Wisdom Wednesday feat. Aaron David

Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday, a weekly series where we chat with some of our favorite artists! This week Wisdom and Kat are joined by indie artist, Aaron David, to discuss his pain points as an indie artist, what success looks like for him, and Wisdom’s previous CHH career. 🤣 You can check out Aaron’s music here.

Want to be a guest on the show or have someone you wish we’d have on? Email us at hello@marketingwithwisdom.com.

Kat:
Hi, everybody. Happy Wednesday, wherever you find yourself. Really excited to host our guest today and to get to hang out with all of you again. Going to add... Wisdom.

Wisdom:
Hey, hey.

Kat:
Hi, how are you?

Wisdom:
Doing good. How you doing?

Kat:
Good, barely seen you today.

Wisdom:
Yeah. Right.

Kat:
Oh. Welcome back everybody to Wisdom Wednesday, a weekly series, conversation, interview style, sit down where Wisdom and I have the chance to talk to some pretty cool people.

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Kat:
This week... I'm Kat, in case none of you... Or in case you're joining us...

Wisdom:
This week you're Kat, next week you're somebody else.

Kat:
Well, technically I could be Katherine or Kathy moving forward if I wanted to. I don't know if your name has the same flexibility, but...

Wisdom:
I have some other names I can use. Yeah.

Kat:
That's true. But my name is Kat. I head up the Streaming Marketing Department here at Christian Music Marketing and Marketing With Wisdom.

Wisdom:
Oh, am I suppose to...

Kat:
Thought you were going to intro yourself.

Wisdom:
I am Wisdom and I am the founder of Christian Music Marketing.

Kat:
You sound very wise when you introduce yourself that way. I am Wisdom. I like it. It's good. So today we have a really cool guests sitting down to chat with us for a little while. Maybe you've heard of him. He is a worship leader, artist based here in Nashville, Tennessee, just down the road from me and we can't wait to chat with him.

Wisdom:
Sweet.

Kat:
Going to go ahead and try to bring him in. We'll see if he has the same technical troubles as some of our past guests, if he hasn't updated his app. We could have the same thing.

Wisdom:
For those of you guys watching, drop us a little comment and let us know where you're watching from and maybe what time zone you're in, if you know what your time zone is.

Kat:
If you know. If you don't know, maybe find that out at some point in your life's journey. All right, saying it's waiting for him. Oh, Aaron is watching from Nashville. Hi Aaron.

Wisdom:
Awesome.

Kat:
I'm not sure what part you're in, but I am based out of Old Hickory.

Kat:
Okay. Evans, Georgia.

Wisdom:
I see David is from Evans. LA. Sweet Springs, I've been there.

Kat:
That's exact... We have. All right. It's rejecting. Oh yeah.

Wisdom:
It's rejecting?

Kat:
It's rejecting Micah. Yeah. It's saying he's unable to join.

Wisdom:
Oh.

Kat:
So...

Wisdom:
Maybe Instagram doesn't like him.

Kat:
Maybe. Micah, if you're here, comment on this and let me see if I can pull you in that way. If not though, you might have to go update your app. For some reason, it's been giving people trouble. Hi handmade bracelets by charity. I'm sure they're beautiful. Love a good hand made bracelet. In the meantime Wisdom, do you have any tips for us this week?

Wisdom:
My tip today is go visit a lot of places because it's cool. A lot of the places that people are saying they're from I've been to, so that's always fun. I've been to LA. I actually used to live in Santa Ana, which is in Orange County, but I've been to LA many times. Evans, Georgia, I'm not sure exactly where that is, but I lived in the Stone Mountain area before. I've lived in a lot of places I guess. Any of them you've been to?

Kat:
Yeah. Same, same. Actually, I think I've been to most of these places. I'm not sure, like you said, where Evans technically is in Georgia, but... It's pretty cool to see all of you watching from all over the country and we hope that these conversations help you feel inspired to go create something, and sometimes that they help you feel like you're not alone, and sometimes they encourage you to work harder or encourage you to work in a different way, or maybe even to pursue a path that you didn't originally intend to.

Wisdom:
Yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys what your biggest pain point is right now.

Kat:
Ooh.

Wisdom:
And maybe we can help somebody's pain point. Solve a problem. So...

Kat:
Yes. I'm going to try to reinvite Micah in the meantime, too.

Wisdom:
Cool.

Kat:
Oh. Charity said, "It's actually my first time watching your live."

Wisdom:
Oh, welcome.

Kat:
Yeah, thanks for hanging out.

Wisdom:
Thanks for watching.

Kat:
That's right. Are you making a bracelet while you're watching this? Is my question. Micah's still having trouble, let me try again. It's saying it's waiting for him.

