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Citybeat

I write a monthly column in Cincinnati’s Citybeat newspaper. Below are the columns as they’ve appeared as well the original link back to Citybeat. This is updated Monthly, so It’d make the most sense to start at the bottom and work you’re way up

Citybeat Column: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #12 “In Search Of…”
The word dharma is a term used in Eastern Philosophy, primarily in the Hindu faith. Its most literal meaning is “to act in accordance with one’s duty.” Over the years, I’ve learned to live by this ideal.

The most successful people I meet involved with music, or any industry for that matter, are the ones who let their profession choose them. Ideally, when you’re young, you begin to develop a talent for something or, at the very least, show interest in an idea of what you want to be when you grow older.

Many of us have this idea of getting into music and becoming a star. It’s an awesome dream. You see your favorite artists on the covers of magazines growing up and you just know that’s what you want to do. I still have my old Source magazines from the ’90s and I still reminisce about the feelings of wanting to be on that cover.

Almost every person in the industry had a similar dream. Few A&Rs sat awake at night as a child, dreaming of the day they could decide which producers would be able to fit the label budget given to an artist for its album. Few radio programmers dreamed of the day they could input a group of label-approved, correctly formatted, backroom-politicked songs onto an iTunes playlist and let a DJ click the play/repeat button for the next three months.

Dharma is the reason these people might not be famous stars, but are highly successful in their trade and generally enjoy doing it. Or at least the best ones enjoy what they do.

Dharma is the acceptance that there is a position for everyone to play on this Earth. We’re given the tools to build our path and the path is usually put right in front of us. However, what we have planned for ourselves usually gets in the way.

Two months ago I wrote a column titled “I’m Burnt.” It was my post-tour, things-aren’t-going-the-way-I-want-right-now burnout piece. It was awesome to write and helped me put a lot of things into a proper context. One of the biggest lessons I had to (re)learn was that just because things don’t go the way I see them in my head does not mean I failed at reaching my goal. It just means I was mistaken in what I thought my goal was. In fact, I’ve actually reached the goal I was originally working toward, I just didn’t reach it in the way I imagined in my head.

Dharma is the reason I write this column. I didn’t plan for this. It was offered to me so I accepted it; a means to an end that I hadn’t accounted for. There’s a reason I’m here doing this and there’s a reason you’re reading it. I might find out tomorrow that I’m not supposed to rap. I’m not supposed to be a musician. And I have to be open to that.

A couple months ago, my homie Zone put me up on a Pharrell interview when I told him I was going through this burnout. It was a great interview. I’ve always loved and studied Pharrell’s insight and perspective on music and life.

He used an example of a small struggling screenwriter. The screenwriter spends years writing a screenplay, with an ambition of directing it and making a movie by himself. A company meets with him and loves his idea. They tell him they want to turn his screenplay into a movie and bring a huge director in to shoot it. The screenwriter turns down the offer. He turns it down because it did not fall in line with his exact plans. He was supposed to write and direct. These are the only terms he could be happy with. As a result, he missed an opportunity. Rather than developing new ideas and new ventures, he’s stuck on the same idea, and it’s clogging his pipeline for creativity.

Would you, as an artist, be prepared to have an executive offer to buy out one of your most personal songs and pass it to someone more famous? Would you be willing to take songwriting credit and get your publishing if it meant your face wouldn’t be in front of the camera? More importantly, would you be willing to give up a deeply personal song of yours if it meant more exposure because another artist is singing it instead?

There’s no right answer, it’s up to the individual and situation they find themselves in. But it is something to think about. What is your dharma? Are you supposed to be a rapper? A producer? A promoter? Even then, what type of promoter are you supposed to be? What type of producer? Do you specialize in arrangements? Playing live? Drums?

It takes time to figure these things out and find where your direct passion and excellence lies, but it’s all part of the process. It’s all dharma. Once you figure that out, everything else literally falls right into place.

Citybeat Column: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene 11 “…That’s My DJ”

Last month I ended my column on artist burn-out with the advice to drink Bleach. I took my own advice and it really brightened my perspective. Thus, my burn-out is over. Writing that column put the nail in its coffin. So now, back to advice. I’ve chosen to go back and cover something specific this time. Nothing too deep, just simple advice.

And not even my advice. This advice comes from Cincinnati’s (and now Atlanta’s) own DJ Drizzle.

This column is a sequel to a column from last November in which I interviewed my homie Rare Groove, who I consider to be one of the greatest DJ’s the city has ever witnessed, specifically in helping to build an artist’s stage show into something more than five dudes rapping over vocal tracks, gunshots and tornado sirens.

But that’s not all a DJ does. There are DJs that run in the Groove lane and DJs that run in the Drizzle lane. Both types are talented and both cross over into each other’s lane at times, but at the end of the day, they have different responsibilities and offer different contributions to the game.

I wanted to follow up the Rare Groove article and present the other side of the DJ’s repertoire: The Record Pool/Club DJ/Mixtape DJ/Record & Artist Breaker. As a member of the Hittmenn DJs, I’ve always seen Drizzle as a good representation of this and wanted to get his insight on a number of things up-and-coming artists should work on when trying to get their name popping in the city, region and beyond. (For more on DJ Drizzle, hit up www.gotdrizzle.com.)

When I asked Drizzle about how the artist/DJ relationship best works, both stage-wise and promotionally, he said that a DJ is looking for an artist who has already begun establishing a work ethic and local buzz. They want someone who’s already performing at showcases and open mics. They want someone who knows how to generate interest in themselves already. By the time they come to someone like Drizzle, they might not be as seasoned, but they won’t be scared to perform and network.

