Richard Taylor once said, “Often our ambitions are not beyond our capacity but beyond our discipline, some of the greatest minds will never rise above mediocrity because they fail to sacrifice that which superiority requires.” One does not become an excellent rapper by spending all of their time on twitter, facebook and watching television. If you want to become a better rapper you have to daily put in work to perfect your craft. It is my conviction that artistic excellence should be viewed as a responsibility in serving others. As Nicholas Wolterstorff observed, human life is impoverished without aesthetic delight. Scripture says, that we are to love God with our heart, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Providing aesthetic delight through quality music is providing joy and pleasure to our neighbor. We take art seriously because we take God seriously. One way to improve your craft is setting time apart each day for writing. Set a goal (Ex. I will write atleast 1hr each day). I recommend avoiding all forms of social media, facebook/twitter, get rid distractions and stay focused. If you do not like a verse, re-write it. If you think you can do better, re-write it. Push yourself. Ask artists, “what areas do you think I can get better in?” And each day work on getting better. Listen to other music to get inspired to improve your craft. Just know that it is hard-work! Do not be a lazy Christian rapper, give your all for the glory of God.
Thisl Artist Tips – How to Sell Records
Thisl of Full Ride Music Group shares tip for aspiring Christian rap artists on selling records.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZtGAGU4p7GE
The Christian Artist and Contentment
As an aspiring independant Christian rap artist one may be tempted to look at the success of established artists like Lecrae, Shai Linne, Trip Lee and others and become envious our jealous of their platform. Perhaps, you are saying to yourself, “My music is just as good as theirs, how come I am not establishing a large fan-base or receiving an equivalent platform in ministry.” If we are asking these questions we must first examine our hearts and ask why do we desire a platform? Is it due to self-ambitions and motives for self-glorification? Or is it the desire to use a platform to spread the fame of Jesus’ name, and not ours. 1 Peter 5:5-6 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” If you seek to be exalted God will humble you, but if you humble yourself God at the proper time will exalt you. The question is, who does the better exalting, you or God? We observe in the history of Christian hip-hop that God elevates artists who may not have the best CD packaging, marketing or promotion on social media. But they are servants who seek His kingdom first with a heart to preach the Gospel and serve their neighbors through the gifts God has given them.
Perhaps, you are an artist that does not have a lot of money and you frequently become discouraged due to the prices that producers charge for exclusive right instrumentals, or for quality graphics and music videos. Perhaps, you are saying to yourself, “God, making an abum is going to take me so long, even years. I want to be a consistent artist and drop a project every year or two, but at this rate it seems impossible.” We must also recognize that God is sovereign and always good and and we are not “entitled” to a consistent music career. To release an album is the grace of God, so we must constantly remind ourselves even if I am not able to put out an album as soon as I would like, I should be thankful because doing this is the grace of God. We must humble ourselves and recognize that God is sovereign and in control and He is using these trials in producing projects to prepare our hearts, conforming us into the image of Christ. We pray that God would provide resources and trust in Him to provide, and even if He doesn’t provide us with resources to make a “hot music video” or “quality graphics” and “the best mixing and mastering” He is still GOOD. But, let us be patient in prayer, continually trusting God, relying on Him.
How to Release an Album
Releasing an album is not simply announcing on twitter and facebook that you have an album out and directing people to purchase/download it. If you want reach a wider audience you have to invest in advertisement. I recommend having a promotional-outline. The one of the goals of pre-release promotion is building anticipation and post-release is to build appreciation. Several pre/post release options that you could use are: 1) Promotional Videos; 2) Music Videos; 3) Interviews 4) Give-Aways; 5) Testimony Videos; 6) Behind the Scene Videos and 7) Album Cover-Tracklist Revealed 8) Singles and 9) Album Facts.
PRE-RELEASE
After studying how Record Labels release albums i have made a couple of observations. It seems that one the purposes of pre-release promotion (PPP) is to increase anticipation. One thing to remember is that in PPP it is all about TIMING. You have to spread your promotion in which is constantly “builds’ the anticipation and does not make it decline during its release. You do not want to release a Promo Video 6 months before your album drops and then a single 2 weeks before your album drops. By the time 5 months have passed people have forgotten about your album being released. It is like a roller-coaster, you “slowly” build it up to a peak and then when you get to the top (drop the album).
1) Album Press-Release
You will notice that most record labels announce their albums about 3-4 months before the album releases. This time-gap is the period in which one can market and promote their upcoming album. First, I would recommend having an Album Press-Release via twitter/facebook about 3-4 months before releasing a project which will simply be an announcement to your audience that you plan to release an album on a particular date (Ex. Aug. 9, 2013). This press release could also include the title and concept. You may observe that many artists do this: Da Truth for “Love, Hope and War,” Lecrae – Gravity and Alex Faith – Honest 2 God. So, now that you have announce a release date, what next?