Wisdom:
John, thanks for watching us for the first time. We do these weekly, as of recent. We started out doing it monthly, but now we do them weekly every Wednesday and we invite a guest on, especially now that Instagram is allowing up to four people at a time on Instagram Live. We thought it'd be fun to interview some people in the music industry, whether it's artists, or people that work at labels, or producers, or managers, so we have an exciting list of guests lined up for the coming weeks. So if Micah doesn't work out, if he's not able to join, we might have one of you just like hop on.

Kat:
Yeah.

Wisdom:
So, let us know if you want to be a guest today.

Kat:
Oh yeah. We could pull Caleb on or Harley while we wait for Micah. I'm texting him right now to see if he can try to request to join us. But I don't know why it's been doing this, it's only been the past two weeks that we've had any trouble with this.

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Kat:
It's that privacy update or whatever it is that they rolled out.

Wisdom:
We should just try inviting any of these guys.

Kat:
Yeah, okay.

Wisdom:
Let's see if it works.

Kat:
Good call. If you are willing to hop on this live stream with us, put a little hand wave in the comments right now and I'll add you to the stream and we'll see if it's working. Also, no one took you up on your offer to share a pain point.

Wisdom:
Maybe nobody has one.

Kat:
All right, I'm pulling Aaron in. Yeah, I mean it would be great if no one had a pain point. All right. Going to test this with Aaron.

Wisdom:
All right, Aaron David. Oh, oh, it works.

Aaron:
Yeah, I guess it's just his phone because it wasn't an issue for me. So...

Kat:
That is weird.

Aaron:
I was about to blame you guys because I've watched the past two Wednesdays, it must be something on your end.

Kat:
I know.

Aaron:
Apparently that's not the case, so...

Kat:
If you think I wasn't already having a on-screen panic attack of like, "Wait, is my app updated?" Yeah.

Aaron:
Is there something wrong with us?

Kat:
Was about to find out.

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Aaron:
Cool. What's up guys?

Kat:
Well...Hi Aaron, it's great to have you here.

Aaron:
I'm glad to be on just temporarily until you get your actual guest on. So, yeah.

Wisdom:
You might end up being our guest today.

Aaron:
That's totally fine.

Wisdom:
So tell us about yourself. What should people know about you?

Aaron:
Yes. Hi guys. Well, for those who don't know, my name is Aaron David Amal, so a artist and I'm currently in the process of working with Christian Marketing Music with Ms. Kat and Mr. Wisdom Moon. And, I have to say, these folks know what they're doing, they're very knowledgeable in regards to helping anybody who's just trying to get the ball rolling when it comes to their music journey and, I have to say, it's been a blast just getting to know them as individuals and people, and they've just been so great to work with so far. So far. We'll see how it goes later on. Yeah.

Kat:
Sure.

Wisdom:
This is where I'm going to ask you a major question, right?

Aaron:
So yeah, I'm just an upcoming artist. I'm just trying to kind of get the ball rolling like I'm sure many of you are trying to do the same and just trying to gain as much wisdom from Wisdom. There you go. That's my joke for the day. But yeah. Yeah, I'm just kind of in the same boat as you guys, just trying to learn and just kind of get this dream that's been on my heart rolling. So, yeah.

Wisdom:
That's awesome. Well, thanks for the free advertisement.

Aaron:
Listen to my music, please.

Wisdom:
That was totally unplanned. But yeah. Yeah, thanks for sharing about us and about yourself. I know you have some really good stuff coming up that you're working on, we're really excited about. What would you say was kind of that point in your life where you realized you wanted to pursue this artist thing and you started to seriously pursue it?

Aaron:
Sure. Well, probably have to say is when I started kind of transitioning from my teens to my early twenties, I would say. And I was kind of on this journey of deconstructing my faith because there's just a lot of things I was taught in the church that I thought were to be true in regards to Bible biblical theology, but in actuality it just wasn't the case at all, when I just started to kind of do some research and start to kind of put certain things together. And honestly I kind of took that same process and kind of made it applicable to my music journey. At first, I just wanted to be a praise and worship leader, I just wanted to do my best to just serve the local church with my giftings and talents in the best way I could.

Aaron:
But then I just started to kind of, "Maybe I can just... Maybe this is just for something more than I thought it could be for." You know what I'm saying? So I kind of just started to sing in the studio, kind of get on some of my friends songs and stuff like that, and slowly but surely I started to kind of cultivate this desire to just do something more than just in the worship space. And lo and behold, five, 10 years later, I'm here now trying to do the whole single artist thing.

