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It seems music’s been in your life for a longtime. After taking shots at college and other things you always ended up in a situation surrounding HipHop. At any point did you ever second guess the path you were taking into the world of HipHop? I think people second guess a lot of things in life. From the things they’re about to begin to the things they’ve done in their past. But to second guess some things in life is good. Caution and precision are keys to successful career. But at some points preparation and cohones are just as important. My brother and I have an advantage that’s hard to fabricate. We each have of a partner for life that helps keep the other on track when we’re ready to slap someone. Because, honestly, who doesn’t wanna just slap the snot outta someone sometimes. But to answer your question, Yes. There have been times when we second guessed our career paths into the music industry, compared to some of the other opportunities that we’ve come across. But our pops always told us to remember, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. What’s important is to maintain the grass you do have and be thankful that it’s not just a puddle of mud. As far as our paths into the world of HipHop... HipHop is a culture that we grew up. It’s where we feel most comfortable, most compatible, most at home. So, No... We’ve never second guessed our paths into the Culture of HipHop. We are proud to represent a culture that is considered by many as, the first American born culture. Who were The TwinZ main influences coming up? Our parents. Our family. Growing up around our house there was always something going on. And if there wasn’t, then one of us would start some shit. As far as artistic influences outside of our home… My brother and I both grew up on Classic HipHop. Our influences were people like Kool DJ Red Alert, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Jam Master Jay, Cut Creator, L.L. Cool J, Gangstarr, KRS-One, Ice-T, Dr. Dre, Russell Simmons, Rico Suave and the list goes on and on. I think we were always influenced by those people in HipHop who were clearly carving out their own path in life and not afraid of failure. Being in the point you are now did you ever get to work with any of those influences presently? Yes… and that is the soul food of our career. We offer a lot of services within our company. Some of those services are behind the scenes type work. Not the most gratifying work but financially stable. But when we get the chance to work with cats we grew up listening to, that makes the daily grind that much sweeter. We just recently celebrated the release of The Connex List – Volume #23. We reached out to Ice-T and asked him he would grace the cover of our magazine and give our readers some insight on his life as a hustler, gangster and husband. Both Ice-T and his lovely wife Coco came to the release party, where Ice-T performed alongside Smooth the Hustler and Trigger the Gambler for almost an hour. The club we were at, Remote Lounge, is a small downtown Manhattan club that has a capacity of 300 people. That club was packed wall to wall with Ice-T fans anxiously awaiting his performance. Boy were they treated to some exclusive classic HipHop shit. We do these parties once a month at Remote Lounge. They’re Network Mondays and they go down the first Monday of every month at Remote Lounge (327 Bowery @ 2nd St. in NYC). Network Mondays is a HipHop business night where all independent artists, managers, radio shows, video shows, magazine, etc. are invited to come down and promote their projects while they network with all the entrepreneurs in the room. We’ve been running this party in Manhattan for over 5 years and we’ve been lucky enough to have performances by Naughty by Nature, Black Sheep, MC Lyte, Dana Dane, Jeru Tha Damaja, Buckshot, PMD, Special Ed, Just Ice, Sadat X and many others. These performances are some of the brightest moments in my life as a die-hard HipHop child. For the people that don’t know how exactly did "The Connex List" come about? The Connex List is one of those things that just birthed itself. In the late 90’s we were doing a lot of pirate radio and people always called the show looking for other places to send their music as well. So we started giving out contacts of friends we had on other radio and video shows. After a while the list started to grow and we started to include our own articles and interviews. Here we are 8 years later and the magazine is full color and distributed worldwide through Fat Beats/BMG distribution. The Connex List was Built for the Business Side of HipHop and it has helped many indie artists make direct connections and cut out a lot of the middle men in this world. Tell the people what’s different and unique about The Connex List? Built for the business side of HipHop, The Connex List is the premiere HipHop business to business publication. Along with interviews and reviews, The Connex List contains The Infamous Yellow Pages which offer contact information to other individuals and businesses in the HipHop music industry that are looking to work with independent artists. Through The Connex List, we try to motivate and educate the HipHop community on the importance of handling your own business as much as you can. We also try to inspire