Ebone Hoodrich – Why U Lyin (Prod. by Chase Davis) (2012)
With MTV in town to shoot throughout the city and throw two separate shows, this week has been pretty crazy for Chicago rap; King Louie announced through a Source interview that he had signed 2 or 3 mo. ago to Sony/Epic, dropped the “Val Venis” track he’d threatened a few months back, and more than a few other artists dropped some must-downloads as well.
DGainz just posted his complete production discography to his facebook page, and I checked with him to see if he’d be cool with me copying it over here so it might be more available to the general public / more googleable. So here is DGainz discography, as provided by the man himself:
Lil Kenny – Fresh N Fly
Lil Kenny – Swagg So Official
Lil Kenny – Let Em Know
Lil Kenny – I’m What It Is
Lil Kenny – I B Silly
F. Dot – Real Nigga
Choppa Da Goon – I Go Hard
Buck 20 Brick Boyz – We Ain’t Mad
F. Dot – Welch World (For Tha Hood)
DGainz & F.Dot – Waddown
DGainz feat. Vic Mone- I’m A Monsta
Choppa Da Goon feat. Sam u L & DGainz – Ya Man Ain’t Gotta Know
Buck 20 Brick Boyz – Neva Talk 2 Feds
Vic Mone – So Many To Choose
Choppa Da Goon – On My Grind
Billionaire Black – I Swear
Vic Mone – Still Goin’ In
DGainz & Billionaire Black – Wanna Be Me
Evon & I’man – Big Wheels
Vic Mone – They say
Sdot & Choppa Da Goon – Dat kush
Vic Mone, Billionaire Black & DGainz – Hypnotize Me
Billionaire Black – The Intro
Lil Durk – I’m a Hitta
Lil Durk – Gotta Go Hard
Kay One – Original
Billionaire Black feat Brittany & Sashagohard – Trust Me
DGainz feat. Buck 20 Brick Boyz, Vic Mone & Lil Durk – We Ball
Vic Mone- Same Ol’ Hoes
Vic Mone – Back In Dis Bitch (Murk Em)
Buck 20 Brick Boyz – Get It On
Sam u L – Stamina
Billionaire Black feat. 50 Shots – Rappin’ & Robbin’
Shady – Go In
Vic Mone – 9 5 Crazy
DGainz – Not At All
Choppa Da Goon – We On Live
DGainz – Canon Camera Shawty
Vic Mone – Too Good
Chris Mille – What’s My Name
Rocky Kicks – Magic “32
Chase N Dough – Double Moments
Buck 20 Brick Boyz – No Comparisons
King Louie & Boss Woo – Money Dance
King Louie – Where The Bitches At
Lil Durk – Fly Wit Me
King Louie – New Soul
YOU CAN FIND ALL THESE SONGS AND MORE @ YOUTUBE.COM/DGAINES1234
IF YOU NEED A BEAT HIT UP DGAINZ TWITTER.COM/DGAINZBEATS
Full admission: I’ve barely processed the E-40. Dropping a triple-album imbalances my carefully-balanced song weighing system. So he just gets mentioned at the top.
30. Sweetz P f. M.O.E. and Link, “Trippy” (Prod. by Cardo)
29. Fat Trel, “Intro (By the Way”) (Prod. by Kane)
28. Dapp, “Headache” (Prod. DJ Kenn)
27. Sasha Gohard, “I Think I Like” (Prod. by Young Chop)
26. Action Bronson & Riff Raff, “Bird on a Wire” (Prod. by Harry Fraud)
25. DJ Kay Slay Feat. Torch, Gunplay & Ace Hood, “Got Damn”
24. Ty Money, “Ready to Ride” (Prod. by OKBTZ)
23. Kendrick Lamar f. Gunplay – “Cartoon & Cereal” (Prod. by THC)
22. Chief Keef f. X-Mane Shawty, “Save That Shit” (Prod. by Young Chop)
21. Feva f. Husalah and Franchise, “Handsome”
20. Lil Durk f. King Louie, “I Get Paid” (Prod. by Fya Starta)
19. Cash Out, “Cashing Out” (Prod. by DJ Spinz)
18. DJ Paul, “Cocky” (Prod. by J. Green)
17. BJ The Chicago Kid f. Kendrick Lamar, “His Pain” (Prod. by Sounwave)
16. Lil Durk, “L’s Anthem” (Prod. by Paris Beuller)
15. Young Thug, “Keep in Touch” (Prod. by London on the Track)
14. Lil Reese, “Haters” (Prod. by Dibent)
13. Teairra Marie f. 2 Chainz, “U Did That” Remix (Prod. by Rico Love)
12. 8ball and MJG f. Big K.R.I.T., “We Buy Gold” (Prod. by Big K.R.I.T.)
