Meet Marco Restrepo

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

Hi Marco, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I discovered my purpose through passion. Initially when I was a child, I had no idea that my purpose in life was to make music, but I did know that I was absolutely obsessed with it. Whether it was the singing of songs or the backstories of the artists, I just could not get enough. Some song or melody was just always in my head and it was completely un-escapable and I became known as the kid that was always singing. By the time I decided I wanted to create my own music, those sounds in my head started becoming music that didn’t exist yet. The sheer amount of divine inspiration that began coming from then until now is the main reason I know I was meant to do this, it’s almost a curse because I cannot really control it.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a musical artist from Atlanta, Georgia named Marco Restrepo. I have been self-producing my music for the past 15 years beginning in the genre of hip hop and now as an indie rock musician. While I always approached my music in a DIY kind of way, when I first started implementing instruments into my production, I found I was somewhat out of my realm. Where in hip hop my amateur mixes could get placements on MTV, my rock compositions got me nothing but scathing reviews and disbelief. Now however, I am at a point where I have the financial backing to outsource the components that I don’t excel in and my vision has never been clearer. My next album Whatever, I believe will be the greatest representation of my abilities as an artist.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I don’t know if I can definitively pick three specific things, but I will try.

The first piece of advice I would give is have a guide stone, or something you can compare your work to. This always benefited me especially with the presentation of my work, if a famous artist had cool artwork on their album covers, I was not about to half ass mine, whatever drew me to them I would attempt to emulate.

Second thing I would say is plan with a purpose. Whether you are aiming for a single or a whole album, have some direction so that you can approach completion from a more manageable point of view, and not necessarily set deadlines, but have checklist.

Lastly, I would say never stop learning. Don’t let your pool of influence ever stop growing, listen to more music, consume more art, meet more interesting people. You never know where the next piece of inspiration will come from and if you keep drawing from your past interest you are bound to get derivative results at some point.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
The fulfilment of your purpose isn’t always going to be easy. You may be great at something but no one will see it until they do. With that being said the resolution is never quitting. Although success may not come the way you want it, as long as you stay at whatever you’re passionate about, at some point some of the stars will align and somebody will be impacted by your work, which is the goal. Take small wins, sometimes I look at my likes, streams, or other metrics and think to myself, wow, I’m really failing at this, but the reality is that if you can even profoundly impact one person, that is a huge win in a life time. If you can do one, you can do ten, you can do a thousand, a million. Just amplify what works, don’t attempt to overreach for success because your audience will eventually be here for what you make, not for what you think they want you to make.

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Marco Restrepo

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