Exposed Vocals Interviews Neumatiq
Neumatiq, born by the name Oluwagbemiga Ayotunde Omotoye, started rapping at the age of 12, when his high school classmate at the time, “Noxious” introduced him to his explicit rap lyrics, at that point I felt extremely attracted to rap and thought about perusing it myself, as I saw how passionate Noxious was about his words I felt the urge to bust a couple rhymes by myself at home, quickly adapting to rap books and the composing of structured lyrics, I began thinking of ways to record the songs that I thought of, and that’s when I started making music with my big brothers laptop, where I learned to mix and master my songs too.
During my music career in Southern Africa, Neumatiq was invited for numerous radio interviews from the well-esteemed radio station “Yarona fm”, performing for multiple audiences, mostly high school events as that who neumatiq’s fan base. By June 2012, Neumatiq arrived in the United States and has been independently making music with what he’s worked for ever since. Neumatiq’s main accomplishment so far is Opening for the Chicago Rapper “Montana of 300” at the Monroe night club in Boston. My love for music grows everyday and I wish my fan base expands to numbers never seen before.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Neumatiq: I grew up in Botswana, a country in the Southern Part of Africa, But ended up high schooling in South Africa. I only moved to the United States about 4 years ago in June 2012. When my high school classmate at the time, “Noxious” introduced me to his explicit rap lyrics, at that point I felt extremely attracted to rap and thought about perusing it myself, as I saw how passionate Noxious was about his words I felt the urge to bust a couple rhymes by myself at home, quickly adapting to rap books and the composing of structured lyrics.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Neumatiq: Literally, I had never known Neumatiq before I started using it, I was scrolling down my Facebook page one day and it just popped up in my head, therefore I obviously had to find a definition for it just in case I was asked. In Greek, “Neume” is the annotation for music notes, tiq is short for hypnotic, put it together and you have music that you can really get in to.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Neumatiq: it’s effective, one doesn’t know how with one click of a button you have the power to share music to 100’s of people. Most of it is free, as an upcoming artist you don’t want your early fanbase to spend large amounts of money on something that you don’t have full control over yet.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Neumatiq : Just keep hustling and getting as many connections as you can, there’s nobody that can progress your music besides you, because nobody knows how far you want to progress with your work besides the artist themselves. Promotion companies are a good way to start too.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Neumatiq: In enclosed areas, like my car, with no distractions, not one person should be around me when I wrote lyrics, but when it comes to the studio I can write for days in that kind of environment.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Neumatiq : yes, www.matiqmusic.com is where you could find most of my media and show dates, and links to purchase my albums,and my honest answer to that is, all of them. I look for as many ways to promote my music as much as much as possible, this includes soundcloud, reverbnation, clammr, last.fm, iTunes and Spotify just to name a few. Going on google and searching Neumatiq also brings up all of my links that you can play around with.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Neumatiq: give my mom a couple thousands then take a nice vacation back home for a little bit, and spend a large portion of the money on making my music better.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Neumatiq: through word of mouth mostly, I gained most of my fanbase by me actually telling people to listen to me, followed by people watching the progression I made which made them want to actually stick with my music.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Neumatiq: so many opportunities for the taking in 2016!
Every year I come out with a mixtape, 2016 won’t be subject to change from that plan, but with a new year comes better music, it’ll probably drop in November. Also, New merchandise, mainly tshirts and hoodies, the “MatiqMusic” idea is gonna take off from there. Also, what I have in mind is to drop a collaboration mixtape with an artist I know by the name of Fahzo,I’m extremely excited about this project as me and Fahzo have not collaborated on any songs together yet. Also, music videos and photo shoots are going to be a common past time during the summer.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Neumatiq: Studying even harder in school, working my ass off trying to make a living.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Neumatiq: it’s hard, without management it gets frustrating, but I have to do it cause at the end of the day I’m the one who wants this the most. But it does get challenging to attempt to balance out life and music, I need way more than 24 hours in a day if I was going to be managing myself.
So later down the line, acquiring a manager would be nice.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Neumatiq: determination and a new mindset. Fans should expect to open their ears to new music and learn to enjoy it the right way.