11. Gucci Mane f. Rocko, “Plain Jane” (Prod. by Mike Will Made It)
10. Jackie Chain f. Collie Budz and Jhi Ali, “Nice and Slow” (Prod. by Block Beattaz)
9. Nicki Minaj, “Beez in the Trap” (Prod. by Kenoe)
8. Chief Keef, “3hunna” (Prod. by Young Chop)
7. Starlito, “Substitute” (Prod. by DJ Burn One)
6. Chip Tha Ripper, “Out Here” (Prod. by Lex Luger)
5. Rick Ross f. French Montana and Drake, “Stay Schemin’” (Prod. by Beat Bully)
4. Gunplay, “Jump Out” (Prod. by DJ Speedy)
3. King Louie, “Bars” (Prod. by C-Sick)
2. Dr. Dre f. Kendrick Lamar, “The Recipe” (Prod. by Scoop Deville)
1. Chief Keef f. Lil Reese, “I Don’t Like” (Prod. by Young Chop)
Albums (incomplete – still have a bunch to fully process)
Boldy James, Consignment
Tree, Sunday School
Lil Durk, I’m Still a Hitta
Schoolboy Q, Habits & Contradictions
Jackie Chain, After Hours
Feva, Pay Da Fee
Gucci Mane, Trap Back
Young Thug, Came From Nothing 2
Rick Ross, Rich Forever
I wrote about Chief Keef for Gawker a week or so ago; my initial draft had been considerably longer than space would allow — this was a very rich story, with a lot of different angles that I wish I could have gone into in more detail. There were definitely some ideas and quotes that I thought readers might find interesting, as well.
I’ll be answering some questions that piled up on the somanyshrimp tumblr after I publish this, so if you are curious about this story, feel free to ask through tumblr.
On DJ Kenn’s early influences and arrival in Chicago:
Kenn, who declined to give his real name for this article, is originally from the Yamagata Prefecture of Japan. He produced the beat for “Bang,” as well as several of Keef’s other songs. He discovered hip-hop as a teenager living in Japan, and became a big fan of Dr. Dre, Nas and Cam’ron. (“[Stillmatic and Come Home With Me] are classics to me,” Kenn said when asked about his favorite performers. “I used to listen to those every day.”) When he turned 18, around 2005, Kenn moved to Tokyo, and within two years followed a friend to New York City. “I always looked up to him,” he explained. “He was doing music with people [in the U.S.]. I was like, I want to do music like him.” The United States completely changed Kenn’s perceptions of hip-hop. “Right here, everything is life-sized,” Kenn said in a thick accent. “Radio, parties, or even clothes, anything. This is real. In Japan, it’s different. People get older and they start to listen to it. Right here, it’s like babies listen to hip-hop, they grow up with the rhythm.”
Kenn had planned to just spend a year in the United States, but within ten months of moving to New York, he flew instead to Chicago. He spoke little-to-no English, and knew no one in the city; he just knew he wanted to make music. He was wandering through Woodlawn, near 60th and Indiana, when a man discovered him and found him a place to stay. His name was Keith, and he was Chief Keef’s uncle. “He took me to an apartment right there across the street”–Kenn gestures out the front window— “and I stayed over there and started to do music. Keef came through, [Fredo] Santana came through, and we started recording.”
First impressions of 11-year-old Chief Keef
“First time I came to the studio, I didn’t fuck with a lot of people. But when Keef came to my studio, I was like, this boy…” he trails off, gesturing, as if to gather thoughts he hadn’t put into words before. “He’s different. Even how he talks, how he acts, how to rap [sic]. He was only 11 years old but he was different than everybody. How he talk, how he’s thinking …. [He] always comes with something new. Everybody is trying to do somebody [else] — no disrespect to anybody–but Keef, each song he comes with something new, just him.”
