T.S The Solution, aka Devonte Pearson, is a rap artist and audio engineer in Spokane, WA. His music is meant to inspire, “to light that fire somebody’s got.” He sat down with us to talk about the ups and downs of being a creative entrepreneur, his take on social media, and left us with some great book recommendations too!

What’s your favorite part about being a creative entrepreneur?

Oh man, it’s being the man putting the medicine in the candy. I love talking business and music and making it sound cool, which some of my favorite artists did for me. It changes the cool. It changes the standard, it changes everything. You can make Excel sheets sound really cool, and you know, change the minds of these young people who look at entrepreneurship, and all these things. I think it's kind of fly to have to worry about payroll. So, that's my favorite part: putting the medicine in the candy.

How do you define success for yourself?

Success looks like me being able to create knowing my family for generations has a guide, has some type of blueprint that they can look at and follow and check all the boxes. I'm free to create, that’s cool. But, we live in a capitalistic society. There's bills. There's overhead to live here. The ability to create freely is when you know that you're not in survival mode. You don't have to worry if I spend this dollar, holy hell, how am I going to pay this bill? That's what success looks like to me. It looks like keeping my family intact. But, it's not this one word. It's not this one term. It's all these boxes checked. Creatively, free to do anything that my heart desires. Take care of my family, provide a blueprint. Leave the impact for the next person. I don't want to leave no stone unturned. Success is leaving empty. There’s no “I don't wanna leave, and there's so much I wanted to do.” No. I want to give everything I got to the world and hopefully it sticks. That's like the ultimate at the end of the rainbow, that’s success.

Have you ever had to compromise your creative vision?

As an artist, I think I don't think I ever had to. Outside of censoring myself because of age restrictions, which is a good thing. Actually…you know what, for a long time I did my best not to do two things: cuss and say the N word. It was because of where we’re at, and for a while I thought it made those that couldn't interact with that word, ineligible to enjoy the musical pieces. So, for a while, I purposely censored myself for that particular reason. It was one of those things where I started to ask myself if I was pandering to the white gaze to make folks that can't engage in that language feel comfortable. But, then, I realized, well as art, it's not supposed to feel comfortable for everybody all the time.

Did you ever get any pushback on that?

I didn’t really get any pushback, at least not to my face. I actually got praise and that fed into it. So it felt like, oh, I'm doing the right thing. I was hearing things like “I can play your music around my kids,” which I'm very conscious of too. I have kids. I’m very conscious of the music they listen to.

If I got any pushback it was when we went to Santa Fe to record the last project. And that was the first time I had a producer. And the whole time he was like, “Something's holding you back. I don't know what it is. But, I don't know what you fully sound like without whatever barrier you're pushing yourself up against.” And I came to those conclusions after the trip was over. I couldn't even engage and think of what the producer was telling me and utilize it in the studio session. It didn't happen until I got all the way back up here and I realized “Oh, that's what he was talking about. Makes sense.”

How do you balance being active on social media for your business but not falling into the trap of it as well?

Recently, I purged my social media and who I was following, who I was getting advice from and I put on notifications on certain people who I felt were speaking to me. It wasn't helpful before that. It was just mindless scrolling. It distracted me more than helped me. It was a dead end. Some people would get away from social media, which I completely understand. I've gone through that as well, but as a business, you can't. I don't think any business can survive without it. Because that's where everybody's at. That's where the people are at. That's why I record. Somebody needs this message. Cool, but I need to go to where they're at to give it to them. So, I've purged my social media, if it wasn't adding it was subtracting.

But, I do put a lot of energy into it. I watch YouTube videos of what the head of Instagram is talking about, what the algorithm is doing, because again, I have to, I have to message, cool. I'm at the place where everybody's at, but I still have to reach them. So I actually put a lot of energy in Instagram and TikTok because that's where the people are. But I don't dead scroll. I'm not on there for no reason. I'm not there to disconnect from reality. A lot of it's not real. So, I don't engage with the nonsense of social media, I'm pretty strict with it.

Last question: What resources do you take in to make yourself a better business person?

Books. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is really powerful. All You Need to Know About the Music Business is the bible for musicians. Its All In Your Head by Russ is another one, and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Atomic Habits by James Clear is a great one too. Books are powerful. The world's a lot bigger than your circumstances, than your city, than your state, than your continent. You can read about it. Here's all the knowledge you need, and it's a perspective shift.

T.S The Solution Mixes Sounds and Songs In Spokane