independent artists by offering knowledge from numerous classic HipHop heavyweights likes Chuck D., Kool DJ Red Alert, Marley Marl, Ice-T, MC Lyte and people of that magnitude. The Connex List is such a pure HipHop factor. It represents not only New York but any die hard HipHop head! With the sudden trends in HipHop right now is it almost difficult to remain in the publics eyes being the "chicken noodle soup" type of music make it first? I’m glad you see the strength and integrity behind a publication such as The Connex List. It does maintain a certain level of integrity and our readers have become accustom to a certain independent “fuck the mainstream” type of artistry contained within. As far as the trends within HipHop compromising our vision or making it tough for us to stay relevant… HipHop has always been a trend setting culture. The current trends in HipHop may seem as odd to you as the older trends in HipHop when people wore tight leather jumpsuits. The key to relevancy in this culture and this industry is to be able to go with the flow and create new trends along the way. You’ll never be able to stop new trends from developing and you may not like the trends that start, but you can’t be afraid to start new trends of your own or keep old trends alive. Lets be real how do you feel about HipHop in general since 2005? HipHop has obviously changed a lot since its inception and this is a good thing. If things never changed and went in different directions we’d never know how strong it truly is. We’re from New York. We grew up mostly in the New York HipHop scene listening mostly to artists from either New York or California. When we were young, radio, for the most part, didn’t play much HipHop. Not until we became teenagers did we start to hear HipHop on radio and even then it was usually late night. As we grew older HipHop became a more dominate force and took over radio station across the country and became the norm for daytime radio. I love the fact that there are so many different styles of HipHop. From the east to the west to the south to the north and even overseas, HipHop comes in every shape, form and fashion now-a-days. Now don’t get wrong… the shit has become much more diluted as well. While you can still find stellar albums by cats who truly know how to entertain, tell a story or just simply make you pay attention, you also tend to find far more albums by cats that should just put the mic down and go back to UPS. I’ll never say I hate the state of HipHop. I’ll never say I fully understand it either. We’ll always maintain our position in HipHop to try and help sift through the crap to find the real gems that are released every week. If you look back at the game 10 years ago its basically day and night it went from 2PAC, BIG, JAY Z, NAS to YING YANG TWINZ, MIKE JONES, TI, etc.... do you feel like HipHop is to damaged? HipHop ain’t damaged. It’s just bigger. With HipHop becoming so internationally embraced and with more corporate outlets catering to HipHop and throwing big money at anything associated with HipHop, You start to see more than you wanted to see. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there the whole time. You just weren’t aware of it. When there are limited radio outlets in any certain area your bound to hear less product from that area simply because no one really knows its there. But when you put a major corporate entity in an area that is willing to showcase that area's talents, then voila… the world is introduced to a whole new side of the culture. As technology simplifies this world more and more, you will continue to find kids who are able to cut out the big expensive studio sessions and recording equipment. The more this happens, the more you’ll mediocre music you’ll hear on the streets. Thanks to technology, you have more inexperienced people releasing music that should have gone past a trained ear before it left the studio. Like I said before, get use to the changes because HipHop, just like time, is constantly moving forward and to complain about the current state of HipHop dwell on the past will do nothing to steer the future of this culture. You gotta work harder to find the real quality music. It’s up to all of us to make sure we voice our opinions and desires for a change from the corporate entities that sometimes embrace and sometimes exploit the culture we grew up in. And if you feel it is can it salvage itself? There’s nothing to salvage. HipHop hasn’t reached the discount rack yet. While some people in New York may not like the south reign on HipHop at times or the west coast dominance at other times, there are millions of kids out there who are lovin it. As long as there is a demand the world will continue to produce the supply. It’s up to us to create a change in demand. There are more available tools for change today than ever. You can listen to your music through hundreds of different avenues. You got traditional FM radio, TV, satellite radio, internet radio, albums, iPods and more. If you can’t find something you like through all the available outlets today… then maybe you really are... just getting old. hahahaha Last Year what 3 albums brought back that true HipHop feeling? Hmmmmm….. How bout… Jurassic 5, Little Brother and Jay-Z. All three of those albums represent HipHop in a well rounded, fun, thought