Breaking into the High School audience; the influence of DGainz; shooting the video for “BANG”:
“We used to pay attention to what Bump was doing. They was out hardcore in the streets.” In 2006 and 2007, Doe and Louie used to burn CDs and distribute them by hand: “Schools, bus stops, El stations, parties we would go to.” One of Louie’s earliest tracks became famous throughout the network of East Side High Schools when the star rapped about all the girls he had slept with, naming names. Lyrics and catchphrases could spread like viruses; Doe quotes a particular King Louie lyric. “You could walk up to anybody on the South Side this summer, ‘roll up the dope–’ [they respond] ‘where the bitches at.’” He continued: “There are so many schools on the East Side. The Kenwoods, the Dunbars. And the CPS’s (Chicago Public Schools), once you’ve got those, they spread around throughout the communities. Each person from that school might be from a different area. So they go back to that area and spread it. It’s like a domino effect. And the East Side has been at the forefront of that movement for a long time.”
King Louie’s rise coincided with the arrival of Duan Gaines, a hip-hop producer and pioneering street cinematographer who goes by the name DGainz. “I was working with my little cousin, producing and writing for him. The songs were nice songs, everybody liked them. I said, we need some visuals to them. So I bought a camera and it came natural.” DGainz is a humble 23-year-old, untrained in cinematography. He’s also the driving force behind Chicago’s underground street-rap scene as it’s made its way to the Internet for the very first time. His success was rapid and influential, and much of it occurred in the past year.
DGainz received a big boost when he was contacted by Louie this past summer. Louie had become the South Side’s biggest local star. Once DGainz dropped a dark, cinematic visual for Louie’s “Gumbo Mobsters,” the floodgates opened, and artists from across the city wanted a DGainz video. One of these artists was Chief Keef, who contacted DGainz directly through facebook.
They met at A.O.N. studios, which was located in an apartment and run by DJ Kenn. The video to “Bang” was shot in 30 minutes in the backyard of the studio. “I just wanted to give it the look that it sounded [like]. It had a grimy sound to it,” said Gaines. By the time Keef’s Bang mixtape was released in early October, the video for the title track had 70,000 views. By New Years Eve, that number would surpass 400,000, largely, according to YouTube statistics, through mobile views; kids were watching the videos on their phones. It had become the runaway hit of DGainz already-impressive videography.
Katie Got Bandz on her goals as an artist:
Katie Got Bandz, whose “I Need A Hitta” has in the area of 95,000 views to date, has been performing at dance halls, clubs and sweet sixteen parties since her track took off earlier this summer. Shot by Citi Boi Skills, another of the street cinematographers to rise in the wake of DGainz increased notoriety, the track made Katie — whose real name is Kiara Johnson — a local celebrity. She says she first noticed that her song was taking off when she started getting negative feedback. Like many of the artists behind these videos, there was no calculation to her success; her motivation to pursue a more serious career came from the sudden fanbase that urged her to keep recording. “I don’t really care about the fame or the recognition,” she says earnestly. “I want people to respect me for who I am, not for where I’m going, or just for the work people know me by.”
I spoke with a high school teacher who observed these artists popularity firsthand:
Lydia Merrill, a high school art teacher whose former students included both Katie Got Bandz and Sasha Gohard, could see the artists’ success firsthand. She first heard about Chief Keef through her students, prior to his appearance on WorldStar. She knew a few of her students were aspiring rappers, but it wasn’t until students started inquiring about a particular self-portrait hung on her classroom wall that she realized how big they had become. “Students were always asking me if that was ‘Sasha,’ and I would correct them saying, ‘no, it’s one of my former students, Yaniesha.’ Until one day someone told me about all the videos.”
On violence in the communities:
Alex Riley argued that this was simply the lifestyle of kids in the area: “Honestly, from where I grew up, and a lot of kids my age growing up, they have guns. Kids keep guns on them because they’ve got to protect themselves. And these kids be bad as hell, they do a lot of bad shit, so they can relate to what he’s saying. And ALL of them smoke loud. I’d say every kid born ’92, ’93, all the way up, only smokes loud weed. So everything he’s saying, they can relate to. That’s why they’re so attracted to it.”
Big Homie Doe echoed this sentiment. “It’s sad to say, but that’s what happens. That’s what goes on. A lot of these kids—people like me, Louie, Keef—grew up around situations like that. It’s sort of what people know. It’s not like people [are] looking on the TV and emulating anything. A lot of the gangster shit and all that started in Chicago, dating back to the Al Capone days. It’s deep-rooted here in Chicago. Even all our politicians are locked up. It’s something sort of in the water and especially in the blood of people here….Because if you’re there with them yourself, and be around [these neighborhoods], you’ll see what’s going on. And you’ll talk about the same things, too.”
