Family and Friends

I am passionate about people; I have come to realize that it is a attribute of mine that is both a strength and a weakness. As I learn more about the nature of life and spirit and the mysteries of myself I realize that the people in your life that are closest are your greatest teachers about SELF. You learn who you are in the way you respond to and interact with those close to you. Many Buddhist traditions teach that the people in this lifetime that are you are drawn to most whether they are friends or family have often reappeared from past lifetimes. A sibling could have been a lover or even an enemy or a best friend a sibling in a past life. The point is that certain energies attract one another and we interact in this life, in my belief mainly to evolve the soul. So even though I have had many rough times with my friends and even some family members; I must say that for the most part, if I have attracted you to my life then you are for me in some way. You could be in many moments a vehicle for me to suffer enough to learn to make a change in myself and who I desire to be around. You may reveal in me an understanding of my own selfishness, or my own beauty. Either way, I appreciate and love you all.

After a meditation the other day I had this overwhelming feeling of love in my whole body. Love for my life and the experience that I have had so far being me. Love for the people in my life that I have been so lucky to be on this journey with. I walked out of my house soon after my meditation and ran into some friends of mine that I haven't seen in long time and they were carrying there new born son. Big up to Pierre and Jamyla Bennu (www.exittheapple.com) and there beautiful son Osse (I hope I spelled that right.) I want to take this time to acknowledge all of people who are close to me. I love you all!!

Shawn

Floss Scandalous!

I'm back in Brooklyn, well Manhattan at the moment. My trips to LA have always been really really productive. I actually really like LA for what it is. I had a great time kicking it with Sol, Rayzak and Donray. I went to a couple of cool parties and made some outstanding connections. One stand out was a really cool pool party that I went to at fashion designer, Lotta's crib in Hollywood. I had a blast, that party reminded me why folks choose to live in LA.

The reason I flew out to LA was to meet with this famous producer (who shall remain unnamed like a Harry Potter villain) to talk about possibly running his label that he has under Interscope. I have to say; I was really impressed with this dude. For one, I liked him and that's rare for me with music biz types. Second, dude is really really smart, and the new stuff that he is working on is going to surprise folks. He's not making millions producing records for nothing; I got it!! Anyway, we shall see how things progress with our conversations. It's seems like it's going to take a herculean effort to close this dude; cause it seems he has a lot of folks pulling on him. I really like dude and the challenge has me motivated to go after it.

I also had a chance to hang out with a really talented producer named Marshall Altman that we are considering for the Martin Luther project. Marshall was a really warm and thoughtful cat and I'm glad that I met him.

S

Amy Winehouse, Lil Wayne, and K'Naan

I am here in LA trying to stay out of this sweltering heat chilling with my boy Rayzak the Somalian Don Dadda and Sol Guy; for all of you Canadians you may know Sol from the 4 Real series on MTV canada. Anyway, Sol manages an artist named K'Naan from Toronto via Somalia.

Last summer Sol was doing an episode of 4 Real with Cameron Diaz in Peru (when you get a chance go to www.4real.com to learn more about the series.) and he needed someone to fill in as manager on K'Naan's european tour while he was away. I got the call and was pleased because one of the dates was at the Glastonbury festival in England; I've always wanted to go to this legenary festival but never had the opportunity. Well, I have a few memories of that day and let me just say that all of them are bizaar. First of all, I will never go back to that freaking mud pile, rainy, crazy ses pool of a festival again unless I'm working with Fuking U2 and they helecopter our asses on and off the stage for soundcheck and performance. We ran into Amy Winehouse back stage; this was before she really blew up and even though her buzz was crazy, I had never seen her in person. Let me just say, without any exaggeration; when I saw her, I was stopped in my tracks at how deathly sick and crazy she looked. It literally jarred me; the feeling I had was; someone's gotta save this chick or she's going to die. The other weird moment was walking from one end of the festival to the next to go see this hoola hoop artist perform at a gay dance party. Well, it was bizaar, because here I am sludging through knee high mud in the middle of like mid-fck England under moonlight with a Somalian rapper and a half German half Somalian hoola hoop artist (by the way this chick was one of the hottest woman of all time) both probably being the only of there kind on earth.

