The Time (to collab) is now...

Ok...so Happy New Year and All that Malarchy...

(Studio Video at the end if you dont want to read....but please read..)

Its a new year, so I guess its time to do New things....I dunno about resolutions most of the time because people dont really stick to them but Ive got one that I think Im going to try and stick to...

Looking at myself from the Outside in, ive come to realise that musically, im quite a "snob".

What I mean by that is that I dont really collaborate with other artists (outside my immediate camp of Shax and now TE1) to the point where I can honestly say that if I worked with you in 2008 (or at anytime in the past for that matter), I have either seen something in you that I thought was EXTREMELY special (not just special...EXTREMELY)...OR...you bugged the hell outta me!! ...and thats real...

Quite snobbish right??...well actually, the reasoning behind this isnt so bad.

Coming up musically, I learnt that relying on people is LONG because everyone is prone or able to let you down at some point...you can let yourself down...but then thats your own doing and no one elses...this is why I taught myself how to play piano, guitar, produce, bought equipment for my house so that I could record, engineer, master and be a self contained unit - no one to rely on...no one to slow me down...no one to blame....

I guess this mentality, plus a ridiculously busy schedule rubbed off on my outlook of collaborating with artists - I havent got time to open myself up to relying on something that could possibly let me down in anyway...etc...

ALSO...a couple artists who have reached out have been in a better position in the industry than I am and I hate to think that after ALL my hard work of doing everything myself and building myself up as an artist, im going to be introduced to the mainstream on the back of another artists career and for this reason, I even (foolishly) shy away from collaborating with bigger, more known artists...

THERE ARE a few artists that I wanted to work with last year but just HONESTLY didnt have the schedule to do it...Its no excuse because I shouldve MADE the time...im just highlighting the fact that there are ONE OR TWO people I DID want to work with last year but just didnt make enough effort...so dont automatically be offended if i didnt/havent worked with u...

In 2007/8 though, I reached out to shax because I saw something EXTREMELY special in him as an artist but he was slightly unfocused at times so I brought him into my space so that he was able to record more regularly, and learn whatever I could teach in terms of engineering...and the technical side of making music...since then...we've been musical co dee's, Ive learnt alot from him creatively, and we've made REAL good music together..seperately (Including a song with Kadija Kamara that I produced)...and collaborating on songs like release - my upcoming single...

Last summer...I randomly drove past a guy a producer I new from college who I was always meant to work with. I knew he was talented ages ago and fate would have it that I was just stuntin in the sun with the roof back with no where particular I pulled over and let him catch up...
I exchanged numbers with TE1 to record a track, which we did the following week but again, the chemistry was there and so we ended up doing a WHOLE mixtape together of songs entirely produced by him (which is in its final stages). We made some REAL good music on that as well with songs like "Nothing Compares" (somewhere in a previous post) and he stretched my musical boundaries to another place...

What Im saying is that collabs are actually a good thing and I collaborated with one or two other artists/producers who reached out to me that year as well...all with positive results (Shout out to Origimoz, Leslie Lewis Walker, Crey Mey, Chocolate Blonde Raw Smilez and Cappuchino).

Realising that now in retrospect...ima try and MAKE time, and reach out to people and stop being a "Musical Snob"...im on collaborating with ANY and EVERYone (that makes GOOD music)..thats my resolution...

Heres the studio video of a collab I done on the TE1 project with Kyza Smirfnoff...

Summertime (kinda) video

This has been the most tedious process EVER!!!

Here is the video for my debut single - Summertime.



Here's the story behind the video...(VERY LONG READ BUT YOU SHOULD READ TO UNDERSTAND WHATS HAPPENING AND WHY...)

We actually shot it July 2007 but last years summer was a washout (which is why its not a bait summertime video) and we got it back late august anyway so it was long to release it then..so I was patient and decided to release it 08 summer (this year).

Then in january, I decided to do another video to release BEFORE summertime to sorta get my name out there so that when summertime dropped, I was already kinda established so I wouldnt have problems getting it played as soon as I needed it played (summertime songs need to be played in the summertime...its all about timing).

HOWEVER, because of uncontrollable circumstances, I didnt get to shoot this new video until late april and then the editing ran all the way into july (the new video looks HEAVY by the way...just taking long to edit because alot of peops are doing favours)

This forced me though, to double BACK and just release summertime first because I couldnt risk timing it wrong and releasing summertime too late.

HOWEVER, when i sent it to channel u, I sent on a digi beta tape which they dont accept - it took them a couple weeks to email me back and tell me this....

The clock is ticking...

Sooo I had to get it put onto a mini DV.

I asked the people editing the new video to do this for me seeing as they had a copy of summertime in the studios already....

They informed me that my master tapes of the summertime are in NTSC (American) format and there machines cant copy them to PAL (English) format.

A good friend got it sorted a couple days later (summertime clock still ticking) to get converted at some other studios but when i got there (after working a 15 hour day), it was copied from Digi beta tape to the mini dv tape that I needed, only with a big NTSC sticker on it (STILL IN AMERICAN FORMAT!!! AHHHHHHHHH)

Clock still ticking....

Couple days later, another friend gets it to someone else to convert it and also takes it directly to channel U offices for me (Shout out to E!).

Two weeks later and after I return from Ayia napa, the video still isnt playing on air!?!?!

I contact channel U who inform me that when they viewed the tape....it was blank...

(Summertime clock still ticking...past the first week of august now!!)

So I go to the channel U offices, swap the tape with another copy only to find out that the supposed blank tape had the video on it - all they had to do was rewind the tape about 30 seconds!!!!

Which brings us to now....9th august and the summertime video STILL hasnt got airplay - should be on by next week but considering I waited a WHOLE YEAR to get my timing right, u can understand my frustration.

Sorry about the long post - just had to vent!!

'Cisive

;-)