2) Album Cover Revealed
During this 3-4 month period is time for marketing and promotion. The first thing that you want to do is release your album cover and perhaps a brief description of the cover’s symbolism which shows the audience that you took time and effort not only on the music but the artwork which will increase appreciation. Some artists release the album cover and tracklist together but most first simply release the album cover. You are giving your fans a “taste” of what is to come. The point in pre-release marketing is building this anticipation, you don’t want to give them too much that is why you start little and work your way up. Now, after you have release your album cover what next?
2) Album Promotional Video
About a week after you released your album cover, it is time to release a “short-promo” video about the album. Notice, that you wait about a week, you want to create a sense of longing. Do not give them too much too fast. A short-promo video, about 30 seconds to 2:00 minutes long is fine.
Example of Promo Videos
a. Shai Linne’s (Promo- for the Attributes of God; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kY9In41R1A). This will
One of the top investements in releasing an album is having promotion and advertisement on rapzilla.com because it has a lot of traffic and unique visitors that will introduce your music to a wide-range of Christian hip-hop fans. Since, rapzilla is not required or obligated to put your music on their website make sure that your graphics, music and videos are top-notch in terms of quality. They have high regard for artistic excellence and are interested in getting traffic. Especially, if you are not an established artist like a member of Reach, Lampmode, Clearsight, Collission, ect. it will be hard to get on their without quality music, videos and single graphics. You may find information for advertisement prices under contacts.
Shai-Linne’s – Songwriting Advice to CHH Artists
“1. In the original David Banner link, he talked about “backpacker” emcees having dope lyrics, but not being able to make hit songs. I think he’s right and I think it goes for secular and CHH. On the secular side, that’s been the critique for a long time, probably most famously seen with Canibus after the classic underground vs. mainstream battle between him and LL. Canibus killed LL lyrically, but was never able to sustain a profitable music career because of what David Banner is talking about. Elzhi is a good current example of this in the secular. His flow, delivery and lyricism might put him in the top 10 all-time secular emcees. But his one-dimensional subject matter (bragging on his skills) and inability to write good songs will prevent him from achieving mainstream success if he doesn’t correct those things. He should have joined Slaughterhouse lol.
I understand Ben’s point about underground cats not caring if they make it big. I don’t know if that’s true though. I’ve seen too many underground heads grind like crazy, trying to live out the dream that Em described in “Lose Yourself”. The thing is, the underground heads want to be successful, but they wanna be successful on their own terms. They don’t wanna give in to the commercial system. And I feel that, but I also think it’s unrealistic to think that you can spit about nuclear rocket scientifical lyrical miracle centrifugal force quadrants and expect to have any kind of following outside of kids who aspire to be NASA employees.
Speaking of Em, he is one of the few in recent years to be able to have a commercially successful career while remaining super lyrical for the most part. And that began with Dre working with him and teaching him the “formula” for success. Em’s die-hard Infinite & Slim Shady EP fans hate the direction he went, but to this day, any lyricist will tell you that he’s crazy with the pen. And like it or not, he achieved (and built on) his success with songs that had catchy, radio-friendly hooks (My Name Is, Stan, Without Me, I’m Not Afraid, The song w/ Rihanna etc,) even if the verses were lyrical.
2. Let’s talk about Lecrae for a second. I agree that Real Talk and ATMS (my favorite Crae record) had more of a focus on the lyrical aspect of things. As a lyricist, you can just tell that he put more time into his writing on the first two projects. On Rehab, I could tell that the verses were written quickly, which tends to happen when you have all kinds of deadlines like he does. But as much as the simplicity of the writing and lack of lyricism bothers me at times, I think Rehab is a genius project in a lot of ways. Lecrae has mastered the art of SONGWRITING, and his ear when it comes to hooks is ridiculous. You know the artist has a good ear for hooks when you don’t really like a song, but find yourself humming the hook anyway, to the point where the song grows on you lol.
Say what you want about “Background”, but without that song, there is no Crae on B.E.T. cypher. We always talk about greater exposure for CHH, but often don’t realize what that means or what it takes. The politics of radio/ airplay/ charts are CRAZY, especially on the Christian side. That’s another post for another day. But anyway, songwriting is where many of the “backpacker” secular and CHH lyricists are lacking. It’s one thing to write random dope 16 bar verses. Praise God for those who can do that well. It’s a gift from God. It’s another thing to write good, cohesive songs with quality, memorable hooks. A good lyricist or emcee doesn’t mean a good songwriter or good recording artist. Big difference in those 3 things. Writing good songs is not everyone’s goal. I understand that. But you shouldn’t be surprised if the inability to write good songs hinders success in the music industry lol.
