I've lived Brooklyn my entire life. Putting in your tenure in any other city (yes I consider it its own city) doesn't mean as much. If someone told me they were a lifelong resident of Sandusky, Ohio my first though would be "This person is either a successful software engineer or a sex offender" as I contemplate what obligation or mental malfunction is keeping them chained to the land. To a New Yorker, putting in that lifetime in the streets is a declaration of ownership. Every bodega, every lamp post, every musty, unventilated train car is laid claim to by a NYer that has taken their first, menthol tinged, breath in this precious squalor. Having squatted through the horrors of the NYC Public School system longer than it took some of you to accumulate the testicular fortitude to ask your mom to forego your semester abroad and let you kick it in NYC with some of your trust fund money give us licence as unofficial sheriffs of our jurisdiction.
I've know the Fool's Gold guys for years, a an off and on relationship starting back in about 2007 when we threw a holiday party starring a then just bubbling Kid Sister and unknown Kid Cudi. A-trak and Nick Catchdubs are an endless database of music nerditry to some infinite exponential power, which is why we click, the amount of incomprehensibly unnecessary knowledge they hold puts me into a shame spiral as I kinda thought i held that title.
When the guys expressed that they were opening their office/shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I had to put on my sheriffs hat on (not a literal sheriff's hat, mine's more like Boss Hog's from Dukes of Hazzard)
I expressed my concerns (Zoning restrictions, capacity, how much Drum and Bass music you're allowed to have per square inch) but I was lenient on them because they signed Danny Brown. Really quick I wanna tell you the story of how that went down.
It was sometime last November, I was a couple of week's off of convincing Danny let me manage him and a couple of days off of realizing that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing as a manager. We were fielding calls from major labels, Def Jam, Universal etc. but Danny was totally uninterested, soured by his experience on the road with G-Unit, his want was really to be an independent artist, he was content just putting music out for free and hoping to get some notoriety and shows out of it.
To that I responded with a resounding "Fuck that".
I asked Danny if he could sign to any label what would it be and he stated "XL records or Fool's Gold records. XL because they get money, Fool's gold because they get bitches"
I know nothing about either getting money or bitches but I do know the guys a Foo'ls Gold so I immediately hung up the phone and gave Nick Catchdubs a call.
Aside from disseminating some of his videos and records accross the web, This would have been my first managerial action. Had I known this would have been such a benchmark moment I would have chosen a better location to make the call than the bathroom of a Mexican restaurant.
Long story short the convo went as such:
Me: I work with this guy Danny Brown, you should sign him
Nick: Eh. I heard of him, I dig his stuff. Lemme ask Alain and i'll call you back.
a week later...
A-Trak: It's cool, I want to sign him
I call Danny...
Me: Fool's Gold wants to sign you
Danny: oh,thats cool!
Im running around thinking im making boss moves and everyone else is nonchalant like they're signing the deal in sharpie on a blunt rap. Getting the deal was whatevs, the work is yet to come.
Id like to congratulate Fool's Gold on the opening of their Brooklyn space and invite everyone to come check it out on opening day. Me and Danny will be there, probably in a corner, talkin about rap.
It's weird how you can conjure things into existence. Not so many posts ago I was extolling the virtues of Danny Brown and how he was my favorite new rapper, a few posts later i'm writing a post about how he's my favorite rapper and I manage him. At some point i'll have to tell the story of how that came to be, i hope to do it at a point in life where im barely lucid so if i add a few car chases, love scenes and a scourge of dolphins with shotguns tied to their backs, no one will refute my tale.
But this was the first D. Brown song i ever heard:
Metal Gear Solid:
Some endearing shit huh?
Im going to post more about my experiences as a manager just so I can keep my stories in chronological order and so when the revolution of the machines happens and the robots burn all the books, I still have some record that I accomplished something with my life. Or not.
New York is the birthplace of Hip Hop. Everything started here, its the genesis, the holy land. That being said we've become totally complacent. I've never been good with timelines but im great with sweeping, generalized cultural accusations and I would say that there hasn't been a relevant hip hop act out of New York since the planes hit the World Trade Center.
We've spent the last 10 years listening to the cloned zygotes of our favorite rappers, mixtape fodder put out by record companies playing by an archaic business model who use the power of the pen to sign "the next B.I.G." or the "Next Jay-Z" forgetting that at some point, as hard as it is to believe, those guys were new artists, their sound was new, am I supposed to hear the "The next B.I.G" and be impressed? i heard that guy before, his name was B.I.G. so what's next?
There is a total disconnect between the record company and the listener. That along with the digital revolution has doomed record execs to having as much job security as a narcoleptic pilot. All of the rappers they place on the main stage are hovering in the 40 and over range. They may be our idols, but we can't relate.
ok...just went far off topic.
For Hip Hop Mr. MuthaFuckin Exquire is a breath of foul, NY air. A mixture of grimy street shit, mal-intended intelligence and pop culture reference that we haven't seen out of the Rotten Apple since Doom donned the metal mask.
I was talking to friend of mine who asked me why I thought this was dope. I told him its not good enough to be good. You have to be interesting. Some people can rap their asses off technically but also find some why to make you not give a fuck what they were talking about (Slaughter house for example). Visually, Sonically, none of this is new, nothing is really new, but the pool of people you have to compare him if trying to correlate the image and music is pretty small.
I mean who the hell name checks "The American Ninja" Micheal Dudikoff?
Its some weirdo shit, but Its some Brooklyn shit. Im a member of both parties so im automatically sold. Hopefully if record companies still exist a few days from now they'll realize that NY needs a resurgence and start nurturing new talent like this guy.
I may not be the most articulate poster on Hypebeast and admittedly most of my posts are rife with misspellings grammatical errors and and the digital equivalent of getting jelly stains on your book report but i would hope that i would be known for handing out useful information.
Some friends of mine at Gillette, yes the shaving company, have seen fit to get me involved in their effort to hand out some cash prizes for anyone who checks out my blog. I agreed under the pretense that people actually read my blog and that my hit counts aren't generated by a heavy hand on the refresh button.
I've never shaved my face, ever...well once, and I broke out like Harry Houdini in a straight jacket. So after that i was on never again status but if i had known at some point that i could collect $25,000, (Thats right, i did not mis-punctuate, that is a comma, not a decimal point), for consistently taking a blade to the beard, My chin would have looked like Charlie Villanueva's head
All the details are below, (I jacked those graphics oof of their facebook page so the links aren't active, I didn't want to make you feel stupid trying to click on those) talk about it, tweet about it, tell a friend, tell a foe, tell a phone. Most importantly tell them Emeka sent you...No really, tell them I sent you or Gillette might never fuck with me again. If you're submitting or even busting off 140 characters about it on twitter use the hashtag (yes,if fully aware that this is corny) #blameemeka.
You know when people say something is like watching an accident and you can't turn away? Listening to Death Grips is like watching a 24 car pile up on the bridge, then scouring through the survivors personal effects for Subway restaurant punch cards in hopes of scoring a free 5 dollar footlong. Its like taking all you know about compassion, sensibility and previous cognitions of musical theory throwing them into a tire fire.
Right now is a great time in music. The backlash against the reigning pop regime and the major label structure is like throwing chum in the waters for experimental musicians to feed on.
For some this may be hard to swallow, this is uncomfortable music, but Hip Hop hasn't made anyone uncomfortable in a long time.
You've gotta be real smart to get this dumb.
check out the rest of his Ex-Military mixtape at Third Worlds
