A lot of you think that success in this rap shit is going to come over-night. It’s not gonna happen! Yeah you may occasionally see a rapper, out on nowhere, create a new dance and appear to blow up instantly. But trust me, even that artist has a story of struggle to tell. Read the rest of this entry »

In a market saturated with so many hip hop artists, you’re going to have to go beyond just lyrical skill to make an impact. You know, the kind of impact where you influence the way a group of people dress, speak, and think. Far too many emcees ignore this aspect of their careers because they feel that they should remain free from “gimmicks”. Read the rest of this entry »

In my city and in others I’ve traveled to, some promoters put on what they call, talent showcases. Most of these lame shows are put together by letting any rapper perform who pays an entree fee.  On top of that, the artist is given a number of tickets that he must sell to his friends and supporters. These are the only group of people usually cheering for him during his performance because no one is there to see anyone else but the artist they came to support.

Anybody can get in and perform if they have the money to pay. These showcases are stacked with well over a dozen artists Read the rest of this entry »

We’re living in an age dominated by social networks. Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter are populated with artists, business owners, and casual users who are just screaming for attention. It’s normal to see status updates like…”I’m about to walk my dog.” “Damn this hamburger is good!” or “I’m on my way to the gym!” These are people who make it a point to Read the rest of this entry »

Hip hop artist Rhymefest wrote a thought provoking article at DJ Booth.net posing the question about who is more responsible for breaking records currently; bloggers or DJ’s? This has become increasingly frustrating for artists who find out that a lot of club DJ’s only want to play what’s hot on the streets and a terrestrial radio push demands that you have “mucho deniro”. So you’re stuck in a fucked up “chicken or the egg” scenario. They won’t play you if you’re not hot, but you can’t get hot if they don’t play you. Read the rest of this entry »

Just when you thought MySpace couldn’t possibly get any worse, they went ahead and fucked up the last worthwhile function left in that digital wasteland.

This function was the ability to search for artists of different genres and narrow that search down to the country, state and even city they were from. You could also search for keywords in their profile. This was huge help for fans and bloggers like me looking to discover new artists from specific places in the world. On top Read the rest of this entry »

Internet marketing has become essential to any hip hop artist who wishes to spread their music abroad, but spending too much time navigating online social networks can take you away from the kinda grassroots street networking that made hip hop the force it is today.  A well developed hip hop movement is and always will be built on the local level first. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a new year and with it, the beginning of a new decade. A lot of other blogs and writers have been offering their opinions on what the next 10 years will bring for music and technology, so I thought I’d add my two cents to the convo. Here are a few things that I think we’ll see in hip hop before the next 10 years are over.

1. Advance technology for the lyrically challenged

Gotta weak flow? Much like it’s distance cousin, Auto-Tune, helped the lacking singer, the Flowmatic will help the rapper who needs a little boost with his lyrical dexterity. Just plug your mic into the input, and turn the dial to your favorite emcee, and you’ll soon be on everybody’s top 5 list!

Read the rest of this entry »

My how time flies.  This blog is a year old today. Up and walking but not quite potty trained yet.  Blogging was totally new to me when I started this. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing or getting myself into. Wasn’t even sure if people would care.  While running a successful beat licensing site, I would receive numerous emails from independent hip hop artists asking me questions about how they should go about breaking into the industry. Read the rest of this entry »

50 cent’s first week sales of his album, “Before I Self Destruct”, came in at a very disappointing 160,000 sales. These numbers are great for an independent hip hop artist but terrible for a hip hop artists of 50′s caliber. In my opinion it wasn’t his worst album, but this post is in no way shape or form an album review. Fifty gives early leakage of the project as the reason for low sales. Recent history has shown that early exposure to projects more often than not, increase album sales for artists. Read the rest of this entry »