b&b187 Social Commentator Rants N Bants #DDJA

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Welcome to the Dead Day Job Army, a monthly Brunch & Budget series where entrepreneurs and freelancers of Color share their stories and talk about the real.
It’s not easy to start your own business and it’s even harder when it feels like you have to explain to your family what you do every time you see them, when you walk into an event and can count on one hand the PoC in the room, when you try to ask for what you’re worth, but don’t want to get passed over for the next person. We ask folks to leave their shiny pictures and Instagram highlights at the door and tell us what it’s really like to do the work, put in the time, and devote your life to your work.

Today we have Rants N Bants, a social commentator and political correspondent for Vice. He resides in England and gives his opinions on everything from sports to politics, and doesn’t hold back. He spoke with us about what it was like to become a commentator, how he grew his presence after his initial breakout video, and how he continues to grow and own what he has earned. You can find him one Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rantsnbantsofficial/ and his own website coming soon: https://rantsnbants.com/

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Music featured in this episode:

Buried Alive by SUBURBANTS
Taelor Gray, Dwayne Tryumf, and Huggy – Good Noize by Trant
STFU by RANT

Episode Highlights:

Rants N Bants: If I planned it it wouldn’t’ve worked out.

Rants N Bants: I used to even hate public speaking when I was younger.

Rants N Bants: On a bad week I’ll average 300-400 new followers a week.

Rants N Bants: My sister’s 40 now, she got a scholarship, went to private school, and then when you’ve got that above you, man, it’s competitive at home…that was the benchmark. I had to be intelligent. I didn’t really have a choice…it’s a good pressure to have.

Rants N Bants: I’ll be walking down the street with my mum and people will stop me or people will send my videos to my mum not knowing that that’s my mum, shit like that…so they know how big it is, obviously, but because it’s digital that’s one thing, but when you’re in a live place and it’s sold out, and the audience, and the feedback and that, that’s when they’re gonna realize actually the size of it innit. So I think that’s gonna be a bigger night for my mum than it is for me.

Rants N Bants: Academia has always been important in my house. It’s just one of those things where they’re proper strict on education, like most of them are to be fair. Can’t really not do well in school, and obviously [with] them knowing how hard it is to get through life anyway when you don’t have the qualifications…cause even when you’ve got them you’re still behind so you need to have them.

Rants N Bants: You have to be the best and you have to be-–my dad always told me–you have to be at least five times better. Forget the twice as good cause that ain’t enough.

Rants N Bants: I’ve done everything backwards. I’ve done TV. I’m gonna do my own live show. Usually people kinda do the whole internet thing and do all these little things and I’ve just gone–I went straight to TV man.

Rants N Bants: I made my YouTube channel about 8 months into my journey. I only had a Facebook page, that was it.

Rants N Bants: If you know someone’s got a new song out and they got a music video, you type into YouTube to watch that but you don’t subscribe to their YouTube channel like, it’s not that deep, you know what I mean?

Rants N Bants: Before I knew it I’m getting messages from America, Canada, and that saying “Yeah, big fans from across the pond,” and I thought “Shit, like, how do you even understand what I’m saying?”

Rants N Bants: the richest YouTubers do makeup tutorials and crap like that, you know what I’m saying? That’s not my audience.

Rants N Bants: I’m gonna sell out a bloody live show without a website. Like, who does that?

Rants N Bants: I don’t need a website, I don’t need all these other things which are expenses for no reason.

Rants N Bants: Every time I go somewhere they have to pay me or I’m not going.

Rants N Bants: If they’re not willing to negotiate they don’t want you enough anyway, and also these people have a budget.

Rants N Bants: If I say no…who you gonna get?…Because they know why they’re coming to me, so, where you going after this?

Rants N Bants: In life, that’s what you’ll get, most of the time, is what you ask for. It’s not what you deserve. There’s a lot of people with no talent getting paid a lot of money cause they asked for it and it was in the budget.

Rants N Bants: They make you feel like you have to be grateful for the shit you been offered, I’m like, I’m not grateful for this. I deserve this, man. I’m worth this, that’s why.

Rants N Bants: I haven’t made it, but at the same time I definitely deserve to be where I am, like I’m not sorry for it.

Rants N Bants: I’m not grateful man, I work hard for this.

Rants N Bants: No one gave it to me, I’m not grateful for it…like I bust my ass for this, so because of that like I’m the one who’s doing all the writing. I do all my own writing. I do my own filming. I do my own editing. I do my own invoices. I do everything myself. I don’t have a management team. I booked my own venue. I sold my own tickets. So I’m not grateful to anyone but myself. That’s just how it is.

Rants N Bants: When you start believing your own hype, that’s when I don’t even wanna be around you no more.

Rants N Bants: I don’t get sucked into the whole thing like these are my friends, like I know this isn’t my life…I know it’s just a part of it. It’s work essentially, and you don’t really mix work with your real life.

Rants N Bants: It’s so easy for people to get lost [in the industry] and I don’t understand it.

Rants N Bants: I don’t like public speaking so I had to get over that shit real quick…it is the practice.

Rants N Bants: The live stuff as well, you get to show your intelligence. You get to show your wit because you can react.

Rants N Bants: Everything has happened the way it’s happened because it was meant to happen that way man, and it hasn’t been an accident like I’ve made it possible, most of it.

Rants N Bants: Feel like you deserve it man, because I think in society in general, people make us feel like we should be grateful for shit…Don’t be afraid to ask for what you’re worth. Don’t be afraid to go do it man.