I’m back FAM, after a personally great summer, and now it’s about getting the news, music and excitement to yall full throttle. Getting right to it, I was at GLEN MILLER’s shop, my barber, when I noticed an issue of MURDER DOG magazine lying on one of the counters. As I proceeded to flip thru the pages I noticed an unbelievable amount of rap albums on display, literally almost a hundred of them from all sections of the US and some from abroad. Soloists, groups, compilations, reissues, thugs, pimps, raptivists, etc. No disrespect…I fell asleep in my chair. All I could see is pictures, ads and covers, and couldn’t HEAR a thing. I feel that sometimes I’m talking to myself, and in my counsel to cats tryin to get ‘put on’ I try to get their heads past that BET mentality. Them actually thinking that a rap record automatically goes with a Jacuzzi, circular couch and Escalade, with chicks rotating between the three. The problem of aspirations in the future with an ass in the past is now a hip hop hindrance. This is one of my last dissertations on the necessity of the online revolution, and it’s simply called ‘THE SHELF IS A VERY LONELY PLACE,’ or the art of making records for your damn self.

Right now, in a rap city, there are eight million stories, at least it feels that way. A lot of good sh#t with old distribution ideas that don’t apply to this century. Cats are no longer making demos, they’re making real records. They are burning CDs and absentmindedly going to the post office, UPS, Airborne, or Fed Ex and mailing a precious recorded package complete with info, bios and photos, only to be stashed on a thick pile at the rear of some A&R secretary’s end. Number one, today the follow-up phone calls cost more than the recording sessions themselves, now that cats got pro-tools cubase and the whole recording nine yards. I don’t remember when I last heard of an A&R head signing an artist.

I recently peeped the FUNK JAZZ CAFE in ATL and witnessed incredible performances by the nights artists, many of them submerged within a new genre term ‘neo-soul’ and wondered why these artists had no recordings available. Or why they were waiting for that record deal in the sky that had about as much chance as a false god coming to save the people. Same problem, as folks wouldn’t recognize if it hit em in the head. Now that the technology is here silly questions like ‘how you get paid dawg?’ still swirl as if cats really knew how the traditional format paid them. It’s easy to deliver to a machine where a check is the understood result of that transaction. I tell peeps all the time... artists don’t SELL records...sales departments do. I usually get a "trudat" at the end of my one on one lectures on how heads should get in the music biz today.

Now I’m gonna drop the ‘2002 Industry Commandments.’ Ignore the science if you want, but fact is fact and truth is truth, and you wanna KNOW what the terrain is really like surrounding your aspirations and music biz models. You can’t flow on hype alone, get the facts. So here goes…

1. GETTING INTO TO IT FOR THE MONEY Always the wrong reason to get into any business especially the music business where one plus one doesn’t always add up to two. Your passion should lead you to learn about what it is you’re getting into. Your knowledge leads you to make as few mistakes as possible and create a financial picture for your skills. Remember, skills is the manifestation of talent…it works for you. The people who receive the most $$$ are the lawyers and accountants, and their attitude is to GET IT off the top.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Really evaluate why you should get in the music biz. Write yourself down 10 legitimate reasons BESIDES getting paid…that’s the obvious.

2. MONEY DOESN’T GUARANTEE YOUR EXISTANCE I don’t care how much money you’ve got, there’s two ways to do something right in this biz - one is the knowledge, the second is luck, the other 98 are just plain ass wrong. I tell ballers, ballplayers, and bankers all the time that you can burn thru 10 million dollars in a month with little result. It doesn’t matter... corporations play big ball and can toss away three million on a losing project…any baller will have a cartel calling for a head in a box if that type of money showed no return.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Use the money wisely. Build your own studio, then use your loot to construct your own LABELSITE. It won’t cost you nearly a 100th as much and you can mp3 your music and promote it in business cards as well as across the web. Then if something is really hot you can use the money to promote hard in your region, by limited 12"s and CDs. The majors have just acclimated themselves with broadband, cable and DSL on their computer systems, so you can now send them your labelsite doin its thing. Good business is not how much you make but how much you make over what you spend..

3. DON’T LET THE TV FOOL YOU I say again, the average video that you see on VIACOM owned BET and MTV is costing $200,000.00. Local shows are gonna support major labels as well by playing their vids in their limited time. Even if you get airplay on BET, one time at 3:15 am, realistically can one time support your record company?

