Barry Coffing of SpringBoardSouth

SpringBoardSouth is a three-day music festival that will be held May 4–6 at CityCentre Houston, off Beltway 8 West and I-10 near the old Town and Country Mall. There will be 45 bands showcased on two stages. Barry Coffing, founder and owner of Uprising Entertainment and MusicSupervisor.com, is the brainchild.

Where did you get the idea for SpringBoardSouth?

You know, I grew up here, went to the High School for the Performing Arts and had bands and I sang stupid Astroworld jingles… I did pretty much everything you could do in Houston and then I traipsed off to L.A. for the last 20 years. And when I came back, I saw that not much had changed. I went out to L.A. reading all the books, and nothing worked like they tell you in the books. So I brought an organization out here called NARIP, which is the National Association of Recording Industry Professionals. About two and a half years ago, I opened up a Houston chapter and what we did was networking events every other month, and on the off-months, I would do a big panel, and I’d bring in social media, radio promoters, managers or professionals in the music industry. Their main focus is educating the pros. And there’re some great people in town, but most of them – you don’t know they’re here! We have some really great people here, but they’re few and far between and they’re spread out.

Don’t you think that’s changing everywhere, though, in recent years?

Well, I’ve been connecting them like a mother. Every time I balance my panels, I would see that there are guys for everybody there. But I got disillusioned with the panels a little bit, because I’d put together these amazing panels and it wasn’t having the effect that I was looking for. Even if you put together a good panel, somebody walks away with three great ideas, you’ve put together a great panel. But it just wasn’t interacting.

So why CityCentre? 

With CityCentre I got the opportunity to do a festival on training wheels, because you’ve got a really upscale great place, they’re willing to not sell tickets – it’s a completely free festival. Now you’ve taken out half of the hassle, promoting it and getting tickets, getting buy-ins and all this – and it’s Cinco de Mayo. They’ve got an art festival on the Sunday. Before we even really start marketing, we’re going to have 50,000 people there over the three days. So – voila! I’ve already solved half the problem. I couldn’t pass on that. And my real vision – what you’ll see this year will be maybe 40 percent of what I have planned. You can only pull off so much in short order. But the idea of SpringBoard was to take artists that are at a certain level, and bounce them to the next level. “Hey man, these guys just need a little push, so let’s see if we can give it to them,” as a community and as a festival and everything.

How is the stage setup there?

Well, they’ve got an outdoor stage that’s beautiful… it’s like a grownup Disneyland. They’ve got these giant fire pits – it just looks incredible. It can hold a few thousand people real easily and comfortably, and then, ringing the stage, almost like a horseshoe, are all these restaurants and bars that have patios with umbrellas and things like that to keep them out of the sun, and you can sit and have a drink and watch the band.

www.springboardsouth.com

Interview by Lance Scott Walker | Photography by Anthony Rathbun

JusTice AllaH

Tell me about the new record.

Well, basically, the record is called Yesterday’s Eternal Tomorrow Today; Y.E.T.T. for short. You know it’s a good little type slogan, and the whole gist of it is… it’s looking at my life specifically, but you know, I always put things in the perspective of everybody. When you look at your life through that rewind, you always look at it through what already happened, you know?

Yeah.

The experiences of yesterday, and these experiences get burnt into your mind eternally. And then we have this hope that tomorrow, everything’ll be alright and all the shit we done yesterday will be cool. Well, we control that today, so… it just started off as a thought. About my yesterdays, and how I didn’t wanna go and somehow tomorrow, you know not bein’ a hundred percent, all the way, one thousand percent happy.

There seems to be alternating currents, of a sort of regret and hope on the record.

Yeah, well—nah, I wouldn’t say so much “regret” as just… reflection, because in order for me to get to a good tomorrow, then I just have to stop beatin’ myself up and stop goin’ through the bad experience and start to see these as being all good. Because it was a learning deal. It was all just things that you know for sure about now. Can’t nobody school you about certain things versus listening to yourself. I did look at the things as bad, you know, before that, but coming into working on this project, I started lookin’ into it was all good because it helped me to know the things that I wouldn’t do again. The things that, you know, I’m doing right now to make sure that everything tomorrow is gonna be… great.

