!Handzup! and Turmic are indie record labels. What does a small
label bring to the game that major labels can't?
Flexibility is probably the most important
thing. When you are 2 or 3 people at a label, then there isn't a lot of
red tape involved. You are also used to dealing with fewer resources, so
you are careful with your spending and each person is in some way
personally involved with the artists.
In what direction do you feel the music biz is heading? Is
everything going to be based online in the future?
have consumed many hours with this
question. The simple answer is that people will not own music in the
future. Everything will be streamed like having a radio with 13175118283
channels. And several of these channels will be your own - complete with
DJ's and your own news broadcasts.
Lets talk about hip hop. Creative sampling has always been at the
core of hip hop music, but how do you feel about the current trend of
sampling old hits to easily achieve top ten positions? Surely we should
innovate, not recycle. Would you have one of your artists use this
"technique" ?
I heard Kanye last night at the Roskilde
Festival and he opened up with "Diamonds are Forever". The audience
loved it, so why would I dis that? What's wrong with doing ANYTHING and
EVERYTHING to achieve a top 10 hit? If one starts talking about morality
in music, then we have lost the whole concept of what music is about.
Music begins with silence and ends with silence. Everything in the
middle is fair game.
There is nothing new to sampling old hits. One of
the biggest rip-off artists in music history was Rossini - and he died
138 years ago. He stole all kinds of shit from other composers of his
day (and often from himself), and guess what? Who got remembered? So,
let's drop all this talk about what's fair or cool or not cool and
concentrate on what feels and sounds good in between the moments of
silence. There are innovators and and recyclers. A visionary knows when
to do what.
What are the current trends in urban signings? A new wave of rnb
sensations has hit us with the likes of Mario Winans and Ne-Yo, do you
therefore feel there is still space for underground hip hop?
There is always space for underground hip
hop as long as there are hip hop artists who are willing to reach into
themselves to find out who they are and share THAT with the world rather
than looking for the pot of gold.
And one last question. If you had to give one piece of advice to
an emerging hip hop artist, what would it be?
Take a hard look at the chances of making
it. See the impossibility of the situation. Get to grips with that
without softening it up with stuff like all I need is for someone like
50 Cent to hear my music. 50 Cent will probably not hear your music or
care about you or your music if he did.
Once you come to grips with
that, and you are in this business because you burn in every corpuscle
in your body for it, then ignore all of that and pursue your career like
you were being chased down a one-way street by Godzilla, Mr. Anderson,
the Alien and twenty ninjas. If your intent is true to your heart and
big enough, then you will succeed. Otherwise you ain't got a chance in
hell.
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