One of the best things an artist can do to make the DJ’s job easier, according to Drizzle, is to simply listen to the DJ’s feedback. They know what works. DJs are on the frontline, in a sense, every night. They control what gets played. They know what’s hot and they know what’s not. They know when to play which record at which time of the night. They know which neighborhoods, regions and coasts mesh with which records.

DJs need to get their brand out there just as much as MCs do. One should never depend on the other to handle the hustle. When collaborating on a mixtape together, an artist should make sure they’re grinding just as hard, if not harder, than the DJ, Drizzle advised. Don’t fall back on the DJ’s name or rep to carry your mixtape. All it does is sink the mixtape and make them look bad for working with you in the first place.

A DJ can help expand an artist’s fan base. A good DJ in this arena already has a huge network of connects, both online and off. According to Drizzle, anything from e-mail blasts and DJ retreats to breaking the artist’s record at clubs they’re currently spinning in works to increase awareness for the artist they’re pushing.

When asked for some basic rules/guidelines/advise for an artist to follow when trying to get a more prominent DJ to host/present their mixtape or spin their record, Drizzle said it helps if your buzz is really strong or you have a good relationship with the DJ. Otherwise, he said, don’t ask for that kind of help right away. Ask for feedback. A DJ wants to know that you’re humble and want to learn what it takes to make a song that will work in the club.

A lot of folks run up on a DJ while they’re spinning in the prime-time hours of the night, asking them to spin their record because it’s the “hottest shit” out or whatever. They might get played … if they pay. Which seems like an easy way out. But, as this column always stresses, there are no easy ways out. No skipping steps. Period. If a DJ accepts your money to play your song at the hottest point of the night, you can all watch the dance floor clear out from the DJ booth. Then you can watch the DJ lose that night for losing people, thus losing drink sales, thus losing the club owner’s money. And the club owner, trust, does not give a flying fuck about you and your boys’ new song.

So, again, don’t skip steps; it all comes back around. Get the feedback, earn stripes and build the buzz from the ground up based on the quality of the record and the quality of the hustle.

Citybeat Column: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #10 “I’m Burnt”

“On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero”

I didn’t like my last two columns.

Straight up.

What started out as lessons for independent artists felt like some holier-than-thou shit. And that’s not cool. At all.

So I’m sidestepping for a minute to write what will be the natural third arc in this column trilogy.

The burn-out.

I didn’t write a column last month because of space issues with CityBeat. But really, I wouldn’t have been able to write 850 words worth reading past the first 20, so it was a blessing in disguise. This month I want to write about burning out. This column by no means fits into my “Grand Scheme” idea of columns that I started with, but I won’t be able to reach any of those if I don’t write this out first.

“This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time”

If a burn-out was a 500-piece puzzle picture of an adorable puppy overdosing on methamphetamines, this column would be me pouring the pieces onto a spinning plate and trying to put them together in front of you while blindfolded with duct tape. With three minutes to spare. I’m just that cold.

Burn-outs are nothing new to me. They happen every two to three years. Or, even more precisely, they happen every time I begin wrapping up my next album or end a tour. The combination of being away from my own reality, whether in another city or inside my own head creating a record, mixed with a constantly hectic schedule is an ever-evolving mind-fuck. What should be some festive, celebratory occasion actually has an opposite effect. It tends to jade me. The same way it jades Neil Armstrong to look at the Earth from the Moon’s perspective, stare in amazement, questioning the vast mysteries of the Universe and God’s purpose for us all, then within the blink of an eye murmur to himself, “Ehh, let’s get home.”

Burn-outs are a temporary hiccup in what’s usually been a momentous run of focus and drive toward all parts of life.

I think all musicians go through burn-out. Not from making music, but from dealing with all the life stuff that gets in the way. I usually start recognizing the signs of burn-out about three seconds too late. It’s like recognizing your plane is going down after the pilot snatched the last parachute. You might as well just embrace the impact and make an S.O.S. sign from some debris.

“With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels”

I know this sounds border-line insane, but it’s not. There’s no borderline. All musicians have a certain element of insanity. Rather, all humans have a certain element of insanity to them; musicians are just stuck with the gift of putting our insanity on full display. And if we’re lucky, you sing along to it when it’s all said and done.

,i>“Self Improvement is Masturbation. Now self destruction…”

The greatest thing about burn-outs, though, are just how important they are. They’re the moments when you can no longer hold up your house of cards. They’re the moments when you realize that your plans will have to bend to the will of the Earth before the Earth will bend its will to your plans. The Earth is annoying like that. But it allows you to take time out and really re-establish the balances in life that you’ve chosen and sacrificed for music. Some of those sacrifices are worth it. Some aren’t. And it’s different for everybody. All I can say is, use these moments of depression and burn-out as the tools they are supposed to be. Stop worrying about your career. Stop worrying about relationship issues. Stop worrying about money problems. Let it all go for a minute. Let it go before it feels like some doctor just pumped your brain with anesthesia. Let it go before it takes an electro-shock therapy jolt to the temple just to make you feel a tingle in your spine.

“I want you to hit me as hard as you can”

The most amazing thing about burn-outs, for me at least, is that they are almost always followed by some of the most amazing runs in my life. Whether career or personal or both. It’s all a matter of navigating through it. If you’re really special, make it rhyme to a melody and you might just a have a real song on your hands. And it might just be worth it. Or not. Who knows?

“This is the most important moment of your life, and you’re off somewhere missing it”

So embrace the burn-out. Embrace everything that comes with it. It can truly be one of the most beautiful tragedies you’ll ever watch, and it’s right there on the back of your eyelids. I’m watching mine right now. Needless to say, I need a vacation.

“Every Evening I died, and every morning I was born again, resurrected”

But this is an advice column. So as far as advice goes, ummm … Don’t do drugs. Live for the moment. Think glass half full. Unless the glass is half-full of Bleach. Then, don’t even think. Just smile and drink it.

