Welcome To Independence

spent the past two weeks out on the road with Fiend on a promotional tour for “Can I Burn?” the movie and soundtrack. The response to the CD has been incredible, as fans are loving it like his first album, but no one seems to even know there is a video out. Originally, we did a deal with Southwest (I’ve been happier) for distribution in the Midwest and South (even though they do not cover all areas themselves, they have the ability to go to other distributors in other areas, which leaves us to only have to go to one source--Southwest, to collect our money. In a perfect world, this would make excellent sense, but it has been slow getting money from Southwest). We negotiated with Southwest to keep the price of the video low. Fiend wanted it to retail for $15.95, which means Southwest would have to sell it to stores for around $10. Somehow they are selling it to stores for $15, which puts it at around $22 at retail--but most retailers don’t even know there is a movie (Southwest has since lowered the price of the video). The distributor’s only purpose is to get the product into the stores, follow up to keep the product constantly in the stores (they should never be sold out), and pay the label. It is up to the label to do everything else from building awareness to promoting the records, to get the consumers into the store to buy the product.

Fiend hired Chrewd Marketing and Promotions in Chicago to coordinate street teams in his 10 or 12 largest markets which were chosen based on the sound of this new record (it has a south and Midwest sound to it), by the cities where Fiend knew he got great response when he was signed to No Limit, and cities where we knew there was a dependable street team that wouldn’t just take the money and run. (“Street teams” and “radio promotions” are the two areas in urban music where new or independent labels can really get fucked out of their money.) Fiend had his van wrapped with the album cover (all promotional items were based around the album cover for maximum recognition) and then hit the road with two of the artists featured on the record, his road manager, his father (he goes everywhere and is even filming the new Fiend movie on this trip: “Still Burning”), and two members of his local Baton Rouge street team along to fill in any missing gaps in other cities. He started at home first, promoting in Baton Rouge and New Orleans (the street team in New Orleans got fired when he felt they weren’t doing their job). He went to radio and retail during the day and clubs at night, sometimes performing but mostly just politicking and promoting. As he moved on to Houston then Dallas, he was spending time on his phone replacing the street team in New Orleans. He had to coordinate the new street team picking up unused promotional tools from the former street team, and had to wire them money to get started. It was important for him to be represented properly in New Orleans since he’s originally from there. Although he really could not afford it, he told the young lady who ran the former street team to keep the money she had been paid because she insisted she was doing her job and that there was just a miscommunication. The bottom line to me is that Fiend felt there was no evidence in New Orleans that he had an album in stores (no retail point of purchase displays), and there is no miscommunication when you don’t feel the presence of your own project on home turf (Fiend lives in Baton Rouge but grew up an hour away in the city of New Orleans). She may feel she got paid anyway, but what she doesn’t realize is that this will keep her away from the projects I have coming soon for fear of my artists experiencing the same thing. Right or wrong, the risk is too high when you’re spending $30,000 on street teams across the US. That’s hella money for an independent. Most of the time that’s even more than is spent to make the album.

