“My goal is to move people with my music.”

“I’ve been making music for about four years. It’s just in me. It’s energetic. It’s spiritual. It’s like a release. You could be going through a lot of stuff, and you can bottle it up and put it in a song. My goal is to move people with my music. There’s certain stuff I want to say to the people of this world, and everybody hears music. It’s played everywhere.

But it’s not just a music thing. There’s a business part of it, too. It’s networking and making the connections you need to make to be where you need to be. Initially, the band brought me here to Jackson State. But after I got an understanding of the music industry and validation, I definitely wanted to get a degree because it would make me stand out from someone who’s done all of the same things I’ve done but didn’t get a degree.

So I’m majoring in music to validate my skills. How would that look? You see me in the studio with a degree on the wall. It’s all about validation. You can know everything in the world, but who cares if you don’t have something to back it up? I would encourage anybody who’s trying to be an artist or producer to get a degree. I know that at any moment if I do it like anybody else, I can be replaced just like anybody else. But it’ll be hard to replace a scholar.”

– Marcus, freshman music major from Atlanta, Ga.