Chief Keef on rap style:
“See, motherfuckers think I can’t do metaphors and ain’t about metaphors and punchlines. They–” he gestured at a fanbase, outside the apartment, “don’t want to see me do that. I don’t sit down and ‘think,’ I write about what’s going on right now, what we just did, what just happened. That’s what I write about. I don’t be trying so hard. I used to, ask him–” he points at DJ Kenn. “He told me to stop! Kenn was the reason. He said, ‘stop saying so much.’ That’s why I got comfortable and started–” he’s interrupted suddenly by someone knocking at his door; he signals them through the window, banging a vase against it to get their attention.
Chief Keef gets into rapping:
Keef grew up in Woodlawn, just a few blocks east of his grandmother’s residence. He attended Dulles Elementary at 63rd and King Drive, and all the people in his videos are people he’s known since he was young. His grandmother is a school bus driver; his mother still lives in the neighborhood. (“Fuck my dad,” Keef said brusquely; Keef has a daughter of his own now). Keef was raised on hip-hop; he remembers first hearing Beanie Sigel and G-Unit, and his earliest memories of rapping were into an old karaoke machine when he was around nine years of age. “Little-ass kids, about ‘05, ‘04. We used to freestyle, I used to be so cold, even when I was a little shorty. I used to be freestyling raw as hell! See now my brain’s fucked up from smoking so much loud, but I was raw! We had the blank tapes, put ‘em in there, got the little mic, got the beat playing, the weak-ass beats and shit. Called ourselves Total Domination.”
Chief Keef on his favorite rappers:
Since his sudden national breakthrough, Keef’s found some allies in unexpected quarters. In addition to avant-weirdo Lil B’s appearance on the “Bang” remix, critically-acclaimed rapper Danny Brown showed some enthusiasm for Keef recently on Twitter. But Keef’s hip-hop aspirations are well within hip-hop’s mainstream. “Gucci, Soulja, Future, Tity Boi, Young Jeezy, Yo Gotti. That’s about it,” he says about his favorite artists, before adding that in Chicago, all he sees is King Louie and his friends from the neighborhood. Later on, he raps the hook to Fat Trel’s “Respect with the Tec,” a song from another young, rising artist. Trel became a breakout street rapper last year, in part thanks to his own singular visual presence on YouTube.
DJ Kenn on being an outsider from Japan:
“To keep it real, it made me realize this is a whole other country, this is not Japan. And–I cannot speak [well]–it made me change a lot. Sometimes it was too bad. I used to think you can trust anybody, I was trying to be positive to everybody. It made me think, you can’t trust nobody. But at the same time, good friends are good friends for real. No matter what. It made me strong.”
News broke yesterday that Chicago rapper YP signed to Universal Republic; in light of these developments, I’m publishing an interview I did with him YP back in the fall in preparation for my piece on hip-hop for the Chicago Tribune.
Where are you from in Chicago, and did you grow up there?
I came from the East Side of Chicago. South East side. South Shore area. I grew up on Ridgeland, shit like that.
Do you remember what the first tape you ever bought was?
I had to be in like fourth grade, I bought Reasonable Doubt. That was the first CD I ever bought.
What year was this?
Had to be ’96.
Right after it came out then.
It was that year.
When was it you knew you wanted to start rapping? How old were you, when did it happen?
The first time I picked up a pen? In 2007. It kind of just was like … it was something I just tried, and people told me I was really good at. So I took that, took what they were saying and just ran with it. I felt like it was like—the more repetition you put into something, the better you’ll get at it. So I feel like the more and more I was able to get into the lab and get songs done, the more people were attracted to what I was doing.
How many releases have you had? I’ve heard two of them – Still Awake and No Sleep. Do you have other releases?
Yeah I had two releases prior to that. One was a mixtape called Next Up. I had partnered with Sean Mac and DJ Head Debiase of the Affiliates. And then one right before that, an album called Classified. I used both of those to build myself a foundation, an organic following. Wanted people to be able to follow along. Like, you just heard No Sleep and Still Awake, I hope you heard the growth between the two records?
Absolutely, yeah.
Just trying to upgrade myself as much as possible.
Do you see yourself in competition at all with other rappers in Chicago?
As far as competition goes, I feel as though we all are competing. At the same time, I feel there’s enough to go around for each and every artist to be able to thrive. I don’t feel as though each Chicago artist rides [in] the same lane. I don’t think that we all have the same following. So we all have different organic followings that we all can attack on our own. At the same time, of course, this is a sport, we’re all competing, right?
When you first started rapping, which particular rappers– which styles did you find yourself attracted to? What artists did you find yourself drawn to?