After the crew went through Houston for three days and then Dallas for two, they drove on to St Louis (Fiend drove all 13 hours himself straight through while the team slept). The great thing about Fiend is that he is a regular guy and happy to be working his own compilation record. He learned quite a bit from Master P (has nothing but love for him), and has a terrific work ethic. He is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get busy with the work. After seeing how Shyne (Bad Boy Recording artist) reacted to his street team (which was also ours), fans, and the radio and club staff in St Louis, I thanked God Fiend did not have the “diva” syndrome that plagues many recording artists. I joined Fiend’s promo tour in St Louis, MO jumping from the plane directly into a smoked filled van, ready to get busy in St Louis. My first stop was Walmart, where it is legal to buy hollow point bullets. Then I went on to the Red Roof Inn where we had three rooms for about $180 a night. The street team in St Louis was on point, run by Solo (Blu Concept Promotions). He took us through retail stores for two days and I saw firsthand displays of Fiend’s posters and flats in every store. In St Louis, there is a label that I am friends with called PD Waxx. They were first introduced to me by DJ DMD years ago and I’ve been watching them ever since. They have a single out now with Twista on it, and since I manage Twista (and Fiend) I am watching to see what PD Waxx does with this record. Kool Aid (from PD Waxx) rolled with us through most of our retail runs. He also put me on the phone with the new program director at the new urban radio station, Mic Fox. I’ve known Mic for years, since he was a PD at my favorite radio station in Philadelphia. Oddly enough, Mic had worked at the radio station in New Orleans about 10 years ago, and knew Fiend very well. He had even made beats for Fiend back in the day (before Fiend had a record deal, and before Mic had the pressures of radio management) and there is one beat that Fiend remembers and still to this day wants to rhyme over. Mic did a great job in Philly with that radio station, so I am certain St Louis will be no different. Mic is no joke. Anyway, Mic came to the hotel to see us and even rolled with the crew that night to the skating rink and the clubs.

I didn’t go to the clubs with any of the crew (except one night in Detroit) so I could stay in the hotel and get work done. I also drove a good part of the trip since I was often the only one who got four hours of sleep each night. Most of the crew was running on two hours of sleep for most of the tour. A typical day was we’d get up at 10 AM and run errands (laundry, sometimes breakfast, bank, post office, K-Mart for socks and drawers, etc). At noon we’d meet the street team at our hotel and roll out for retail runs from about 1 to 6. Then we’d hit mix show or run by radio to do drops for an hour or so. Then we’d eat and go back to the hotel for showers (or in Fiend’s case, blunts) or rest until about 10 when the street team would scoop everyone back up to go to clubs. They would go to whichever clubs were hot on that night and usually hang out til 2 or 3 AM. Then they’d be back to the hotel with whatever assorted fans and back up again at 10 to start over. When I say fans at the hotel, I don’t mean groupies or hookers, Fiend doesn’t get down like that. I mean local folks from the market (industry, other rappers, radio folks, retailers, people Fiend met years ago, cousins, brothers, etc) would come and hang out til’ daybreak.
Solo took us to this one retail store (Streetside Records on Grand) that had a high school down the block. He timed our arrival to coincide with school letting out, whipped out a bullhorn, and we did an in-store autograph signing that had Fiend signing about 1,000 Can I Burn posters. It was awesome. It’s those little things that make a street promoter valuable. This is the only city we visited where the street team had the foresight to do this even though in Detroit we went to a store directly next to a high school (it had already let out so only a few stragglers came through) and in Cleveland we were down the street from a high school when it let out (this one was successful because kids have their own line of instant communication and about 100 came to meet Fiend). In both cases I met the principal of each school so we could come back another time and perform at the school. In Detroit I walked over to the school and introduced myself, and in Cleveland, Lenny B (our street promoter) introduced me to the principal who came to the store (he’s also a DJ). At the last retail store we went to in St Louis, the Beat radio van pulled up and did a live remote from Vintage Vinyl (a weighted retailer with SoundScan, so every record bought there counts as five).

After we all had dinner together at some Chuck Berry themed restaurant (they had games on each table like Dominoes, Monopoly, Clue, etc, which was really cool), we hit the road and drove the five or six hours to Chicago. Fiend’s Can I Burn mobile has a video screen and DVD and VCR capabilities, so our travel time was never in hours, it was in movies: Chicago from St Louis was three movies. Since we were booking our own hotels, without asking the street teams for suggestions as we should have, at 3 AM in Chicago we pulled into the parking lot of a hotel we had no business being at. It was a grimey, down and dirty, rent by the hour, hooker hotel (even though it was a Travel Lodge). When we pulled into the parking lot, it was bumping like the parking lot of a nightclub at closing. The rooms were nasty and most of the furniture was stacked outside of each room’s door. It was so bizarre that we couldn’t do anything but laugh. At $70 a night for each of 3 rooms we really felt like we were getting robbed. We were so tired we stayed the night (Fiend sat up the next few hours with a Desert Eagle on his lap, as the Maywood police came and made a drug bust at the room down the hall). In the morning, I called Twista at 8 AM and asked him to recommend another spot. He came and got us and took us to a hotel on the South side that made me feel instantly more comfortable. There is no price I could ever put on my artists’ safety and I’m certain my guys weren’t nervous or uncomfortable at the first hotel, but my instincts told me to get the fuck out the second we pulled in the driveway. I would have been more comfortable at the Taylor homes (notorious projects in Chi) with a sign on my back that said “rob me.”

