We were lucky to catch up with Vadell Gabriel recently and have shared our conversation below.
Vadell, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
My grandfather, mainly. He and my grandmother raised me and my siblings, and he always worked hard every day to provide for all of us. And when he wasn’t working at his day job, he ran his own church. He inspired me to work hard at my craft, no matter the bumps in the road, or how frustrating it can get at times. He was a very patient man who never tried to cheat to get to where he was, he simply worked at a steady pace until the time was right to move to the next plateau.
Another person who influenced my work ethic was Michael Jackson. One of the hardest working men in show business during his time, he would rehearse nonstop for his shows, and he’d craft hundreds of songs for his albums; enough to fill up three or four discs worth per album, while constantly raising the bar for his music. I’ve yet to reach that level of work ethic, but he inspired me to make my music sound as high quality as humanly possible, and to never give up on it.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My real name’s Seth Glasgow, but most know me as Vadell Gabriel. I’m a musician, DJ, producer, and songwriter who specializes in rap, R&B, and house music from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. For the past 14 years, I’ve collaborated with many talented and award-winning artists in Canada and beyond, and worked as a composer on several independent animation, video game, and audio drama projects. I’m always down to collaborate with anyone, so feel free to reach out if you think my sounds would click with your projects.
Currently, I’ve recently released a soundtrack for an animation project I did with Peruvian animator Joel G (creator of ENA) and have been working on a few other projects; including a new album, some games, and an online project I can’t speak too freely about at the moment.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Three things that helped me:
– Confidence. To quote Marcus Garvey: “If you haven’t confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.”
– Patience. Sometimes, you wanna taste success as soon as possible, but nothing comes fast. You gotta keep honing your craft, and pushing through until that breakthrough finally happens; and then you start seeing real movement. Hoping for instant viral success is a fool’s game, and many of the greats past and present had to pay dues and work for years before they got a breakthrough. Be humble, and just keep working at it.
– READ YOUR CONTRACTS/TERMS OF SERVICE. I cannot stress this enough. If you ever get to a point where you labels want to sign you or start attracting companies who wanna do promotional deals, or anything that involves contracts in general, make sure you read through those contracts with a fine toothed comb; doubly so if you don’t have a lawyer on retainer. Too many artists, regardless of discipline, get screwed over because they didn’t read their contracts. Same goes for any terms of service for whatever distributor you use, because they can hide certain clauses that can screw you over out of nowhere if you don’t read the ToS.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
Honestly, I’m dealing with burnout, exacerbated with grief. My grandfather passed away some months ago, and I’m still trying to process it. It’s been messing with my creativity for the last few months, and I haven’t been able to work on too much lately. But I got my friends and family for support, and I’m going to be taking some therapy soon to help deal with my grief and frustrations.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vadellgabriel.bandcamp.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vadell_gabriel/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vadell_Gabriel
- Youtube: https:www.youtube.com/@VadellGabriel
Image Credits
Dwight McGrath, Mel Hattie, Noah Rideout
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