So here I am in LA a year later with Sol and Rayzak (K'Naan is in Miami and I won't be able to see him until Tuesday and I leave that night, drats!) band listening to demo's from K'Naan's new album to be released on Octone/Interscope (Maroon 5). I must say; I am sooooooo happy that a somewhat major label is going to invest in promoting music like that. Many of the sounds on K'Naan's new album were recorded in Bob Marley's Legendary Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston Jamaica (K'Naan is the dude in the picture with the guitar and Rayzak in sitting in front of him with the cheesing), with Legendary Jamaican session musicians and Damian Marley and the legendary Track and Field team out of Toronto on production. This sound that they came up with (a mixture of Hip Hop, Pop, and East African Folk music) is brilliant and infectious. K'Naan also raps and sings about the truth of poverty and the struggle for liberation. Certain songs actually brought tears to my eyes and others joy to my heart. All I could think about while listening to him was Lil' Wayne. Now, I'm not really hated on Weezie, but I just find it a little crazy that this dude has the fastest seling album in year of any genre out right now (Platinum in less then a week) and I can't really say that anything that he does really moves me. I mean at this point he has become a pop star and image wise he's just kinda, let's admit it fucked up and kind of tragic. Kind of like the person I mentioned earlier who blew up this year. It makes almost wonder if we have become Jerry Springered as a cultured and are voyeuristically obssessed with the tragic lives of others. What happed to liking beauty for beauty's sake. I don't want to over hype K'Naan's next album it because it's not coming out until next year, but if you aren't hip to him check out his last album the Dusty Foot Philosopher; it finally gets released (after 2 years in Canada, Australia, and Europe) in the US on Tuesday.

Well, that's all i have to say about that!

Cheers

WONDERFUL!!

Went to DJ Spinna and Bobitto's Wonderful (A Dance Party Tribute to Stevie Wonder) party last night! This party has been running for about 10 years and I think I went to the very first one back then and hadn't been to one since until last year when I went and left early after becoming sick from something I ate earlier that day. Anyway, I'm 38; which isn't that old by today's standards but I always think I'm too old for everything; so I wouldn't normally go to the wonderful party, but my boy Barry Cole gave me tickets for my birthday. Boy am I happy that I went. First of all that party has GROWN; the first on I attended was crowded but there may have been 200 people there; last night they hosted a crowd of over 2000 and it was at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The crowd...was about 65% woman, incredibly gorgeous woman! I was like a 2 headed cat in a fish market. I danced my ass off and had a great time until something incredibly wonderful happened. I heard to crowd scream I looked up on the stage by the DJ's and low and behold the man himself was there. F*cking Stevie Wonder came to the wonderful party and did a freestyle, 5 song, off the top of the dome concert. Get the heck out of here. Every body went crazy!! It was one of those nights that I would been vexed to hear about and not have been there, but I was; thanks to Barry Cole!

Cody ChesnuTT, Fela Kuti, and Barack Obama!!

Does anyone out there remember Cody ChesnuTT from his famed and heavily talked about debut The headphone Masterpiece released in 2004? The Headphone Masterpiece inspired the The Roots to cover Cody's song The Seed and there version with him singing the hook became an international hit for the band. Anyway, what folks don't know about Cody is that before that in 1999 he was signed with Hollywood Records with a band that he lead called The Crosswalk and in that year produced one of the best unreleased albums of the last 20 years, entitled "Venus Loves a Melody." Hollywood Records foolishly dropped the band and never released the album; the frustration led Cody into his home studio to produce the highly personal under-produced 4 track recorded album that is now fairly legendary. I must mention that Cody and I have an active business partnership and friendship, well our friendship is much more active as Cody hasn't been very active lately musically. I want to say for the record that those who have heard the Headphone Masterpiece would probably think that Cody is a masochistic, oversexed, pimp who yells at his kids and gets high all day. He is infact the opposite; The Headphone Masterpiece was a collection of short stories or observations of characters that Cody has met along the way during life. Alot of the characters are influenced by his own stories as well; like, the tune My Woman My Guitars is actually about his struggles at the time dealing with multiple woman and how it was breaking down his spirit. The pimp songs however are purely fictional observations of people that he has known. At this time in Cody's life he lives on a Farm in Florida with his wife and son and is a deeply pensive and spiritual man who is looking to find a space musically to communicate his new found learning and love for life and God in a way that people can receive and enjoy. With that, you can understand why it is taking him so long to come out with another album.

