Chamillionaire Takes Control of His Career and Music

Chamillionaire's career has come full circle. After transitioning from the Houston underground rap scene to the mainstream, with six years at Universal Records under his belt, Chamillionaire is back in control of his career. Last month, the 31-year-old officially parted ways with the label after they refused to release his third album, 'Venom.' Now with a new outlook on his career, and a steady online presence, he is using social media outlets to his advantage.

"When I started learning how much money is exchanged and the power that a lot of these majors have it started tarnishing the music industry to me, to where I stopped loving it as much," Chamillionaire told The BoomBox. "Once you start getting into the business behind it, it's like 'Man, this is kind of messed up.' The people that deal with the music industry purely, I admire that because I'm already seeing things a way different way."

These days Chamillionaire is working on new music, and revamping his website to allow fans the opportunity to communicate with one another, and putting together an interactive artist app for smartphones. In spite of the success he's had by way of the digital age, Cham noted that sites like Twitter and Facebook make aspiring musicians lazy, when it comes to promotion.

"I've never seen somebody blow up off of spamming a page," Cham notes. "People do that and they'll be like, 'Aw man, I been hustling, I been promoting my song' and they're just been spamming a Twitter page. I think that's the silliest thing. What happened to getting out there and making a buzz for yourself? I think social media has messed it up to where a lot of people don't really realize that you still have to do that. There's a difference between faking your plays and having a real following and real fan base. Once you do that, everything else is going to come."

Boasting over 750,000 followers on Twitter, attending tech conferences, and participating in speaking engagements, Cham has become somewhat of an expert on social media and now sees it his duty to educate his peers. "I feel like I have an obligation," he says. "A lot of young minorities think that the only two options are to play basketball and rap. I can't change them. I can't make them want to be a doctor, but I can tell them how it's going to be when they get in here."