So far so good. I am wrapping up with college for now. I am still planning on going on to get my bachelors degree at another online college, like Full Sail, that offers a better learning experience than the University of Phoenix has offered to me. I am happy with my upcoming degree, but know that I didn't learn that much because there are no lectures and the teachers, thus, don't really teach at Phoenix; you learn by yourself. You are completely alone. 75% of the time that I asked the "professors" questions, they did not know the answer and told me to ask my classmates. Those aren't really actual professors there I feel. After graduating in March I will be spending my time honing my skills still for my entertainment and business pursuits, looking for a 9-5, or at least something part time, if I still cannot find that and seeking scholarships to get back into school for my bachelors program. I took out loans for my Associates degree, but have since seen the errors in my ways. I am listening to Dave Ramsey's radio show and book collection that correctly announce: "Debt is dumb and Cash is KING!". This is so true, I think. I am taking that philosophy with my record label. I had intended on borrowing money, but I think that I will just take on investors down the road, after I have become profitable and have proven myself in the market place already, hopefully in Chicago. I was thinking of a move to Chicago, because I know that Milwaukee is not the place to launch a music or any other entertainment career, at least not if you are serious, as I am. Time is ticking though. I am almost 27 1/2 years old. You know, there sort of is a time limit here, whether I want to admit it or not. Most acts make it big before the age of 32 oftentimes. There are people like Chris Jericho and Jamie Fox that had successes elsewhere and then became successful musicians in their 30's and 40's, but that is rare and I am a realist, believe it or not. Development as an artist is going well. I have begun dropping weight and am watching what I eat superbly and actually eating in moderation for once. I was simply overeating, it was not just what I chose to eat, but how much I was choosing to eat that literally was killing me (I have diabetes, type 2). If this continues and the pounds keep shedding, I may be losing diabetes and high blood pressure, also, possibly. A number of people lose those diseases once they lose weight and keep it off. As far as rapping goes, I am moving forward there too...Can almost tongue twist really well! I can even flip up and play with my flow a bit too, it is getting more interesting to listen to me rap for myself, so I know that people will like it once I am at my final process. I really need to start developing my rapping voice though. I rap just like I talk. I saw this documentary and a lot of the pro rappers of today and yesterday stated that it took them working with mentors and anywhere from 3-6 months to fully develop their rap voices. So, I am expecting the same for myself too. All in all, I am now 1.5 years into developing myself as a rapper and have created my debut album, a crappy debut album, but a debut album nonetheless, lol. I think within the next 1.5-2 years I will be ready to go pro and look to going major; which on the high-end would only make me 29 1/2 years old. So, hopefully that is so. I am beginning to be more than ready for this future career though. I thought ignorantly when I was studying the music industry since the age of 13, that I was learning just so that I could train and develop other people. I never imagined I could be an artist someday. I wanted to be a songwriter, producer and executive, anything backstage and unseen. I am shy and introverted usually, but lately when in social situations I blossom and find that I love to entertain. Don't get me wrong, I still do the shy, in

Hilarious, just hilarious...I'm talking about my recent debut album attempt. I was listening to it over and over again last night and couldn't help but laugh at myself. The rapping was below average by far, the recordings (I did that myself too) wasn't even par for the course and the production (yes, again done by myself :) was horrible and unnoticeable in full! At least the writing was superb (I've been a professional writer for the past five years!). Why am I laughing at this? Because I was able to critique myself and knew what was wrong and why it was wrong, more importantly. I have built rappers before, so I know, though this attempt was an F- at best, I still heard signs that I could be a tremendous rap artist someday within the next 1-3 years. It is gonna take more practice and studying and getting involved with other rap artists that are at my level or better most likely though. I know the game of developing artists though, I have done it. Artist development. I think, in total, that I have easily 2-3 years worth of artist development ahead of me...that is the safe approach and guesstimate though. I want to be able to dance to my songs like MC Hammer used to do, so I have to study and practice dance eventually, I am already studying songwriting, learning instruments, composing and arrangement, music theory and rapping and freestyling too...and getting back into top fit shape on top of all of this for my career. I will still need to study electrical engineering/audio engineering and music production too to reach my goals...and DJing. That is a ton, huh... I think though, that in 3-4 years I will be solid in all of these things. I have found college lectures at freevideolectures.com that will help with some of this