Day 1

Last night we were in the studio with Cincere (www.myspace.com/1cincere) working on some new material. We got about 3 or 4 songs already written that we have slated to work on and last night we started working on the first song called "You Don't Even Know My Name" Cincere's been out of the studio for the last couple months since recording his demo performing, working out and working on his vocals (I hope), so yesterday was the night that we were going to put this young kids growth to the test. And I must say, last night was a whirlwind of vulgarity (the word NiggerFaggit was thrown around at least a hundred times, I expect it will make a triumphant return tonight for Day 2) coupled with musical brilliance; held together by a mid session trip to Carl's Jr. to keep our creative juices flowing. By the end of the night we had most of the Hook done and the kid responded fairly well to the pressure. But this is only the beginning....hahahhaahaha (Sinister Laugh)

Hip Hop, Love, Money, Teachers...Def Poetry @ Its Best

I was in a Poetic mood and wanted to post some Poetry that really hit my soul. Enjoy.

Def Poetry Jam

Hip Hop

Sick & Tired

Favorite Quotes from this poem:

“Sick of people acting like slavery doesn’t effect the present states of black in this country, when Slavery was erased with a 450 year head start for everyone else”

“Tired of master p speaking on behalf of hip hop when he represents nothing but everything that’s wrong with it”

“Sick of George Bush acting arrogant about his ignorance”

“I wanna drop kick minorities (people of color) who vote republican”
Black ice on Def Poetry Jam

Favorite Quotes from this poem:

“America makes you an opportunist and at the same time institutionalize you, so that fact that these brother get this big record deal, big money and then they go to jail shouldn’t surprise you, that’s what lies do, most of these guys do have raw talent, just infantile education, so the business feeds them weed and exstasy, and a little bit of paper to provide some pacification, from all the bullshit frustration they serve you, meanwhile they corrupt your perception of the what the real is, see they taken all our businessmen and made them into drug dealers, taken all our messengers and made them rappers, flappin they jaws afraid to admit their treason, took all our soldiers for the cause and made them killers for no reason“

“ They still flooding our streets with thugs, drugs and killing they just using these record labels to do it, taking our hard earned demos, puttin us in limos tryin to fuck up our direction, and most niggaz is trained to chase money and pussy so we fall victim to our own erection, and ignorance is bliss and niggaz take pride in not knowing, and not growing”

Money (first appearance on Def Poetry Jam)

Money
This Type Love

A Love Like This
Taylor Mali - Def Poetry Season 1 Ep. 2 - "What Teachers Make"

What Teachers Make

These are the types of Teachers we need teaching our kids. Teachers that are truely passionate about teaching and those that hold the kids to a higher standard and implemement accountability not only for the students but for the parents as well. This is what our schools lack (especially those in the inner cities) and I pray the next wave of young teachers can find that passion within themselves, or get out the way and let the real teaches guide the children of this nation. Because the kids in these schools, in these classrooms today will be the leaders of this country one day and that day will come sooner than you think.

Behind The Music

So the soap opera that is my life running this record label (with my cousin) continues…the world keeps spinning and so do these artists heads….With respect to the artist that I deal with, I will refrain from using their real names when venting with hopes of not hurting their fragile little egos or causing unneeded drama. Let me properly frame the situation….hmmm….I went out and found this artist and started working with him, for the intents of this blog we are going to call him Dr. Doolittle. Because that’s what most of these artist do (little), and expect us as the label to do everything for them short of wiping their ass. And when we decide to make a business decision they wanna start a fuss and start trying to act like they are the ones losing sleep, breaking their backs for the label and their demands need to be met. When obviously it’s the other way around. I explained to Dr. Doolittle before we even started doing music , exactly what type of business we are running and what we expect from him as an artist and what he can expect from us as the record label. With all that said, he claimed he understand and we start working together . Dr. Doolittle whom we are writing, producing and recording all of his music has finished a whopping 2 songs in the first 2 months of the 90 day trail period that we have him under before we decide to sign him. And we’re thinking that everything is going fine, we would obviously like to have finished more music finished but we trying to allow the artist to get into a rhythm and not rush him. So one session the artists, Dr. Doolittle (22) says that one of the songs we gave him to sing is too mature because it mentions sex. He said that he didn’t want to sing the song because it may alienate him from the younger audience. And we are like What?? Its plenty of artists with young audiences that mention sex….Chris Brown (18) “Take You Down”, Pretty Ricky got a whole song about Phone Sex, Ciara in her song “Promise” said she wanna ride it….So that’s completely inaccurate and just a showing of the artist narrow mindedness and lack of knowledge on how the business really works. But we don’t wanna be jerks or assholes, so we like O.K. kid we'll work with you, and we agreed that we can tone the shit down. Even though we knew the artist was wrong. But we came to an amicable agreement anyway or at least we thought we did.

