Meet Rhí McPhelim

We were lucky to catch up with Rhí McPhelim recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rhí, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
From a young age, I have always enjoyed the work aspect of academia and personal creative projects. If I’m given time and an interesting project or brief, I do try and put my all into it, and keep the cycle going. I’ve often been told to stop working so much, or to not take on too much work, but I love the sense of purpose and structure work gives me, in all its forms.

My work ethic does come from being a deep-rooted people pleaser, but also as someone who likes to quietly be involved with some really interesting projects or points of collaboration. Sometimes a good work ethic can be mistaken for passion, which means that everyone has the potential to have a “good work ethic” – it’s just a matter of finding that passion.

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?
I founded my own blog and PR services platform, Cobra Promotions, back during the first ever COVID lockdown in Ireland in 2020! I specifically focus on supporting the best talent in the rock and blues market, and offer insightful PR content to all independent artists.

As both a publicist and journalist, I’ve been on both sides of the pitching game, which I think gives me a well rounded view of the music business, and an ability to candidly share my experience learning everything from the ground up. I have a huge passion for discovering and sharing new music, which makes my work incredibly rewarding, and I have built such a fantastic network of people who I appreciate what I do.

To sum up, Cobra Promotions offers: Reviews, interviews, playlist adds, free directories, PR and promotion guides and PR services.

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?
In the music industry as a whole, authenticity and passion are so important! You have to be true to your style / musical ethos, which is your authenticity, and then the investment in yourself is where the passion will stem from. A value that goes hand in hand with both of these, is entrepreneurship. You have to be clever in the music industry, and, even if you don’t want to think of your music as a product, you have to think of yourself as somewhat of a businessperson. You’re making others see the value in your art – encouraging them to stream, share, review, etc. This takes networking, convincing, selling and generally, good social skills (especially in the online world, ironically).

If you’re an independent artist or someone starting out in PR and the music industry in general ,friendly and enthusiastic communication goes a long way. If you will be looking for someone else to tackle your social media and PR, etc, good communication is how you will find this right person to help your journey too.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
Elina Filice from Drop Rocket has been an amazing mentor to me. As an independent musician and digital marketer with PR experience, she has so much knowledge to share and I have had the privilege of gaining many insights. She is always trying to further her creative self and the good work of Drop Rocket, and her work ethic is so inspiring.

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