Right.

It’s like a rhombus. I would say it’s not a circle. We was talkin’ the other night about how we go in 360 circles and end up in the same place you was when you first started out. So it’s kinda like you’re just going from one destination to another, from dissatisfaction to satisfaction.

What did you do different musically this time?

Well, this time, you know, I did a lot of production on the album. And in the past, you know, I kind of sprinkled the production around. This time I kinda dominated the album with tracks that I produced, and I made it a more musical project. It was all really about the music first, before any of the ideas came or concepts or anything, it was all about listening to the music and growing with these tracks is what moved me, and move other people. So I think musically, this album is more rich than the prior projects might have been. You know, they was kinda more lyrically-based and ideal and conceptual in nature. But this album, like I said, it’s pure music. If you just strip the words off, you’d still be able to listen to this and it would tell the same story I feel.

Melodically, did you know what you wanted to do in advance or did you just kind of figure this one out as you went along?

Well, I kinda did have an idea in mind because I’d always wanted to do a project where I took like soul music and just, you know, created the same type emotions that I feel like Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield might have created when they went in and recorded the music that they did. I know it was music-based, and all that music made me feel a certain kind of way, so I did have that idea in mind, to try and create that type of landscape for people, and you know, just came together, and I discovered—well, I ain’t gonna say “discovered,” but I was able to prove to myself beyond the shadow of a doubt that my will is real and that everybody’s will is real, because it’s really just seeing it in your mind and wanting it, and then it all comes together. You don’t know how. And that’s what happened with the project. I really didn’t know how. I just wanted it.

www.the144elite.com

Interview by Lance Scott Walker

Photography by Anthony Rathbun

PAUL WALL

After coming alive nationally in 2005, rapper Paul Wall took advantage of that recognition and branched out into collaborations with artists from all over. That brought him back and forth from California for a couple of years, an exchange that opened his eyes to some developing health issues. On New Year’s Day in 2010, he emerged from the hospital having had gastric sleeve surgery, and has been vocal about how right his decision proved to be.

You’ve been really open about your surgery. Did you experience some fans connecting with you on that? Some people who got inspired to go the same route?

Yeah, definitely. Fans and also other entertainers, too. For me, the reason I wanted to be so open about it was because of all the… the way it was perceived, to get surgery like that, as being vain. And for me, it wasn’t for that purpose solely. You know, part of it is I wanna look good, but it wasn’t like I’m getting’ a thousand plastic surgeries on my face and you walk around looking like a fish. For me, I’m trying to save my life here, but at the same time better my life and feel good about myself. Anytime I see people who have the surgery, they’re always real quiet about it or kinda seem ashamed of it. And they don’t want people to know. But I feel completely the opposite. I’m proud that I got the surgery. If you see how I look before and how I look now, I look like a million bucks. That’s how I’m feelin’, too. So I’m proud that I got the surgery because of the results of how I feel as a person but also, I would hope to inspire somebody else to know that there’s another side to it. It’s not just the embarrassed, the shamed side people get, because people will be like “oh, he got surgery—that don’t count.” Not talking about me, but talking about people that had surgery like that. There’s always something negative that goes along with it, but me, I want to portray it in a positive light, to let people know that you can have surgery, too. I wanted to make a change, and I was doing everything in my power to try to lose weight, but where I was at it was… if I wouldn’t have had the surgery by now, I would have probably been another hundred pounds heavier. Just ’cuz the lifestyle I was livin’, and even though I made dramatic lifestyle changes, I wasn’t losing any weight. So, I don’t know, I just wanted people to know there’s more to it than that. There’s another side to it. You know, I don’t feel like there’s nothin’ wrong with getting’ the surgery. I was 320 pounds!

All that sneaking up on you before you’re even 30.

Hell yeah! Gettin’ on planes feelin’ dizzy, performin’, feelin’ like I’m about to pass out. You know, as I’m performing, praying, “Man, I hope I don’t pass out because I’m gonna be so embarrassed if I fall down on stage.” If it wasn’t for my homeboy motivating me to do it… he was tellin’ me “Man, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that surgery. Don’t be thinkin’ you should be embarrassed by that.” If it wasn’t for him encouraging me to do it, then I probably wouldn’ta did it, and I might not be here! And everybody woulda been talkin’ about me: “Aw, man, Paul shoulda… man, he was too big… why didn’t he get surgery?” That’s bullshit. They don’t say that ’til you die.

