shaq the mc
SHAQ The MC - Wheres my copy of the Mixtape (part 2)
Jul 1, 2009
Respect in this industry is hard earned and you can pay dues all your life if you’re not careful. While money talks elsewhere, favors run tings here and respect is the currency that buys them (how some get that respect is for a different blog however). Bottom line is money does not necessarily give you people’s time.
I remember an 'all expense I paid' recording session that got moved around for hours after I arrived because more important artists kept coming to the studio. It was funny, because mine was one of the few names in the book that day. So anyway I kept hearing this humming in the booth that nobody could hear in the studio. It bugged me whole night and the engineer kept telling me it’s a digital studio so I mustn’t worry. Wasn't till I got out the studio and realized that bounty killer was on the front lawn playing dominoes and the baseline from his car trunk was picked up in my headphones and recorded onto the track.... Cho!
So I worked with who’d work with me – mostly. I was to consider myself lucky to get anything out of the studio.
But I digress. I was painting a picture of a time when I was caught between doing everything for myself (much improvisation and learning as I go along at my own pace with my team), or working with people that could help diversify my sound and my networking (but also being constantly lectured about what I should sound like, losing creative control, waiting on the pace of others, and being placed in boxes – old dusty boxes). That is to say, this was the backdrop to ongoing experiments that has transformed what was originally a demo into projects like mix tape 1. – Or ‘Unmixed tape 1’, or ‘mix up take 1’ or ‘were spending so much resources on these they should be albums’ … I dunno - what goes on behind the music? Do you even really care?
So I ask, why am I writing this again? For my own therapy? Ok I’ll accept that. Well you made it this far, I won’t stop, stay with me…
So… S.H.A.Q. The MC where’s my copy of the mix tape?
Its been right here waiting for you…
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SHAQ The MC - Wheres my copy of the Mixtape (part 1)
Jul 1, 2009
Mystory began many years ago; “dropping math in the back of my bio book in the back of my history class”; venomously spit over beats made with fists and broken pens on desks during lunch hour; replayed from squeaky cassettes dubbed over and over on my cheap stereo set from Homelectrix – but I’d say its been official since around 2002.
When I finished one of my first official recordings, ‘I'm coming’, I sent it to Steve Raze at Allhiphop’s ‘Breeding ground’. I expected that the witty lyricism and genre fusing production would surely stick out like a crossover hit and 'buss me' after getting his immediate thumbs up. I was quite disappointed by his response…
‘You just need work overall with flow lyrics and production…’
I didn't take it to heart though because quite honestly it was at a time when I was feeling very alone in Jamaica as a hip hop artist; everyone else was lame, production was even worse, and nobody wanted to hear it. More so if you had an American or British accent - “who cares if you’re multicultural, you’re in Jamaica. Do dancehall...You know how many kids on the streets of New York can spit… How would you be different?”
Originally I was trying to finish a demo on industry beats to shop to record labels anyway. My thoughts were global not local. I figured since Puffy and Dre still hadn’t found me yet I’d help them out and do as much as I could by myself. The unfinished demo started doing its rounds though and eventually I met up with people like Kabir Bonner, Mainsource Muzik, Rohan Dwyer and Adrian Locke. Everybody listening was encouraging me to work with local producers and fuse my cultures. Bring out more of the yard flavor and finish the demo with original beats they’d say.
So I started experimenting. When I really got to thinking outside the box however, most didn't want to take all my ideas on board - as if it wasn’t my music. Amidst a lot of rejection and criticism (even my own at times), people eventually started opening up to it. But it was an uphill struggle and I wasn't quite getting the results I wanted. No, I'm not talking airplay and all of that yet, I'm just talking about getting it out of the studio the way you have it in your head. In the Jamaican experience the artist has very little creative control, and the business, well that’s none of his business. Until you achieve a certain status you are more like a cheap commodity or a nuisance.
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