I have toured the workd with Cody and spent hours on the phone with him talking about Sprituality, politics, race, and the music business and he has come to the point in his life where he wants to release any fear of conforming and just release music that he feels in the moment and not wait for a deal, the industry, a particular genre, or audience to dictate his musical expression. As a manager and indie label guy that obviously defies the logic of my marketing plans, but I truely believe in Cody as a human being and as a miraculous talent so I'm riding. I told Cody soon after Obama announced that he would be running for the democratic nomination that I was going to start volunteering and contributing to campaign. Cody, at that time like many of my friends was very skeptical as he didn't really know his background and wanted to learn more about who the man was in his heart. I was actually skeptical in the very beginning as well; but a good friend of mine who happened to know Obama personally vouced for his character and I respected this particular friend's judge of character very highy, so I was in. After numerous converstations about Obama with Cody and his own observations, he eventually was in and in a big way. He was so happy when he clinched th nomination. I told me that he was working on something that he wanted me to check out. This morning I opened up my email and I recieved this Fela Kuti inspired track called Afrobama that I am now sharing with you. He wanted people to have it; so I hope that you enjoy it!! Peace!

Wild 4 Days!!

My wild 4 days started with the M.I.A concert at Maccarren Pool in Williamsburg. 7500, freaking hipsters paid to see her. I've never seen so many Dr. Seuss characters in my life. I have to say though that M.I.A's branding is bananas. You can say whatever you want about whether she has credible talent or not, she may not be able to really sing or rap but her marketing talent is fucking amazing!! In fact her brand is way bigger than her music; I would even say that her music is the soundtrack to her brand. 7500 kids at $35 is $262,500 earned at the gate of which I'm sure her booking agent and management negotiated at least 35% of which is $91,875. She probably actually got more like 50%. But whatever she negotiated she had a good night. After her booking agent and management got paid, she walked home with $64,312 or so before overhead. Her production including crew, dancers, stage design and DJ may have cost her 20 grand. I would say that she walked away with a good check for a night's work. I have to say that I really enjoyed it was a big party and MIA and gang brought an awesome energy that never stopped. I went to the show with some friends of mine who were opening for her on tour; an off the hook new band out of Toronto called LET's GO TO WAR. Their manager Phoebe is a friend of mine and after the show we went to a Dante Fried Chicken party. For those of you in NYC who haven't been to a Dante Fried Chicken party; its a must, I don't want to diverse but for $7 you get a plate of gourmet eats cooked the man himself, a drink ticket, and 4 of the hottest bands that he seems to find before anyone else. Anyway Google Dante Friend Chicken and join the email list; the location of the party changes every month to and announced the day of so you have to get the announcement. Anyway, i didn't get home until 4 that night and haven't gotten home before then until those lunatics left my apartment last night to head home for the NxNE festival in Toronto. The good news is that I made some great connections with iTunes and Kobalt why they were here, and they are going to co-produce a couple of tracks of one of the artists that I work with. Good times!! I haven't really edited this at all so I'm sure there are plenty of grammatical errors but anyhow. There is is! Oh yeah, I forgot; I bought the new album from The Kills "Midnight Boom" on iTunes, it's really dope!!

Music 2.0 and Chamillionaire

Thank you to everyone that has made such nice comments about my last post; I kind of feel under pressure to post things that will be appreciated at least as much. I hope that this post measures up.

As we all know these are very interesting times in the music business; all of us who make our living in this space are scurrying around trying to figure out the answers to developing and monetizing our content. This post is going to be more about independent music than particular songs or artists so I hope I am not outside of my jurisdiction here. As independent labels and musicians that are primarily self financed we must constantly think out of
the box as we approach marketing and we must continually seek out new low cost, new media tools that can help us and our content gain exposure. First thing we must do is set our expectations appropriately.

If anyone honestly believes that you are going to be able to out market the major label system by being creative or crafty online only, you are delusional. The latest PEW study on online buying trends states that (I'm not sure who they are interviewing) 56% of the folks interviewed use the Internet for product research, only 7% percent of those interviewed said that the Internet had a major impact on their decision to purchase (the operative word here being major). This same study says that 83% of music buyers find out about new music via radio, TV, or in a movie and 64% of those interviewed say they find out about music through word of mouth. Are these percentages accurate I don't know; I do know that while iTunes has recently become the second largest retailer of music after Walmart; digital downloads still only represent 10% of music sales.

