Most people quit right before their work starts to pay off. I know I have.
Russ is the clearest example I know of someone who didn't. Long before the radio hits, he was putting out music to a tiny audience, week after week, with almost nobody paying attention. When I first went back and learned how long he did that, it changed how I think about my own goals.
This post breaks down what he actually did during those years, why it worked, and how to borrow the idea for whatever you're building. No record deal required.
What Russ Actually Did
Russ released 11 free albums between December 2011 and August 2014. Then he switched to a new plan: a song every week on SoundCloud, for almost three years (Wikipedia).
And he did it mostly alone. XXL described him as someone who "self-wrote, produced, mixed, mastered and released one song per week every week."
On Drink Champs he put the plan in his own words: "Cool, I'ma drop one-song albums every week until I blow up."
That's the whole strategy. Not one perfect album. A steady stream of finished work.
Takeaway: the plan was simple enough to repeat every single week. Yours should be too.
Why a Weekly Release Works
A weekly deadline does something a big, vague goal never does. It forces you to finish.
Finishing is a skill. Every song he released was practice at writing, producing, mixing and shipping. After a few years of that, he wasn't just more consistent. He was better.
It also gave people something to find. "What They Want" came out on SoundCloud on August 19, 2015, and later peaked at No. 83 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Wikipedia). That song was one entry in a long run of weekly releases. Nobody knows which week will be the one that hits, so you keep putting things out.
At a 2026 SXSW keynote, Russ described the routine plainly: "We were doing it every day. Literally every day. That was the habit. Making music every day."
Takeaway: a fixed release rhythm turns practice into progress you can see.
Staying Alive Long Enough to Compound
The phrase from that same keynote that stuck with me most: consistency is about "staying alive long enough to compound."
Compounding is slow at the start. The first months look like nothing is happening. That's exactly when most people stop, because the effort feels much bigger than the results.
The answer isn't more motivation. It's making the habit small enough that you can keep going on a bad week, a busy week, or a week when nobody notices.
His label name says the same thing. DIEMON stands for "Do It Everyday Music Or Nothing."
Takeaway: pick a pace you can survive, not one that impresses people.
Heard First, Paid Later
During those years, the music was free. In his words: "My goal was to get heard, not bought."
He has also said "The money, I know, is ancillary."
That framing takes a lot of pressure off. If the early goal is to get your work in front of people, a week with no sales isn't a failure. It's still a week you showed up.
Takeaway: measure the early stage by what you shipped and who saw it, not what you earned.
How to Run Your Own "One Song a Week"
You don't have to make music for this to work. Swap "song" for whatever you're building.
- Pick one small, finished thing. A blog post, a short video, a design, a chapter, a workout logged. It has to be something you can complete in a week, every week.
- Pick a release day. Same day each week. A fixed day stops the "I'll do it when it's ready" trap.
- Lower the bar for done. Russ released one song a week, not one masterpiece a week. Finished beats perfect.
- Ship it where people can see it. Posting it publicly makes the deadline real.
- Keep a simple streak. Write down each week you shipped. I use a habit tracker I built for this, but a note on your phone works just as well.
- Review every few months, not every week. Weekly results are noise. Look back after a season and you'll see the trend.
Takeaway: the system matters more than any single week.
What I'm Trying Myself
I'm running this blog the same way: one post at a time, on a steady rhythm, even when it feels like nobody is reading yet. If Russ could put out a song a week for almost three years, I can keep a writing habit going for one.
And when I want to quit early, I remember this line: "I'll never stop because I'm never content with the level I'm at."