Berklee College of Music student and Southeast Asian soulster Sid Sriram has been making quite a bit of noise while also keeping his costs low. Partnering with young filmmaker Arthur Johnson, Sriram has seemingly chronicled and shared every leg 
of his musical journey by recording rehearsals and studio recording for singles, covers, buzz cuts, you name it, creating? You guessed it! A stream of fresh and unrelenting content! He’s also been utilizing young musicians (we suspect largely fellow Berklee students) during these studio recordings for both covers and originals, and ensuring they’re in every film, making everything feel congenial and fun. It also gives fans a voyeuristic look inside of Sriram’s world. The consistent use of Arthur Johnson’s warm and unique modern antique lensing has supported Sriram’s branding immeasurably. Of course, it helps that the 21 year-old Sriram looks like a teenager whose beard grew out too soon and that he strikes a rare, standout figure as a Middle Easterner singing soul pop and hip hop. Johnson’s film work coupled with Sriram’s knockout voice and own consistent bummy chic branding have built up serious anticipation over the last two years for his first full length album. In the meantime, Sriram has released two EPs and a consistent flow of free downloads (both Top 40 covers and his own originals) in support of his growing live shows. All of it has felt organic and multifaceted in its approach with Sriram maximizing the resources available to him through school and relationships, with every available recording boasting a video of the recording session and material young enough for the hipsters but soulful and considered enough for elders. His piano ballad take on songwriting/producer component of the moment, Frank Ocean’s, “We All Try,” has already had a million YouTube views and helped catapult Sririam from YouTube sensation to a credible touring act. He still has other branding elements to perfect, but his identity in the public eye and a hunger for new material from Sriram has already been sparked.
In the past, Sririam has not always been great getting the word out, relying on an organically grown network of fans, the casualty being his first EP, Be Easy: The Acoustic Set. He’s not alone in that: both Allen Stone and Erykah Badu discovery Durand Bernarr have been overly dependent on their YouTube channels and the network they’ve homegrown there through a ceaseless stream of new posts, following the storied footsteps of such YouTube sensations as Soulja Boy, The Craig Lewis 
Band, and the R&B boy group Ahmir. But all those now label-signed artists came into their own when YouTube was still young and viral videos a novelty, making their efforts ahead of the curve. Nowadays, YouTube and Vimeo videos are just a natural, albeit vital part of a rollout campaign that should be both on and offline. With rare exception, You Tube and its peers are at best vehicles for content dissemination and brand enhancement, not the main or sole strategy for rolling out an album or getting signed.
One last note on Sririam and artists like Ebrahim, Ahmed Sirour, Cleveland P. Jones, vicelounge, and fellow Berklee classmate Jessica Johnson: they maximize their resources by keeping their costs low and utilizing their personal networks to get their content created and out there. Music is sold or shared through Bandcamp and advertised and marketed to blogs keeping promotion budgets low. Videos are recorded in their home or studio. Musicians are classmates and other low to no-cost talents who are equally interested in getting their name and talent out there. Short films and video clips are created by filmmaking graduate students. Editorial photography is brought to fans courtesy of Instagram on the empty pockets end of the spectrum to, on the only slightly more lined pockets end, recruiting photography students still in school building their portfolio who may just charge for film, print paper, and/or some nominal fee for their time. It helps if you are a student in an arts school or creative program, of course, but networking also helps a great deal. In any case, lofty creative goals and small budgets in the hands of highly talented individuals has been known to inspire great art. The internationally celebrated shadow and light expressionism of ‘30s and ‘40s film noir were the result of shoestring film budgets for what essentially were B-level crime and gangster movies. Just imagine what forced ingenuity can yield for you in the absence of a million dollar Hype Williams video?
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