Brian Coleman is the author of the well-known Check The Technique series of books. The two volumes (and their prequel Rakim Told Me) present fascinating oral histories of classic rap albums from the people who made them. He has also written countless articles for outlets including XXL, The Source, CMJ, The Boston Herald, and many more. We called Brian to discuss how he became a writer and advice he has for young people who want to follow his lead. You can find out more about Brian and his books at his website.

An Interview With Brian Coleman

Ploymint: What was your first paid writing job?

Brian Coleman: Let me think. My first unpaid job was at Boston Rock magazine. It was a fanzine so it was me going “Can I write something?” You don’t actually think you can get paid for writing about music – it’s a foreign concept. My first paid gig may have been something for the Boston Phoenix. The first more major thing was CMJ Weekly. That was probably in ’96-’97.

The whole quote-unquote “career” I’ve had writing, none of it was planned, and none of it was me setting a goal. It’s all been more of a random series of events that are met with amusement on my end – “You’re gonna pay me to do this? Okay, that would be great.” But really, it was more out of interest, partially because I felt I wasn’t reading enough of the stuff that I thought should be written, so I was like, I’ll just do it myself.

Ploymint: You’ve written both articles and books. What are the differences between short-form and long-form projects?

Brian Coleman: I always approached the shorter things with a longer-form approach anyway. If you go into it knowing you’re only going to write 600 words, then you don’t put your full heart into it, which I think is a shame.

There’s certainly difference between, as a music journalist, writing articles versus album reviews. Album reviews, you go into them knowing you’re not going to write 7,000 words for an album review unless you’re Lester Bangs. So I think you approach that a little bit differently.

But whether I do a longer-form piece or a shorter-form piece, if it’s an interview, I always approach it more in a long-form way. You never know when I might use this in the future, or peel this off into something else. So I go into it doing more work than I needed to, but thinking that even if there was stuff on the cutting room floor, maybe I’d be able to use that. It’s worked out well, having that approach.

Ploymint: What advice do you have for young writers?

Brian Coleman: A lot of the way my career has worked is, whenever I try with a specific goal in mind, it rarely actually happens. But maybe the worst advice I can ever give to an aspiring writer is to not have goals!

The advice I would give to younger writers would be, you never know where opportunities are going to come from, and you just have to be ready for them. You have to be ready for an interview that could pop up where they’re like, “If you could do this this afternoon, this other writer fell through and I need this done by tomorrow.” Sometimes I’ve been in that position, where maybe this isn’t even what I exactly what I want to do, but I want to write for this magazine, so I’m going to kick ass and we’ll see what happens. Being open and being professional and being ready, that’s half the battle.