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: With a DV or a camcorder, and computer software, you can shoot a video and edit it for less than $1000.00. Then you can promote hard to Internet sites, as well as locally. Rapstation.com is setting up an upload video area which independent labelsites can send links to promote to the industry and the public..

4. IT’S WHAT YOU KNOW NOT WHO YOU KNOW If you know your game in the first place you won’t spend precious time barking up the A&R leg of some buster. That "who you know" sh#t has screwed and twisted the head of many a creative cat. Know your game then you’ll recognize the right person to submit your project to.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Get a guide and manual of all the cats at the record labels with their positions and email addresses, etc. The best guide is THE MUSIC BUSINESS REGISTRY,’ INFO@MUSICREGISTRY. COM.

5. YOU CAN’T AFFORD THE POLITICS OF RADIO As mentioned previously, the average cost of promoting your song nationally, across the urban radio stations of Amerikkka, wanders into the lofty six figure range. You’ll find yourself hitting a DJ off with more cheese than it took to record and manufacture the thing. You have as much chance breaking your record thru on twenty five radio stations as you would in winning your state’s lottery.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Again the Internet is the ultimate breeding ground with radio stations growing by the hundreds from across the world. Start making MP3s of your singles and get them around. Millions of connected computers spewing entertainment sounds better than traditional radio to me.

6. WHAT GOOD IS YOUR SHELF? Technology has allowed cats to record, mix and manufacture at a professional level. Thus what sense does it make NOT to be a record label. You just can’t be one in the traditional form today. Still, what good is playing your CD to your friends only? The shelf’s got dats and reels galore that have never been heard. Imagine what styles have yet to have been expounded upon.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: If you are skurred to get your music heard because somebody might take your sh#t then you need to get out NOW! If you’ve only got ONE idea go home, really. The new post-millennial music biz is a jungle and you’ve gotta be a lion, no doubt. Build your labelsite and mp3 your music…besides collecting dust at your mom’s house, what good is that?

7. YOU AIN’T GONNA SELL EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT Again in these days less is definitely more, it’s not like 1988 when there was an appetite for more rap. Get your music out on the download tip. Don’t make the mistake of manufacturing a large quantity of music without an outlet for it.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Your labelsite should have a section where peeps can get your music directly from your company. AND YOU BETTER give a gang of it away, while keeping your overhead low.

8 YOU AIN’T THE ONLIEST CATS DOIN THIS SH*T There’s rap all over the planet, little do you know that there’s crews from Poland, Australia, Canada, Italy, etc that will bust that azz, beat AND rhyme-wise… it’s cool to think you’re the best but don’t fool yourself by thinking you the only ones bringing it at a high level.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Go to the web and witness your competition. Build and ally with a world of hip hop that might feel exactly as you do.

9. EVERYBODY CAN’T MAKE AN ALBUM Most rap cats spread their ideas over too many tracks without realizing their topics have been crossed by many a rhyme cat. The public truly wants about 5 songs an album, especially from a new situation.

CHUCK’S SOLUTION: Try to make one song at a time. Besides, what you heard, we are in a singles marketplace… the majors created this album format of twelve delivered songs so that retail could sell to the public for at least one dollar a track, hence the $11.99 retail sales price.

10. DON’T GET YOUR BELIEFS ALTERED Still, all and all you don’t wanna be twisted by anybody who says that your music isn’t good enough. Nobody has a crystal ball. However you should be smart enough to understand how to navigate your music through an always changing business. The industry is like water, you can drink it, or drown in it. Sink in it, or learn to swim in it. It’s gonna be what it is…

Right about now the summer has been creative in the fact that the STAX CHAMBA, the Southern studio of www.slamjamz.com has been roasting with the visit of FLAV and some PE recording. Five cuts, take it whichever way you want; 1. REVOLVERLUTION; 2. PSYCHO OF GREED; 3. GIVE THE PEEPS WHAT THEY NEED; 4.CAN A WOMAN MAKE A MAN LOSE HIS MIND; and, yes, 5. SON OF A BUSH, are in the works.

The two Long Island based studios are called the MOTOWN ICEHOUSE and the ATLANTIC IGLOO, respectively, while the West Coast SUN MOUNTAIN studios are wired and ready to deliver music across the world for the rest of this year and 2002. Expect a slew of music comin atcha and this format is a wonderful way of delivering it.