See you next month! ©

Citybeat Article #9: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene “We Don’t Believe You, You Need More People”

They say it’s all in the timing.

In my last column I shouted out the Thursday night Open Mic at Baba Budan’s in Clifton Heights. The following week was its final week.

My column timing is officially delayed like Dilla snares.

I’m finding myself wanting to go two different routes with this month’s column. Its original intent was to give an aspiring artist the necessary outline to build a successful independent career.

But when I would try to write something as basic as “How to work with a DJ,” I felt like I was jumping ahead of myself.

This is what brought on the deeper columns (see last month’s “Smells Like Scene Spirit”). So before I continue to jump into the technical aspects of independent success — touring, publishing, distribution, pressing, publicists, etc. — I want to continue building on the overall mentality of the artist and the scene that precedes it. If we as individuals and as a collective don’t have the right foundation, there’s no point in trying to build a career on top of it.

With that said, I wanted to build on another “foundation” column, this time about the general attitude of an artist and their team: the time it takes to build a career vs. the time it takes to convince people you have a career.

Waaay back in the early 2000s, my partner Zone (under the group name Definition) and I dove into the Cincinnati Hip Hop scene. From UC campus open mics and Top Cat’s battles to Greenwich Tavern spoken word nights and Scribble Jam ciphers (remember those?), we tried to be everywhere possible. Since we weren’t originally from Cincinnati, we always felt like we were behind everyone else, just trying to keep up with everyone’s “move-making,” if you will.

Every week, we would meet someone who was making some major move out of the city. MC so-and-so just signed to Dipset; producer so-and-so is on Wayne’s new record; this group just got signed to Universal; that group just went triple platinum … yada, yada, yada.

It sounds naive and stupid to believe that all these people were really doing the things they said they were, but at the time we were, well, naive and stupid. Maybe not stupid, just young and thus lacking perspective. Because of this, we did everything ourselves to try to keep up — put out a CD, got distribution, got non-paying shows throughout the Midwest. All for the sake of “catching up” to all these artists who were on the verge. Eight years later, they’re still on the verge.

When you’re fresh into a scene, it’s hard to know who’s telling what truths and who’s leading on. The older I get and the more I fully dive into a career in music head-on, it becomes more obvious who’s on their game and who’s, for lack of a better term, full of shit.

Once I began to undress the flamboyant accessories from artists’ “truths” about what was popping in their career, I was even more mystified. Why would an artist, time after time, tell us what they were about to do, all the huge moves they were making, and then do nothing? Why build an entire career out of telling people about your amazing career?

All the work and planning that goes into it could go toward, well, making a career.

I imagine it’s an insecurity issue from the get-go. The nut-check at the urinal as they say. Y’all are the reason I pee in the stalls now, metaphorically speaking (except for Top Cat’s — I refused to pee in a horse trough).

It’s 2010 and it’s been a recession for a while now. Time to let go of “making it rain.” Time to let go of false accomplishments. Time to let go of the ego. Time to let go of all those “moves you’re making.” Time to let go of the idea of status being a priority over the love of music. This ain’t high school.

We see what the major artists are(n’t) selling. The Internet has opened all celebrity musician lives for us, letting us peek into their reality instead of their facade. We can read any major magazine or Web site to realize Waka Flaka is on because his mom/manager manages and books for Gucci, Nicki Minaj and OJ the Juiceman.

If we can see through them that many miles away, why not the folks in our own scene?

I’m not writing this in a bitter, accusatory manner — at least I don’t mean to. It’s just an opportunity to cleanse. The most successful long-term artists in any music genre are there because they care about the music. Notice I said “long-term.” Kanye, TI, Wayne, Jeezy, Jay, Nas all care. Drake, Cudi and J.Cole, they care. They aren’t going anywhere, save a drug addition, religious conversion or crazy future sex scandal.

So I ask everyone in the scene to just remind themselves why they’re in this. The beauty and excitement of music? Or the status? If you know it’s the status, just step aside. It’s no big deal. It betters the scene, the artists and the people.

I write this out of love and ambition for everyone in the scene. Don’t let the ego trip up your genuine talent. Success off of being one’s self is the best thing any of us can hope for.

ILL POETIC performs at The Mad Hatter May 13 in support of the re-release of his The World Is Ours album and the new Approach release, Aloe Park, which he produced. For more info, go to illpoetic.com.



Citybeat Column: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #8: “Smells Like Scene Spirit”
Last week I proclaimed MySpace dead. A lot of people agreed, others didn’t. Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong. To its credit, I will say that MySpace taught me a valuable lesson.

Way back in 2005, as I would get friend requests I’d always look at a person’s musical preferences. Most of the time these people, no matter what age, race or gender, would have the most versatile list of artists and genres on their playlist. In the digital euphoria of MySpace, it seemed that everyone listened to everything. In the digital world, it seemed as if every artist was influenced by every genre of music they could get their hands on.

It was really encouraging to see this, since in the “real world” of the music scene it felt like people only listened to and attended events for the music they liked or, better yet, were supposed to like.

Mind you, this was 2005-06, so I could feel a shift coming (and we are in the midst of this shift), but at its core a lot of things in the typical “music scene” haven’t really changed. So let’s dig into this a little bit.

Why are local scenes so split? Not to say there aren’t people who venture to other scenes in the city, but the majority stays put in their comfort zone. I could make this point for most music scenes in the city, but I’ll stick to Hip Hop since that’s what the column’s title tells me this is about.

My original plan for this article was to tell the “artist” how to maneuver through a local scene, but I couldn’t really bring myself to write it without questioning the idea of a scene itself. How can you maneuver through something so big and small at the same time? How can you maneuver through something that’s constantly changing and evolving, yet somehow at its core remains exactly the same?