Next thing we know the artist doesn’t show up to his next studio session, stops answering the phone and stops returning our emails. So we're sitting here confused like "what is going on?", and then his manager calls us and wants to talk about the artists creative control. Creative Control???? 2 songs in 2 months, 0 money earned, Hours of unpaid studio time racked up, No records sold, the artist is in the Red (in debt) and Dr. Doolittle is demanding creative control?? We're not unreasonable men, but we are not going to grant creative control to unproven artists who don’t even have their facts straight. So the manager’s argument for why Dr. Doolittle should have creative control is because that’s just the way he is.…..WTF? That’s it…that’s all you got, nigga please….this Is a business, I don’t give a fuck about that shit. I have to do plenty of shit in this business that I may not want to do and I wont put the burden on the artist, I'll suck It up and keep the ship moving forward because that’s what it takes to be successful. Cant Stop, Wont Stop ( I hate to quote a puffy song but its true).

A MUST FOR SITUATIONS LIKE THIS (800 MG's)

Then the manager starts griping about how the artist doesn’t want to drive home late at night after the studio sessions, so can we move the studio sessions to an earlier time…..FUCK NO….Niggaz got jobs, if our jobs let us off @ 9 then the studio session is at 9:30 and that’s out of our control. But who cares about staying late in the studio, If you’re really trying to make it in this industry then you will stay late, sleep in the damn studio if that’s what it takes to get a major label deal. There are hundreds of thousands of artists and new ones poppin’ up everyday that are all competing for the same plate of food. This is an ultra competitive industry! You have to be willing to work harder than the next man or you will be passed up…I guarantee.

Hard work beats talent, when talent don’t work hard!

Cut the shit. When this is something you truly love, then its not work. I love to do this shit, so staying up late nights, over night, in the studio 2 days in a row non-stop, its nothing to me. Difficult takes a day, Impossible takes a week, I can do this is my sleep. Because I'm focused, determined and humble enough to work for free now, so that in the future I can get paid to do this. You wanna know about humility and hard work read Russell Simmons book “Do You: 12 Laws Of Success”. It’s a great read and its very inspirational. A must read for anyone thinking of getting into the music industry on any level.

Back to the story so the manager says he is going to discuss the things we talked about with Dr. Doolittle and he’s going to call us back. Its been a week and we haven’t heard shit, no returned phone calls, no returned email. Nothing. Honestly, I still don’t have a problem with the artist, if he wants to come back and work hard with this music and understand his role he is welcome. But obviously since he hasn’t contacted us then that must not be what he wants to do. Looks like another 2 months wasted and the search for the next American Idol continues……

The Weekend

So this is my first blog , so I guess I should start by just letting everyone reading this know about me and my life, so they can get an understanding of what they are getting themselves into. Im a college student currently at Cal State Northridge studying Health Care Business Administration, Im a Producer/A&R/Exec for Movin Heavy Entertainment, a Record Label that me and my cousin Travis (AKA Versatyle) run and are currently trying to get off the ground. So that right there should let you know that music is a huge part of my life. I also dable in acting and hosting, I was cast in a Christian Idependent Film called "Puzzle" and I played the role of a character named Uppity. Acting in the film was a fun experience and I am definitely excited about getting the chance to do another film. I am also a dancer and have a crew of dancers that are my close friends, our crew is called the Sexaholiks.







For more on that check us out on youtube....just type in sexaholiks....and it should all explain itself from there. So I guess thats all you need to know up to this point , everything else will be shown in due time......the wait is over, lets start the show.



This weekend I had off, so I did my usual...Hit the Studio. I was up in there with Ray Montana (rapper) and I got a chance to hear the final mix of the 3 songs we produced for this young cat we work with names Cincere's (19) demo. He wrote 2 of the songs and we wrote and arranged the 3rd one. Check em out www.myspace.com/1cincere

I dont think he has any of our music we did with him on his page but he should soon. Here's some photos from our studio session with Ray Montana , my boy Tre was also in the house for the session.












Then we hit the club!

These girls told me I looked like Omarion (LOL) and they wanted to take a picture with me. I had my camera on me as usual, so I said fuck it might as well take a pic with my cam too.



It was a very funny night. Drank tooooo much though, felt like shit in the morning.....but I guess you live and learn.