I spend quite a bit of time in Chicago. I have an office there and have been going to Chicago since 1995 when I first met the Creator’s Way guys, which was the production company between Twista and Atlantic. Because the Creator’s Way situation turned into a nightmare (for both Twista and me) it is difficult for me to be in the Chi without thinking about how fucked up the situation got. So I’m always a little sad when I’m there. Creator’s Way was owned by a guy who for six years was my favorite person in the world, and a producer who discovered the meaning of greed when he became moderately successful. I felt as though he was disrespecting my friend who had financed his ability to come up, and I also felt they weren’t handling their business properly (they NEVER paid their staff or artists) so I bounced (I had been helping them for free, so me leaving didn’t really cost them anything) and went about my business never dissing them, actually never mentioning them at all. They were pathetic to me. I had helped the producer make a million dollars (for free) in less than a year using my connections and calling in favors left and right. I did this to take the financial strain off my friend who had been supporting him. I found him to be ungrateful to my friend, and disrespectful to the other producers coming up under him and his staff and artists (no one got to share the wealth, ever). When I left (and I didn’t leave abruptly, I made certain their shit was handled after I was gone, for free), shit started to go downhill for them fast. Eventually the entire straff and all the producers and artists left one by one, all for the same reason. It had nothing to do with me but they blamed me publicly and privately. When I would complain to my friend (and we were still friends at that point) he’d tell me I was imagining things. He obviously didn’t have enough respect for me to be honest.

A year later, Twista called me directly and asked me to help him. He said he felt his career slipping, he had not been paid from his now-Gold album or the Speedknot Mobstaz album, and wanted to get as far away from this production company as he could. I called my friend and discussed managing Twista with him. He was excited about the idea, but then called me the following day and said it was a bad idea because the other partner hated the idea (as if a label has any input on management). It was too late; I had already told Twista I’d manage him the night before…there was no going back. Twista and I tried to amicably solve the problem with the production company (he refused to record for them since they did nothing for him and kept almost all the money, and their position was they’d pay him $40,000 to record the next album) to no avail. People who had no idea what they were doing, and who didn’t see the value in paying their staff or artists wanted to continue controlling Twista’s career. The reason I even mention all this crap is to say that the producer partner opened a record store on the Southside of Chicago, and he was listed on Fiend’s itinerary as our first stop. I was horrified. I personally believe that with the money he did not pay Twista, his producers, or staff, he has opened a store so he can make money, and yet he futilely tries to “legally” block Twista from making any moves, or money in this industry. I feel Twista has potential and the producer partner no longer does, so he’s punishing him for not allowing him to use Twista as his way into the industry, the way he used my friend financially, and me for my connections and favors. So it was VERY difficult for me to advise Fiend to go on ahead and do the in-store at this man’s spot, but I did. My personal feelings can not interfere with any of my artists’ opportunities. Fiend did the in-store while I sat in the van fuming over the way this production company has done Twista. On a happy note, the in-store was a huge success and the producer played himself by coming to our next in-store to see if it was really me with Fiend. Yep, it was me and he has ZERO value to me. But I sure miss his ex-partner!