 Look at Big Moe.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly, man. Exactly.

But you’re not the only one, and we look at people like Slim Thug, he’s also trimmed up, and then Killa Kyleon – do you feel like it’s an overall thing, do you feel like there’s kind of a movement towards a health consciousness in rap music or in Houston in particular?

I think, yeah, definitely, and some of that comes from watchin’ our heroes fall. First from DJ Screw, and Pimp C, and then Big Moe, and all of them are health-related. Drug kinda-related.

Lifestyle-related.

Yeah, just lifestyle-related. I was living that same lifestyle that they’re livin’, even though some of us might be doin’ the drugs a little more than others, some of us might be eatin’ unhealthily a little more than others, some of us might be exercising a little less than others, but we’re all livin’ the same lifestyle, and it’s just – it has an effect on you, where any of us are vulnerable to that, and you don’t realize it until it’s too late. Or until it’s damn near too late.

And then it’s a real uphill climb. 

Yeah, exactly, man, and part of – you know, when you get your health together, a lot of it has to do with momentum, the momentum you have with it. And if you feel like the battle is lost already, and you don’t have any hope for it, it just makes it that much tougher to overcome.

paulwallbaby.com

Interview by Lance Scott Walker
Photography by Peter Beste

two star symphony

L-R: Margaret Hullum Lejeune, Debra Brown, Jerry Ochoa, Jo Bird

Local string quartet Two Star Symphony, which consists of Jo Bird (viola), Jerry Ochoa (violin), Margaret Lejeune (cello) and Debra Brown (violin), have a lot going on in 2012, their 10th year as a band. They recently completed a score for local filmmaker Mel House (with plans for another), next month they’ll make their 3rd straight appearance at SXSW and they’re planning a tour for this summer. Debra Brown talks 2012 and a bit of their process.

When Two Star Symphony is scoring something, do you practice together in the studio?
We have a projector, and we just project it on the wall in front of us and watch it over and over and over again.

So you don’t really discuss what you’ll do, you just let it kind of come out, kind of flow?
Well, sometimes … or if we’ve written something and one of us is questioning it … we’ll stop and be like ‘is that really the feeling of what’s happening?’

What happens if you’re scoring something like Harold Lloyd and you start laughing while you’re playing?
We love that. We’re kind of known as a little macabre or dark by some people, but there’s always humor in our music as well. Our main composer is our cellist – most music starts from the cello or the viola, like the lower ends come up with a lot of the bass lines, and then we write on top of that. But her dream from a little kid was writing cartoon music for spooky stories, so that’s basically what we’re doing.

How about when you score a dance piece?
We still watch everything, luckily. Dancers were in the studio as they’re choreographing the pieces, so sometimes, just like with the Fat Tony project, which I really like, sometimes they’ll ask us to play a piece that they’ve heard before, and we’ll play section by section, and they’ll stop us as they’re choreographing. And then other times, we’ll see the movement, and we have to write on the spot to the movement as it’s happening. But so far, with us scoring new films instead of old silent films, we score by the scene, which is a little bizarre, because there’s no pretext for what’s happening. [In Psychic Experiment], we score a scene where this man is walking into his apartment, and there’re clothes strung about, and you can tell he’s concerned about why there’re clothes everywhere … he’s saying this girl’s name over and over again, he’s following the clothing down to the bathroom, and there’s a girl and a boy in the bathtub together and it’s full of blood, and they’re making out. And obviously, the guy that’s standing there, it’s his girlfriend in the bathtub, but then you find out through the scene that it’s her brother that she’s in the bathtub with, making out. And she’s like ‘isn’t this how you always pictured it?’ or something, and then their flesh starts melting together, and then their heads explode, and that’s the end of the scene.

