This week The Demonstrators hit song, “Paper Runnin’ Booman Remix” was featured on an episode of a show on ABC.com.  Navigating the current music environment is tricky and getting a song featured on something as widespread as an ABC series can be really good for gaining more exposure for our label.  So when we our friend Hilton Carter was editing for this series and asked if we wanted the song featured there was really no hesitation.  This feature will get “Paper Runnin’” and pure Baltimore Club music for that matter, heard by many ears that most likely would not have heard of either previously.

So check the song at the 1:30 mark of the video at this link and if you’re interested in supporting Under Sound and want to buy both the original version AND the Booman Remix, please visit this link.

Thanks!

~E Major

UllNevaNo – Bright Sound from Under Sound Music on Vimeo.

Anyone that follows either the Baltimore Hip Hop scene or the East Coast Grind Time freestyle battles has no doubt heard of UllNevaNo, making his name itself almost paradoxical, which is pretty cool.  Under Sound Music, along with RockTheDub.com, Agio Life and DJ Harvey Dent are presenting UllNeva’s upcoming mixtape The Color Brown which features the young wordsmith spitting over nothing but Kev Brown instrumentals.  We sat down with him to talk about his inspirations, his process to writing and what to expect from his upcoming project.

USM: What got you started in Hip Hop? When did you realize that you were going
to be an MC?

UllNevaNo: I can recall when I really started getting into hip hop was towards the end of my 8th grade year merging into high school, And listening to my pops mix cd’s from tony touch, to dj clue, but as a young teenager your surrounded by what’s the in thing, so there was a period where I was listening to the Dip Sets, the No Limits etc.  Once I moved to Southern California I just got absorbed into the culture it was like everybody was competitive to be the dopest emcee in School no matter what grade, holding battles and ciphers at lunch period. I realized I was going to be an Mc after my 1st Year attending College, meaning taking it seriously in that matter as far as the grind and making sacrifices was concerned.

I’m always creating music constantly, and in todays digital era everybody has a mixtape, so I wanted to do something clever, something that stood out from the rest of those that put out mixtapes every 6 months via online. I thought it would be dope to put out a series of mixtapes to have a producer to have some sort of relationship with color, and I also looked at it as being creative, so its sort of an ode to Kev Brown cause I do appreciate his work from “I do what I do” to ” Selective Hearing.” There will be one more installment to the mixtape series after the “Color Brown” I have an ill idea about the next one its already in the planning stages right now.

I’m really into dope boom bap raw, static dirty sounding beats I’m into chopped samples and loops, it depends on the beat sometimes an ill drum pattern might catch my ear or a sample, and bass lines. There’s way too many to mention as my favorite producers as of lately, Preemo, Exile, 9th Wonder, Apollo Brown, Paten Locke, illmind, Dibia$e, Oddisee and the late J-dilla.

I Write on a daily, especially on my blackberry but I have just random rhymes that pop in my head when I’m on the go, I still keep essential to the roots with the pen and pad when I’m crafting a gem. I usually don’t write until I hear the beat first I tend to get inspired by the sample and just let it talk to me, or sometimes I have lost verses that I’ve been wanting to record depending on the subject matter there’s times I can make it fit to a certain beat but I always like to start from scratch its more challenging.

Well Big L was one of those emcees that really got me into rhyming heavy, his whole delivery was dope, BLU he’s a very dope emcee as well that whole “Below the Heavens” album I’ll sometimes listen to that to get inspired, Jean Grae is one of my favorite female emcees she’s dope as well, here lately I’ve been listening to a lot of West Coast Emcees such as Murs, Trek Life, VerBS, Shawn Jackson and Giant Panda. I started focusing on patterns and rhyme schemes after listening to Elzhi the way he puts words together is amazing, him and Phonte of Little Brother kind of have a similar style as far as word placement goes.

There’s a huge difference between battling and creating good music, I mean it helps you to stay on your toes when it comes to penning verses, which is how battles are now and days writtens are acceptable now. I stopped battling for a whole year last year cause of the league that I was in(grindtime nyc) the president dropped me without letting me know. So at that point I just lost the love for the art and the culture, due to the fact that battles today are like WWE instead of UFC you have sponsorships etc. Which I honestly feel is a bit much but grindtime has evolved so much, at the end of the day just rhyme and let the best man win. I’m in Grindtime’s DMV league so we’ll see what happens this year.

The cliche myth that people say is that battle emcees can’t make good songs, which is kind of true but you look at cats like Eminem who started from Scribble Jam to being a multi platinum recording artist he knows how to generate sales and make good music. I prefer to craft songs then to battle honestly, that shows that I’ve grown as a emcee I don’t want to be known as a battle emcee, but its a great promotional tool if you want to get your music heard though. But it worries me to be put in that box.

Raw Rhymes!! Improvement from the previous tape, there’s a lot more personal joints on here that I was going through in the past year, and its more like of a mixtape with DJ Harvey Dent on the mix if cats never heard of Kev Brown they’ve been sleeping under a rock, I’m just hoping the people will enjoy it.

