Enjoy Hip-Hop Responsibly

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.

In the event you have slept on all the website updates for the past few months… here is your chance to scope out the new freshness and catch up.

Sphereofhiphop.com – bookmark it!

Check around the sections for some dope new content, mp3 downloads, lots of news, album release dates, reviews and even some music videos.

We’ve also got a grip of new music in stock. Hit up SphereofhiphopStore.com for music downloads, CDs, shirts, vinyl records and a bunch of other stuff from your favorite artists.

The Sphere of Hip-Hop Podcast is starting to come together and do some damage. This was one of those ‘things’ I had wanted to get going years ago but never had the time or resources to make it happen. The last year has been fantastic in seeing it finally gel.

In a few days we’ll publish our 30th episode (we do 2 episodes per month) and it feels good. We’ve seen a tremendous response from subscribers and regular downloads. It blows my mind to see episodes over a year old still seeing a few hundred downloads every month. We’re also starting to see some advertiser support for these as well. That helps cover our expenses to produce each episode and also provides a broad platform to reach 10s of thousands of listeners.

If you haven’t checked the Sphere Podcast yet, dig in. Got a new release coming out soon? Get on the ball and check into advertising your music on the Sphere of Hip-Hop Podcast.

Stream the current episode at SphereofhiphopStore.com and subscribe at iTunes.

Thanks for the support!

Ever notice that some artists or labels seem to have all the luck when it comes to promotions or other things? Wonder why?

Those labels are usually taking advantage of everything available to them. Granted, sometimes they are simply in the right place at the right time. Were they lucky? Probably not.

Doing everything you can and should be doing will put you in the best position to find luck (success).

Take action and create your own opportunities.

I had gotten away from that in the last year and wondered why certain things had passed me by. I wasn’t doing anything proactively to put myself in positions to succeed.

Enjoy this mixtape courtesy of Kaboose, Syntax Records and Sphere of Hip-Hop.

Pick up the new album Excuse Me at SphereofhiphopStore.com.

Download Kaboose – Bits and Pieces mixtape

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…it was how can I get on.

I was just thinking the other day about how things were when XM Satellite Radio agreed to bring Sphere of Hip-Hop onto the air. After reading through some early emails from around then (I was cleaning an email folder for the show) I noticed a disturbing trend of emails not saying “Congrats” or anything like that but “How can I get my radio show on XM?”

Seriously? Then I remember how annoyed I was and remembered the culture of vultures in our scene. Everyone cries about unity but when the time comes to unify behind something potentially great… it’s not “how can I help” or “how can I support” or even “how can I pray” it was… “How can I get on.”

Through the grapevine I’ve heard the skinny about how cats are talking about what we did with the show. “Oh, he won’t play so and so for such and so reason.” Really? Did it ever occur to you to ask me why? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I never received their music for play? It’s far easier to jump to conclusions isn’t it? It’s too bad because that type of stuff is what is really wrong with our scene. What happened to going to the source and seeing what’s up? It’s a lost art or something.

What is annoying about this is the lengths at which I’ve tried to include everyone over the last few years in things I’ve been doing namely this radio show. Emails don’t receive responses and phone calls go unreturned. If you know me personally, I don’t like to chase after people… especially if I am going to do work they should be doing on their own already.

If you do this… don’t do it anymore. Golden opportunities are missed all the time because folks aren’t willing to swallow their pride to jump on board with what God is doing with someone else. Think about it.

Music sales are in a sharp decline. Labels and artists are fading away. Quickly. It’s a shame because there are some very good people being hurt by music piracy.

Reasoning with the folks that do it is usually a dead end. Most know that it’s not lawful but don’t care because they just want to “preview” the music that they full well won’t spend a dime on. That’s the rationalization of it all for many. Of course there is a small minority that just take for the sake of taking without caring one bit about the impact.

You wouldn’t jack a CD off of a stores shelf but you will download an album from a “protected” website? Doesn’t the “protected” and “under ground” nature of most of it give you an idea as to whether the practice is right to be doing?

I love the art. The delivery of it is somewhat flawed but to absolutely devalue it because you can’t physically touch it is ludicrous. The practice of illegal downloading hurts REAL people. Most sensible people wouldn’t want to see their favorite artists quit doing music (most in pure disgust because of the rampant theft of their music) would they? What about that hard working guy or gal who is helping that artist be able to concentrate on music? Put yourself in their shoes.

My suggestions…

Record labels – be forward thinking and creative in how you present your music/product to consumers. I know the current climate is tough and it makes you nervous but engage people. Most people when given the choice to do right will choose right and purchase your music. Position yourselves with EASY ways for people to have access to information and previews. Have good products. Good music will sell itself and will flourish if you promote it well enough to media/radio etc.

Artists -ditto.

Fans – Support the music. Yeah, $17.98 was a lot for a CD wasn’t it? Well, buy the record before it drops and you’ll usually get some free bonus stuff AND save a few bucks. Plus you can’t beat what it does for the release… more sales usually mean more media / radio attention. Your few bucks of support can have far reaching effects. Consider it the exact opposite of music theft (which does hurt in tangible ways) where you can give a favorite artist a boost.

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Sound off in the comments and read Part 1

“You are right, I did mess up. I am sorry”

One of the hardest things to do is to admit fault. I know personally it’s difficult to not become defensive and thus make excuses.

What happens next is what matters.