And you’re like ‘oh! I’ve got the perfect idea for what this sounds like!’ Speaking of the collaboration with Fat Tony last year – any more plans for that sort of thing?
I really love hip-hop music. Three out of the four of us really enjoy hip-hop music. Our violist is more metal and punk rock, but she did enjoy the project as well. I hope that some more will come from it. We actually got to meet – we’ve been a big fan of Devin the Dude for a long time and we were playing at a festival in Bergen, Norway, and Devin was playing around the corner and our cellist talked our way into a sold-out show by saying we were from Houston, and through everything getting lost in translation, they thought that we were friends of Devin The Dude because we were from Houston, so they let us in! Then, a good friend of mine, Matt Sonzala, was his DJ for the night … so we got to hang out. We haven’t gotten to collaborate with Devin the Dude, but we’re kind of stalking him.

Get him one of your tattoos.
We’re pretty sure we’re the only string quartet that has matching tattoos, and that now has 26 fans with our tattoo on their bodies (laughs).

That was for your Titus Andronicus record release last year, right? That all happened on that night?
No, I think maybe 15 people happened on that night?

That’s a lot of people to get a tattoo of your band.
Yeah! There were still people signed up, but we ran out of time that night, actually. There was a mother and daughter – a 17-year-old with her mother, who was like ‘okay, we’ll get it.’ It was her mother’s first tattoo, and then she agreed to let her 17-year-old daughter get her a tattoo also!

Two Star Symphony performs at Leon’s Lounge
(1006 McGowen) on February 28, from 8-10pm.

hollywood floss

You have a band [The Fabulous Pinecones] that you play with sometimes when you play live. Do you get to do a lot of practicing with them?
I use the band for more festival environments and high-profile shows. I’m always preparing two different sets. I have a DJ set and then I have the band set, so if it’s like Summerfest or ACL, I’m gonna bring out the band and practice on what we need to do and have extra songs just in case the crowd’s not feeling the direction we’re going in at that moment. We try to mix it up with blends and mashups of like The White Stripes or Green Day or Weezer… you know, just to have fun with those types of festivals that allow for that audience. For the DJ set, which are more kind of like the cool people who really just go to shows to be on the scene – they’re not really there for the music – we have the songs that appeal to that audience as well.

Do you feel like you’ve got a different energy when you play with a band versus playing with a DJ?
Nah, not at all! You would think so because live energy also brings just that different level of energy, but I mean, I still do push-ups and I’m still on the floor with the DJ, I’m still trying to jump on something, I’m trying to crowd surf in a mosh pit. For me, I don’t have a drop-off. It’s just… what do you prefer? It’s hard at small venues to get the band to sound as good as the big venues, so it’s kind of like… I don’t wanna bring out this band and then no one can hear the words or the music the way it’s supposed to be heard. But it’s like… go to the DJ set and have the same energy, it’s not a drum or anything else. It’s just already mixed music.

Do you find your rhythmic sensibilities of the way you rap changes at all when you’re playing with a band and you’ve got that natural shift in the tempo rather than having it locked in like a record?
Right, of course, as you know, when the drummer’s off or the drummer goes slower than what the record is played, because the way they quantize and everything’s ready to go, you have to make up for that. So if the drummer’s off, you can’t just stop and yell at ’em, or he can’t yell at you. You just have to adjust. There’s been a lot of times when people thought that was just supposed to go like that, but… it really wasn’t supposed to go like that, we have to adjust on the fly.

Those are the things that make
you better, too.
Because you prepare for that. Whatever’s thrown your way, you gotta be good. You gotta be professional enough to handle that.

You’ve gotten some buzz over the last year and a half, with the blogs writing about you, XXL and The Source… how do you keep your head straight? Because it seems like you have. You’re working as hard now as before you got any attention.
I think it’s seeing my older cousins lose focus. I don’t know if it was 2000 or 2001, but my older cousins were on a small label called Unified Entertainment, and I saw them get to that radio status, and then once they got on the radio, just on the radio in Houston, they stopped working. They would go to the clubs and they would sit in the trailer and I remember back then it was The Roxy or Coco Loco, and they would stay in the van. Fans were trying for autographs and I was like ‘man, what are you guys doing? You’re blowing your opportunity.’ I mean, not knowing it, I’m just there, observing it, but looking back I’m like ‘man, y’all really blew an opportunity.’ I mean, looking back now, XXL is nothing compared to the radio. I gotta keep going until I can do this for a living. I still have a day job, so I have to make sure I’m doing everything in my power to make this happen for me and my team, so I’m doing it for a living. When I see XXL… most people think ‘ah, I made it.’ You haven’t made anything.

