When I was reading rock magazines as a teenager in the British Council Library in Dhaka in the 1990s, the musicians never talked about their day jobs. Why would they? So I was left with the impression that all musicians in the west were paying their bills from music.
I didn’t work as a teenager in Bangladesh, because the only jobs available for middle class teenagers back then were in tutoring, which I would have been terrible in. When I came to Canada as an adult, I couldn’t find work because as a person living with bipolar and ADHD I could not keep work in the entry level fast food jobs that everyone is expected to start in. Because of my disability, I couldn’t get good grades in college or even develop professional skills in music and dance.
I did eventually become a part of the Vancouver DIY music scene. But most of my friends in the scene were strongly opposed to making money from music in commercial ways.
When I started studying bellydance and fusion in my late twenties, I was encouraged by the example of older women who had created successful careers in dance despite their age. I actually became interested in teaching, because I was beguiled by all the bellydance and fusion dance instructional DVDs with high production values. They looked so happy. And as I grew older, I discovered more role models of older female creatives who had earned reasonable middle class incomes without becoming superstars at the Taylor Swift level. Even though AI has become a threat, I won’t give up so easily.