Some gems from Brother Ali on live shows:

“I don’t believe that getting more exposure and having more people know your music is selling out,” Ali said. “[Rhymesayers] is who taught me what I know and gave me the opportunities and so they will always be involved with what I do.”

Coming off the “Hip Hop Live Tour” with Ghostface Killah and Rakim, Ali will perform for a second time at the What’s Up Lounge Nov. 28. His first show at the Lounge back in April to promote “The Undisputed Truth” was one of the club’s largest events to date.

“That was the first big show I had booked and I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” said What’s Up employee and booking agent Tony Middendorf.

Ali’s performance at the What’s Up was the first show in the history of the club to ever sell out presale, Middendorf said. “All the tickets were sold before we even opened the door.”

Middendorf didn’t think he stood a chance at bringing Ali to Mankato in April so he was surprised when Ali told him personally that he would like to come back for another show. Able to find the perfect date in Ali’s busy tour schedule, Middendorf booked another show for Ali at the What’s Up for next week.

“The last show was really great,” Ali said. “We are really excited to be coming back.”

Ali said he likes to perform in smaller towns because the people have pride about where they come from and about their town. He said he also likes performing in smaller venues, like the What’s Up, because “it’s more intimate and the energy can be hotter.”

“We put everything we have into our live show. It’s very serious and it’s a very important part of what we do,” he said.

http://goodproduce.net/blog/?page_id=243

What do you do as Product Manager for Rhymesayers?

Is my boss going to read this? I work very very hard….ha. No, I basically push to create awareness in retail stores and the varying market places (via street teams, etc…) for are artists and releases. That’s part distribution and getting product in stores. That’s part just being in front of computer all day sending emails, preparing faxes, filing papers, counting inventory, and what not. It’s not glamourous by any means. I think people have a misconception with that as well. I think people think because it’s a rap label that we are sitting around all day debating our favorite rappers, smoking blunts, drinking 40s and checking out hot chicks from the roof…well, some of that might happen but definitely not all day…ha. I mean it’s the ulimate office job. The only way to have a better job is to dream it up honestly…or you have you very own self sustaining business that does well. Whatever. That’s what I do and although it can be stressful and we are all over worked there, it’s still amazing and a blessing that this is what I do for a living.

With people buying less cd’s and all the downloading that’s going on, is it more or less difficult for Rhymesayers to remain economically successful as a hip-hop label than let’s say labels like Thrill Jockey or Ghostly?

You can’t be in the business and not in some way or fashion notice and feel the difference in the market. I don’t feel like we are having a hard time as a business though. I mean we are still thriving. I have to give a lot of credit to Siddiq (RSE CEO) because he runs the company very smart and he always has. He doesn’t approach it like he’s trying to immediately personally see the fruits of his labor, although has already but so much into it. I think we all work there with the attitude and understanding that we are only taking out of company a little more than we need to survive and keep as much of the profit back into the label. This is something that we all believe it and so we are willing to do what is needed to keep it thriving. A lot of the continued success also lends heavily to everyones great work ethic. Also having artists who are dedicated to the success of the company as much as themselves. It’s just a family atmosphere. No, we don’t all hang out together all the time…but that does happen. No, every artist doesn’t have to sound the same or even agree with each other but we all have a common goal and we focus on that. My opinion is that there is still money to be made in the music business and if you have the right people, in terms of artists and staff, then you can run a successful business.

What can we do to better support our local musicians, artists, and labels here in the Midwest?

I think first off I’ll say be honest and fair as a fan. By that I mean, Hip Hop is full of extremes. You have a lot of older cats, from my generation and even younger, who think nearly everything and everyone new is “awful” and doesn’t really give it a chance. Of course there is a lot of people who are doing this who aren’t good at it but it’s nearly as bad as people paint. There’s good stuff out there always you just have to look a little harder for it. Then you have the other side of a lot of the younger generation who will act like some of these new unpolished acts are the best thing ever or the “next coming” of whoever…. I know there’s reasons for that…like a lot of them are new to the culture so the don’t know the previous standards so they set new standards and in general because the industry is so big and congested now that lowers the standard. Another reason is that approx 1/2 the younger fans are aspiring artists themselves so they can relate to the “unpolished” artists because that’s how they sound rapping in their bedroom themselves… It is what it is. I don’t know if it is because I grew up all over the place and don’t really have a hometown or what, but I never really subscribed to that “support it because it’s local” theory in music. I much more subscribe to the “support it because it is good and if it’s local then that’s all the better” theory. I think fans do have a responsible to support the local shops, shows and good artists in their area if they want the scene to continue to thrive and improve.

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You guys haven’t been sending promotional copies of the album. Instead you’ve had events where critics could preview the album. How has that been going for you guys?

