Meet iismaill

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Iismaill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Iismaill, 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?
Aww man. In all honesty, I’d say I get my work ethic from both my own life experiences and seeing how my parents have navigated throughout their own lives. Being a first generation kid (both parents came to the U.S. from India) taught me from a young age that I needed to work harder and smarter than everybody else around me, regardless of how tough things got. Both my parents struggled a lot but still persevered and never let the hurdles get the best of them, which in turn really showed me what having great work ethic looked like. Throughout my own struggles, both as a person and as an artist, I’ve been blessed to be able to sharpen how I operate in any kind of work, thus leading to a strong sense of urgency which in turn morphs into work ethic.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My name’s Iismaill (pronounced is-mile), and I’m a 27 year old Indian-American first-generation artist from the Inland Empire, CA, specifically from a city known as “Fontana”. Coming from a traditional Hyderabadi background, I’m the first in my family to pursue music. I started writing poetry at the ages of 13-14, which eventually evolved into me writing full-fledged songs. I was on “SoundCloud” for about 2 1/2 years before making my jump to music streaming services such as “Spotify”, “Apple Music”, “Google Play”, etc.

I released my first official project titled “Marzi” in January 2019, and since then I’ve released many singles as well.

My second and most recent project titled “Hydboii” was released on February 21, 2022, and it’s based off my TikTok persona with the same name. I also have a new single titled “Abhi Abhi” which is now out on all platforms, so be on the lookout for that! Ultimately, my goal is to break ground within the U.S. and internationally as both an artist and a content creator. I want to represent and be the first Hyderabadi artist to go mainstream globally, whether it be with music, comedy/acting, or both!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
First and foremost, I want to start off by saying that I’m beyond grateful for everything that’s happened thus far on my journey. Whether it was good or bad, it definitely shaped and molded me as an artist/content creator. In terms of 3 most important qualities of knowledge that anybody, not just an artist, should possess are; Be about what you say and establish credibility/build trust, remain grounded and use everything as a learning experience, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, and build up your resilience to negative energy and sharpen your focus. Also, how hard you believe in yourself will also determine how far you go in life and I sincerely believe that with all my heart.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
I would say that a very particular challenge that I’m facing as of right now is getting my content noticed and heard by the right people. I don’t mean “right people” in the sense that whoever tunes in to whatever I create is bad or is just fluff (quite the contrary because I’m beyond grateful for every fan/supporter) but rather people who can help me ascend to new heights. Coming from the background I come from, it’s practically unheard of that a Hyderabadi artist is in music in general, let alone hiphop/rap. Breaking ground with my TikTok has also been part of this same challenge, but I’m slowly getting to where I want to be. One thing I legit always tell myself is that if it were meant to be easy, everybody would be doing the same thing.

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