Me and producer Knowledge “Day Job” ep is dropping soon that’s been long over due, Shout out to my twin brother Jason, Under Sound Music for supporting the Project, AGIO Life, Pedx, DJ Face, Action Figures, DJ Harvey Dent, Keeny on the video treatment, Grindtime DMV,and more importantly my parents for giving me there praise to keep pushing with this music.

Very cool to have E Major’s new single “Where You Came From?” with King Mez and J Hill featured on DJBooth.net.  Head over and give your thoughts on the track.

]]> http://www.undersoundmusic.net/2010/07/27/e-majors-where-you-came-from-featured-on-djbooth-net/feed/ 0 http://www.undersoundmusic.net/2010/07/22/video-trp-feat-bossman-b4lt1m0re/ http://www.undersoundmusic.net/2010/07/22/video-trp-feat-bossman-b4lt1m0re/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:07:12 +0000 Under Sound Staff http://www.undersoundmusic.net/?p=1972 We don’t usually post anything on the site unless the folks involved are directly involved with or work with Under Sound to some extent.  There are exceptions to that though and this is one of them.  This video got over 120,000 views so it’s crazy that I’m just now seeing it.  We got an email today though from the kid Money who raps first on this joint and he wanted to share it with us and I’m glad he did. This is some street music that I can get with.  Not surprisingly Bossman shines on this.  He really fits well on beats like this IMO.  And I really like this track.  Anyway, check it out and let me know if you’re feeling it and want to hear more.

Friend of Under Sound and my sometimes collaborator (i.e. this and ummm… this) Hezekiah, is preparing to release his new album Conscious Porn on Soul Spazm.  As you can see from the above flyer, it’s got some amazing contributors including some bona fide heavy weights.  Two of those heavy weights are  another Philly based MC,  Bahamadia and the legendary Talib Kweli, who are featured on the aptly named “Fired Up.”  Simply put, this song goes HARD.

On Conscious Porn Hez is taking a decidedly more raw approach to his signature soulful sound.  One of the best things about Hezekiah as and artists is that he explores the contradictions that exist in so many of us and he continues that exploration with this album.

I’m listening to “Fired Up” as I type this and it’s hard not to stop typing because I feel compelled to listen.  The track has a sense of urgency to it and each MC, even Bahamadia who usually has a voice that blends with the track, commands your attention.  Hezekiah kicks it off with lines like “Got a line about rhymes and a line about crime, so which one do ya’ll want worse?” which illustrates how artists have so many sides to them but we’re not sure what our audience wants sometimes.

This might be the most I’ve written about a single on this site but that’s because this song really caught me from the first time I heard it.  And trust me the entire album is full of songs that are just as compelling.  So give a listen to “Fired Up” and let us know what YOU think.

~E Major

Our homie from Better Than Yours, Jerome Baker III just dropped this mix, YESSIR: The Best of Snoop Dogg and The Neptunes.  Download now here and follow Jerome on Twitter.

And be on the lookout for our partnership with Better Than Yours as we present “E Major is… Better Than Yours.”

~E Major

Wale moving the crowd

Impulse and E Major

Here are a few photos we got at Artscape over the weekend.  Artscape always seems to be on the hottest day of the year.  We did our best to add to the heat.  Impulse spun some great records and I did what I could to hold him down on the mic.  All around though it was a lot of fun.

~E Major

Impulse with the legendary J Rawls of Lone Catalyst

This is a great story about the new business models being presented by upstart and boutique labels (like Under Sound Music for example). Here’s an excerpt that mentions us. Thanks to the City Paper for their continued support of our movement.

The converse to that, but still very much a boutique, might be the MC E Major’s recently launched Under Sound label (“Kinda Like Something Big,” Music, Feb. 3). It’s released music by other artists, sure, but Under Sound’s three partners also agree that it’s very much a label and brand revolving around E Major. And these days, it is entirely possible to have a label centered on one artist, particularly in something as personality driven as hip-hop.

Part of that is making it something more than a label, as Under Sound has done. The trio emphasizes that Under Sound is also a well-read music blog, a clothing store and, right now, an outlet for art prints. “We discovered early on that, nowadays, you’re not going to make money with a record label selling albums,” E Major (Ian Mattingly to the government) told this writer last winter.

“We definitely don’t want to get into anything where we’re in contract with artists or anything” he added. “We want to work with people we know or like. The way it works now is we’ve bartered for so much stuff, like, ‘Hey, give me a beat, I’ll rap on your song’ kind of thing. It works out really nicely that way.”

(Click here to read the full story)

Ardamus and E Major

Talib Kweli

Grap Luv and Kev Brown

Baltimore’s Tislam the Great

Ma Dukes and band leader J Laine of The Players

]]> http://www.undersoundmusic.net/2010/07/14/photos-from-dc-loves-dilla-2010/feed/ 0