Before you can answer any of these questions, you’d have to dissect what a scene encompasses, good and bad. The most interesting thing about a music scene is realizing how many small scenes it’s really comprised of. In fact, if you were to keep dissecting a music scene into all of its micro-scenes, I’m pretty sure it would just be hundreds of little scenes with about five people apiece in them.

So when does a micro-scene of the local scene go from specializing in a certain vibe and representing it to closing off people who don’t fit perfectly in but still genuinely love the vibe? What happens when this is the precedent for how the scene is built? What happens when a scene turns into a high-school lunchroom, separating the nerds, the athletes and the artists? Didn’t we become musicians to escape the whole caste system thing?

I honestly don’t know the answer, but I do know this: When artists don’t reach outside of their safety zones, music stagnates. Artists end up collaborating only with like-minded friends, not reaching into and experiencing the scenes around them.

I don’t mean this to come off as condescending by any means, more just an open invitation to open imaginations. It’s a recession. Musicians don’t have shit except an imagination and time on their hands. We might as well make the most of it. As I said in the first column, with the structure of the music industry shifting so quickly toward independent artists and scenes, now is a perfect time to reach across genres and create new sounds and ideas that help to define the feel of this city and region.

I rarely single out an artist or event in this article, in fear that I’ll leave someone or something out and end up pissing everyone off. But I will highlight this because I feel it’s even bigger than the people involved in it: For the past two years, on a Thursday evening, you can walk freely into Baba Budan’s near the University of Cincinnati and witness poets, rappers, Reggae artists, Folk singers and more taking turns expressing themselves. When this event started, I fell in love with it. It became even more incredible when the artists of different genres began to collaborate a build new sounds and ideas.

Merging imagination to create communal emotion is amazing, and the artists that perform a Baba’s open mic understand that. No pretensions, no ego, no bullshit. Just music and love. A nirvana.

This is what I see as the potential for something greater than a party, an event or an artist “blowing the scene up.” This is the type of creative vibe that builds the potential for something no single person can create.

It’s people led by art and not art led by people.

This is the scene I fell in love with, and it’s the scene I challenge all of us to continue building. We owe it to ourselves and to the generation who will one day continue its legacy.

Citybeat Column: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #7 “www.myspaceisdead.com”

Rappers killed MySpace. So did producers.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think MySpace was the digital manifestation of the dude every gangsta rapper in the ’90s talked about killing. That’s how bad we killed MySpace.

We killed MySpace like it was a club full of fine women and we just had to run up in there 30 deep, full of testosterone and CDRs of us rapping over Jay-Z instrumentals.

If you’ve gotten spam in your junk mail folder offering you sex pills and the money of a rich Nigerian prince, it ain’t got shit on the type of spam a rapper, producer or promoter will hit you with on any given day of your ancient MySpace account. You don’t know spam until you get 30 messages a day telling you why you should buy some guy’s beats, mixtapes, show tickets, verses, old video games or whatever the hell he’s trying to sell you. You don’t know spam until a random rapper from 15 states away is demanding you to “support his movement.” That’s a lot of pressure for someone who can barely support himself.

I know MySpace is old news, so I’m not going to waste a whole column on it. The reason I bring it up is to discuss the mentality behind this type of shameless promotion. Unfortunately, it’s got to be working at least a little bit or artists would’ve stopped by now.

My fear is that I start seeing folks move from MySpace over to Twitter and Facebook, doing the same thing. Don’t. The reason regular people moved out of the MySpace neighborhood is because there were door-to-door salesmen peddling music and events 200 miles away every hour of every day. So before all the “Needle-Nose Ned” (see Groundhog’s Day for reference) insurance salesmen-ass artists venture over to the new popular social networking arenas, please adjust your sales pitch just a little.

I’m not going to give off some arbitrary list of rules artists should follow. It’s all in the mentality of how you approach these sites and opportunities in the first place.

One thing I’ve learned to be careful of is killing an opportunity before you’ve even studied and realized exactly what it is. Social networking promotions and building is a chess game, not checkers: It’s not about the immediate victory as much as it is the one three steps ahead. Whereas sending massive tweets and messages about what you are doing and your shows and your music seems like you’ve promoted and “done your job,” it won’t work.

People don’t like to have an artist bombard them. It’s annoying. The most successful artists and entrepreneurs succeed off of word of mouth from other folks.

I always think of Jill Scott as one of the best examples of this technique. Even before the Internet was really popping, she was that girl that you just kept hearing about from other people. She didn’t even have a video out, but everyone kept saying, “This girl is the truth.”

Scott wasn’t the truth because she manufactured some false hype about herself. She was the truth because she stayed in the cut, perfected her craft, learned her talent, built herself a team and created a sound. Self-manufactured hype is X-Ray see-through and it never lasts a career. I’ll give you one song, but career? Not so much.

Treat the digital world exactly how you would treat the real world. Everyone on these sites is a real person, so act accordingly. For example, if you wanted to holler at a DJ about some business in a club, you wouldn’t put everything out there in the middle of the club. You’d wait until after he finished spinning and talk to him on the side of the booth or backstage.

Same with online interactions. Don’t leave comments and tweets that everyone can see just to “up your status” because you’re seen talking with “Famous DJ So-and-So.” Inbox the person directly and ask for their e-mail. Hit them privately with a business matter if you want to actually handle business.

If you notice that force-feeding CDs to people with no sales etiquette in front of a club gets you annoyed looks, you would stop doing it. Same with online marketing. If no one is responding to your constant promotional messages and invites to buy music, then stop doing it. Let them come to you.