Yeah, you can tell that I dig the classic labels of yesteryear.... eh? Just completed a super session with the ELECTRIC MUDCATS in CHICAGO. MARSHALL CHESS and myself concocted this from a seed and it’s truly evolving into something. PHIL UPCHURCH guitar, PETE COSEY guitar, LOUIS SATTERFIELD bass, MORRIS JENNINGS drums, GENE BARGE sax, and dig this JOHNNY JUICE turntables…Yours truly did vocals alongside KYLE JASON. Yeah the whole vibe was riiiiight. Friday night we swung by KOKO TAYLORS spot and saw her wreck it. Damn, she got pipes and cleared sixty a good minute back. I was sitting next to the great JOE (the chokin kind, get down) SIMON who’s now a minister, and couldn’t believe it as I got his autograph and did one for his grandson. I couldn’t believe ‘HE’ knew who ‘I’ was? Daaaamn…

I just picked up the $75.00 ‘WHAT I SAY,’ the story of ATLANTIC RECORDS… it’s thick and like lifting weights, but worth every dime. Coincidentally, crazy enough, I had just read this caption where AHMET ERTEGAN had complemented AALIYAH on being a fabulous artist and said that she would be around a long time. I nodded my head in approval and slowly turned the pages and went back in the studio. KYLE got a call from his wife and I saw his face drop. After I asked what was wrong he replied that the young singer had died in a plane crash… disturbing indeed. My condolences to her family friends and fans.

By next Terrordome I’m gonna get crucial feedback on the RACE CONFERENCE in SOUTH AFRICA, where I know a strong contingent from the BLACK SUNDAY gig I co-hosted had set upon the motherturf on a mission. DEAD PREZ, TALIB KWELI, JERU THE DAMAJA and a host of artists were daring to turn the upsided whirl of rap right side up. Big ups… my man HARRY ALLEN, BLACKSPOT, CYNICAL and KEV POWELL were among the conscious breed…

I’m tellin yall, WWW.AMAZON.COM has saved me a bunch of times. I’ve found some out of print, previously thought of as unreachable books there. I just picked up two used copies of EAST COASTING; jazz covers of the ATLANTIC and PRESTIGE labels….yeah.

Yeah thanks for the BET props …the first night I was a little nervous, it’s that way at the beginning of any new situation for me. Sheee, like back when PE first started to perform, especially in arenas. This was kinda close to it for a second. The next night I was freezing in the studio but I felt my topic was hot…

Expect in 30 days the new video area on www.rapstation.com as mentioned before. And expect an explosion with www.bringthenoise.com, as yours truly will be spending mad time synergized with those sites. No, there will not be a slamjamz.com board because we’re gonna keep commentary on THE ENEMY BOARD, the NOISE BOARD, and the boards at rapstation.com, especially OL SCHOOL 76’s management of those boards, mainly the ‘MY MELODY BOARD.’

Hey, in CHI-TOWN I visited the famed JAZZ RECORD MART… and fortunately met owner BOB KOESTER. A great store indeed. I picked up a LEADBELLY shirt, a COLTRANE shirt and a bunch of video tapes. Spent $140.00...worth it.

My man CHAMPTOWN’S labelsite is off the frame peep it, www.straightjacketrec.com...

ROSIE GAINES e-mailed me, gotta reach out…

Sorry about the clipping of "WE DON’T NEED YOU Pt2," MR PVT MILITANT’s part deserves better. A new mp3 version up by this week.

STAR, from the STAR and BUCKWILD SHOW on HOT 97 in NYC…do I need to say any more? Just check my last t-box and the tail end will let you know how I feel. Just think, they say that SPIKE LEE’S ‘BAMBOOZLED’ was fictional…I DON’T THINK SO. So therefore I’m out like STAR should be…

It’s SEPTEMBER, A FRESH NEW SEASON;

Catch me, CHUCK D web weekly on:

www.rapstation.com - Hiphop Service Internetwork www.bringthenoise.com - Hiphop Radio Network www.publicenemy.com - Artist Site/Terrordome Editorial/World Famous Enemy Board
www.slamjamz.com - Interactive Record Labels

CHUCK D on www.bringthenoise.com alternate Saturday nights catch SUITCASE RADIO, indie and unsigned joints, and the BEATS, RHYMES AND LIFE SHOW, hip hop news show, at 9:00 PM EST US ‘If You Don’t Catch Em Live, Get The Archive’

E MAIL mistachuck@rapstatio n.com