“Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” - Oprah Winfrey
Mike Tyson once said: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
If you need to flip burgers so that you can do more of what you are passionate about, then do it!
If you have encountered a set back then you need to get back up and come up with a better plan.
For years I have worked as an IT Consultant, Business Analyst and Project Manager. And for a rapper it may not be as "glamorous" as drug dealing but it put food on the table and helped finance a number of music projects that have literally changed my life. Allowing me to meet some pretty amazing people along the way and continue to keep the dream alive.
Use your environment
John Grisham the writer of The Firm use to be a lawyer so he wrote a fiction story using details he was intimately acquainted with.
Steven King use to clean sheets in motels while writing manuscripts which would later turn into novels.
John Legend use to work for the Boston Consulting Group.
Walt Disney use to work at a local newspaper company until he was fired for "a lack of creativity".
Elvis Presley use to be a truck driver in Memphis.
Eminem used to cook and wash dishes for minimum wage at Gilbert's Lodge a family-style restaurant.
J. K. Rowling was a researcher and secretary for Amnesty International when she conceived the idea for Harry Potter.
Usually, the unexpected flip side is that the environment you are in often ends up being the material from which you can draw from to create the work of art that you are working on.
It's not where you start that matters but where you end up that counts.
The only rule I'd like to add to this is: Please keep it legal! Because if I meet another drug dealer rapper who thinks they will beat the odds like Jay Z and 50 Cent. I'm going to call the cops myself.
The bottom-line is, there is no point lamenting your current situation. For whatever reason you are where you are for a reason and you have the power to change it. The wise thing to do is use your surroundings as the catalyst for change. Use it as the creative fuel to elevate you from where you are to where you want to be.