ARCHIVED NEWS

What's the secret sauce to making great music?

The trick to making good records is capturing the emotion of the song and I think a lot of people don't get that or don't know how to do it. Me personally when I listen to records I'm always listening for the emotion whether it's the angry M.O.P. style that makes you want to fight or a R&B record that makes you want to cry thinking about the situation the song is pertaining to. You've got artists like Soulja Boy winning because he's locked in on the fun aspect of making records which is another form of emotional transfer. He takes it all the way to the max and it feels fun, happy and non-abrasive.

You've mentioned earlier how you can listen to a track and tell within the first 5 to 15 seconds whether it's hot or garbage. Have you ever been wrong?

As far as material that has come across my desk I would say 8 times out of 10 times I was correct. When you're listening for a particular artist and you know sonically where the movie is going then you can pretty much hear right away that it's not going to work. I can't really recall hearing a track that I passed on that later came out and exploded.

At this point in the music business does following the traditional format of releasing a couple of singles and then dropping a full length album still make sense or do you think it depends on the artist?

I would definitely say the album format is not for every artist but even more important than that is I believe the business is dictating a single-driven market based on the change in consumer behavior. A lot of the fans out there are not interested in the whole album; they're content with downloading the single tracks they like whether legally or illegally.

Right now, especially in Hip Hop, it seems that mixtapes are generating more excitement on the streets than the official albums. For example you have the Fabolous Mixtape that is getting spins on the radio and mini-videos are being shot for multiple tracks. What's going on?

I think subconsciously that has something to do with the creative process of putting together a mixtape project without the restraints of the label pressure, without the restraints of having to please radio and without the restraints of having to come up with a big hit single. It's a very free-spirited vibe going into the creative process subconsciously as oppose to all the business pressure which usually suppresses your true creative nature in its purest form. Just going in the booth and being free is what dope music is all about.

But then where does the money factor in since most mixtapes are given away free?

Well I think the money comes when the demand is there. When you generate that excitement from the mixtape/promotional music then you have the opportunity to monetize that energy even if it's not from the mixtapes themselves. The problem with the mixtape game is it doesn't have a business structure in which the artists can properly monetize their music. It needs an official business system in place that takes into account the immediate availability on the music online as soon as it's released.

With Hip Hop you have to remember it blew up before the corporate executives who didn't understand the culture got involved. That's when authentically Hip Hop was at its purest form as far as the truth in it when you listened to an Ice Cube, NWA or Kool G Rap...they didn't have any of that pressure, they were just fucking flowing! So when dudes do these mixtapes its along the same vein which is why you will get that excitement because the consumers and the fans feel it in the music, its not too much thinking involved.

With album sales slowing down should the acts focus more on live performance?

It's really about the show money because when you put out an album it's really the label that's eating not the artist. Traditionally most artist don't see any back-end royalties but many have enslaved themselves in the pursuit of a recording deal with the majors because of that advance money...everybody wants to have the shot of getting a big check and having the co-sign of the label brand because they believe that's what legitimizes all their grind and sacrifice which is ridiculous because the game didn't pop off from the acts tying themselves to a big corporation brand. Even when Hip Hop started to really take off legitimacy was more about getting down with urban brands such as Bad Boy, Def Jam and Death Row which were borne out of grassroots movements. No disrespect but it wasn't about the parent labels like Warner, Sony or Universal...what is the identity attached to these brands???

People loved Bad Boy because of Puff. With Def Jam it was Russell coming out of Hollis Queens and Lyor even though he was white he got down! With Ruff Ryders people knew it was two street brothers behind that shit, you had Master P behind No Limit, J Prince behind Rap-A-Lot and so on. Back then the legitimacy factor was largely based on the identities and personas of the individuals running those labels but nowadays you barely have that, most are gone or have faded from prominence in the business. Now it's about selling your soul for that advance money even if you know you can make more revenue doing it yourself and still get the show money. Drake signing to Universal after what he laid down independently was unnecessary in my opinion when you can still make the same show money and get your back end paper. You might have to brush up against the majors because they don't like it but at the end of the day the bigger picture is about showing the young kids who weren't around that Hip Hop blew up because of the independent-minded artist entrepreneurs not those begging on their knees looking for a artist deal.

