Meet Rufus Smith, V
Growing up, I lived on the southwest side of Houston. My dad’s church was in the Third Ward. I was always in the Third Ward, always in church in the Third Ward. But, I went to at a predominately white, conservative, private school – Second Baptist. From pre-kindergarten to the 12th grade, I was the only black kid in my class – my entire life. Looking back at it, that was a crazy experience. I didn’t necessarily feel it as much as I probably should have, but I didn’t. And, I think that was a bad thing, too. Because I could have built confidence in myself, and educated those around me, my classmates or whoever. Especially on certain cultural issues. For instance, I remember not getting out of school for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and because I knew nothing else, I never questioned it. We just knew we got out for Presidents Day, but not MLK Day. So things like that, I wonder, you know, if I would have been more aware at the time, then I would have been able to shed light on a lot of things.
My dad is a very successful pastor – with the largest congregation in Memphis – and I feel like I could pastor a church in my sleep. I am very proud of my dad’s accomplishments, probably more than he is or he would ever admit. That is not my path. That is not what I am doing – in the way he is doing it. Most of what I do is inspired by my dad. Of Course, there is no one I look up to more, and I see a lot of myself in him and in what I do. But my life is so separate from the life of a pastor or a preacher’s son. So that was a struggle for the longest time because it is hard to disagree or not pursue the lifestyle your father is pursuing. That is difficult because that is who you look up to the most, and even though you might not agree with the lifestyle, but you want to. You know, growing up, your parents want to steer you in a certain direction, but I’m 32, and they have steered me in a great direction. I am a product of their upbringing, but I have a different set of spiritual beliefs.
Music for me is a plan B. Pursuing music has always been something to pursue because I haven’t been able to chase other desires yet. Professional ventures like business, finance, philanthropy, real estate and entrepreneurial endeavors. Because I don’t necessarily have the credentials to get to where I want to get in the professional business world, I found myself using music to earn money and to be able to put my family in a better position to get to my real goals. My music inspiration comes from a place of pain. That is my therapy – that is my release. When everything is in order, I am not really in the mood to make music.
Let me be clear, though, music is a passion. It is a real passion, but it is not one that I am passionate about making money with. My efforts to create music was out of survival – not to become a successful music artist. I do wish I would have marketed myself better, but it is very interesting the things you find out and when you find them out.
For me, as you know, I didn’t grow up in a business home, my home was a home of service. So, for me, the thought of selling my music is a foreign thought. For instance, when I was trying to sell insurance, it wasn’t natural to me to push things on someone to buy. But that is something you have to do when you are selling something – including yourself. I don’t sell myself well, but I just figured that out in the last three or four years. That is the level of marketing necessary, the amount of time and dollars necessary, to put into marketing is way more than what actually goes into creating my art, my project. For me, that is a foreign thought, naturally. It’s like, man, I just raised all this money to make the album – and that is where all the money went, not marketing. I am just now learning that I needed to budget for marketing efforts – not just project efforts. At the end of the day, I made my last album – Alternate Path – for $800 dollars. And so, if I were to raise a $50,000 budget, for example, I would be smart to only use a small percentage of that to make my album.
