Enjoy Hip-Hop Responsibly

I have a love/hate relationship with it. It taunts me to get work done and rarely in clear of stuff. Lord willing, I’d like to make this the next step in my work “growth” in that it will be clear at the end of of each week.

Peep the mess!

While I am not a father myself, I can speak to the great influence my father has had in my life. I’ve learned many things from his direct teaching and also indirectly by watching him. The value of a father and father figures in young peoples lives cannot be measured. It’s critical in my opinion.

Tony Dungy (the former coach of the Indianapolis Colts) runs and organization called All Pro Dad. He’s an awesome dude and a man of God. Check out what he is doing.

If you’re living under a rock… you don’t know about the Sphere of Hip-Hop Podcast. It’s hosted by Cas Metah of the Scribbling Idiots and features music from people you need to be listening to.

In the event you missed an episode or even all of them… you need to fill up on these.

Sphere of Hip-Hop Podcast episodes: 25 – 26 – 27 -28 – 29 – 30 – 31 – 32 – 33

Tell a friend or 517 and even subscribe via iTunes.

I was recently interviewed for Rap Fest Radio. Check it out.

You’ve added me to your email list. I ask for a quick update to my email address and you give me a hard time.

Say what!?!

The moral of the story is to provide help to someone that you have inconvenienced. Especially since you went through the trouble to add them without their permission or without them otherwise opting in to receive your emails in the first place.

Keep a clean list by allowing people to opt in and opt out as they wish. If they need help removing themselves, help them.

I’ve begun to notice a disturbing trend amongst many indie artists on social media websites.

On Facebook you can “tag” people in photos. Upon joining Facebook a while back, I enjoyed the feature. When I received the email alerts “Oh cool. I’m in this photo.” Now I pretty much loathe them. Why? Because 90% of the time when it’s from an “artist” it’s spam. I’m not in the photo and all you did was tag everyone on your friends list. Not a best practice at all. If the shoe fits you here… you may want to reconsider the practice.

What if you were on the receiving end? For real. How would you feel?

ILLECT Recordings and JustMe want to share this track in celebration of this special holiday where we all remember our mother.

The first song recorded for JustMe’s new album, Before The Twilight, was self-produced. As a matter of fact, “How I Met Your Mother” is the only song on the album not produced by North Carolina native Commissioner Gordon. With that said, it is all the more personal and touching. Like “Latenight Lullaby” from his 2006 release, One Man’s Trash, “How I Met Your Mother” is a song sung directly to Justin’s son Jake. It is a beautiful story about a man changed by love, in more ways than one. Enjoy!

Download JustMe “How I Met Your Mother” MP3

Purchase “Before the Twilight” at iTunes or cop the CD and bonus stuff at Sphere of Hip-Hop

Make sure you engage people in your marketing instead of just shouting your message at them. Put yourself in their shoes. How do you want to be marketed?

GMA 2009 was a great event for me (for a change). Normally I refer to it as “the darkest week of the year” to those close to me because of how pretentious the event is with people not really living up to the call. Running in to people who have done people wrong, myself included, tends to cloud the week for me. This year I decided to go into it with a better attitude and to not let those things drag me down. Here is a day by day recap…

Friday April 17

Today was the travel day and my day started early My buddy Chris drove me from Rochester MN to the Minneapolis airport. We stopped for breakfast at this mom and pop diner that has incredible bacon plus good breakfast food. I arrived at about noon and waited for my flight that was to leave a few hours later. Getting through security was actually quick and I had no problems.

A few days ago I found out that Jae Choi and I were sharing a flight from MSP to Nasvhille. After arriving at my gate I called him to let him know where I was. He was eating lunch (Subway – eat fresh) after succombing to all those stupid $5 footlong commercials. Finally we met up and started to talk with Jae laughing really loud as only Jae can do.

About 45 minutes prior to our flight a familiar face shows up. Paul Wright (aka Pauly Paul aka Kid Ryze) and his band were also on our flight. We’ve known each other since we were teens and got to catch up for a while. He’s dominating as an independant artist right now and touring a grip.