That's surprising coming from you since you don't normally hear the 'pro-independent' stance coming from industry professionals that make their bones from inside the label system

Sometimes you have to be on the inside to get a proper perspective and at the end of the day the truth is the truth. And I worked inside the Bad Boy system, not the major corporation system so it's easier to make that assessment

So right now in Hip Hop on a mainstream commercial level the only relevant brands are Cash Money/Young Money. Where are the new Eazy-E's, Luke's, E-40's, etc...?

Again, that's due to the artists focusing more on making music they believe the major labels or radio are going to like instead of creating great authentic music independently. If you look at the whole Young Money situation that started off with Lil Wayne taking over the game with music he made independently on the Mixtape level. When you hear a song like 'A Milli' you can tell Lil Wayne wasn't thinking about radio format...it didn't sound like your standard single with the hook, chorus and 16 bars but it was one of the biggest records of 2008. His whole formula prior to releasing Carter III was blacking out on the mixtape/promo level, spitting whatever he wanted and not giving a fuck what anybody thought about it. Wayne captured the same essence as the Roc-A-Fella's and Cash Money's had before and that's why he was able to do what he has done.

If you want to kick off the next 'Cash Money' situation it has to start with the authenticity of the music, fuck radio, fuck the labels and fuck what the 'corporate cookie' thinks he wants to hear! And let me be clear that's no disrespect to all the executives in the music business but you do have some suits higher up the food chain that don't understand or respect the culture and I don't care how much music theory you studied nothing can replace living it. I'm talking about living in the hood or living around black people and really soaking up the vibe. So what you grew up listening to Hip Hop it's not the same as living this shit I don't care what anybody says.

Mixtapes are evolving from artists rapping over the instrumentals of already released songs to original tracks with original lyrics thus becoming what some call 'Street Albums'. Should these street albums hold the same legitimacy as their retail album counterpart?

I think it should be legitimately looked at as a creative body of work regardless of what label you put on it. The fans that love the music don't care whether it's off of a mixtape, a CD album or a download from the Internet.

So with that being said what about the producer of that original song that ends up on the mixtape? Do you think they should be compensated even though the Mixtape/street album is free to the consumer?

In a perfect world the producer should get something because it is a body of work and the producer is basically one half of the show in many cases. If the artist is benefiting off the music indirectly by getting show money then there is a value in getting that instrumental from the producer. So you have the emotional side which is the producer wants to be able to work with good, established artists but the flip side is artists are in the position to take advantage of that. Add on the fact that labels are not releasing as many album projects as before means less producers are getting that commercial work so the lack of demand verses the over-supply of beats the artist can just say 'hey take this as a look, I will give you song credit or I will shout you out'.

Because of that the producer has to be smart and say hey ok I'm going to use your song and name and market off of you the same way you're marketing off of my beats. That's where something like the PMP comes in handy because you have a platform where you can say 'hey look at what I'm doing' and after a while you start to build real value in your brand and be able to charge better rates when other artists want your music on their projects. The artists will pay you a better rate because they will want to market their product off your brand as well as making enough noise that the labels start reaching out to you to work on their retail projects. It's never going to be the same as it once was as far as upfront fees for placements but its still good money out there.

Also, thanks to the Internet, it's much easier nowadays to reach the independent artist market if you're a producer that has established a recognizable brand.

Absolutely, I mean anybody in the music business that's not well versed in e-commerce at this point you're definitely behind the 8 ball and that's for any kind of business. Practically every major corporation or company has a website which is usually an extension of their brand offline. If you're a producer and your trying to sell beats or any other kind of music service whether you know it or not you are a business and a company. So just like the major companies make sure they establish an online presence so should the producer and that's from creating your own site, to utilizing the different social networking sites to branding and marketing on specialized platforms like the PMP. Get your Pay Pal going, make sure you got your bank account active and be prepared to get busy.