There are some music futurists like Gerd Leonhard (whom I greatly respect) that say music and video content should be free and that we can longer control distribution so we have monetize our content based on user engagement via sponsorship or advertising. That's a lot harder than it sounds and most independents can't afford to experiment long enough with possible income from the Long Tail when they need to sell records to eat.

Today I went to the Advertising 2.0 conference in Manhattan, to see if I could gain some new wisdom on how to market and promote my content in a way that would attract possible sponsors and guess who there hanging out at the conference going to seminars; the rapper Chamillionaire! I was compelled to approach him and ask why he was there. He said, "hey man, I'm trying to get up on this advertising and technology game." Wow!! I was really impressed with this guy and his understanding of what he needs to do to separate himself in a marketplace that is saturated and many artists are marginalized as ringtone rappers or one hit wonders.



The moral of this post is that even though in the Music 2.0 economy there are a plethora of new media tools to market yourself and engage with your audience, whether that is Reverb Nation a Twitter blog, Vlogging, or free content RSS feeding your fans; but the simple fact is that you cannot replace spending some money on traditional marketing. Spend some money on a decent creative publicist and some sort of inexpensive video. It is also important to create a partnership with a company that can go after TV or film sync licenses for your songs for a 10% commission. And if you think you have some really good songs you should know the different distribution points for them; educate yourself; get daily RSS feeds from Hypebot, Coolfer, Mashable, and Paid Content. Well, anyway, I am new Chammilionaire fan, "Riding Dirty!" That's wassup! I wrote this while really sleepy I hope i didn't bore you to death.

Aftermath?

As I sat on the A train on the way to the office: I was thinking about the interesting weekend that I just had. On Saturday night I had a really cool birthday party. I was surprised at how many people eventually showed up. It was so nice to see everyone. It was an honor for me to see all of my friends and make a lot new ones. My homey Michael Weintrob was the best person to through the party with as he is a crazy social butterfly in his own right and has a completely different set of friends then mine. Although I had an awesome time; I think the next time I do a party it I will do something during the day; like a brunch or a cookout. I want to do something where folks can socialize a little easier, maybe play group games or something. Why do we all have to be so grown up and hip all the time. Folks didn't leave the party until 5AM and I went to sleep around 6:30PM then woke up to clean up at 9:30 so I was exhausted all day Sunday. I finally took a nap at 4PM and woke up at 7:30PM to a text from my friend Jomo asking me if I could come to the emergency room and stay with our friend Scott because he just got admitted for severe abdominal pain. Jomo couldn't stay because his sister in-law was admitted to the hospital and he had to be on call as that developed. It was a lot to wake up to. Anyway, I went to the hospital and waiting with Scott; he received a cat scan and they found a kidney stone. They gave him a bunch of pain killer and I took him home.



On my way to the office while I was writing this blog I was listening to what may possibly be the best Live album ever; Bill Withers: Live at Carnegie Hall. If you have not heard this album I suggest that you cop it and give it an intent ear. This album is especially important for musicians as it is a text book for how to engage and audience and pace a show. Keep in mind Bill Withers was a huge star by the time this show was recorded; but his comfort on stage and his ability to make Carnegie Hall into his own backyard or living room was remarkable. The lesson that we learn as artists and those like myself who consult and manage artists is that you have to give of yourself in some way. People want to get to know you in someway that goes beyond the hype. With the gap closing on physical distribution and the influx of millions self produced artists that are cluttering the internet with songs and videos; it is really hard to find a means for distribution. Well, what comes before the opportunity to distribute and sell is the ability to make a connection to someone who gives a f*ck enough to patronize you. So at the end of the day Bill Withers in the 70's had hit records but he didn't have the internet; he didn't have YouTube or Blogger or MySpace or Facebook. As artists and promoters in the independent music game; we need to be known on a much more intimate level than ever. Whether it's Twitter or YouTube or Blogger; create a way for consumers to know a bit of your story and your life, you would be surprised at who would watch and listen.