You have to work 10 times harder because now if you put out a song and it’s wack: ‘why did he deserve XXL?’ So you have to work harder in this day and age. Someone’s always around the corner to take your spot. You can take my spot, but I’m just gonna be right there battling for it. I’m not just gonna hand it off.
Do you have a day job that provides a nice balance, where you can write a bit while there?
Not really! I mean, I’m a school teacher by day, so not really. I’m dealing with kids from 9-5. They really test your limit, and you know, maybe on my off period – maybe – but that’s just 40 minutes. Maybe get an idea, or surf the net to do something, but, no, it’s a 40-hour job and then I come and have to really get into that zone, so I have to work that much harder.

What age kids do you teach?
7th and 8th, Special Education and middle school.

It’s amazing you find any time
to write at all.
It’s crazy, but when you get off, after they give you the run and they wear you down, it’s like ‘okay, this is more of a reason why I want to do music full time!’

What’s your New Year’s resolution?
I’m gonna put out some mixtapes, and then I’m gonna put out an album in the summer. My birthday is August 4th, so I wanna put out an album in the summer. It’ll be just under a year for a new album, so I’ll put out a new album on my birthday. Other than that, I’m gonna put out some mixtapes and then go to South by Southwest. So I wanna make sure that I’m doing videos and I’m doing music every month to get to the fans, whether it’s a 5-track mixtape or videos to accompany those…

I wanna get more involved with my videos and more music to the fans.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun

Tyagaraja

Tyagaraja plays acoustic guitar and sings, and Gunjen Mittal employs a mixture of classical and modern Indian dance onstage when they perform, often joined by a wide cross section of Houstonians on everything from sitar to lap steel. This month, they are off as a duo on their second trip to perform in India in as many years.

By time folks are reading this, you’ll be on Indian soil and you’ll have performed a couple of dates after a long preparation. Where will your head be at that point? Do you plan for that part of it?

Tyagaraja: Wow, well… I try my best to completely live in the present moment. Especially going to India, whether I am performing or seeking pilgrimage and silence, I simply concentrate on my breath and allow my feet to feel the rhythm of the earth and be guided toward the path that opens up to us. I do also recognize that this is very special and I respect this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity enough to know what is at stake. It is my responsibility to conjure motivation and make use out of every single second we spend in India and to make use of the support we have received from back home to even get here in the first place. We intend to completely make the most of it. The moments that pass in India are absolutely precious; I have so much unfinished business, so many places to see and rocks left unturned. We are making loads of plans, and still the majority of it will be done once we reach India itself. It’s a total experiment, and to me that’s truly Living…  

Gunjen: At that point there’s really no telling where our heads will be. As Tyaga mentioned, we’ll just go wherever the path unfolds for us or wherever we feel drawn to at the moment. Mainly though we’ll be hitting the ground running once we get there, continuing to make contacts and planning for more shows. I do feel that there won’t be much time to stop and reflect much in Mumbai because it’s such an epicenter of Indian pop culture, art, music, film, dance, etc., and we have to keep up! After all, we’ll be in the “Big Apple” of India!

What’s the biggest difference between the audiences over there and anywhere here in the States?
Tyagaraja: India’s audience is hungry for music and art. The people there are also constantly blossoming and flowering with it. India has its own obstacles and struggles just like any place on earth, and at the same time it’s completely booming right now. There is a huge underground indie rock scene; of course hip-hop and dance music is there too. The mass audiences are way more open to experimental and avant-garde music and performance art. That’s where I think we fit in. As diverse and interesting as music is here in the U.S., I feel that the style of show that we share will be more understood by the Indian audience, and hopefully that will help spawn the interest and understanding we need in our U.S. audience. 

