Art provides a sense of community, bringing people from all different walks of life together. The community is ageless and timeless. Self-employed artist Brandon Payne has taken it upon himself to provide a growing network for it.
That network is called We the Future. According to their website, “We the Future is a brand that focuses on cultivating a creative pipeline through the use of music and the arts with the mission of nurturing creative youth by building platforms for artistic expression, spiritual wellness, and professional mentorship.”
Founded in 2017, We the Future was born from Payne’s own journey as an artist. He was always an artist at heart, but he spent a lot of time doing things that weren’t necessarily aligned with his desired career path.
“I was in school the whole time, meanwhile I knew I wanted to do music instead of performing at the school and I was doing it already,” Payne said. “I was selling CDs out of my backpack, but I still did the college thing. I still got the degree. I still ended up being a fulltime artist, so it just goes to show I was just kind of avoiding the career or just not understanding it, so it scared me.”
At the age of 29, he now better understands his power but at the start of his transition into a full-time artist, Payne quickly realized that there was so much more he needed to learn about the industry.
“I had all this creativity, but I didn’t understand the business side of things,” Payne said. “I didn’t understand how to navigate the music business or how to leverage my network.”
Focusing on releasing all of that creativity, 2015 was the year that the idea for We the Future was first conceptualized. From 2015-2017, Payne would spend time finding opportunities to perform along with other artists in Orlando with the goal of getting more exposure.
“In 2015 it came out of a few artists just like me, kind of fresh out of college doing the work thing knowing that we don’t want to be there, miserable as hell working on our daily projects,” Payne said. “It’s like, let’s start hitting all these shows together, lets support each other and kind of show people how dope we are based on how we react to each other.”
They would soon begin to make a name for themselves and begin to attract more artists who wanted to do the same thing.
“We built up a name to the point where people were like ‘I want to get down with you’ll’ and that’s when we realized we did something,” Payne said. “Still not thinking business but thinking we should all collude together, and we should all get resourcing together to find more opportunities.”
Two years later, this support would become the foundation for We the Future. It would allow Payne to build a team of trustworthy individuals with similar interests. Together they could grow and learn about their respective art forms and businesses as a team instead of doing it all alone. The network would serve as a mentor to help them discover their purpose and put their creativity to use with the hopes of eventually building a business.
“If you can create you should be able to own something,” Payne said. “It’s about turning a creator into an independent business owner. Nobody else should own something you can create.”
We the Future is currently based in Orlando, but the network has successfully recruited members from south Florida, Houston, New York, the Carolinas, Tanzania and the UK. While the target audience for the network is creators looking to become entrepreneurs, Payne emphasized that everyone has talent and that everyone is an artist in one way or another.
“We the Future is a network for artists with the understanding that everyone is an artist,” Payne said. “Our target demographic is ages 16-30, people that are making crucial decisions whether it be from high school to college or college to life, but we touch everybody.”
Though the network continued to gain members and awareness in 2020, Payne hopes to see even more growth in 2021.
“The goal is to continue to expand and for the brand be recognized on a national level,” Payne said. “The goal is to build a network in every city so that wherever we go we can have a home.”
If you are interested in learning more about WTF and how you can become involved, visit their website for all network and membership sign up information.