and Berklee Music has Youtube videos up for free and other organizations related to music as well do too and I have been collecting books on these topics as well. A lot of studying and practicing is ahead of me. I am reading and studying dictionaries now (I have vocab words to learn each week now peeps, lol), I am studying the encyclopedia and rhyming dictionaries too and a thesaurus... I know what it takes to be in the top tier of rappesr that I am intending to become a part of. It takes a lot of hard work, networking, practicing and studying basically. I have found forums online and a site called Rapt.fm that is opening soon that will allow me to anonymously freestyle in battles with people from across the world, if they are English speaking of course! Lol. I was worried about being able to get good at battle rapping, because I don't have a crew that I can practice with and I didn't want to just go out there publicly and embarrass myself and my name, as I was still learning to to do this stuff. Another thing that I am doing as part of my artist development is getting my grooming and imaging down pact, I'm going for the grown and sexy look, mature adult look for a male...suits and things! ;) :) Lastly, I will be watching tapes, as it is called in sports and doing mock stage performances in my basement and holding mock interviews as well all on tape! This way I can study myself and others (their concerts, CDs, interviews, etc.) and review and perfect these things before I ever have to do them publicly and in a real way. Thankfully. I will hopefully be polished in 3-4 years in total...which is not bad since I started rapping in September 2011. TTYL, ~B. Marcel!... @bmarcel85 - Twitter www.brandonjmarcel.com/

I am starting to obsess about songwriting quality now. I now write with a rhyming dictionary, dictionary and thesaurus open around me at all times when I write a song. I want to write things that are thought provoking and true to life, real. I learned this year that the number one rule of writing is write what you know about and be sincere in writing about that, you know? Those are important things to remember each time that you pick up a pen I think. I have been thinking about song content as well. I look at so many young artists today and those of the past and I shutter at their lyrical choices. Maybe they aren't well read and things, you know, but how could you focus on the subjects that the average rapper focuses on, especially knowing the history of our people. They are spitting on our heritage and where we came from I think. I want to promote lyrics that mean things and are clean. People make fun of people like Will Smith that purposely make clean projects, but I think Will Smith has managed to do quite well for himself with his squeaky clean image. So, why wouldn't more artists adopt his stance? I learned about this in a college, black economic course actually. It is like Bill Cosby deciding to do clean and bland television with the Cosby show, he went squeaky clean there and won big also. It is that easy. I am a minister and want to do smart, thought provoking and spiritual songs that show my reverence for my Gods. I think that if I manage to do so in a popular format and way, that it will be fun and lighthearted. I think that I am gonna try to put a message in all of my songs to connect with people that have been through it, you know, and I want to present these songs and messages in a pop way, using rap though...like a spiritual Black Eyed Peas. I think people would take to that, because the beat and "poppy", upbeat tempos will get the club and younger crowds, and the depth of the lyrics will connect with even more people. I am not gonna lie. It will be terribly hard to manage to get this together. I am creating a whole new sub-genre here after all. It will take time though. I need to learn to produce much better and to DJ too. It takes time though. These types of well written and deep and insightful lyrics in a "poppy" coating will reach a ton of people worldwide someday I believe. Someday. In the end, I will be very happy if I can represent my knowledge and spiritual self on each and every track and as long as I talk about real life issues too. That would make me happiest in my future career. That is where I am heading. That is where I am going with this. TTYL, ~B. Marcel!... @bmarcel - Twitter www.brandonjmarcel.com

Wowzer!...I am so happy, I have finally recorded my first album!!!...No sales :(... The reason why, I decided, since it was not my best work, not to release it publicly. I have talked about this in previous posts before, but I am a quality junkie now. I just won't release anything anymore and I have to be completely sure that there is going to be a stream of following releases and that my online portals are all up and operating again first, too. The album was called Better Daze and I "released" it the last week of September (2012)...I am moving on from this point though. I am back to studying the creative side of the business. After years of hiatus, lol! This was because it became obvious to me, watching my many artist friends, is that none of them succeeded, simply because they didn't know and understand the industry part of things. They completely knew and studied the music end though. That is cool, but you leave yourself open and vulnerable to getting nowhere fast or being taken advantage of, you know? I can now focus on learning instruments better, actually learning music theory, lmao!...and things like that. I am slowly learning beat making at a professional level too. I am getting