Gunjen: From my experience in the dance and now music scene, it seems that the U.S. has a lot of catching up to do. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way, but there’s a cornucopia of music, art and dance artists and events going on outside of the States that Americans aren’t even aware of and they’’re being followed by thousands and millions of people. And the kinds of things going on are far more advanced and/or progressive. Once it reaches its popularity elsewhere, America usually catches on after the fact. On the other hand, I know that Americans (including myself) are also just as hungry for intellectual and progressive art, music or dance and there are a lot of amazing things happening right here in Houston as well. But sometimes we really have to seek it out as opposed to having full and easy access to the arts. Not to mention, our public transportation system (or the lack thereof) doesn’t help in this equation of linking the public to the arts or any other necessary social services for that matter! In many foreign countries the artists have a lot more governmental support to fund huge festivals/events no matter how underground the scene. There’s an appreciation for art that goes beyond the audience or the individual artist, which is integral to its success. Indian audiences also have that sort of access to all kinds of music and dance. There’s an intense underground fusion alternative art and rock scene brewing in India for the past decade or longer that may even be considered a sort of artistic rebellion, which is good for us because we’re all about the Revolution! So the audience is definitely ready for something crazy to come along with some depth and unique individuality to take them on a “Glory Ride” (title of one of Tyagaraja’s songs) because we bare our souls when we perform and we can only hope that they experience that as well.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun

Ashlei Mayadia

So tell me about your record. The Mayadia Project is slated to come out this month?

Yes, end of November. It’s basically my first solo album. It’s been a work in progress. I’ve been a poet, I’ve been an actress, I did a couple of poetry shows when I worked for this independent theatre company back in 2003, 2004. I did two poetry shows where it was my work; me presenting it. I had a dancer and a guitarist to help me with some sounds and stuff and did like about a 45-minute to an hour show of me doing my poems. This is my first time taking all of me and putting it into song form and presenting it this way, so it’s been a while. I started the project in 2007, right after The 144 ELiTE’s AgreeAbles +vs- DisAgreeAbles was released, but life has to happen in order for these things to come through.

It does.

It does, so it’s taken years, but I’m really, really excited about it and I’ll probably have about 11 to 13 songs on it. I do have some poem songs where I begin the song melodic and then it ends with a poem. It’s basically the story of Mayadia, which is me, and I guess my awakening. It’s a lot of looking into yourself, getting over some hurdles and bumps, some hip-shaking music, some things you might bob your head to.

What did The 144 ELiTE teach you as far as song structure, peeling back the layers and putting together the pieces of a song?

Well, The 144 ELiTE was so unique, that project, because me and JusTice [AllaH] had just met Dope E and K-Rino and everybody and we were all just hanging out in Dope’s studio for days and days and I just watched how the vibe worked. I watched how you tune in, and I watched how you keep writing. You might write a verse, but you keep writing until it sticks. It really is like a feeling. I understand the formula and stuff like that for pop music and radio music. I understand that. But I really learned with 144 ELiTE is breaking some of those molds, and just really tuning in to what the music is saying, and allowing yourself to just write. I think that’s one of the biggest things. I just watched these dudes bust out 16 bars. They just write. They don’t judge. They just write and write and just come back and keep going. I watched 144 ELiTE come together organically, and then JusTice was doing Supreme Mathematics around the same time, so I really learned a lot about allowing it to be channeled, so to speak. I don’t think the guys would use that word, but they’re channeling. They’re reaching in from some place and pulling this out. They’re pulling it out. They keep working and keep creating, and I really respect that work ethic. That really taught me a lot, to just keep going. I didn’t beat myself up for not sticking to the timeframe I had.

You’ve got to. Those are the songs, and that’s the way they come together, but the way that the album unfolds is another.

I got Independent Music 101 with the 144 ELiTE. Putting songs in certain orders, how you want them to flow, and the whole concept of an album actually having a concept. A whole piece to it instead of having an album that has songs that really are not related in any kind of way. Kind of like a salad as opposed to a gumbo, going back to the idea of presenting a body of work that is a connected thought.

So then what’s the connected thought of The Mayadia Project?