Slug: It’s been going really well as far as I’m concerned since everyone has been having fun at them. I mean you can’t go wrong when you give everybody free booze. As far as it working for the album? I don’t know, we’ll see. I don’t know what kind of coverage we are going to get. That’s probably a question to ask mid-April or mid-May maybe, then we can look and see how it worked. As of right now my record hasn’t leaked yet and I had a lot of fun so I feel it’s a success.

You guys have obviously acquired a huge fan base and achieved a lot of success for independent artists. What are your goals for this album in terms of sales and promotion? What would satisfy you?

Slug: I don’t like disappointing my people. So as long as my people at my label are happy, I’m happy. Whatever they feel like they need to do I hope they can do it. I don’t have a number in my head like, “I want to do this many copies.” I don’t really get down like that. If the label turns to me in a year and says it’s not enough then I’ll feel bad. Because I’ll feel like I made these guys do all this work getting to people who want to get it. For me and Anthony our satisfaction comes before the record even comes out. The stuff that happens before that are the parts we really look at and think about. Come release date April 22nd I’m not thinking about the record anymore. I’m thinking about the show, I’m thinking about the next record and I’m thinking about how I stick and move.

I always crack jokes saying, “this record isn’t my problem, it’s the labels problem”. [Laughs] Now it’s contradictory because I’m part of the label but I have to separate myself from the label when I’m doing my own records. There’s a lot of conflict of interest there. I don’t want to sit in on a meeting for my record. What if I’m pushing to spend this much on my CD’s or this amount for my album. It’s not really fair. With me sitting in on other peoples records make more sense because I need to be one of those heads to make those decisions. I don’t ever want to get drunk with power. With our records I really take a step away from any of that kind of stuff. I really just stick to the creative stuff when it comes to my records. When it comes to where would you buy ads, or where will you do this or that; I’m more into let me help someone design the ad or let me give some ideas of what I think could be done and should be done. Ya’ll figure out where ya’ll want to spend the money. Otherwise it’s a conflict of interest for me to sit in and make decisions on marketing and whatnot on my own record. What if our marketing plan is massive and the next artist that comes up through Rhymesayers only gets this or that. They’ll be like, “Ok, I see why I only got this much, cause of fucking Slug.” That’s not good business and I try to stick to good business.

Further:

You guys have been releasing a lot of material over the past year between Strickly Leakage and the Sad Clown series. What motivates you to give the fans so much music?

Slug: We took a year off of touring. I didn’t want to go hang out by a swimming pool and drink Long Island Iced Teas. I take my job serious. Its natural. Since we are not on the road and we are not practicing with the band, we should go work on this. I’m not really one for vacation. I don’t really go max out and charge my battery a lot. All the music we released was albums that I was doing that year. As far as the free record I was looking at how people were responding to free songs. So we gave away some free songs and stuff. Making a song is easy; it isn’t a thing, you know? I’m not saying we make incredible music or nothing like that but for what we do it’s easy. So why don’t we go ahead and show people that. Show people how much fun making it is and keep it moving.

Do you record a bunch of music and then assign it to different projects, or do you focus on one thing at a time and record specifically for it? For example are Sad Clown songs ones that didn’t make an album?

Slug: It’s funny because I think last year’s press release made a statement something about, “What do you do when you make too many songs,” but I think that was just them being cute. Sad Clown Summer was Sad clown Summer. Those songs were about summer, those songs smelled like summer with all the piano and beats on the song. Fall was about fall. Those songs were about Fall. If anyone listens to the lyrics they can hear the references that I’m talking about October and November. Winter with those songs, I’m kind of cold and frigid and the spring joint that’s about to pop off is about rebirth.

We always are making a project. It doesn’t always mean the listener gets to see it. Just because it’s in my head and I have a concept I know I’m not the greatest communicator. So maybe if I make a song literally about leaves falling off a tree and stuff like that people will get it, but I don’t think people necessarily ask so it doesn’t matter. Whatever my inspiration comes from really has nothing to do with the listener. The listener is going to take songs and change them how they need to use them and everyone uses music for different reasons. Some people use it to forget about their day or some people play it when they are in their car. I can’t expect listeners to even care about what inspired me to do these. Granted there are some fans that do, they want to know all that stuff and that’s cool. I’ll chop it up with them and tell them if they ask.

On the broad spectrum I know better than to get that invested in the listener. I’m more invested in what we do and I hope the listener accepts it. I hope not to disappoint them. Other than that if I start thinking too much about the listener than what am I doing? Who am I making this for? This way we can always keep it very focused. Anthony and I make this shit for ourselves. That’s always been one of our biggest criticisms that people make towards us. “You sound like you’re trying to make each other laugh.” We’ll that kind of is what we do. I accept that criticism because that kind of is what we are trying to do. We are tying to get reactions out of each other. He’s trying to get me to react by playing me a particular beat and I’m trying to make him react by saying a particular line.

