We were lucky to catch up with Timothy Blake recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Timothy with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I’d like to believe I get my hard-working mentality from my mother. She actually raised my sisters and I as a single parent for a short period in my life. During that time I was able to witness first-hand just how MUCH she was willing to do in order to not just survive, but to provide us with a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. She worked two jobs, a manager at one, and STILL managed to find time for us and also a social life of her own, it was inspiring really. Now all that being said, I myself have no kids and far less pressure from a survival standpoint and yet I still find myself an extremely hard worker. I just tell people I’m weird and don’t like to get bored so I constantly find things to do, seems to work well enough haha. I have big goals, big dreams, but also I know how quickly the little tasks can pile on if you get sloppy or lazy.
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?
Hi again guys! First let me say I appreciate all the readers and fans who have been following my journey on the Voyage ATL platform, it really has been a blessing. To all the new people again, wassup haha I am the rapper/guitarist Lil Makaveli, known more affectionately by the short hand “Lil Mak”. I have been rapping and playing guitar since high school but recently have been pursuing a professional career in music as of 2018. Although my discography is already expansive, filled with music of many flavors as well as fun visual projects, I would really like to get you excited about my up and coming project “MAK MANSON”, which is releasing on Halloween! My producer Chriz, who I have been working and developing with for years, has said this tape sounds like a “breakthrough project” so I hope you can appreciate how excited I am talking about this album with you!
The Halloween release is calculated as this is a SCARY and SPOOKY project. I have refined and redefined the rocker/rapper sound with vibes reminiscent of the Nu-Metal era (think Disturbed), blended with the very edge of modern rap melody, cadence etc.. In this tape I explore the darker and more controversial side of humanity, especially American society, yet still in an entertaining way. I really have fine tuned the balance between providing engaging discourse with emotionally moving melodies. Of course there are still the fun, edgy and bouncy tunes you’d expect to hear from me, but for those souls brave enough to venture down through the second half of the album… well that in my opinion, is the REAL album. Netflix would say the project is “Dark, Witty, Irreverent” haha.
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?
Oh wow that’s a tough one, I feel like there’s so many things for real haha. I can confidently say for sure that networking was a must have skill. Every person on the planet contains a wealth of knowledge, experience and social leverage; just in different areas. Networking to me is really just diving back into that innate sense of community we all share. Community to me is about “give and take”. If you had a great recipe for a pie but just needed ingredients meanwhile someone else had all the ingredients but lacked a recipe, you two should connect! I find it to really be that simple. Being a social butterfly does help, but at the end of the day it’s just talking to people in a room. Somebody may be into something you got going on, maybe not. I often times find myself sharing information with people regardless of whether or not they can benefit me, I just like helping people! I believe others can sense genuine intention and when it comes to music, you really don’t want to come off parasitic.
Another quality I would say was crucial was the ability to maintain an open mind. Sounds cheesy, I know, but the reality is that at any given time you have hundreds of tools in your disposal to tackle the often abstract challenges of life. If you fixate so much on the hammer, it’s hard to see a screw as anything other than a nail, I think Obama said something similar. If your mind is the toolbox then it makes sense to expand that toolbox so that it can hold many different tools, but also you have to seek and be open to many different tools. In my field that could be adding my own guitar riffs to a beat in order to enhance the song, instead of just rapping over it as is. The point is don’t be afraid to think outside the box, as cliche as that may seem.
Oh and one you gotta have is perseverance. You should expect to live a long life, full of experiences. With that comes the idea that life is long and that good things take time. One thing people always say is “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” and they’re absolutely right! You’re going to do great things in spurts; you’re going to make mistakes that set you back. Happens to everyone. What I’ve learned over time is that mistakes teach you WAY more than successes. You know how they also say “Beginner’s luck”; the idea that you can do well at something and not even realize what you did correctly, could you imagine actually living life like that? Sure it feels good to win, but it feels way better to actually win by overcoming yourself. That’s all it is, whenever you improve ANYTHING you are basically admitting your old way of doing was not optimized and had to go. I try to take the ego out of both my wins and losses because ultimately if “I knew better, I’d do better”, see that’s another one haha.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
This is a good question, you know I was watching a Will Smith interview years ago and in the interview he mentioned this very book I’m about to. I had never heard of “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, until Will mentioned it, but I was already diving into that type of mystic, metaphysical literature. I guess I have to also credit “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill as my gateway drug haha. Anyways that book changed my perspective in a few ways. Without spoiling anything I would say the book has an excellent way of tying everything together in the end.
The ending makes perfect sense when I applied it to my life and what I had experienced. Also the way the main character persevered humbly out of love and not for self-gain, that really stood out to me. It’s like if you’re acting selfishly or out of ego, failures really shatter the glass house. When you try to do for others however, failures don’t hold the same weight. You never said you were perfect, flawless, you said you would try. People want to see you succeed and it feels like you can and should pick yourself up and try again; that’s what I took from it anyways haha. I also really enjoyed the part where the main character humbly tends to the glassware store he is hired at, after being scammed out of all his money. I think the similar “Game Over” points we experience in life are often not the end, if we’re willing to humble ourselves and bounce back!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://flow.page/lilmakaveli
- Instagram: @lilmakaveli1
- Facebook: @Lil Makaveli
- Youtube: @lilmakavelimusic
- Soundcloud: @Lil Makaveli
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