Good start to 2013

This week was somewhat busy. It is definitely a good start to the new year. Throughout the week I recorded for 6 artists. Shout out to Beezy BOS!, Skip4Real, Sanzio, RumbleLouie, Slim Deezy Montana, and Youngen for coming through and getting in the booth. I also mixed and edited two songs for radio play. The songs are off of the recent release Winners Circle by Officially Well Connected. They are the two singles off of the album, Winners Circle and Only 4 2Nite. I got the ball rolling on an upcoming show on March 3rd. I had to get the tickets printed so that we can get some pre-sales. we are using self promotion for the show, so we need as much time as possible to try and get people out to watch us perform. We also did a photo shoot and a video shoot. The photo shoot was done by Definition. He did the shoot for myself, Lil Ville, and Sanzio. We used some different locations at Centennial park in Nashville. The video shoot was for Start From Scratch by Beezy BOS! and Skip4Real. It's another song off of the new album. We filmed a story-line based music video that follows them throughout the day. We also collaborated with Get it Right Entertainment to film a few more episodes for an upcoming web show that we are going to start airing soon. On a lil bit different tip, I started pre-production for a project with a rock band. The band name is Indigo Sol. I will be recording a 3-5 track demo for them, and I had to start planning it out. That's my week in a very condensed summary. It was definitely productive and I cant wait to get to doing more this week.

One of the photos from this weeks photo shoot.

The industry track I want to address is the one that got Lupe Fiasco kicked off of the stage at the Inaugural celebration. I don’t want to address whether it was right to kick him off stage, or whether I agree or disagree with his opinions. I am just going to break down the song. The instrumental really captures the emotion of the song, and propels the flow of the track. The synth tracks are very dark and very dissonant. The synths are also kind of all over the place, which puts you on your toes. It also has a piano which sounds semi-sad, and the other half of the piano sounds triumphant. This combination gives the emotion of being pushed down and getting back up stronger. This fits with the theme of the song because he is essentially asking his listeners to stand up for what they believe in, and speak against the government. I also like how he has the gun shots not as a main part of the beat but as an accent to his lyrical content at the moment. He has some very controversial lyrical content that pushes listeners to analyze the world around them and pay attention to the things that are controlled by the government. The reverb and open sound to the drums also puts the feel of hysteria into the track. The snare reverb swells out and back in as if it is trying to put the listener is in a simulated state of shock. I also feel like Skylar Grey has the perfect voice for the chorus. Also, I really like on his third verse how the beat is EQ'd to make it sound distant and muffled, and how that really brings out his voice to be heard. It kind of portrays how if you keep speaking your voice gets louder. I want to end it with saying that I have become a huge fan of Lupe over the past few years. I think he may be the best artist that is currently putting out albums. He is definitely top three of current artists, and in my top five of all time. You should definitely go check his music out if you haven’t been keeping up with it.

For my underground track, I listened to an artist from Maryland that goes by Infamous A-Smooth. The song I listened to was Step in the District. First and foremost I respect all artists, so I try and give them as much constructive criticism as possible. I always listen to the track about 20 times to get a good idea of what to say. I liked a few things about this song and a few things that I wasn’t feeling. I thought the hook was very repetitive. I like the idea of the hook, but maybe switch up a few things on every other two bars. Like instead of "you say you want it you say you got it" every time, come up with another bar and plug it in every other time. That’s just a suggestion though. Also, I don’t think the delay on the dub of the verse worked that well. I thought it took away some of the clarity, and made it a little bit hard to understand the lyrics. Maybe try shortening the delay if you really want to keep it in the track. This would help the clarity issues. I really liked the delivery overall though. I thought there was great energy in the track. I have two more suggestions. First is to get original beats. You need to bring your own style to your own track. The second is to maybe spend a little more on the mix. If you mixed yourself then maybe pay a mix engineer to do the mix next time. If you had someone else mix it you can do one of two things. Either throw them a little more money to get better quality, or if that is their best, then try and find a better mix engineer. I like your style, and it is definitely something to work with. Just having a few things cleaned up will push you to that next level.