If I can make Ant laugh or make him stop and say “Whoa!” then I know it’s good because we relate to each other. So if I can communicate what I’m trying to communicate and a like0minded person gets it then I did it, I communicated. So that’s kind of what we look for.

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From recorded freestyle session it progressed into making records, which led to the Headshots tapes. Siddiq said most venues were not booking hip hop shows, mostly due to a poorly organized Ice Cube concert. This dilemma pushed the crew into coffee houses and rock shows just to obtain visibility. “We had people hanging from stairs, sweating and just blowing out these little coffee shops,” he said. “Until it got to the point where people started to take notice. Then we started playing the 7th St. Entry and created a little scene out of those shows.”

As Headshots became Rhymesayers Entertainment, the crew began to dissipate in numbers with frustrations of certain members getting more shine than others. “That’s where we really saw who had the same vision and who could sacrifice themselves for a team movement,” Siddiq said. Slug attributes part of the dissolving of Headshots to local emcee Sess dying. “Everything started to unravel with people going through the frustrations of homie dying and the standard frustrations of hitting your mid-twenties and having shitty jobs,” he said.

As independent hip-hop moved into a post-Rawkus era, RSE comfortably pushed 1,000 units locally with each release. Enough so that when they traveled to events such as Scribble Jam and Rocksteady they gave away records to spread the name. But Slug was noticing his partner Spawn backing away from the vision. “By the time I did the Se7en tape, people were starting to question like ‘oh now, Slug gets his own Headshots tape?” he said. “Rather than us being stagnant and waiting for cats to catch up, I’m not stopping. And I’m not doing it for me, but for all of us as a unit because we had to keep shit coming out.”

Today Siddiq sits in a spacious office above the RSE owned record store, 5th Element, his workspace littered with CDs, RSE memorabilia and an authentic MF Doom mask — officially the owner of one of the dopest labels. Slug stops in during our interview to discuss the next tour, joking about Atmosphere karaoke and not wanting anyone to do “Vampires” because he hates that song. Soon I am in his Envoy cruising around Minneapolis discussing his weird take on everything leading up to today. “Its still kind of weird to talk about,” he said. “Even Musab has branched out and is releasing records with Heiro. I’m fortunate that it never fucked me over. But, sometimes being the guy that can feel blessed for all that, it can suck when you look at it from other people’s perspectives.”’

As we drove past local spots like Liquor Lyles, familiarized by Slug’s lyrics, he admitted that each year he wanted to quit, but optimism kept him going. “From the age of 20 up to 32, I quit rap every year,” he said. “I always had one eye on a job application for a decade.” Slug attributes his longevity to luck and timing, but Siddiq and Brother Ali will not give him the pleasure of passing it off as fortune. “Nobody crossed it over to non-hip-hop fans and made them feel like hip-hop, until Slug,” Ali said. “Run DMC did it. They were a great rap group that operated with rock and roll ethics. Slug was our punk rock model that would play for anybody because he felt this was music you needed to hear — no matter who you were.”

Besides a growing roster, little has changed amongst the Rhymesayers. Each new member is sent through the RSE boot camp until they are molded from rappers into artists. Eyedea and Abilities started as hype man and DJ for Atmosphere on the first tour, while Brother Ali had to host at concerts before he got a slot as an opening act.

Siddiq said Ali was a part of the crew for four years, just developing his skill and hype, before he even released his debut Shadows on the Sun. “He really submersed himself in what Atmosphere was doing,” Siddiq said. “He just soaked up all the knowledge from all the people around him, taking it and putting it into himself to make it his own.”

Ali speaks of those times with no abhorrence. He recollects utilizing brief minutes between sets to make sure he was remembered. “Siddiq would DJ at the time and so I’d go to him and have him throw on a record while I did crowd interaction, then queue him to switch it and I’d rap for a minute,” Ali said. “That was some of the funnest shit ever.”

Back when Atmosphere was breaking even with tours, Ali was told if he could drive himself to the venues, they would give him the opening slot. Being legally blind, Ali can not drive. “I would come to [5th Element], find hardcore Atmosphere fans and say ‘hey want to go to a show in Iowa?’” he said. “I would get them to drive on the promise they would get to hang out with Slug.”

slug interview

What if you make a song with me and in two years you realize that I’m going to jail for rape or something? Then, now I’m always going to be a part of your history. I’m on your fucking record. I became part of what you left behind with the planet.

