As a creative of any sort — writer, recording artist, photographer, painter, designer, filmmaker, and more — one of the best ways to gain an advantage in your field (and eventually succeed) is to become a *committed student of history.

EVERY master level writer, recording artist, photographer, painter, designer, filmmaker, etc. arrived at their station of creativity and talent through studying history, studying the greats of their field and the times and works that came before them.

Many people want to be leaders of the “now”. They want to catch the wave of what’s hot. So they focus their attention on mimicking the now.

Most, however, won’t study history.

But the successful equation combines your ability to blend the now with the past!

Know more, do more.

The irony of trendsetting is that, if you want to create a trend or *lead existing ones, you’ll need to bring your own unique twist; and this is often developed by selecting specific histories to study, follow, and innovate upon.

People in advertising have long plundered “old” ideas, even old ads, to market new products and services.

If you’ve ever been in the creative department of ad agency, you’ll see books detailing the history of advertising, books on the history of fonts/typography, etc.

Fashion designers repeatedly look to the past.

Look arround right now. Some top fashion brands are pushing looks inspired by ‘90s hip hop. Everything from flight jackets and bombers to minimalist, oversized hoodies.

In hip hop, you can see why everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Wiz Khalifa to Stormzy to Lil Baby have their own way of standing out. Their vocal capacities — rhyme patterns and different takes on subject matter — are characterized by their sharp understanding of *who came before.

Prince studied Stevie Wonder...
Bon Marley studied Curtis Mayfield...
Black Thought studied Kool G Rap...
Led Zeppelin *studied Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf...
Countless advertising people studied David Olgivy...

It’s often through the committed study of history that your talent develops and your awareness grows. It gives you confidence to try something *new. This leads to valuable experience. When the cycle repeats, you become more knowledgeable, more skillful, and more talented.

A few moments after I dropped this thread on the importance of mining history, my son @amiralisaid publishes a new “Source Material” piece on our The Art of Sampling vertical

Source Material: Novalis – “Wunderschätze” https://theartofsampling.com/2021/05/10/source-material-novalis-aufbruch/

This is exactly what I mean...