Wisdom:
That's awesome. So where would you say you are right now in your journey compared to where you were, point A, to where you want to be, which is point B. Where would you say you are?

Aaron:
Honestly, I think I'm about the place where I just know I need help. I think for a long time I was doing it by myself and I thought that I'm my only source that could take me to where I need to go and I just foolishly thought that for a long time. And then only probably with in the past couple of years, "You know what? I need help. I need to seek out..." I keep saying wisdom, I'm sorry, but seek out wisdom, seek out people who know how to kind of break through this industry. Because, obviously, I want this to not only just be like a hobby, I want this to be actual career, so I had to come to this place where I needed to understand that I can't do this on my own. So right now I'm in the process of just learning how to just ask for help versus trying to assume everything could be done on my own. So... And yeah, that's where you guys are kind of coming in, so...

Wisdom:
That's awesome. I know as an independent artist it's easy to get discouraged, especially if you're doing it just on your own.

Aaron:
100 percent.

Wisdom:
I think one thing that helps artists to stay on course and not just throwing the towel is knowing what your why is. That big why. Why are you doing this? What's the purpose and vision behind it? What would you say your why is?

Aaron:
Honestly, I would say that first and foremost, my why is to primarily use my gifting and talents and to just bring glory to God in everything I do obviously. So, that's more so of a twofold answer. And also just to try to bring something different to the genre. Like I said, we had many conversations, Kat, Wisdom, about this as far as what CCM has to offer. I think it's great. I think it's slowly but surely moving in a different and right direction. You know what I'm saying? But my why is to just offer diverse, different sounding music that's palpable to everybody. And I know that's kind of a broad goal, but I think that's just what I'm called to do, just to offer something different in the space and the medium which I've been given. Stylistically speaking, for those who don't know, I basically... I could kind of make a one-to-one comparison, I like to consider myself similar to a Tauren Wells, that poppy vibey style, Bruno Mars, not saying that in any way, shape, or form that I'm like those guys stylistically speaking, as far as ability wise, because no, definitely not. But yeah, that's kind of vain in regards to that, as far as style and whatnot. So... I forgot why...

Wisdom:
It will be...

Aaron:
I was supposed to say. Well, I forgot the line of thinking. What was it? What was the question? Started just going off. Why, right? Why.

Wisdom:
It would have been awkward if you like, "Yeah, I'm just as good as them." Or like, "I'm better than those guys."

Aaron:
Right?

Kat:
Yep.

Aaron:
Yeah. Grammy Award winning artists.

Kat:
I'd be like, "It's so weird..." Yeah. I would just take you out of the chat if that happened. Be like, "It's so bizarre, we just lost connection to Aaron." No, I'm just kidding.

Aaron:
We just lost Aaron for some reason. Yeah.

Kat:
I think that's a super accurate assessment. I have a question that kind of is about what Wisdom was vaguely asking earlier to people, is just what do you feel like as an independent artist that your greatest need was? Or what is it that you just felt like you couldn't do certain X, Y, or Z on your own anymore? Does that make sense? What pushed you over the ledge, I guess?

Aaron:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think what pushed me over the ledge is the, and just honest answer here, is just the lack of engagement that I was just getting from a lot of my social media following. I think as, especially Christian artists, we post something and we just assume that our friends and family are just going to automatically listen to it. You know what I'm saying? With no regard. But I think more so it was just coming to the understanding that I, in order to make the biggest impact with what God has given me, I need to understand my audience. I need to understand what they like to listen to or also cultivate a following just generally. Your mother and your aunt can only take you so far in regards to listening to your music.

Aaron:
Trust me, there've been days where I post a single and you have all the hope in the world that it's going to impact many. You know what I'm saying? But you look at the streaming numbers and at the end of the day it was just a couple. It can be discouraging and just being honest. You know what I'm saying? We all know that as Christian artists, we're not doing this for the numbers, we're not doing this, for fame or anything like that, but at the end of the day, you're a human and you want to be successful in what you do. So, I would look at that and it would be just very discouraging in a sense. So the reality is I think I would have to come to the conclusion that, man, knowledge, and then so cliche, but it's just, it's power when it comes to this whole gamut of the music industry and what you can do to kind of capitalize on your audience. And I had no knowledge of that. I just assumed that the internet would do all the work for me. And lo and behold, that definitely wasn't the case. The all mighty algorithm just destroyed me. So... Emotionally speaking. But anyway... But yeah. Also, to answer your question Kat, yeah, I mean that's kind of where I was at.

Wisdom:
So the whole, if you build it, they will come. If you release it, they'll listen.

Aaron:
Yeah, exactly.

Wisdom:
That didn't work?

