Bradburn goes with his own flow

Death threats. Hateful comments.

That’s not what aspiring rap artist and senior Micah Bradburn had in mind when he started recording on Spotify.

“I’ve gotten death threats the past week and a half from random 843 numbers. They’ll call me and I don’t know who they are so I stopped answering but there’s definitely always negative comments but then it makes me appreciate of the positive ones.”

For Micah, simply his youth attracts hateful comments for his work.

“You get a lot of comments every day like ‘you’re a high schooler that raps’… there’s a lot of mental parts with it that can be hard,” Micah said.

Enclosed in his bedroom with a home-made studio right at his disposal. Senior Micah Bradburn records songs for his listeners on Spotify. 

A long awaited passion is fulfilled during the COVID-19 lockdown. Starting as a SoundCloud rapper, Micah, starts his career as a musician. 

“I started making music April of 2020 on my phone on garage band and such so it was really bad,” Micah said.

Using a well-known platform like SoundCloud, Micah was able to start his potential career at a young age. 

“I put five songs on SoundCloud and they were so bad and I was like ‘it’d be cool to have my stuff on Spotify’ so … I figured it out and I make pretty good stuff now,” Micah said.

Despite the negative remarks, Micah is able to stay inspired every day to keep doing what he enjoys. 

“We made a studio in my room which we are actually still getting stuff for,” Micah said. “We actually went to a studio very recently this past weekend in North Charleston.”

Along with creating music, Micah is able to work with his friend, Travis Buchanan, who is now his manager.

“Travis is good at production … so if there’s something that I’m struggling with, he can come in and listen for things that I’m not doing well and he can help me fix it. He’s a big part of it,” Micah said.

Micah and Buchanan met in the beginning of the school year and by the end of it they were making music together.

“I moved here sophomore year and my first class was geometry and he was in that class and he told me to sit next to him so I went and sat next to him. We didn’t really talk for a while but when we started talking he told me how he does music and stuff like that. I hadn’t really done anything with music before but I liked the thought of helping out,” Buchanan said.

Working together, the two were able to accomplish many things like having features on the songs. Micah contacts other artists that he finds interesting and wants to have them on the tracks. 

“They reach out to me or I reach out to them. There’s an artist ,I found him through Lil Mosey, and I communicated with him. He’s an interesting guy but he has a nice voice and so I was just like ‘do you want to work on a song together’,” Micah said.

Micah grew up with musical inspiration right at home. Micah’s mom, Whitney Bradburn , was in the music industry for several years.

“I worked solo with a producer, sang in a few acoustic duos and a couple of bands. I really loved recording and considered being a studio vocalist for a while,” Whitney said.

Whitney loves seeing her passion for music rub off on her son. 

“He’s really talented. I couldn’t be more proud … We do our best to give him time and space to record and we listen to his music and give honest feedback so we support him a hundred percent in his music career,” Whitney said.

A lot of inspiration comes from his mom. But another inspiring person to Micah is The Kid Laroi. Wearing The Kid Laroi’s merch, Micah talks about how his “stage name” is The Kidface, which draws inspiration from The Kid Laroi, showing just how much he inspires him.

 “My biggest goal is to be able to be supported by making music and like to do it as an actual career and just to help others like get through stuff with music,” Micah said. 

With 1,868 monthly listeners on Spotify, Micah hopes to grow his music and create a safe space for others like music does for him.

 “I know when I’m having a hard time, music is a good way to get through it. It’s like an escape from everything,” Micah said.