The influence that I had wasn’t direct, it wasn’t like I experienced any one specific style and mimicked what I was doing, what happened was when I was just starting to rap, I was unconsciously just sounding like people I’ve been listening to, because I’ve been saying for so long. SO I didn’t necessarily have a certain formula to go along with, so I just kind of came into my own sound by listening to everyone who influenced me.
What were some of the names that influenced you?
I had the greats. The quote-unquote greats, that everyone else listens to, the Jay-Z’s, Nas and Biggie’s, Big Pun, the Big L’s. See my brother is like twelve years older than me, so I grew up listening to all forms of hip-hop, from the MC Ren’s all the way to the Q-Tips. So it was kind of cool to me when Q-Tip kind of cosigned me, like, “we straight,” you know? He was one of the dudes that influenced my style. Then I had people from Chicago of course, people used to always say I sounded like Bump – free my big homie – but they would say I sounded like Bump J, or…I always listened to Twista with “Adrenaline Rush,” all the Chicago players. ‘Ye. I kind of use everything that I listened to and learned, and influenced my stuff.
I didn’t hear the story about the Q-Tip cosign – how did that happen?
I actually got cosigned by Q-Tip and Raekwon. But Q-Tip heard some music of mine back in 2010, and I went out to New York to meet him. Someone had told me he was a fan of my music. So I went out to New York, that was like my first time going out there. He just told me that he rocked with my movement, and anything I really needed from him– just to make sure that I stay in touch with him. Which I still do. I use my cosign, as opposed to me just using them for a song or two, I use them as like, guidance, you know? What can I do to better my situation. They’re very helpful, in that aspect. Raekwon and Q-Tip both.
Have you talked with them about performing?
I actually just performed with Raekwon on three dates. For the Rock the Bells tour, I believe it was. I opened up Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Detroit. Every time Raekwon comes to Chicago I usually know, we make it up and we speak and I give him a CD of all my latest material and say “let me know what you think.”
Do you think that there’s a Chicago element to the way that you rap?
I think there is a Chicago element within my music. You can hear it in my language at times, like, I might say little things like “cholly” or “mellow” or “jack,” in my conversation so it’s not just strictly like a punchline, or this and that. I have people who come up to me all the time like “What down, Jack,” I had a song that was called that. So I implement my own slang into it, or whatever slang I come up from within the city, and I implement that in the city. Words like bustdown, you feel me. It’s stuff like that. It’s little stuff that I throw in as much as possible to make people know where I come from. Always listening to the Lake. Always. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life, Lake Michigan.
I was going to ask too, now that you and King Louie are getting a fair amount of attention– I was wondering if, you guys are both from the East Side, but you do have pretty distinct sounds. What would you say is the difference between you two, would you have different audiences, would you say?
Louie is the homie. I’m glad that people are giving Louie the attention that he deserves, because he’s really been grinding for a very long time. I remember when I had shorties coming up to me talking about “What that Mouth Do,” which is one of his songs that he came out with a couple years ago. I’m real glad people are catching on and following his movement. As far as our audiences, I think we’ve got some of a similar audiences, but like… I don’t think my fanbase is blocked by his fanbase at all, because I don’t think we sound the same. I think– I’ve NEVER heard anybody that sounds like Louie. Louie has his own style. I don’t think it’ll ever come a time where my fans will expect me to sound like Louie and Louie’s fans will expect him to sound like YP. I think our fans expect us to sound exactly how we’re sounding and keep growing. I think momentum for both of us is real big right now. Momentum is real huge right now for both of us.
Why do you think it is that two of the rising rappers in Chicago are from the East side?
I don’t know man! East is crazy, man. We got a lotta hitters over there, a lot of people that can rap. It’s a lot of talent throughout the entire city. It just may be the particular timing right now. And what we might be saying right now, it may just be gravitating a little more, at the time [to the east side]. I can vouch for it being a HUGE amount of talent throughout the entire city, though. South, East, North, out West, it’s crazy. I think we all will get our just-due shine real soon.
What other rappers – obviously you and Louie are big right now, LEP – are there any other rappers you think in Chicago are really killing it right now, have the potential to move up to that next level.
Yeah, definitely. I don’t know if you’re familiar with my little bro Rockie Fresh, he’s been going crazy. He just got cool with Patrick Stump from Fallout Boy. And my homie Big Homie Doe. He’s actually on the same label as King Louie, FLY Ent. I know he’s got some projects scheduled coming out. I know Bo Deal is doing real big with Chicago. He’s affiliated with Brick Squad right now, he’s moving. You got GLC, Marvo. There’s a couple, there’s a lot that’s doing what they do. And I heard Mikkey Halsted has some real big news to announce to us real soon. And the list can go on and on and on.