Aaron:
Lord, this is a quality product. This will definitely tickle the ears of many. You know what I'm saying? But that's not the case.

Wisdom:
Yeah. And for you and other Christian artists that really have that purpose of wanting to use this as a ministry, success looks different than another artist that maybe is wanting to get famous. So I think success, for a lot of Christian artists, is more stewardship and stewarding their music wisely and doing it the right way, and doing it well, for the maximum impact. So, stewardship essentially is God's given you a seed, your song, and he's entrusting you to plant that seed and take care of it, water it, and then God kind of shines the sun...

Aaron:
Come on with that.

Wisdom:
And does the rest of it, but you got to play your part. You can't just sit back and go, "God, I'm just going to watch it grow. I planted it and it's your job now to do everything else." It doesn't really work that way, like you're saying.

Aaron:
100 percent. 100 percent. For those of you who are watching, stewardship is one of the core pillars of Christian Music Marketing. They kind of use that a lot and I love that. That's actually one of the reasons why I really decided to kind of consider working with them because they're just so mindful in regards to their approach that this is not just about getting your name out there or anything like that. No, it's an understanding that you need to care about the giftings and qualities that God has blessed you with and you need to understand how to use those effectively in the right way. So yeah, I totally agree man.

Wisdom:
Yeah, and I think, a lot of times, the accolades that the world offers, or even the Christian music industry offers, they sound tempting, but those things aren't God directly saying, "Hey, you've stewarded this well." A Dove Award being given to somebody isn't God saying, "Hey, you've stewarded this well." It's more of the industry recognizing you as you're a great artist. But I've talked to a lot of artists that reach out to work with us where when I asked them, "What's your goal? In a year or two years from now what do you want to see happen?" And the first thing that they talk about is getting a Dove Award or getting on K-Love. And I actually tell artists that, in that case, we're not the right fit for you because that's really not what drives us. And a lot of people, 99% of artists don't even know how the Dove Awards work and how you get nominated and how you win awards within the industry. So there's a lot that goes into it that people see as success, like if I can just get this award, or if I can just get a single on K-Love, but then there's all this stuff behind the scenes that they don't realize what it takes to even get there. That actually doesn't equate to souls, necessarily, being reached, lives being impacted.

Aaron:
No, that's... Man, that's so accurate. Yeah. So true because I just recently released a single, about a month ago, called In Your Sight and I got a DM from a individual who was just really impacted by the song. You know what I'm saying? And granted, I'm not this well-known artist or anything like that, but the fact that God just enabled me to write this song, it impacted that one individual and that's a win for me, man. That's kind of where I'm at in regards to success. So yeah, I totally agree with that. It's just... It's, honestly, perspective at the end of the day, when it comes to that, regardless of success. But Wisdom, I do have a question. I can ask you a question.

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Aaron:
So through the grapevine, I think even conversations that I've had with Kat and texts through some of the team, back in the day, I heard you were a rapper of sorts. I'm just kind of curious to know, considering your demeanor, how you are as individual, I mean, I just can't imagine how you just rocking the mike would be like. Because to me it would be something like this, it would be just like, "My name is Wisdom. I like to rap. Rhymes all day." You know what I'm saying? I just think it probably would be really cool, chill, laid back demeanor. Can you just tell me was it... First off, was it Christian rap or was it just regular rap? I'm dying to know.

Wisdom:
So, why this happened? It is true though, but why it happened is in my senior year of high school in California, I had to do a senior project and they said, "You can't do anything you've done before. It has to be something that's really challenging." And I was such a campus evangelist that I was like, "I'm going to turn this into a witnessing, evangelism opportunity." So I basically was like, "All right, I'm going to do a Christian hip hop cassette tape." And the reason is because I was so impacted by CHH growing up. I mean, I was listening, back in the day, to groups that most of you have never heard of, but one of them was Gospel Gangstaz and one was Unity Klan. Gospel Gangstaz was actually originally called OGG's, Original Gospel Gangstaz.

Wisdom:
So yeah, I listened to a lot... They were from Compton. I listened to a lot of those kind of groups and artists.

Aaron:
Nice.

Wisdom:
And so growing up that was a big part of the music that I listened to. So I didn't even know how to go about recording a project, but I was like, "I'm going to do this. Figure out a way." And then somehow I got connected with an underground Christian pop producer in my area through a friend and he produced my whole cassette tape. It was 10 tracks.

Aaron:
10!

Wisdom:
On his analog four track recorder in his bedroom at his parents' house.

Aaron:
What do I have to do to get my hands on that?

Kat:
Yeah.

Wisdom:
But the way you're describing you imagining me rap, that's how my first cassette was. That's how I rapped.

