Episode 21·August 19, 2024·1h 33m

Beats, Bars, and Breakthroughs: The Stefco Experience

Tyzen sits down with musician and producer Stefan Dragic (Stefco) on discipline, finding your artistic voice, and growing an audience from 40 to 9,000 monthly Spotify listeners. They trace Daoism, psychedelics, and gut intuition before freestyling live over his beats.

Your success is just on the other side of your discipline.Stefan Dragic

Beats, Bars, and Breakthroughs: The Stefco Experience, on The Ascension Podcast

Chapters 16

Show notes.

Show Notes

Discipline and time: Stefan on approaching 30, leaving Boyhood behind, and why disciplined use of finite time is the key to living the life he envisions
Finding your voice: a decade of music under different names, injuring his voice on tour, and learning to relax into his natural low register
The content game: posting three times a day, growing from 40 to 9,000 monthly Spotify listeners, and not getting attached to the numbers
Daoism, psychedelics, capital-T truth, and the heart/gut/mind as energy centers, then a live freestyle session over Stefan’s beats

Key Takeaways

Consistency plus reading the data drives growth: Stefan moved from posting once a week to three times a day, watched which song resonated, and one video jumped from 1,000 to 30,000 views off the same track
An artist’s voice is found through relaxation, not force. Injuring his voice forced Stefan to stop screaming on stage and drop into his natural low register, which changed both his sound and his personality
Stay creative without losing yourself: rather than chase fame through pranks or shock content, make work that feels truthful and ‘good derived from God,’ so the discipline of posting serves the art instead of consuming it

Meet the guest · Soul Fam

Stefco

Musician · Producer · Spoken-Word Poet Turned Hip-Hop Artist

Stefan Dragic, who records as Stefco, is a musician and producer, a spoken-word poet turned hip-hop artist whose work runs on discipline, freestyle, and narrative-driven storytelling. He is also one half of Psilosapiens, a medicine-music project with Cooper Montgomery.

Enter their world →