See like, back in the day man, I jumped on anything I could jump on just to fucking rap. Now it’s kind of like, I only work with friends and people think I’m a dick for that. People hit me up and say “yo, I want to give you this much for a 16” and yada yada yada, but if I don’t know you I ain’t going to do it.

But to be fair, if I do it I probably ain’t going to charge you. It’s like a thing where I don’t really do many collabs, but when I do I hardly charge people. Anyone I do charge, it’s because I know they have a budget and when I do charge I make them give it to charity. I don’t actually collect a check from them. My job in this shit isn’t to make money off of my voice or my rapping, but to figure out how to be good enough business wise, to make my art make my money for me, rather than make the art the money.

Sales are one thing, but to me those are called royalties. It’s not like every time you buy a CD I’m popping off. No, you buy a CD and you’re helping me cover the cost of making the damn CD for starters. You’re also helping me cover the cost of bringing the CD to your city, bringing a tour to your city that is also bringing three other rap groups to your city that you may have never experienced. It’s not like I’ve got this incredibly genius business strategy. I ain’t really supposed to get rich off of rapping; I’m supposed to get rich off of everything else that makes itself available to me because I rap.

I really don’t give a fuck if people hate me. The elitists or the underground people that say “ohh fuck him, he’s a sell out.” Naw, actually fuck off. I know what I’m doing. I know what my choruses sound like. I know what my beats sound like. I’ve never paid anyone to play my record. I’ve never played any of the games trying to sell lots of records. The closest I’ve come is making videos, but videos are fun, man. I didn’t make videos so that MTV would play them. Hell, MTV didn’t play the shit. I made them because I wanted a visual to go with the song.

I’m not trying to be Mr. Martyr or High and Mighty or any of that shit. But, at the same time, I can’t front. I know who I am and I know what I’ve accomplished. I’ve got to stop acting like Mr. Humble too. Because I’m not. I’m not humble or a martyr, I’m somewhere in between… I’m hip hop.

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Pent-up emotional angst exploded all over the recording. But when he sent it to Rhymesayers, Siddiq wanted Mac to keep honing it. The record was unbalanced, a little too heavy on the suffering. Too much pain doesn’t make for a well-rounded MC.

“If anybody was to label Rhymesayers as something, it would probably be emotional and heavy music — that’s kind of our bread and butter. It’s always been our thing,” Siddiq tells the Pitch from his office in Minneapolis. Still, Siddiq has helped Mac bring out all sides of his personality, putting equal emphasis on the hurt and the humor.

“When he sent me back to the lab,” Mac says, “it was more or less to create a better balance. I’ve definitely added some songs to dilute it, I guess, to not make it so fucking hard to swallow.”

The label would have put him in a professional studio, but Mac wanted the entire album to maintain the sound of the original demo. So Rhymesayers paid him $5,000 (straight to the mortgage) and told him to keep working and think about how he wanted to present himself to the world.

That was over the summer, after the label had decided not to introduce any new artists in the latter half of the year. With plenty of time, and with Nezbeat and Been at his disposal, Lethal opened the abused door and went back to writing and recording.

Now a new version of 11:11 is getting a listen in Minneapolis, where Rhymesayers will hear two new, upbeat songs. The apocalyptic “Strike Me Dead” has been pushed to a bonus track.

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The significance of this embargo does not end with the fate of future Rhymesayers releases; the label’s approach represents the independent music scene’s bittersweet affair with online piracy. Since the onset of digital thievery, a googolplex of articles and analyses have explored how peer-to-peer technologies such as LimeWire hobble the recording industry. But until I was forced into a four-hour train ride to review a single Atmosphere disc, I never considered how file sharing specifically affects independent artists.

Back in 2003, in an article titled “Upstart Labels See File Sharing As Ally, Not Foe,” New York Times writer Chris Nelson interviewed chief executives at a variety of thriving independent labels, most of whom were reluctant but willing to concede that illicit downloads generate buzz and ultimately album sales. Rhymesayers co-owner Siddiq Ali, like his contemporaries at indie-rock imprints such as Wind-Up and Vagrant, noted that his modest production costs quickly turned a profit, despite the recording industry’s notorious downturn in 2001, the first time in history that total album shipments dropped.

Since that Times article, Rhymesayers has grown into one of hip-hop’s largest independent imprints, having sold more than one million combined Atmosphere units alone. The label’s other artists have also fared well; last year Brother Ali’s The Undisputed Truth debuted at number 69 on the Billboard 200 chart after selling more than 10,000 copies in its first week. So if these guys are rising while Eminem’s stock is sinking, why did Atmosphere’s Slug and Ant fly across the country to play their disc for a bunch of ungrateful hipster critics? Better yet, why did I have to trek down from Boston just to hear it?