Aaron:
If you guys ever release that, the streams alone would go through their roof, man.

Wisdom:
I have it very secure in my house. There's one copy that I know of.

Kat:
One.

Wisdom:
I made like 97 copies, gave it all away, and kept one.

Aaron:
I'll have to DM your son and see if he can kind of snag that for me.

Wisdom:
But I did do an EPA in college two years after that. I got a real studio and everything. That one I did improve my style, and I collaborated with some artists, and I actually got to perform at this boys group home, ranch I guess. We threw a... I used to work at an organization called Youth for Christ, so me and this rapper from Oakland went out to this boys ranch and yeah, we did a song together. They did a whole concert. I ran sound for them and stuff. But yeah, I got to do some rap in front of some people back in the day, but I mean, mostly I've led worship. Since 1999 I've been leading worship, so...

Aaron:
Gotcha.

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Aaron:
There you go folks. I mean, I think that's a first on Christian Music Marketing. Hear Mr. Moon's hip hop history.

Wisdom:
I don't really... Yeah, I don't really talk about it.

Kat:
Yeah, until now. Until now. That everyone on the internet knows. Okay, we do have a question probably for both of you, but can you guys tell our listeners what are some artists, gangsters, rap, tell me what artists there are so I can listen to it. So I guess...

Aaron:
In regards to just CHH, you think, is that maybe the context?

Kat:
Yeah, maybe. Let's just maybe shout out to some of your favorite CHH artists.

Aaron:
Okay. Yeah, man. I love Andy Mineo right now, has constantly just been my favorite because of just his approach, how he raps, his cadence, his style, what he talks about. It's just really cool. I mean, anybody from the 116 Clique, Lecrae, Tedashii, KB. KB lives here in Tampa, so he's a hometown guy, so we kind of rep him near your heart. Gosh, there's so many, but if you're really interested in listening to hip hop, as far as where it blew up and kind of where it started, I would definitely start with 116 Clique. Listen to some of their old stuff. It's good stuff.

Wisdom:
Also... Yeah. Those are really good artists. Also, there's a couple of people that are friends of mine that I really love. FLAME.

Aaron:
FLAME.

Wisdom:
FLAME. YB is really good too. Mike REAL. So yeah. I feel like there's definitely a lot more quality artists in the CHH room nowadays, compared to when I started listening they were literally like two artists in the whole genre.

Aaron:
Yeah, yeah, right?

Wisdom:
You would go to the Christian bookstore and the Christian hip hop section was literally two cassette tapes. Yeah. There's some good stuff. Also, if you're interested in listening to a 15 year old, my son actually raps. You can look him up, Noah Moon.

Aaron:
Noah is thick too man. The boy has a future man, for sure. Oh, and my boy Byron Woo. Byron Woo, man.

Wisdom:
Yeah.

Kat:
That's right.

Wisdom:
He worked with you guys. I've connected with him a lot ever since. And that's another great thing about Christian Market Music. I've met so many artists and collaborations through this platform.

Wisdom:
That's awesome.

Aaron:
Like Zachary Ray, we're actually working on a song. We just got talking to him last week, about early last week, now we're working on a song together. Byron, he wants to do a IG Live situation with something like this and to have a conversation. So yeah, yeah. Byron's the man, man.

Wisdom:
That's awesome.

Aaron:
Yeah. I'm not sure if your friends, if he can't come on because I'm not... I'm not trying to hog his time or anything.

Wisdom:
No, no, we'll reschedule.

Aaron:
Okay.

Wisdom:
Maybe do a test run or something. Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Aaron:
Oh, no. Gosh, I loved it.

Wisdom:
We've been wanting to have you on, so this is great. It happened impromptu, so...

Aaron:
Absolutely.

Wisdom:
It was awesome. For people that want to check out your music or connect with you on social media, what are some good ways to do that?

Aaron:
Yeah, you can find me at... Sorry. Can you... Sorry, can you guys hear me?

Wisdom:
Yep.

Aaron:
All right. Sorry. Yeah. I was getting a call. @IamAaronDavid on all social media platforms. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. I'm on everything.

Wisdom:
Sweet.

Kat:
Cool.

Wisdom:
Awesome.

Kat:
Yeah. Well, thanks for being here Aaron. Wisdom, as always, it's a pleasure. And if you've been watching this live stream and you are an indie artist looking for help growing your impact and influence, we would love to talk to you about how we can partner. So, hope you guys have a great rest of your day. We will see you next week. Same time, same place.

Aaron:
Peace.

Wisdom:
All right, see you.

Aaron:
See you guys.

Kat:
Bye.