For a long time it seems like street rap in particular didn’t have – it seemed like Bump J was about to cross over, and then he got into the situation he’s in right now – but it seems like Chicago’s street rap hasn’t had the profile it has since the Do or Die or Twista days. What do you think it is that it seems like street rap, there’s a lot of guys coming from that perspective that are rising now. Do you think there’s a reason it wasn’t happening five years ago?
I think it’s a combination of everything, but it really all just boils down to timing. As much as everyone has grinded. Everyone that I’ve named, we’ve all taking the grass roots base to really getting out there. There hasn’t been any overnight success. There have been times, where it hasn’t been the peachiest moments, where it hasn’t been the best of moments, as far as the underground scene is concerned. I feel like it’s getting its just-due because everyone just got on their own, grinding, and starting to make people see, starting to get out into the light. And once you start to do that, you start to open up the light for others. And as long as others are doing their job, which is what they want to do as far as music is concerned, once the light gets shown on them, you have no choice but to be taken up. It’s just always about being prepared. A lot of us were very prepared for the situations that we’re in right now. I don’t know what it could have been, as far as not giving us the attention – I’ve heard stories that it’s “Chicago cats are so grimy,” “you can get your chain taken,” so the quote-unquote industry kind of shunned away from a lot of us from what I heard, due to those kinds of activities. But I mean, it all boils down to somebody’s manhood. As long as no one is disrespected then those kinds of things don’t happen. You know what I’m saying? No one comes into a situation just looking to disrespect you. If that’s the case then the person don’t belong in that situation! But I think…this music is a lot of people’s lives, there’s a lot of stuff at stake here, a lot of lives. If you get in tune to the artists, you can see they’re just trying to feed their families, just trying to get out of the situation that we’ve been in. I don’t think it’s necessarily about just disrespecting a person. Being on your [unclear] and just getting your stuff done. Being prepared if you ever get that call. I know we all trying to get them calls [laughs].
One last question. I think everybody’s kind of wrestling with this right now, no matter what level they’re at. A lot of rap music isn’t selling like it used to. My impression is that it’s not that it’s any less popular. Online, a lot of rap sites still get tons of hits, tons of listeners. People just aren’t paying for it like they used to. The exception of course was Lil Wayne… Do you see a path to success for yourself outside of sales? What do you see as a path for you?
I feel like a couple of main avenues of success for me would be live shows and merchandising. I feel like long gone are the days where talent is heard. Nowadays talent is seen and heard. Every five seconds, when someone says they seen YP, I see someone pull up their phone, and go and youtube and try to see my video, trying to see what YP is really about. We’re out of the tape era, where people walk into a place where we’re like, ooh, listen to this guy I just heard on this tape! Without pulling his other stuff up. So I think the best thing to do is get your visual game up, the way for success is, like I said earlier, those organic followings. They build. Once they build across the country and stuff like that, you’re able to tour, get your money, brand yourself, sell your t-shirts, anything of that nature. That way you’re able to succeed in it, have longevity. So many artists these days worry about the pop formula, the microwave success. It’s a way to get their song on the radio. But I feel like when you just get your song on the radio, as opposed to when you do other songs, people don’t buy into you, they buy into the song. So when the moment is over for that song, you’ve got to come up with another one. As opposed to just being yourself and just coming out with the music that you come out with, and making the people buy into you. That’s really what I’m focused on, I think that when you make them buy into you, that’s when you get the longevity. I want to tour like Hov, man. I heard Jay-Z was overseas, in the same concert with U2, with like 500, 600 thousand people out there! I want that. That’s over ten years after he dropped his first album. I want that, man.
What do you have coming up, any videos, another record?
I just dropped a video yesterday called “Rewind Time.” I’ve got another video for a song I have that’s getting a little bit of rotation right now on a couple of the stations in Chicago called “Who I Be.” It’s basically an introduction to who I am. I actually have a crazy amount of videos coming up, like five or six more. Then—as far as projects are concerned, I’ve got some things I really can’t speak to prematurely on, but I can assure my fans that it’s real dope. Really pumping Still Awake right now. I got [unclear] copies, just got back from Atlanta, think we dished out 2000 copies down there. And just making sure I get the groundwork up, it’s like Jenga. If your foundation ain’t solid, it can fall real quick.
