anything.
And as the years can’t fail to go by, proceeding to university wasn’t making any anxiety in me like the rest of the students. We did the final exams of which I didn’t perform like how I would have done if I had any focus on that! But I was offered a Diploma in Art & Design with Education. I felt like, ok let me do it. But once am done, I would proceed with pursuing my music career. Only one semester through and I was already getting frustrated. I didn’t like what I was studying and the direction where the education system was leading me. It wasn’t at all in my interests. But not anywhere had I stepped for music lessons. Not even to learn what a treble clef was. Only my courage and consistency to achieve my desired goal. So I ended up by falling off the course! I remember going to the office of one tutor and telling him that I didn’t feel like I was in the right place. He tried to counsel and advise me but I had made up my mind. My family became so furious and none of them ever wanted to support me at all in my music endeavors. They failed to understand that what I was studying wasn’t for me!
By that time, in around 1998, the Internet era was slowly creeping in. At least one could sign up for a Hotmail address and the search engines of that time. If one got a website it would be fun going to a desktop and checking it out.
I wanted to do creative writing at least as an alternative or addition to music. From one UK magazine I got an advert of a creative writing correspondence school in England which I enrolled with. Through the provided contacts I managed to get a contact for a composer that I collaborated with for some years writing ballads and pop songs. With the creative writing I only studied a few modules and could not afford the fees any longer—I fell off! So I took on with doing some commercial art majoring in crafts—designing greetings cards and batiks.
Yes, the clock was ticking! And how the years go by!
In the early 2000s, the business of Internet cafés had started, in Kampala, and in a short period it was booming. That was a blessing to me, hopefully, and many others.
I used to hear old guys from offices cursing the intervention of the computers at their places of work. I didn’t understand it then. But later I came to learn of it. Sure they were carrying out tasks and their positions were overtaken by the super machine. To us the curious it was a blessing. I could spend at least 20 minutes in an Internet café trying to search for anything I pleased! Developing my computer skills in doing so.
In 2004, through a friend, I met one generous lady who liked my courage and ambition. We later became friends and got so concerned on hearing my sad stories. She vowed to help and support me to attain my goal—which she did! She asked me to look for a school I felt would offer me the best of what I wanted. With the aid of the savior machine and tool (the computer and the internet), I searched in London where I found the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance which offered a pop music performance course in vocals. I went through the application process and secured a place there. Though it took me some months, to get ready, I joined later on in 2005. There was a lot I went through, for my experience, but eventually graduated with a Diploma in Pop Music Performance—Vocals. Having attained my desired professional career, my goal was fulfilled.
Relying back on my savior’s machine and tool, I searched and found a singer from Doncaster. I tried to work with her completing a ten-song pop rock album, producing the previously co-written songs with the composer from Manchester. Instead of walking to success, we headed for doom. That was a firsthand practical lesson at learning human behavior.
I returned home, in 2008, where I had to experience social life and start a family too. With the way most businesses are operating back here, I found it hard to join the music industry apart from hanging around with musician peers.
In 2011, I was tipped off for the Un-Convention music conference to take place in Jinja. That’s where I met Jeff Thompson, the co-founder, and several other UK music industry notables. From there we exchanged contacts and he matched me with Luke Melville, an electronic music producer from Manchester. He remixed two of my rock songs which resulted in ‘Run-Extended Final’ and ‘Sense Of Direction’. They sounded super cool. A new genre I was getting introduced to—EDM.
Back to my savior, I searched for any labels that would be interested in releasing them. I came across one label in Germany to which I licensed them for sometime. While on my savior (online) trying to promote them I met with Paul Rogers from Wales. He liked working with me and we started off with the track ‘Prophet Of Trouble’. We both liked the outcome which lead us to making more tracks. I slid off the music radar for some years due to unforeseen social issues but later returned stronger than I had left. With my beloved savior’s tool (the internet) running in the gadget in my left hand’s palm (the smartphone), for better or worse it was time to push my career ahead.
Authorities in the self-proclaimed first world have put stringent measures against us—from the human-labelled third world—not to attain our desired goals, but the internet is helping us to make a bypass! There is always a way devised to handle any hindrance and impediment. I have managed to make real friends from all over the world with just the click of a button. Sometimes I get glitches like it is in the physical world. Though I have never feared communicating with anyone online until they prove hopeless.
Back here, the album Prophet of Trouble is as a result of online collaboration. Adding pepper to sauce, I have managed to form No Limits 4 Happiness which is an EDM collaborative duo with Anders Garp, a Dutch DJ/Producer. We are soon releasing our debut EP.
If it wasn’t for my savior machine and tool, I would, still, be in limbo. Surely, these two should be the greatest inventions of all time that have revolutionized all industries you can think of. Not looking at the negative effects, they have helped people to create opportunities, proved excellent conduits for by-passing virtual barriers and uncovered centuries old lies, propaganda and fake information. The “good old days” generation folks should fade away with their slow hard manual “good old times”.
Please allow me to baptise this, Gen Z era, the “Best Present Days” as opposed to the “Good Old Days”.
Sydney’s Guard, a.k.a. Prince Balyejjusa, is a Ugandan-born artist who professionally trained at The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, London for a Diploma in Pop Music Performance—Vocals. He has been involved in several performances, songwriting and studio recording projects collaborating with friends from Uganda, the USA, Europe and the UK. Discover more about him at https://linktr.ee/potsg
Featured photo by RDNE Stock project (Pexels)