The oak-tabled conference room that Rhymesayers’ distributor, Warner Music, designated for this listening session is as impersonal as fluorescent-lit corporate bunkers get. Slug isn’t fooling anyone; despite his media-friendly facade, he would clearly rather be drinking at his favorite Minnesota bar—or at any bar, for that matter—than romancing a dozen writers on the 48th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. To compensate for the irony that comes with unveiling his new working-class manifesto on 6th Avenue, he arrives in a faded green sweatshirt and a grubby beaded-out winter hat. Ant, who is hungover from the night before, doesn’t even bother showing up.

“It means a lot to me that you all came down,” Slug tells the bunch. “I just heard that there were certain people who—when they found out that we weren’t giving out advanced copies—took offense and told us to take them off the label’s mailing list. That’s cool, but it’s one thing to not want to waste your time with this, and it’s another to boldly be like, ‘Fuck you for doing it this way.’ That’s pretty self-absorbed.”

While most of us seem amped to hear the album, it’s clear that Rhymesayers’ audacious publicity anti-stunt is the main attraction. After previewing Atmosphere’s latest, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold, I’m not the only skeptic who skips cordial questions about beats and rhymes. It’s like that movie they made about the board game Clue; we’re all enjoying ourselves, but none of us know why we’re here.

“Do you actually feel like this is going to stop people from bootlegging?” one writer asks with a hint of disapproval. “Are you expecting it to help you sell more albums?”

“This is our way of gauging how much we would lose,” Slug responds. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I feel like I’m in a position amongst my contemporaries to try something like this to see how it works. If it’s not as successful as we want it to be, and we can say that it’s definitely because of this, then we’ll have learned a lesson and all of my friends can look at it and say, ‘I’m not doing what those idiots did.’

“But if this does work,” he adds, “then everybody can use the model. It’s not the most creative approach, but it’s a step toward coming up with something.”

In the frenzy that’s ensued since the 2000 Napster trials, major and independent record companies have taken innumerable measures to combat piracy. Since a lot of music leaks through the press, some labels watermark their advanced discs so that they can trace ripped files to the culprit. Some publicists send out cassette tapes, while others include “speed bumps”; the CDs I get from New York indie-rap imprint Def Jux pause in the middle of every track to remind me that “this promo copy belongs to Chris Faraone.”

“The promo versions of the albums that we send out to the press have me speaking over the chorus of each song,” says Sage Francis, an independent hip-hop icon and owner of the Rhode Island-based Strange Famous Records. “And we wrote a note in blood to each reporter saying something to the effect of: ‘Hey ... this not is not written in people blood. It is written in puppy blood. The puppy is not dead. YET. If this album gets leaked then I guess we know where you stand on animal rights.’”

In 2000, about 14,000 songs were being downloaded every minute from Napster, the pioneer file-sharing program founded by Northeastern student Shawn Fanning. Eight years later—despite the occasional Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) arrest rampage choking out a large percentage of the problem—the overall threat remains significant and less traceable. Last year a report by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) estimated that “as a consequence of global and US-based piracy of sound recordings, the US economy loses $12.5 billion in total output annually.”

But the demand for music seems to be increasing; a recently released report from SoundScan—which surveys both major and independent labels—noted that unit sales of downloads and discs increased by nearly 15 percent in 2007. The Business Software Alliance’s annual Youth Downloading Study found that the number of kids, age eight to 18, who illegally downloaded music last year dropped to 36 percent (from 60 percent in 2004).

The findings of such studies are vehemently contested because there are no straight answers. The sheer breadth of our file-sharing universe makes it impossible to track illegal downloads. Furthermore, studies such as IPI’s “The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the US Economy” don’t account for copies that are pirated before an album is released. And for independent artists, advanced leaks are the real problem.

“I’m not so worried about losing sales and downloads,” Slug says. “If people are going to download the record, they’ll just do it the day after it comes out. For me it’s more about the anticipation. A lot of my friends put out records, and by the time the record actually drops and they go on tour, everybody is already sick of it.”

Nature Sounds President Devin Horwitz, who counts MF Doom and Wu-Tang Clansman Masta Killa among his label’s top artists, argues piracy leaks more than the music itself. “Word of mouth travels fast on the internet,” he says. “If your album is weak the fans will find out before they even get a chance to buy it.” On the other hand, Horwitz adds: “If the product is good, the word spreads fast too.”

Research suggests that Horwitz and Slug’s instincts are on point. A 2007 study commissioned by the journal Management Science concluded that “minor labels have adapted better to technological and market changes, and have in fact utilized file sharing networks and other nontraditional methods to popularize their albums,” resulting in “a narrowing of the advantage held by major labels.”