Treat people like human beings and not potential money. Treat people like human beings and not “someone who can do something for you.” It’s not sexy, and they know the difference.

I’d like to delve deeper into some of these ideas, but my man Hubert over at www.fryinginvein.com does a much better job and doesn’t have a word-limit. So I would advise going over there to research further.

(P.S., see how I did that? That’s cross-promotion. He holds me down on advice and ideas, so I bring folks over to his advice. It helps everyone communally.)

Citybeat Column: The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #6 “Road to Riches”

I have a theory, and the theory goes like this: Your dream is kind of like the moon — the further away you are from it, the more beautiful it looks. The closer you get to it, the more you see the reality of it: the craters, the flaws, the reality.

This theory has led me to another theory: You are not ready to reach your dream until you’re prepared to deal with the full realities of it.

If “me” from 2002 could see me now, I’m sure he would be so excited that he finally “made it.” I used to think I’d be set if I ever made it in a certain magazine or collaborated with a certain artist. Shit, sometimes I forget when I reach a goal I’ve set for myself so long ago because I’ve been through the trenches to get there. Once I did reach that goal, it ultimately seemed a lot less luxurious than I had envisioned it from afar.

You hear this all the time from your favorite rapper when he finally gets on. Eminem was a big one. Kanye as well. Right now it’s Drake. Listen to his song “Fear” as an example.

I don’t say all this to depress you or deter you from your dream. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in years of doing this (possibly the most important) is that you have to enjoy the path more than the goal. I’ll repeat, because, as Lil Wayne says, “Repetition is the father of learning” — you have to enjoy the path more than the goal.

This is more important than mix downs, promotions, artwork, Web sites, publicists and touring. It’s more important because it encapsulates all of those things. And without this attitude, all those things accomplished will have been in vein.

If you’re not in this industry as an artist for the right reasons, I advise you to stop now. Stop reading this column. Stop writing. Stop recording. Stop performing. Stop all of it. You will become bitter and upset at life and no one needs that energy put into the world. Go do something that makes you happy at being you.

But if you are in this game to push your craft forward and create a voice or sound for yourself, then please keep reading. You are the person most likely to enjoy the path more than the goal. Not to say you shouldn’t set goals and enjoy them when you accomplish them — just sayin’ don’t let them hold too much weight on your soul.

One thing I’ve learned over the past year is that you don’t always control your career. You can’t perfectly plan your future. You never know what song people are going to definitely react to or how they’ll perceive you on stage. This is what makes it so damn fun — the spontaneity of it all.

In May 2008, I dropped a mash-up record that ended up getting covered everywhere from allhiphop.com to Rolling Stone. Wasn’t even my idea to make it, I just did it — knocked it out in a weekend without a second thought. I released it online that Monday and it did more for me than either of my meticulously planned albums.

It’s hilarious when you think about it, but it’s also beautiful and annoying as hell. However, it really drove home that lesson to just have fun, be creative and enjoy every moment along the path.

All this leads me to my next point: Fuck status. Fuck the idea of status, especially in a local or regional scene. It’s stupid and it’s dangerous. I used to be on it too, which is why I’m trying to throw out this warning.

It’s cool to be hungry and want to be great, but if you’re looking at the guy to your left or right to see what he’s doing, you are not looking forward. Being worried about how people perceive your “status” in the scene is stupid, especially in the grand scheme of the national and international scenes. If you go through your career with the sole intent of trying to get ahead and not for the lessons and good memories sitting all around you, you fail.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be self-aware and make calculated moves toward reaching the audiences you want to reach as well as a money-generating career. Just cut the excess out. It makes it so much easier and enjoyable.

Getting to live a life centered on your passion is the most amazing feeling in the world and really puts everything in perspective. It’s not press status, networks, backbiting, shit-talking, DJ payola or radio spins.

It’s an outlet for stress, an inlet for joy. It’s a series of moments of real humanity that you get to help create and then share with a group of strangers. It’s a memory for someone you’ve never met and never will. It’s one second played out to infinity. Communal bliss.

It keeps us young forever. It’s the closest we’ll ever get to walking on the moon.

The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #5 “What About Your Friends?”
For anyone who’s been reading these columns, I hope you’re catching on to the natural progression of the format. We started at the earliest stages for a new artist and are leading up to the more advanced business and musical aspects of the industry. With that said, at the end of my last column I mentioned that I’d be following up this month with a DJ Drizzle interview regarding the other sides of the artist/DJ relationship. After our interview, however, it occurred to me that what he and I spoke about didn’t fit into the natural progression I’m going for, so I’m saving that column for another day.
Instead, I thought I’d get one of the most important issues out of the way from the jump.

Writing, recording and performing is all good, but once you hit a certain stage, the foundation of your business must be on point. If not, just stop now. Seriously. Just stop.

Nearly all of us begin making music with our friends. And if they weren’t our friends before we made music with them, they probably will be afterwards. This is fun and all, until money starts coming into play. Who pays for studio time? Who pays for the mix downs and artwork? How will you split money from the CDs sold? Will you put it back into buying more product? Who do you trust to handle all of this?

I’m not here to give you percentages and numbers. That shit gets very boring very quickly. Instead, I figure I’d give some personal philosophies on mixing friendship and business (I won’t move into family and business — can’t fit that into an 850 word limit).

If not handled right, this is when simple and long-lasting friendships quickly turn into a tragedy. A majority of scene vets reading this are probably thinking of at least three separate situations where shit went down shady and friendships dissolved because of it. Even beyond your local scene, how many dynasties in music have fallen because of dumb shit like this? Did you hear Beanie Siegel talking about how Rocafella started falling apart just a couple weeks ago? He merged friendship and business and failed because of it. Old heads: Wonder why Pete Rock and CL Smooth stopped coming out with records? Eric and Parrish? Hot Boys? Dipset? “First the Fat Boys break up …”?! Yeah I thought so. It’s not worth it.

