Kween K Exits The Game

Ya'll be like: "Damn Kween K, why you don't music blog no more?"

Well, here's your answer.

You know, when I started blogging over two years ago, I had no intention to become as popular as I did in Chicago's music industry. It felt cool to sit down with people I was truly interested in, talk to them about their music and then watch them miraculously gain more fame and recognition.

Some went on to receive record deals, some are touring all over the world, some fell off and others are continuing their grind. I can honestly say that I am truly proud of each and every person I've interviewed.

Despite how proud I am, there are many things I don't like about music blogging, and that has led to my decision to stop music blogging all together, with interviews included.

Before I made my official announcement via Twitter last week, I had been slacking on posting music despite having an email FULL of them all the time. Before that, I had recently came out of interview retirement in April of this year. Before that, at least 8 MONTHS had passed since ya'll heard me say "Wassup world, this is Kween K and I'm sitting here with..."

Yeah, I know sometimes ya'll miss that, (and sometimes I do too,) but here are a few reasons why I'm exiting the game of music blogging.

I don't have the time

Music blogging is time consuming, just like any other form of writing. I was in high school when I started being Kween K, but my schedule was no where near as rigorous as it is now. When I first started out, I had all the time in the world to conduct those interviews, complete with transportation to go back and forth whenever I pleased.

And then college happened.

Who knew college could be so time consuming? On top of that, I had the nerve to go to college six hours away from Chicago, with no reliable transportation in sight. When I was in high school, I always had a job that allowed me to pay people to drive me wherever or buy bus cards when I needed to.

I got in college and I was broke as a joke. So on top of being broke, I also had to take my ass to class, and adjust to a whole new social life. So instead of dropping at least two new interviews a month, months would pass until I could actually get home and interview people.

Aside from interviewing, me actually posting music slacked even harder. I remember when I used to post songs and videos for hours at a time, EVERYDAY and then one day, it just stopped.

I would always tell myself, "Ok, I'll post this later" and NEVER get around to it. How can I call myself a music blogger, when I'm not even consistent?

Blogging started feeling like a job I hated...

Ya'll know I love writing. Ya'll know I love blogging. But there is something agonizing about opening up your email day after day, listening to the same garbage over and over again, and then deciding which rapper would be mad that I didn't post their song. I was tired of getting phone calls, text messages, DM's, and Facebook messages from people begging me to put them on. I always promised myself that I wouldn't be that blogger who only posted things for clicks and page views, but some artists never really understood that. I guess they felt that since their shitty music video was on every other Chicago blog, that it had to be on Kween K's too.

But here's the thing: I never wanted to be seen as a "Chicago Blogger." I'm a blogger from Chicago. The only reason why 95% of my interviews were done with Chicago artists was because of how accessible they were. People forget that I interviewed Maino. Tyga, and Honey Cocaine though. Needless to say, blogging became this job for me, which placed me in a box, which fucking sucked.

I love Chicago to the death of me, but the world is much bigger than that city.

I lost my passion for it

Once music blogging started feeling like a job, I lost my passion for it to be honest. It just wasn't fun anymore. I started doing it because I had friends who were up and coming artists, and I was passionate about the youth, and I wanted to give them a platform to be heard.

But then I stopped caring. I wasn't passionate about it anymore. I had real life issues going on, and posting someone's song on my blog that they weren't even going to promote was the least of my concern. Music blogging should come naturally, so if you choose to be one, you should probably do it because you're passionate and will always love it.

I wanted to be able to enjoy music again without having to critique it, without analyzing the context of the lyrics, without wondering if I wanted to post it or not. I wanted to be able to actually watch people debate over music, instead of actually getting dragged into arguments just because people knew I music blogged.

I'm too sensitive for you ungrateful motherfuckers

Ok so, here's the thing: I hate to sound like a cocky blogger, but I am pretty sure that if I did NOT interview certain people, it would've taken them a little bit longer to get on. I call that the #KweenKEffect, and that is simply this formula: I post your music = other blogs wanting to support your music = your name being everywhere.

OR

I interview you = you are now *famous.

*with becoming famous, you may get signed, you may go on a fancy European tour, you may get paid to create music, or you just gain a mass amount of Twitter followers. The possibilities are endless*

The problem with most up and coming artists is that SOME don't like to give credit where it's due. I've interviewed over 30 people and posted the music of probably 1,000 artists and I can count on one hand how many actually still communicate with me to this day. I can count on one hand how many actually still thank me. I can count on one hand how many still actually rock with me outside of being Kween K.

Someone told me a long time ago that this industry is a "thankless business" and I didn't start believing her until recently. Ya'll are ungrateful. I have helped a lot of people. And anyone who knows me knows that I don't support people to get anything in return. I don't need your money, your clout, or anything else. I support because I genuinely want to see people accomplish their dreams.

But a simple T H A N K YOU has always been nice. It has always been welcomed. A thank you rarely ever comes tho, probably because ya'll are rude as fuck with no manners.

To be honest, I used to get SO mad that people I helped wouldn't support me. I've had artists be in my email and mentions BEGGING me to post their song or video, and BEGGING me to interview them, but wouldn't even promote the shit. Sure, no one will push my blog harder than me, but it takes two to conduct an interview. And all that time I wasted listening to songs and watching music videos, the least some of these ungrateful people could do is spam their Twitter followers with a link to my blog.

I'm tired of getting USED

People say you're useless until someone else finds you useful.

I say that's a bunch of bull shit.

Here's the thing: Until you have people faking friendships, relationships, and business relationships all in the name of getting to the top, then you tell me how proud you are of being useful.

Listen, I've had some of the fakest people enter and exit my life, all because I was Kween K. Never in my life had I ever seen so many snakes in one industry. I have been appalled for the last two years, and I'm honestly tired of it.

It has gotten to the point where I look at 80% of people as untrustworthy, because there was once a time where I was very naive and have been fucked over. There are only a few people in my life that have remained genuine and true despite this music blogging, and for that I am always grateful.

People want you to lead them to water, help them drink, but don't want to compensate you. They want you to give you all your resources, yet couldn't plug you if they wanted to, because all their connections came from YOU. They want you to constantly feature them on your site, (when they're first starting out) yet they move on to the more popular sites and conveniently forget who helped them get on in the first place.

I don't know about other bloggers, but Kween K set trends around this motherfucker. As a matter of fact, she taught you all, but that's none of my business.

Overall, I believe that the fact of the matter is, I realized I was meant to do more with my gift than conduct interviews and post music. In case you all didn't realize, I am a pretty good writer. But how would people know that if I was expected to post music and do interviews all the time?

I wanted to expand my horizons. That's the reason why I changed the context of this blog, that's the reason why ya'll delve into more serious topics on this blog, this is why I changed up everything.

Music blogging is over-saturated anyway, and I feel that I've made my mark. I had a good two years with some wisdom and experience that I wouldn't trade for the world. But it's time to do more, and do more I will.

With that being said, thank you to everyone who ever supported me.

Thank you to everyone who helped my dreams come true including:

William "DJ Hustlenomics" Stewart

Alexander "Stocky" Stockstell

Janaya Greene

Icey Bby

Phillip Roche, The GAWD of PR

Kyla "2 Cammz" Flemming

Arthur Jones

Simone Strain

Without those people, there couldn't of possibly been a Kween K. They did everything from plug me with artists, to hold cameras and iPhones to record interviews, to actually edit every interview I ever did. I love them all. And all except one never switched up on me.

For those interested in seeing who all I interviewed, here is my direct YouTube channel link.

And to anyone else, with questions, comments, well wishes, or concerns, hit me up on Twitter:

Or drop a comment below.