By subtracting early leaks from the equation—a tactic the majors have unsuccessfully attempted for years—Rhymesayers is poised to narrow that advantage further. Majors are still hemorrhaging money and blaming illegal downloads. Just this week EMI announced that it was cutting 2,000 jobs in its “struggle to respond to the challenges posed by a digital environment.”

“Let’s face it, I’m going to be almost 40 by the time I put out another record,” Slug says. “At that point, if I’m not rich, I’ll show up at the next listening party with a bomb and take all of you motherfuckers out.”

That sounds like a good last-ditch strategy, but I’ll always miss the good old days when rappers just sent grenades in the mail.

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“I think for a long time we carried the scene and that was great,” says Siddiq, aka Brent Sayers, who formed the record label back in the mid-’90s with Sean Daley (you know, Slug) and a handful of co-conspirators. “That, to me, was the shit; to be able to look back and really feel that we created the scene that’s here and carried it on our back for a long time.” Which is not to say that Rhymesayers is the only game in town; he’s just reminiscing about a time when there was no scene, when the idea that a local hip-hop group could have eight consecutive sold-out shows at the Seventh St. Entry seemed patently ridiculous.

“I was working with the Headshots crew, and we were all just doing our thing,” he explains when I ask about the beginnings of what has slowly grown into one of the premier indie hip-hop labels in the nation. “We were just loosely affiliated. At the time, I had been involved in club promotion and doing after-parties and stuff like that and me and a partner of mine, this cat Ralph, had started doing these Microphone Check showcases. Basically, they showcased local hip-hop acts and then we’d bring in one national act to headline out the night. The winners from each individual one then came to a final. At the time, I was working with production for the Abstract Pack and then through the showcases kind of met a lot of the other groups because a lot of us had a common bond. We started doing the Headshots tapes and so I did all those, basically pulled everything together. And then after that, we decided we were gonna go for it and put out a full-length record. At that point, Musab—who was going by Beyond at the time—had the most material done. He probably had 100+ songs done at that time with him and [producer] Ant [Anthony Davis]. [We] went into the studio, started recording it, had all kinds of problems going on with the studio we were working out of and that’s when were were like, fuck it, let’s buy our own equipment. So we went out and bought what we needed to do it, just the bare minimum, and recorded at my house. So through that whole process, we just decided we were going to need a record label and started playing around with things. And the name had kind of been thrown out there before, because I was, in a sense, like a father figure to a lot of the cats. All the groups and stuff were the ‘Rhymesayers’ and so it was a play off of my last name. Next thing you know we had a logo. And just rolled with it. It just snowballed from there and we took on a more serious approach as we progressed.”

It seems almost accidental, doesn’t it? It’s probably the single most interesting aspect of how Rhymesayers has accomplished what it has: the entire organization manages to cultivate an air of simultaneously being hard-working, dedicated and down-to-business while making it seem like a place you want to hang out. When I came by the offices to interview J-Bird [Jason Cook], I walked in on a lengthy discussion between him and tour manager/soundman Randy Hawkins about where exactly John Belushi died and if they had ever booked Atmosphere into the same hotel in Beverly Hills.

Bird, as he’s usually called, is an amiable and generally unassuming guy, his office decorated primarily with small, colorfully-painted, bunny-like action figures that look vaguely Japanese in origin. The Chicago native cut his teeth interning at BMG before breaking into management with Rubberroom, a Chicago hip-hop group that was the unfortunate victim of the kind of label mismanagement endemic to indie imprints when the group was signed to New York’s 3-2-1 Records in the late ‘90s. After that label’s messy disintegration, Bird began working with Rhymesayers (whom he’d made connections with during his time with Rubberroom) on Atmosphere tours before eventually moving up to the Twin Cities. Since then, he’s been a road dawg for RSE, although as things have evolved, his role has gradually changed. When he came on board, and up until two years ago, Rhymesayers didn’t have proper distribution, and touring was important because that was how they got CDs into the fans’ hands.

“Now that our distribution is more solid, touring is equally important,” Bird explains, “but a lot of our artists have agents, and then with Atmosphere—with the full band—Randy does sound and tour management so I don’t necessarily need to be on the road all the time, which brings it into the next phase, which is more than likely heading up marketing and still doing the touring stuff because everyone has to wear multiple hats. [We’ve been] building this marketing department between me and Kevin [Beacham, aka DJ Nikoless]. We’re looking at structuring Rhymesayers out more than what it is right now.”

You’ll hear the term “organic” tossed around a lot when people talk about underground hip-hop, and in general, it means one of two things: lazy or carefully manicured to appear more “real” than it really is. Applied to Rhymesayers, though, it means taking careful and measured steps, feeling their way along the edges that divide the improbable from the impossible until the business has grown into a symbiotic relationship with the music scene.