my sound library together and everything for this. I am gonna be building my music library too, as I find that studying the successful music and artists of today and yesterday, is also something that many artists fail to do too. I have already also, started building my live performance DVD library also. I want to become a great performer someday in the nearing future, so I have to study those that have done it greatly prior to me and currently too. The last things in my artist development that I'll have left to do is learn to compose/arrange properly and things like learning to dance at a professional level and finishing off my imaging ideas. I know of this designer in Europe named Ozwald Boateng, I think his style of design is incredible...that is how I would like to be styled...however, I am a minister, so I also want to be dressed in traditional preacher garments, like Rev Run basically, just with wild and fun colors. I figure that I only have 2-3 more years in artist development before I am ready to release a debut album for real. It will take some more time and lots more researching, studying and practicing, along with greater amounts of strategic planning, but I'll get there, to the major land, that is. I believe in myself and my abilities. I am also getting my body into shape too. I am 315lbs right now, but I have been working out (weight lifting) for 2 months straight now, and am clearly getting stronger each week. I am just getting started with cardio training. I will be jumping rope and walking to start out and doing Pilates and yoga alternating weeks. That will serve me with my dancing goals, making me leaner and much more flexible over time. I think also, in three years or so, that my health is going to be on a whole different level. I used to want to follow the dieting trends and lose weight quickly, but the reality is that it took a decade, well, two decades nearly, to get here at 315lbs. It won't go that quickly and statistically speaking, losing weight fast only leads to quicker re-gaining of weight too...and you usually gain back more than you lost...It happened to me in 2007/2008 actually. I got down to 203lbs, just 18lbs from my ideal weight for my height (5'10")...So I know that statement to be true, at least for me, you might be totally different, you know. But that's where I am headed with this music thang! I am studying and practicing more and more each day and working to get fit enough to dance and perform live at a greater level someday. I have yet to begin to perform live yet, because I want my total packaging to be together first, so it'll be probably 18 long months before I can begin to

I am finally ready and committed to honing my skills as a musician and audio engineer/budding producer. I am starting off giving it three years of studying and practicing. During that three year period I will be reading books galore and articles and getting involved in online forums and music communities like this one for all of the various things that I want to learn how to do at a professional level. Sound Library... I am also starting my sound library as a producer. It is about time! I have been trying to be a professional producer since 2003 (Fall) and still haven't started even the basics like having a sound library. I think my specialty will be my drum kicks. I studied several ways to get deep, bass full, thumping kicks and I want to start capturing them now. I have heard that you can also take other people's sounds too, but I would only be inclined to do that if it was isolated and I could transform the sound...otherwise, that is just theft to me. I know how hard it is to create really good sounding things, so I would never steal sounds like that. Online College Courses I have found a lot of music industry courses by colleges online for free. They look amazing! I cannot wait to start studying them. I also found these videos on production tips for Fruity Loops on Youtube, by a guy named Pav of Pav Productions. He knows a lot. His videos are long and in-depth, so I love them a lot. I do wish that he would explain things that he is doing a lot deeper though. It takes time for me to figure out what he did and how he did it within Fruity Loops often, since I am not skilled with the software yet. Books and Software I am learning to use Fruity Loops from Pav and also the Fruity Loops Bible. It was an expensive book, so hopefully it is equally helpful, you know? I hope so! I am going to get re-subscribed to trade magazines also. I learned a great deal from them! A great deal. That is where I learned to double vocals and triple drum kicks and snares at times. I love those little tips and tricks so much and plus, they do not cost that much at all...just $12-15/yr!!!!! There is no reason not to have magazine subscriptions to your career ambitions. I will also be working to learn additional, popular software for recording and production as well. All in all, I am happy, very happy. Happier than I have been in a long time. It really came out of nowhere too. I learned to be happy where I am and not to long for something else. It was personal growth that brought these feelings on. The dedication to learning and hopefully mastering these crafts? That came from finally believing in myself enough to move forward alone, and not looking to others to support and help me. I have felt this way for a while, but something in me has just finally clicked. I have all the software and other equipment I need to to this, I just need patience and time to study, practice and hone my skills thoroughly. And I now have that time I believe.