“I’m so grateful he was able to turn his pain into passion because there are so many children like him.”. Becoming an artist manager means dedicating your life to providing opportunities for another person. Managing an artist, who also happens to be your child, breeds an entirely different set of challenges. Just ask Stacia Mac, 39, the mother and manager of 21-year-old Chicago rapper Polo G.
Becoming an artist manager means dedicating your life to providing opportunities for another person. Managing an artist, who also happens to be your child, breeds an entirely different set of challenges. Just ask Stacia Mac, 39, the mother and manager of 21-year-old Chicago rapper Polo G.
“As a manager, you’re taking the charge and saying you want to help an artist cultivate their career,” Mac says. “That aspect is especially challenging when managing my son because there’s no room for failure. It has to work; I have to work.”
Stacia Mac’s conviction is all the more impressive considering she had little experience in the music business before taking on the role of manager to her son. That said, a career in property management gave her all the skills she’d need to succeed. “Property management was my boot camp, of sorts,” she explains.
On prom night 2017, Polo G, born Taurus Tremani Bartlett, told his mother he was skipping college to pursue a music career. Less than a year after graduating high school, Polo’s star began to rise, and record deals came knocking. Convinced he had what it would take to become a star recording artist, and fearful of others taking advantage of his youth and inexperience, Mac founded her management firm, Only Dreamers Achieve, in 2018. Immediately, she began funding Polo’s studio time. When the calendar flipped to 2019, Mac was on the phone with lawyers negotiating Polo’s record contract with Columbia Records.
