Edumacation?

So late last night I was on a conference call with my manager (@diamondent) and heard a guy say something that kinda got to me. He said that you can't be a college student and a rapper at the same time. That school would take you away from music and that eventually you'll either fail out or just stop rapping completely. Now, I for one don't agree with this. I have two college degrees and I'm still doing this. I still found time to hit the studio, pass out fliers, research marketing techniques, rehearse, and stay on my grind. At the end of the day, if you want something bad enough, you don't have any excuses. Matter of fact, you don't even think that far, you just do. I'm here to tell you guys that I'm a living example that you can get your degree(s) and still rap. Also there are major artists out there that went to college and graduated with degrees such as; Common (Baton Rouge), DJ Premier (Prairie View A&M), Talib Kweli (City University of NY), Paul Wall (University of Houston), Mos Def (City University of NY), and Killer Mike (Southern). There are also artists that attended college but didn't finish, however, they did attend (which may be the reason they even became great artists); Lil Wayne (University of Houston) Kanye West (Chicago State University) Cam'Ron (Navarro) and Chamillionaire (University of Houston). Having an education gives you an edge over the competition anyway especially if you are trying to build your own label or learn how to read jargon (look that one up). So hit the books and know that it'll help you in the long-run

All-Together-Now

Now this has GOT to be one of the illest collabs of the year, if not the decade. I posted a question to DJ Willtothe (@willtothe) and asked him what would happen if everybody pushed they're egos to the side and came together on tracks. Do you know how much money you could make if you and another artist got together and joined forces and fans. If he has 100 fans willing to buy and you have 100 people willing to buy, that's 200 cds you guys can sell together. (by the way, if you sold each cd at $5 a pop that's $1000 you guys made. wow) Now Wayne has showed that he broke into everybody's iPod just by collabing with every artists on the planet. Now what if YOU did the same thing. Instead of charging everybody, how about you do it for free and start attracting listeners from other states. Now you got fans all over the country, and if you play it right, you'll have fans all over the world. (i.e. my first mixtape INFLUENCE: The Mixtape got me fans from Budapest and Australia, mate!) You want to do a show in Seattle, find a local artists and collab with him. Set it up to so when he comes to your town, he can perform with you, and when you go to his, you can perform with him. The possibilities are endless. You said we all can't get along!

Lil Wayne-No Ceilings Review

Free Promo

"ITS A RECESSION, ERRBODY BROKE!" Yes indeed, so how can you break into a market where the power of the dollar is weakening. Well, you turn and use the resources that are available to you. I know I know, that guy around the corner is printing up shirts, mixtapes, and fliers like crazy. And, you should take this time to utilize your best weapon, your brain. Ask yourself, what can I do that is going to be so different from what everyone else is doing that'll put me out there and I won't have to spend all my money to do it. So that guy is passing out fliers right? How about you take advantage of the cold season and pass out hot cocoa packets with your website written on it so people can relax next to something warm and check out your music. That duke has like six mixtapes every quarter huh? Pull a Lil Wayne, get on other people's mixtapes for free. Use that myspace page and ask other artists if you can jump on their mixtape for free and do a couple tracks. Yeah yeah he got shirts, so what!? You know how to talk to people, you don't need materials to promote all the time. Trust me. But, once you do get your money up, go ahead and invest in them with your new skills. Diddy is one of the best promoters on the planet cause he's always thinking ahead.

Time for you to do the same.

Sir-Mix-A-Lot

I just thought I would share my 2 cents on mixing tracks, since for the majority of the time, the real work comes from the engineer. Let's be serious, for someone to sit there and get the sound just right and satisfy the artist, the producer, and the a&r's is just down right skillful. So as I sit in my personal studio mixing tracks for my upcoming mixtape entitled, "City Lights" which will feature Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, Drake, and 50 Cent, I start to realize that no matter how great your equipment is, mixing takes time. For instance, let's say you have a condenser mic and don't have a pre-amp and you're using sonar. No matter how great your mic is or what plug-ins you have, it means nothing without actually getting in there and listening to every bit of the track. That's right Ha-Styliens, that means listening to every dub, adlib, and effect by itself and mixing it. Now of course, I know you know people that just don't mix and just pretty much press their material up and distribute the material as is. But just imagine how much greater their sound would be if they took the time to mix the track. Its a good idea for when trying to mix a hip hop track to make sure that the 808's (bass kick) and the bass line (bass melody) is hitting, and I mean hard. If the track doesn't have any bounce to it, you just pretty much ruined your first impression. I don't care how pop the song is, if your name starts with Lil' or Young you need to make sure you have a track that will have they heads ringin (Dr. Dre). When I recorded the demo for "1899", the song was lacking as far as a full sound. However, the DJ I was working with knew that it needed that 'hit' and when we got to a professional studio it sounded great before we even got it mixed by a trained engineer. Also, a tip I learned from an old roommate of mine, try to dub your vocals and pan one track to the left and the other to the right for a fuller more surround sound feel. That's all the tips that I'm giving out tonight.

Mixing is a key to a great track. Go experiment and most importantly

HAVE FUN!

BET Awards

Okay, okay. Yes I confess, I was one of the many thousands of people on twitter giving a play-by-play on what was going on at the BET awards. (shouts out to @djmerkmusic and @dorroughmusic for actually being there) The night started off right with Jamie Foxx acting up every time he got on stage, but after Beyonce's outfit, the jokes just poured in. Let me name off some of my concerns and opinions for last night.



1.)Why in the hell did they have a teleprompter 20 feet away from Don Cornelius in size 12 font?


2.) Did Jamie Foxx REALLY have to wear his little cousin's pants all night? I mean, I understand a tribute, but don't sacrafice your balls in the process.

3.) WHO IN THE HELL LET THESE BABIES ON STAGE WITH WAYNE!?

4.) Why did all the washed up R&B artists (except Trey Songz) have to speak between intermission? (Were they subliminally throwing punches)

5.) Doesn't Trey Songz look like Michael Andrews little brother?

6.) Does T-Pain feel threaten after Jay-Z performed DOA?

7.) Shouldn't there have been more Michael Jackson tributes?

8.) Aren't we all waiting on the Skank Robbers film?

9.) So pretty much, every R&B artists should hang it up after Maxwell did a spilt in his performance?

10.) Have you seen this man?

"I'm a Beast, I'm a Dog"

I woke up this morning with something on my mind. Now before I go into it, I don't wanna hear any rumors of Ha-Style hating on Lil Wayne or that I'm dogging him, this ain't even really about him. This is about the women out there that know about a guy that sleeps around, dogs women (not saying Wayne does), and still sleep with the guy. Honestly, you can quote me on this. This whole situation with Nivea and Lauren London is beyond stupid. (TMZ can holla at me now) Nivea has already had bad history with Lil Wayne cheating on her, and Lauren London basically grew up with Wayne. So why did these two beautiful women lay down with the same duke that's walking around with a song with a chorus that goes, "I'm a Beast, I'm a dog?" What makes it worse is that they got pregnant. Don't care if you guys are getting mad about this, cause I'm way past that, i got sisters homey. I grew up with women doing that same thing since I was 10, real talk. So ladies, I wanna know, like I REALLY wanna know. What makes a guy that puts it out there that he's slept with multiple women and will do it again so attractive?

LET ME KNOW!!!!