Now, most people don’t like the idea of bringing contracts out for business situations amongst friends, because it implies a lack of trust. I disagree. I think friendship is a very delicate structure and there’s a lot leaning on it already. Why add something as heavy as business and money onto it? You’re asking for a collapse. Also, I tend to believe that most sour business dealings aren’t intentionally shady. Rather, I believe two people usually have different understandings of what they stand to gain from a business transaction with each other, and rather than put it on paper (communication in black and white print), they verbally agree, all the while assuming the other guy knows what they mean. This is dangerous, because there’s no point of reference for either business partner to go back to. Everything is hearsay, and this is the point when a friendship dissolves.

Trust me when I say that it’s hard to go back to a friendship once a business partnership falls apart because it wasn’t put on paper. It’s like being friends with an ex after she slept with your brother because she’s “still a really nice person.” It’s just not the same.

With all that said, my philosophy is this: Creativity is the sun that all other planets orbit around. Creating great music and using this chemistry to do it should always be your first priority. Everything else (business, etc.) revolves around that. Once you and your partners decide you might have some good material and it’s time to mix down, get artwork, print some copies and start rocking shows, then it’s time to start putting numbers down on paper.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t even be making personal profit for a while. Any money you and your team make should go right back into the pot of recording, mix downs, pressing and promoting. There is a lot more that goes into making a successful team (personality traits, jobs, etc.), but it’s important to lock the foundation in early. If you start shaky you can’t go back, and it will always come around to bite you in the ass.

In closing, look at it like this: If you can’t handle the small business of selling CDs as friends and business partners, what would make you be able to handle the big business of running a label and dealing with investors, publicists, booking agents, etc.? Treat these “small moves” no differently than “big moves.” At the core, there’s really no difference. All money is money and all business is business.

The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #4 “Go DJ (pt. 1)”
I remember the first time I decided I wanted music to be my career and/or life.

Still in high school, my friend Zone and I went up to Columbus to see Method Man and Redman perform. When I saw Method Man walk over the crowd’s hands like Jesus walked on water, it was a wrap. Those dudes knew how to put on a show.

Now, a week prior to that, I had just rocked my first ever talent show at my high school, and you couldn’t have told me we weren’t the flyest performers on the planet. After seeing Meth and Red, as well as video of my wack-ass performance, I was quickly humbled.

Good DJ/artist combinations are hard to come by, but when they’re good, they’re great. With that said, the next few columns are going to deal with the DJ/artist relationship.

Now, depending on where you hustle in the Hip Hop spectrum, this can mean one of two things, so I’m splitting them up into two columns.

The first one deals with the artist and DJ in the traditional sense — show interaction and performance. Next time, I’ll get into the club DJ who promotes and pushes an artist’s mixtapes and projects (think Drama and Jeezy pre-Twitter beef).

To give both sides of this equation, I had to take in some advice from DJ Rare Groove. For those who don’t know him, he’s DJ’d in Cincy for over a decade, is on local radio, tours the world and, most importantly, lives off of his craft. The man knows how to put a dope set together (and his record collection looks like the stockroom at Kmart).

One of the biggest ideas Groove brought to the table was the actual set up of an artist’s show. To paraphrase, a good show is broken up into three parts. How you want to split these sets are up to you.

But splitting your set into sections allows you to adapt to the type of club or crowd you’re performing to. Maybe you have a really good set of female songs that would work better at Baba Budan’s than The Ritz. It’s nice to have that in the back pocket.

Rehearse with your DJ as much as possible for each show. Not only does it make your set a lot more seamless, it allows both of you to nitpick the set and come up with little intricate ideas that separate you two from everyone else.

Find a good rehearsal space where you can move around (preferably with a mirror in front of you). Study your movements, both with your body and how you move across the stage. Study footage of past shows to see what you like and don’t like. Study your favorite performers live or on YouTube.

As you begin getting paid for shows, the artist/DJ split for money should be discussed before the checks are cut. If you’re not sure what a DJ should get paid, ask other artists or DJs how they split and go off of that.

Show up at the venue for sound check (I’ve been bad about this in the past). Study the sound, room and mic before the show.

Oh, and help your DJ carry all his shit into the venue for sound check. Don’t just go post up at the bar until you go on. All MCs have to carry is a mic. DJs have a little more to worry about.

Finally, not to get all KRS-One on y’all, but I have to drop some quick performance commandments. I’m not saying I’m the dopest performer in the world, but these “trends” need to stop, because, from a crowd perspective, they make you sound straight shitty.

• Thou shall not rap over thine vocals (it sounds like shit)

• Thall shall not bring 40 of thy boys on stage (Thou art not Wu-Tang)

• Thou shall not cup microphone

• Thou shall not clap for own performance and B-Boy stance thine other acts on bill

• Thou shall not grab genitalia excessively unless female or covering Prince. (I did this on my first televised show and all my mom could say when she saw it was, “Why are you grabbing yourself?”)

• Thou shall look at audience when performing

• Thou shall not spend thy set blaming ye soundman and DJ for not making your set bang (if there’s an issue, address it after the show and work around problems)

I never said there were 10 commandments. Rinse and repeat the first three.

A DJ and artist’s interaction is vital to a good show. Something I learned years ago is that no one will remember your lyrics and no one will remember your beats — the audience came to make a moment and memory. It’s your job to give them that memory, and it’s easier said than done.

Don’t make a memory for yourself at the expense of the people. This is how you stand out.

Next month, I’ll return with DJ Drizzle to break down the other side of the artist/DJ relationship.