Flight was cool. Paul and friends were across the aisle. A few hours later we arrived in Nashville.

We got our rental car and picked up Theo (Theory Hazit). Then we headed downtown to get some food and ended up at this Sports bar. Nachos, wings and spinach dip. After that we went to get our honky tonk on and get an ice cream. Then we split to the hotel after Jae was forced to pay like $30 for parking haha.

Later that night the rest of the Scribbling Idiots crew arrived. We got the recording equipment set up and started making raps.

Saturday April 18

This was the big day for arrivals. I made 18,931 trips to the airport and managed to take about 25 wrong turns each time. Awesome fun. JustMe was really happy about it.

We had a bit of downtime planned to just hang out with everyone. In between this we did a bunch of photo shoots, recorded some more and waited for everyone else to show up. For lunch we destroyed some Jack’s BBQ. Brisket son!

More photos later on and throughout the day.

Sintax the Terrific and crew (Coach Kendrick and Biscuit) were running late and arrived after 9pm or so. We had our Illect Recordings dinner (all 15 of us) this year at a place downtown called Demo’s. Fantastic! I got a fillet steak and a side plate of pasta. The buttery rolls had some sort of addictive substance in them. Our crew polished off probably 10 baskets of them (or more).

Then we hustled back to the hotel for more time to record and hang out. Lots of impromptu meetings and talks about records and such.

Sunday April 19

The day was scheduled to be packed but the weather cleared up some time when the showcase preparation was put on hold. We went off for some lunch and more photos.

We had a ton of interviews scheduled with some media/tv friends and those were a lot of fun.

The showcase went off pretty well. The entire first hour was Illect Recordings folks. DJ Because, MuzeOne, Sintax the Terrific, Caramel Skillington and Scribbling Idiots all performed. Everyone ripped their sets. Loads of fun for everyone. We met a ton of people we had known from online including about 2 dozen Sphere of Hip-Hop heads. Some traveled 8+ hours just for the show!

The rest of the night was capped off by Propaganda, Odd Thomas, DJ Promote, Kaboose, Braille and RedCloud. Everyone dominated especially RedCloud when he busted out the freestyle flash cards. Always great to get to fellowship with everyone from Syntax Records. Thanks again for a great event. I and Illect Recordings were honored to be a part of it.

We tore down and just about every artist was helping put stuff away and load up the trucks. It was a nice display of service and unity.

Loads of great memories made on this day.

Monday April 20

Not much to say here except we did a GRIP of press. Loads of interviews and a nice meet & greet event. People started to leave later in the day. We all had a great time this day. It was about when all those sleepless nights started to take their toll on everyone. Give Coach Kendrick some furniture and dude will take a nap on it.

Tuesday April 21

A highlight of the day (for everyone except Cas Metah) was Pancake Pantry. Dope food! We’ll be back again next year.

More people leaving and a bit more press time. I had a meeting with the Christafari/GospelReggae.com guys to talk some business and marketing.

Theory Hazit performed at the PS21 hip-hop showcase so we went on over to that for a while and then went to dinner at Demo’s. We couldn’t stay away. The food was awesome. KJ-52 came over and shared the meal with us. Then we all met back at the hotel to record a bit more.

Wednesday April 22

Theory Hazit left stupid early (2am) for the airport to rent a car and visit family real quick before his flight left later that day. Then David Kelly left a few hours later. Almost forgot some stuff. He was gone at about 5am and I got about 2 hours of sleep before I went to catch my flight.

I ran into Zee and Tre9 from DaSouth.com and we had an impromptu business meeting. It was fresh to chop it up with those brothers and pray a bit together.

Caught my plane and learned I was sitting across the aisle from my old boss at Tooth and Nail Records, Brandon Ebel. We caught up a bit and talked for a while. Turns out the guy next to me was Shaun Groves. His wife, Sarah Groves, is a pretty fresh singer and they live in Minneapolis. Small world for sure.