Rothrick: An Aspiring Artist

Rothrick: An Aspiring Artist

Interviews over the phone are thought of as inefficient, seeing as you aren’t able to make the same connection with your subject as you would in a normal, face-to-face interview. That’s not always the case though. When I spoke with Rothrick Currie, I didn’t feel as though we were on the phone for over an hour or that I was doing an interview for a grade. It felt like we were old friends catching up after being apart for some time, though we hardly knew each other.

When I ask if he would allow me to interview him, he was more than happy to talk to me. He answered all of my questions, even if they were personal. That led me to believe that he wanted people to know more about him and his music. “I’m an opened book,” he stated, “I have nothing to hide.” He also portrays this image in his music.

In the beginning, Rothrick, only composed instrumentals for his uncle, who was a choir director of his church in Michigan. These instrumentals were used for special dance performances or recordings composed by choir members. As he continued to play around with the instrumentals, he learned how to make them sound even better than they did before. His uncle even started paying him for them. At that time, it was just for fun or to make easy cash. He never thought he’d ever want a career in music until he was asked to write lyrics to go with the music he was making. “I’m no poet, so my first answer was no. I thought about it some more though and figured I could at least try.”

He went on to say that he’d never even written a poem before let alone a song, so he had no idea where to even start. Putting his best foot forward, he started on his first song, which blew said friend out of the water. “He kept saying how good it was and that I should write lyrics more often, but I thought he was being nice.” When asked how he could write a song so impressive when he was so inexperience, he spoke of the one person who inspired him the most: Michael Jackson.

Rothrick has been a Michael Jackson fan for years, so when he decided he wanted a career in music, he used the King of Pop for his inspiration. Their music styles are nothing alike, Rothrick pursuing a rap career while Michael was a pop artist, but what inspired Rothrick the most about Michael was his perseverance and will to move forward. Through all of the scandals Michael went through, he still kept his head high and dominated the charts as well as world records. That’s what Rothrick dreams of doing. He started on making his dream a reality, making instrumentals and adding lyrics to make them full songs. The only thing he needed to do was record which turned out to be a problem for him.

“Recording equipment is expensive and I didn’t have the money to buy it, so I waited until my cousin came over to record.” He was in a tough spot at them time. The only income that was in his household at the time was his father’s and it wasn’t much. That left Rothrick unable to afford the equipment he needed to make his dreams come true. Luckily, he had family and friends that shared the same dream.

His cousin, Phil, would come over often and Rothrick was then able to record his music and upload it to various websites. One day, after Rothrick’s recording, Phil sampled the music and really enjoyed it. He suggested that they should do a collaboration. They tried writing lyrics together, but it failed a countless amount of times. Their rapping styles clashed too much for them to write an entire song together yet they wanted to be on the same song. Their solution was to bring in a third opinion. Their friend Freddy read their over their lyrics and added a few lines of his own and the song flowed much better than it did before.

            

     “Freddy was only supposed to be the tie breaker; he wasn’t supposed to join our group. But he did.” The three member group was formed over a small argument of who was right and who was wrong. They didn’t stop there though. They wanted their group to be bigger and a few of their other friends were also aspiring musicians. In the span of a week, the three member group became a six member group called The Wanted Team.

Rothrick realized that he liked being in the group more than being solo. “It’s less stressful when you have friends to help you with your lyrics,” he stated. When he can’t think of anything else to add to his own lyrics, he takes a look at his friends’ papers, curious as to what they were writing about. It gave him inspiration because he thought their lyrics were much better than his own. So to him, it was like a challenge. It gave him the fire and passion he needed to write and compose more music.

They were a group for a while before they were even close to making it big. Their first big gig was at a local club called Cloud Nine. They took their CDs and mixtapes to the music director and were given a spot opening for another local rapper. Rothrick was nervous. Never before had he been in front of so many people before in his life. “It felt like a dream and a nightmare at the same time.” As it turned out, it was more of a dream than a nightmare.

The crowd loved them. Everyone was dancing to their music and shouting their names. For a moment, it felt like they were performing their own show and not the opening act for another rapper . When they wrapped up their set, they were all walking on air, or at least it felt that way. Rothrick wanted nothing more than to go back on that stage and perform for the rest of the night. As they were leaving, they were approached by the same music director that gave them their slot. It turned out that the crowd loved them so much, that he was willing to give them their own show. “It felt as if my dreams were finally coming true. I was finally going to make it.”