The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #3 “Turn My Headphones UP”
Suge Knight used to whoop an engineer’s ass if he rewound the tapes too far during the recording sessions of 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me. Kind of extreme. And most likely not the most conducive working atmosphere for an engineer.
One thing I tried to stress in my last column was the importance of knowing the other person’s job and how it pertains to you. This month deals with the engineer-artist relationship. As the artist, the studio is your home. If it’s in your home, that makes it easier. But unless you’re installing an official studio in your spot, you’ll still have to hit the real thing for your final mix and mastering, if not your final vocal cuts.

Engineers usually charge per hour, so you’re already under time pressure. I don’t always like this because it can stifle the artist’s creativity and freedom. To counter this, it helps to be prepared in a few different areas:

Feel out the vibe of the studio when you go in. The engineer sets the tone for the spot and as an artist you need a vibe that nurtures your type of creativity. You need an engineer who can work fast and ride your creative runs. It makes all the difference when it comes down to the growth of your vocals and delivery and how your final takes come across for the song. It’s the difference between a dope song and a classic. If you’re not reaching for classic, what’s the point?

If you write your lyrics out, have them prepared before you hit the booth. It helps to have them memorized or even pre-record them in a home studio. Know how you want your delivery, tone and flow to sit in the beat. Try to think about how the engineer mixes your voice on tracks, and record with that in mind.

Watch everything the engineer is doing when you’re not in the booth. Ask him what equipment and software he’s using. Ask him to explain what he’s doing with your vocals if you don’t know. Don’t bug the shit out of him, but don’t be afraid to ask.

Don’t fill the studio up with a whole bunch of yes-men friends who just want to go smoke the spot out. Bring people with you who know your style and aren’t afraid to tell you when a vocal take is garbage or how you need to stop rapping like Lil’ Wayne ‘cause a million other people already do that.

Get on YouTube. Get DVDs. Study studio sessions from the greats. Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Pharell, Dr. Dre. You’ll notice a scrawny little white dude (not always white or scrawny, but hilariously almost always) sitting in the corner turning knobs? That’s the engineer. Study how emcees conduct themselves in the booth and with the engineer.

Learn studio language as well. Though some words change, the basics for Hip Hop artists are:

• 2-Tracking: Using the instrumental in full to record and/or mix your vocals.

• Tracking out: Separating out the individual tracks of an instrumental to mix.

• Doubles/Adlibs: Tracing your main vocals with another vocal track for accent.

• 16: Standard verses are 16 bars, hooks are eight. Know how to count your bars so you can tell the engineer where you need record on the track.

• Punch-In: If you messed up the second half of a verse, but the first half is flawless, a punch-in let’s you come in off your first run. It helps to know how many bars in you need to punch in to communicate with the engineer for a more efficient run.

(One piece of thought about doubles and adlibs: A lot of rappers do a lot of doubles/adlibs. It tends to suffocate the personality on a track and acts like a safety blanket for any insecurities the rapper may have about how their voice sounds. All the greats — except Young Jeezy, who actually sounds doper with a lot of adlibs — use one vocal track and occasional adlibs.)

When you leave, you might need to take your session with you, so bring a flash drive or some blank CDs. This is just another little thing an engineer will dig and remember you for.

The more you can communicate in an engineer’s language, the quicker things go, the more you’ll get along and the more money you save. One thing I’ve learned over the years is, most engineers get so sick of dealing with folks who have no idea what they’re doing and don’t come prepared. You’ll stand out.

By no means is this everything you need to know about how to work in a studio, but it’s a good start. I’d recommend checking out books and going online for further knowledge. If you have a producer, check with them as well. Producers use a lot of the same programs engineers do and there is a natural synergy between the two.

So far we’ve knocked out producer/artist chemistry and artist/engineer chemistry. Next month we’ll start jumping into DJ/artist/band chemistry.

The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #2 “Beats, Rhymes, and Life”
Recently, CityBeat gave me a really big word limit to tell you guys stuff I know ‘cause I write good. Also, as I said before, I dropped out of English 103 and college in general, which makes me a winner.

A quick summary, if you missed the first column: the Cincinnati Hip Hop scene of the 2000s didn’t necessarily get the most thorough education on how to achieve long-term (or short-term) success as independent artists or as a scene in general.

I’m writing this monthly column to add whatever I’ve learned amongst my long, arduous years battling, performing, recording, hustling, sleeping on NYC subways, networking, living, breathing and shitting music. I want to do my best to make this chronological.

Some artists might be past the early stages, but others still need it. The next few columns are going to cover the earlier stages of my experiences before moving onto the bigger steps, from interacting between the different people that help make your record a record to how to get your name buzzing locally.

The first is always the easiest. Everyone in the music scene has a passion for something. Maybe it’s emceeing, maybe it’s producing. Maybe it’s graphic design or throwing shows.

Whatever it is, studying your passion inside and out goes without saying. What’s forgotten is studying as much about the next person’s passion, and how it can help to build your career a little bit faster. The first of these connections usually happens between the emcee and the producer. This, of all connections, is the most important to begin with.

Think global. Major labels are falling apart. Independent labels and artists are picking up that slack. This means that slowly but surely local artists in every city aren’t seeing the worth in trying to get that “huge deal.”

Over the past few years, and even more so in the coming years, this is the change agent that gives each city the opportunity for its own sound and movement. The movement might not ever blow up as big as Atlanta or New York, but so what? It’ll be a sound and vibe dedicated to that region.

This sound starts with the chemistry between a producer and emcee. Think back to the ’80s and ’90s. Rakim needed Eric B. Chuck D needed the Bomb Squad. Dipset needed Heatmakerz. Talib needed Tek. When everyone starts running to the same few producers to get their “street” track, their “club” track, their “conscious” track, etc., it gets played and boring real fast.