provoking style. But there are still many other albums that came out last year that were just as dope. Today, unfortunately, artists’ careers are driven more by single records than by entire albums. Artists don’t seem to create full length albums in the same fashion they used to. There aren’t as many interludes and album cuts. Everybody seems to be trying to create single after single after single. The conceptual and creative side of HipHop seems to be suffering a little now-a-days Are there any upcoming artists you think that really stick to the art and can influence the general public to make that change? Saigon is a dope artist who is signed to a major record label and has major producers working on his shit but he still keeps his feet on the ground and maintains his underground status. Saigon has always covered topics ranging from death to drug dealing to loving his mother and every thing in between. His ability to grab hold of the youth is unmistakable and if he harnesses that ability he can use it to help entertain and educate the next generation of HipHop heads. Kaleber is another artist, out of Wyandanch, Strong Island, who definitely has the ability to make a change with the youth. For years now, he has been releasing thought provoking lyrics over some of the hardest hitting production since Dr. Dre. Don’t sleep on Strong Island. As it’s always been, Strong Island got some of the best MC’s to ever grace the mic. You want heat??? Come to Strong Island!! For example Saigon is having issues with his label because they want some "generic" recycled type of single from a man who is the modern day beast from the east. Do you think such factors like this are a reason more artists should go independent? Going independent is not always a conscience choice. For many artists it’s the only option. Today’s music industry is filled with many executives and gatekeepers who are afraid to venture outside of the box. It’s a safety zone to stay within the box and continue to do what’s already been done. If something is successful once in the music world, you can put money on the fact that it will be remixed, reworked, redone, repackaged and resold in later years. That’s just the way the system goes. It bugs me out when I hear a new version of a song that’s only 10 years old. Every now and then you find an artist or a record label that isn’t afraid to go in a different direction and their success is measured in various ways. While their record sales may not be as high as the “cookie cutter” pop artists their fans base is usually very loyal and many times they see more money per unit than a major record label deal. So they make a good living while selling fewer records. If you’re an artist and your really just trying to put out the music you love and fill up on soul food from your fans, then yes I would maintain your independence and continue doing small shows and peddling your album at shows on the internet and in the streets. This will likely be the most gratifying way to share your passion with the world. But if you chasing the money or the radio and all you really want is a Bentley, then you might wanna see what’s hot right, go to the major record labels and give them some CB4, cookie cutter shit. Do it now and get it over with, so by this time next year, you’ll either be rich or gone. Either way I’m cool with it. What’s next on the Wonder TwinZ agenda? Our company is growing every year. We still do radio. You can catch us on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, AOL Radio, Dish Network and a number of other outlets. We’re constantly releasing mixtapes; we’re only getting stronger with The Connex List. Our marketing and promotions company WonderTone Promotions is doing well; we’re constantly promoting various artists to radio DJs. We have a service where we send your music to about 3,000 DJs worldwide on a weekly basis. We’re working a lot of projects right now and we urge all the indie artists out there to check out the website for more info on that… www.WonderTwinZ.com. We recently became partners in The Shirt Shop, which is a full service screen printing business that provides custom t-shirts along with full color embroidery and graphic design. We have a strong team over here, filled with talented, creative cats who all share the same passion as us. For more info on The Shirt Shop please log onto: www.MyOwnTShirts.com . Along with all that we are working on a film deal for an unbelievable script we created along with a James Carter who is an unbelievable screenplay writer. We’re creating a new venture in the online community and we’re working on a ringtone deal as we speak. We’re not yet ready to lie down and retire so we keep grinding each day, excited to see who’s on the other end of the phone. Lets the fans know where to check you? Give any shout outs! F.U.'s lol etc and thanks for hollering at Rapcapital.com. Anyone interested in getting involved in the movement can contact us at 1-800-994-TwinZ or log onto the website www.WonderTwinZ.com. We are constantly looking for new people to join our team and artists to work with. Please feel free to contact us anytime and keep your ears to the radio and the TV. The Wonder TwinZ Show is up next… Until next time America…. Take care of yourself… And… Your Mother !! |
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