3. Because not every emcee is a good songwriter, I think this is where getting outside feedback as you’re working on a project becomes very important. Lecrae makes good songs because it’s not just Lecrae. There are songwriters and other “ears” at Reach who are very influential, but you won’t hear much about them. Crae runs his stuff by them and takes their feedback. For some reason (pride, insecurity, just didn’t think about it, etc.), a lot of “underground” CHH cats don’t get any outside feedback on projects until after they release. I think this is a huge mistake and has hurt many a project imo.
With TAOG, I was glad to be able to hit up Json or Flame or J.R. and get their honest feedback as I was putting the project together. A couple of times I let Json hear stuff and he was like, “That’s not tight, dawg.” I needed to hear that b/c it gave me an outside perspective. Json and I have really different tastes when it comes to musical approach and what we like, but I value his ears, especially as a midwest dude if I’m gonna try to spit over a midwest beat like Our God is In the Heavens.
On the original hook for The Omnis, I was singing it. I wrote and performed the hook. Same notes, same lyrics, but my voice. I sent an unfinished version of it to Alex Medina for his opinion and he wrote back, “Dude, I love all the verses, but that hook is super cheesy! It detracts from the song. You should have Andy sing on it”. I could have pouted, stuck to my guns and got upset, but I wanted the song to sound the best it could. We sent it to Andy and he killed it, imo. Many other stories like that, but my point is that it’s impossible for us to see our own blind spots, which makes it that much more important to get an outside perspective while you’re still able to change it. If more “underground” cats did this, I think it would increase the quality of the music overall.
4. A lot of cats don’t seem to have live shows in mind when they make songs for albums. Praise God for 100 bar verses and songs with either no hook or a complicated hook that can’t be easily repeated. But good luck doing it live, especially with crowds that aren’t familiar with your stuff. This is another thing that Reach has mastered- especially Crae and T. Dot. (Tonic from CM understood this, too. His joints were always the best ones live.) There are songs that I’m like “it’s aight” when I hear the recording, but when they do them live, it’s absolutely through the roof. Touring with them for Man-Up was really instructive in that regard.
5. Some things were mentioned about me. I don’t wanna focus on that, but I did wanna clarify a couple of things. (btw, props to Zacchaeus for your analysis of my discography. On point, man. Do I know you? lol) The change in tone from TSCP to Atonement was not an attempt to reach a broader audience. Musically speaking, that’s not the formula for reaching a broader audience lol. In fact, I was trying to do the exact opposite. Delivery-wise, I took all the “barbeque sauce” off the “steak”, so to speak, in order for the “steak” of the content to take center stage. Some don’t like that approach. I understand that. Different strokes.
But I don’t regret it at all because the spiritual impact of that album far surpassed the others, at least based on what people tell me as I travel- and that’s the most important thing to me. Broadening my audience was a pleasant surprise, not intentional. Also, without Atonement, I definitely wouldn’t be doing music full-time and I might not be doing music at all today. To Ben’s point, I’ve never felt any pressure at all to make things more palatable to non hip-hoppers. Not at all. Non hip-hoppers tend to not care as much about the music & delivery anyway. If the content is clearly there, music/ delivery is very much secondary to them.
The artistic choices I’ve made have all been in the realm of trying to do 3 things- 1. Glorify God 2. Be creative & original 3. Be lyrical. Some artists basically make the same album over and over again, whether it’s subject matter, approach to songwriting or rhyme style. I don’t wanna do that. I try to be diverse with the angles & approaches that I take. I also try to make my songs fit the subject matter, which affects the style I use. So if I’m doing a children’s song, of course it’s gonna be lyrically simpler. If I’m doing a song about the love or patience of God, how I spit is gonna be different than if it’s about the wrath or jealousy of God. The same goes for music. So for TAOG, the first question I asked is what overall musical feel would help to cover the different range of emotions found in these particular attributes? And to me, it was an epic, cinematic, film score feel.
I love the musical style of TSCP. If Jas Knight had stayed in Philly after Solus instead of moving to NY, who knows? Maybe I would have kept making albums that sound similar to Solus. I don’t know. But I also think 90’s/ jazzy/ boom bap- as dope as it is, has its limitations, just like any other style. Imo, that particular style doesn’t bring out the straight up worshipful aspect of things that I was going for on TAOG. Personally, when I want to sing worship songs to the Lord, boom-bap isn’t gonna be my first choice. But for Omnis, Self-Sufficiency and Triune remix, I thought that style worked well.” – Shai-Linne (via holy-culture forum).
The Art of Rhyme 