The producer/emcee chemistry is dependent on a lot of things; mainly, the real-life friendship of the people behind the artist names. The more a producer and emcee build, the more comfy the producer feels about letting the emcee co-produce some ideas a little bit. Maybe the emcee has ideas about a sample to flip, or re-doing drums on a song. Producers can be very prideful of how they make a beat, and if they don’t have that trust factor with you when you tell them to change something, they’ll just look at you sideways. (Trust me, I produce.)

Same for emcees. When the chemistry is there, a producer feels that much more comfortable telling an emcee to try to flip his delivery to fit the beat at a new angle. The best songs are made off compromise. Once you realize that, as egocentrically fun as it can be to write and produce the flyest shit on the planet, you still need an outside perspective to tell you when you’re falling off. That will make you an eternally better artist.

Since I emcee and produce, I try to look at each from the other’s perspective. One thing I’ve learned doing both: I can’t tell you when the producing ends and the songwriting begins. They usually tangle up in each other all the way to the mixdown.

One of the first artists I really experienced working with who could pull this off was Piakhan (Cincy legend, do y’all research). I have to use Khan as an example of an emcee who knows how to work with a producer and not just “rap over a beat.” He brings an ordinary-ass beat to life as a full-fledged song.

Once our chemistry as friends and artists was cool enough, he could tell me how to flip the original beat to further see his vision out. Now I never even question him because he always makes classic songs off what I thought were just run-of-the-mill beats.

I know a lot of this column seems like kindergarten to a lot of artists already running around the city, but really think about it. Sometimes I think I’ve moved past something like this, but you never know when you can still grow at something you thought was basic. Not to mention, covering this allows me to eventually cover what some of you might be waiting on: dealing with promoters, booking agents, publicists, record pools and labels.

Stay tuned for next month’s column, unless CityBeat brings back Savage Love and uses my page for massage parlor ads.

The Hip-Hop (Un)Scene #1 “Cincilluminati”
Mike at CityBeat has been gracious enough to give me a monthly column to exercise my thoughts and ambitions on the Cincinnati Hip Hop scene. So without further ado, here’s a brief synopsis of who I am and why you should care to read to the bottom of this column (heads up: I dropped out of English 103 — I am no Kathy Wilson).

I moved to Cincinnati from Dayton to attend UC in 2000. I dropped out of college a couple years later, but only because I was too addicted to the Hip Hop scene. What started out as high school ciphers and battles back in Dayton grew to UC talent shows, Top Cat’s battles, Scribble Jams and a lot of forgettable shows. All necessary and most fun. Over time, I branched out of the city, along with my cohort, Zone (together, we’re Definition), and began performing around the region. It was at this point that something began to not sit quite right with me.

Let me rewind, though. I look at a scene like a family and it’s my personal belief that the parents of a scene have a responsibility to teach their children how the world they grow up in works. In the early 2000s we were those children, running around with flyers and burnt CDs, trying to get signed to any label we could because that’s what we thought we were supposed to do. It was then that I began to have a growing issue with the lack of knowledge that was being passed down to our generation (spanning the early and mid 2000s).

It’s counterproductive to name names, and there were certain key people (whaddup Piakhan) who were fantastic teachers. But for the most part, nada. On some Onyx shit — “All we got iz us.”

This was a blessing and a curse. It might’ve taken us longer to establish ourselves, but now we’re doing it. And we’re doing it with a full understanding of how the system works. No disrespect to the groups and artists set to blow in the early and mid 2000’s (there was one every summer). I genuinely respect their drive and music. But with all due respect, fuck these false starts. Every summer felt like the summer, the summer Cincy would “finally” be on the map. But it doesn’t work that way. It works on a much more long-term level and takes a lot more work.

We can’t continue to hope for some magical beans to grow an interest in our city’s scene. How can a major label sign any of us when they’re laying off A&R reps and VPs across the country? Even superstars on a label are on some Mobb Deep shook shit.

Last fall, I left Cincinnati to gain a perspective of the city from the outside in. And even I wasn’t prepared for the perspective I’d gain. The same city that suffocated me from the inside looked so beautiful on the outside. After touring the world, traveling back to New York and then (kind of) settling in Columbus, I can truly appreciate the talent that the Cincinnati Hip Hop scene has to offer. And it’s building something special.

However, from my perspective, I also see the limitations that still exist in Cincinnati for artists. These monthly columns are like chapters. If you save them and put them all together, they should be able to build a template for the 2009 (and beyond) Cincinnati Hip Hop artist/group. I don’t claim to know everything, but I’ve seen and absorbed a lot over these years, and I want to pass the info down in the most responsible manner possible.

Over the next year or two, I’ll be writing columns in CityBeat that deal with a range of issues for a lot of people in the Hip Hop scene. I’ve been an artist, producer, promoter, booking agent, engineer, graphic designer and a lot more. And I’m honestly not the best at any of them. But I definitely know what the hell I’m doing at all of them. With that said, I want to share the perspective of each of these job titles so that everyone in the scene can understand what everyone else does a little better.

Every time I come back for a visit, I get re-inspired to do this because there’s just too much fly shit going on in this city for it not to be noticed. I’ll be working my ass off 25 hours a day just the same to spread my and our vibe out to the country, press and world the best I can. All I ask is that everyone just keep hustling forward. In the interest of city and scene unification, I honestly believe we can do this. And if we can’t, the generation following us should have a hell of a blueprint to lead off with.

If you’ve made it this far, then stay with me every month. You might never use 95 percent of this, but it’s worth it for the free 5 percent. And CityBeat is free. So, in the immortal words of George W. Bush, “Fuck it.”