“It was definitely more of a natural thing,” says Siddiq. “It was definitely built out of necessity. You know, if we were all born and living on the coasts, we’d probably be going the same route that most other acts go, but everything—from day one—there was really nothing there, and there wasn’t really an agenda: It was just a bunch of cats doing what they love to do and we tapped into the passion that all of us had from early on. There was nobody necessarily looking for hip-hop to come out of Minnesota, so it just created an environment to do it ourselves. But I think I always naturally had that independent spirit from the sense of I was never really much of a conformist. Even through having really good jobs, I was always pretty much bucking any kind of corporate system. There wasn’t a lot of avenues and paths already paved at the time, so for us, we were doing a lot of firsts. There wasn’t necessarily a blueprint to follow.”

But now RSE finds itself on the horns of a dilemma, because with increased success comes an increased need to organize and structure the business. Not so long ago, the Rhymesayers office was one room behind the company-owned record store Fifth Element with five people all working in there at the same time. About two years ago, they began extensive renovations, turning the Fifth Element building into a bona fide complex, and they’ve been in the new offices for nearly a year now. The plan now is to build a studio where they can record in-house (see sidebar, “Joe Mabbott’s Big Move"), but there’s no hot tub or anything similarly lavish. The decision to reinvest in the office was made because it was the next step.

“That’s definitely been the key to our success [the slow build],” says Siddiq. “That’s probably part of the reason why most indie startups don’t last too long, unless they have some kind of flagship artist. This is something we’ve been growing for over 10 years and so we’ve been able to build a pretty solid foundation. We don’t take huge leaps and we do that on purpose. Even sometimes when there’s opportunities to take huge leaps, if we don’t feel that it’s the best move, we won’t do it. Trying to jump up further than you really should at any given time just works against you. I’d rather spend a little bit more time getting to that point and knowing we’re completely ready. We didn’t have distribution until two years ago. And that’s really kind of crazy for a label of our stature. But it worked for us; we found a way to make it work and to survive doing it completely ourselves. And then when we did go get distribution, we were more than ready and the marketplace was more than ready for it, ‘cause we had built up such a demand and there was such a void. So all these things really worked to our advantage, whereas you get a lot of labels and they may have a couple names they can secure a distribution deal on, but then the records don’t sell and they don’t go anywhere from that point because there’s really no foundation there.”

As much as possible, Siddiq tries to keep the same vision and agenda he had when RSE was making tapes to give out at shows back in ’95. In my experience, people you talk to at labels—from indies to majors—have a spiel they like to give about how the business works and plenty of grand ideas about how to succeed, but most of those people end up out of business. A lot of independent labels try to start from where Rhymesayers is right now, but you can’t underestimate what 10 years has taught them. Siddiq says it’s not uncommon for him to get into the office at 10 a.m. and be there until three, four, or five in the morning; it’s the kind of leadership you need to get over in this industry. After partnering with New York-based label Fat Beats on Atmosphere’s Godlovesugly and California-based label Epitaph on the follow-up, Seven’s Travels, for distribution, RSE wanted to put out Atmosphere’s latest, You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having, completely on their own without any ties to other companies. So far they’ve sold 100,000 copies. It’s not gold status or anything, but try this on: Imagine 100,000 people paying attention to anything you’ve done in your life.

That level of success doesn’t just come from having tight flows and beats, though. “We bring our artists through the quote-unquote Rhymesayers Boot Camps,” explains Bird, who’s had some experience as a drill sergeant. “Atmosphere’s the flagship artist: Sean [Slug] has been doing this longer than any of them and has built Atmosphere to the point, touring-wise, that they can sell out bigger rooms. So he’ll bring [Brother] Ali out on the Godlovesugly tour when he’s never been out there before. It’s up to the artist to put on a great show and be responsible, but they learn because they watch Sean: Sean’s on time, Sean does all his interviews. Sometimes we’ll do 16, 17 shows in a row non-stop. So when you roll like that, you learn the ropes. We brought Ali out, P.O.S. went out the same way and it’s been continuous where we bring developing artists out and they see from the ground level how much work this really is. Touring has been that foundation pretty much since the beginning and at least since I’ve been here. That was part of my goal: to really implement a touring structure in Rhymesayers, because that’s one of the things I first saw when I saw Atmosphere play the Entry. When I met Sean, I was like, man, you gotta take it on the road. We just started doing it, grinding it. Driving to Texas, doing a show. Going to Chicago, doing a show and driving back overnight because people had to work the next day. Sleeping on people’s floors. Whatever it took. A lot of people that are newer don’t know that it’s been a long time coming. Atmosphere didn’t just sell 100,000 records.”

“Not everybody gets it,” says Siddiq. “We definitely try to take and duplicate the approach in the sense of those that have made two steps, show the person behind you those two steps and continue moving it forward that way and building that mentality. It’s worked for us and the artists that do get it and the artists that do embrace it have all seen success, so obviously there’s something to it.”

