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Wales Online
Wales Online
Connor Teale & Will Maule

Man quits boring 9-5 job to work with stars as a music producer

Despite finding himself in a "well-paid" marketing job after leaving university, Adrian Robertson knew that the 9-5 life just wasn't for him.

So, instead of following the norm and attempting to climb the ranks at his company, Robertson, now known as "Jay Cactus", decided to follow his dream of music-making, and it paid off.

Jay, now 29, started rapping at the age of 14 and wrote lyrics to go with beats produced by his friends. But as he grew older, the budding artist realised he was more interested in the production side of music.

"I became obsessed with it, more so than writing," he told YorkshireLive. "I always heard 'music is not a real job', so I followed the traditional path and went to university."

Jay said of his marketing job: "It paid well but I knew that it was not what I wanted to be doing."

Jay, who moved to Crosland Moor from Toronto, Canada, with his family at the age of four, quit his job three years ago and started focusing on building an online presence in the music world.

"I had the mindset of 'you only live once'," he said. "I started taking music seriously from then on. Most producers spend a lot of time in the studio with other artists whereas I focused on building an online brand. I started recording the process of making beats on YouTube so that other people could learn from it. That's what started taking off more than anything.

"I doubled down on that and focused on content. I learned how to edit videos properly. It was at a time when UK drill was taking off. I got it naturally and that's what I started focusing on on the channel.

"I never missed a day of uploading and people started asking for more videos. That's what led to relationships with artists. The network just expands like that. It is not something that happens overnight."

Jay Cactus quit his 9-5 job to chase his dream career in music (Jay Cactus TV)

Jay's YouTube channel, Jay Cactus TV, now has 132,000 subscribers and his videos regularly rack up thousands of views. His success on YouTube has led to him working with some of the biggest artists on the drill scene, and he recently produced 'Heartless' which was released by Diana Drill in June of this year. The track featured one of the UK's biggest rappers, Giggs.

"My first big breakthrough was with an artist called Skinny Flex who is quite big in Spain," said Jay, who now lives in Manchester. "He was the first big artist I worked with. People started paying more attention then.

"It was like a domino effect. I did not think that someone like me could make a living out of music - but that's a big part of my message. You think it happens to other people and not yourself."

Jay now wants to inspire other people who might be holding themselves back from following their dream. "Focus on what you love to do, rather than what other people tell you to do," he said. "People think there's an age limit but that's not the case at all. I left my job when I was 26 or 27 and I thought I was too old to start something new, which is just crazy.

"If anyone has a passion they want to pursue and are holding back because of self-doubt or what other people think, they need to ask 'if I take a shot at this what's the worst that could happen?'. We all have different circumstances and some of us are way more fortunate than others, so I can't speak for everyone, but if the answer to that question isn't as bad as they thought then it's worth going for."

Jay now sells 'sound kits' to other producers. The kits contain drum samples and 'melody compositions' which can be downloaded by other producers for them to use in their own work. You can view some of his work here.

For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.

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