So for two days, Fiend did in-stores during the day, and radio and clubs at night. He spent time with Twista in his new studio (Twista owns his own studio and a record label with another producer who was abused by the old production company, and one of his original partners who was locked down while all this other drama transpired). We met with other local labels and artists to support their efforts and Twista and Fiend hung tough. Twista showed crazy love. And I met a label owner (Vo Mack) who did what he said he was going to do and came through when he said he would. How rare is that in this industry?

After Chicago we went to Gary, Indiana (half a movie) and then on to Milwaukee. I stayed in Chicago with Twista working out some kinks in our retail while the crew went up to Kilwaukee. It turns out, Southwest shipped our product two weeks early completely fucking up our release date and our SoundScan numbers. I assume it was for financial reasons as it has taken us months to get advances we were promised back in June. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the sooner product ships, the sooner the distributor gets paid. I still like Southwest but have found a bigger distributor for other projects.

When the guys came back from Milwaukee they spent the day in the studio with Twista where Fiend and Twista finished a fire ass song. Then we got on the road for Detroit (about 5 hours--ya know, 3 movies). I drove since I was the only one who got sleep the night before. We pulled into Detroit just in time to hit the strip clubs. The female rapper who was with us (Bugsy) had her purse stolen out of the van (fuck valet parking) and when we called the club to inform them (legally, we could sue the shit out of them since they forced us to valet park) the owner was such an ass hole to her on the phone (even hanging up after swearing, and she wasn’t asking his trifling weak ass for anything, just wanted him to know his valet staff were thieves) that we decided to fuck them back. I wanted to file a police report at the scene of the crime on their hottest night at their prime time and when muthafukkaz pulled into the parking lot and saw a cop car there with lights flashing, they would leave and go elsewhere. Fuck him!! Better than shooting the shit up which is what we really wanted to do. I’m tired of old disrespectful white racists making money off of Black folks…and the dumb Negro bitches stupid enough to dance for him.

We spent the following day (the album release date) running around through retail (no radio was set up for us--I guess radio in Detroit doesn’t know who Fiend is or our street team wasn’t connected at radio…we didn’t even get to do drops). The stores we visited sold about 100 records that day that Fiend autographed. Not bad considering we spent only about half an hour at each store and that none of it was advertised in advance (not by our choice). That night we experienced real Detroit hospitality at the road manager’s (Cream) brother’s house (Big B). We ate, played pool, watched movies; they smoked (I don’t smoke) and hung out til it was time to hit a real strip bar. Cream’s other brother bought the guys Moet and strippers til they couldn’t take anymore. When it was time to leave (about 2 AM) the club, I drove the 4 hours to Cleveland (no movies, everyone slept). About 3 exits before our hotel in Cleveland (and at about 6 AM) a tire blew out. The tread peeled away from the tire. We could still drive (albeit slowly) to the hotel where Will from AAA was kind enough to change our tire. Cream and I ran to Goodyear and bought 2 new tires and we were good as new. After a day of retail in Cleveland, we met up with Nina (Bizzy Bone’s sister) and Souljah Boy who was considering changing his name til I reminded him how everyone already knew him as Souljah Boy and he’d be starting from scratch with a new name. His name was never damaged, it just didn’t get as big as it could have, so why start over. Almost all of the stores in Detroit and Cleveland had the Can I Burn soundtrack, but only one retailer in Gary, IN had the video. As Souljah Boy and Fiend drove me to the airport (I had a flight out to Chicago at 8 PM) I was eavesdropping on a conversation that summed up my whole world for me: Souljah Boy asked Fiend if No Limit paid him what he was supposed to be paid (rumor on the street is that all the artists left because they didn’t get paid). He said “not really.” Souljah Boy said, “Yeah, me neither” as he stared out the side window. Fiend said, “Welcome to independence, my brotha!!” They laughed and pounded each other. Welcome to independence. $8 a record instead of 80 cents and depending on someone else to pay you what you are owed!! Fuck that.