Of course, it’s not all feel-good success stories. This is, after all, a money-making industry and Rhymesayers has to navigate the shark-infested waters like anybody. There’s been some recent flak over Best Buy’s program of promoting a handful of indie titles for the low, low price of $7.99, which is not only lower than the price at most indie record stores, it’s lower than wholesale in a lot of cases. This is pretty much in line with the way Best Buy has always treated music. They’re not there to sell CDs; the CDs get people into the store and buying big-screen TVs, Dolby Surround sound systems and washers and dryers. It’s an opt-in program, and Rhymesayers has participated, but they’re in something of a unique position with regard to retail.

“It is what it is,” Siddiq says. “It’s all bullshit, really. We don’t control it, we can’t do much about it. And I know both sides of the table; I’m undercutting myself [because of Fifth Element]. Yeah, it’s fucked up, yeah it sucks, but what are you going to do? You can’t take them out of the equation; it’s impossible. And as an independent label, you need them as an ally. We need to have our records in Best Buy if we want to see some level of success. Retail is shrinking every fucking day so you can’t really just be like, because Best Buy undercuts on 10, 12 titles, or whatever it is, when they do that shit, what are you going to do about it? To me, it more puts the onus on those independent retailers to really step their game up. We [as a retailer] have to be creative and think outside of the box and also, too, we have to depend on the clientele that doesn’t want to shop for their music at Best Buy. Because that is the case with certain people. But in the same sense, I’ve done the same thing that any of these other indie retailers have done, where you can actually go to Best Buy and buy product and sell it in your store cheaper than you can get it through any one-stop or distributor. It’s ridiculous, but that is what it is. Us not being involved in it isn’t going to change it; they’re still gonna do it. Nothing we can do in that equation is gonna change it other than just be on our game as far as an independent retailer and really try and be progressive on what we provide to the community that we’re trying to serve. But there’s a whole marketplace that doesn’t care about music [in an independent way]. You can’t stray away from that market; you can’t negate those people who don’t care about going to independent shops, who don’t care about all the stuff that goes along with being a music enthusiast and just wants to buy that song they heard from so-and-so. I don’t necessarily like it, but I also recognize that you can’t really do much about it, not in today’s market.”

Siddiq goes on to explain that they, as a label, try to work with independent retailers on special programs as well, sending them special items the chains don’t get, doing in-stores. As an observer, it can be easy to be idealistic about it, but it’s considerably harder when you’re in the game. Like it or not, there is a structure to the industry and you can either play ball with it or take your ball and go home. Going home only hurts you because there are plenty of labels willing to deal in this fashion. It’s a business, and that involves compromise. So is the glass half-full or half-empty? At what point is the next step the first step towards selling out? I’m not comfortable saying, having never been there myself, but my gut tells me that Siddiq’s gut is probably right: RSE is still on the level.

“The best thing is that it is an artist-based label,” says Bird, “where there’s not a dress code to come to work. Nobody guards you and I think that allows you to do other things. You can DJ; you can do radio shows; you can go teach classes like Kevin does. Having that open forum and then just feeling like you’re really a part of this whole thing. I mean I feel privileged to have been there with Atmosphere through five years. Getting to watch these kids love it. I think it’s important when you’re an independent record company to be on the frontlines a lot because those kids are the kids that are supporting you. They’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong and they’ll tell you what you’re doing right. Being out there and seeing the excitement in kids’ eyes, and just watching ‘em at the show and then how much the artists really really care and taking the extra time out. Everybody thinks, ‘You’re an artist, you have the best job in the world,’ but come on, if you’re in a van for eight, 10 hours; you do an in-store; you get [to the venue], you do your soundcheck; you do two hours of interviews; you have a half-hour and then you go on and then afterwards you still go to the merch table and shake kids hands for an hour or talk to ‘em. That takes a toll. They care about the record company and the whole thing. To be part of those kind of people is a privilege. I’ve learned a lot; I’ve seen the world. I didn’t even have to go in the Marines, dude. I got to see Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Iceland.”

The journey of a thousand miles (which these cats seem to have done a couple times over) begins with a single step, and they’re doing an admirable job of focusing on the next one, not the one three steps down the line. After all, the next step is the only step you can take, right? When I ask Siddiq about what’s coming up for the label, his response speaks volumes about a man in the trenches: “More of the same, really. It’s nothing crazy but also, when you’re in the midst of it, it’s just more of the same, to me. So it’s kind of hard to explain in the sense of, this is happening and this is happening. There’s plenty happening, but to me, it’s no big deal; it’s just another day at the office. It’s just another day.” ||