Free yourself, fools! (laughs) That’s basically what it is, because as I put it out there and I started doing songs, I just… that’s my essence. I’m an only child, a weird little… I can be alone by myself and talk for hours and days at a time and I don’t care. You really get into the space where you really allow yourself to be who you are. Loving yourself unconditionally. Being able to even look at the everyday, mundane things and see the magic in that. The magic in growth. I have a song called “Sea Legs,” that was a poem song. I had this hook in my head, this little bridge in my head that came to me in ‘07 or ‘08 and I was like ‘damn, I wish I had some music to go with this.’ And then it starts to come together… basically “Sea Legs” is about me being a mermaid of sorts, deciding to get out of the water and get on the land so I could walk. Letting the air sustain me instead of choking me, because a lot of times you start to realize who you are, even the bright stuff and the dark parts of it… you can get really afraid of it. You want to polish things up. And I really found a peace in allowing myself to not know. Allowing myself to not be perfect, allowing myself to be free in whatever it is. If I have a childlike outlook, like an optimistic outlook, it’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that I’m naive, it just means that… it’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to go there. It’s okay to want that, and actually cultivate that in your life, as opposed to having to have a chip on your shoulder and be a roughneck, to put walls up that don’t allow people to accept grace and love when it comes to them. For real!

By Lance Scott Walker

Photography Peter Beste

KB Da Kidnappa

What’s different about your new album Army of One?
Army of One has a lot of different flavors on it, not necessarily patterned from Street Military style. I kinda put my own little twist to things and kind of experimented a little bit so I could get different opinions and different views for my fans.

Well, you’ve heard a lot and can bring in what a young artist can’t necessarily bring in.
I ain’t old, man. I still consider myself fresh and new, and I understand the nature of the business and I understand marketing and the fact that we can’t put some of these youngsters at fault for not knowing who some of the older artists are. I always tell people, ‘Look, it’s not their fault; you can’t blame them for not knowing something they don’t know until it’s presented to them.’ That’s why I never give up. I never listen to people when they tell me I can’t do this, and when they say ‘old school,’ I don’t listen to none of that. I still promote myself as a fresh artist. That’s why I be getting the type of results that I get, because of the way I think. I believe in the law of attraction. If a man think it, then so is it. If you say you’re old, you’re old. You are what you say you are. I’m still fresh and relevant.

The game has really changed in the last 5 years…
To me, things have changed, but the basic foundation and blueprint are still there. Getting out there and promoting, doing your legwork. Taking time out to make a complete album – not worried about what’s going to be the next radio hit or changing your style up to meet the standards. Because everything is sounding the same.

You used to be able to listen to something and kind of be able to tell where it’s from.
A lot of the artists around the country are really following after what’s hot at the moment. You know, if this dance song is hot at the moment, then everybody’s flockin’ to do a dance song like that and try to make their stuff sound like what the industry is allowing in and accepting. But me, myself and I and the crew of people that I associate with, we’re still in control of our own destiny and makin’ the type of music that we want to make. I wanna be able to have creative control. Always. That’s why I’m still in the position that I’m in, but it’s a good position. It’s a CEO position. That means that every record that I sell, that money goes straight to me. I’m not waiting for a middleman to pay me, I’m not waiting for a company to pay me. As soon as the money comes, it comes right back to me. That way I can manage it back into my career, like how I want to. A lot of young artists coming up don’t understand that. The industry isn’t really teaching them the game. They’re teaching them what’s hot, and raising them to skip the business part and just think about being a superstar without really knowing the business end of it: how you get paid, how you get your royalties. Street Military, we went through a lot of that. We was young, we didn’t know the business at a time when we were real, real hot. And we got taken advantage of, but throughout the trials and tribulations of going through that, now I have a different perspective about the business, and I look at this music now like real estate. I wanna have a catalog that I own. Ain’t nothing like owning your own catalog and being in control of your masters. I wanna let every young artist coming up to know it ain’t about bein’ a superstar. It ain’t about having the fame, because you can see people out there getting’ fame, and their song is being played everywhere, but if their paperwork ain’t straight, then they won’t have what you think they should have. They’ve been making slaves out of artists since the beginning of music. Either you can have creative control and be in control of your destiny, or you can leave your destiny in the hands of somebody else, and that ain’t always a guarantee.

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography Anthony Rathbun