January, 2010

So this is happening across the street from where I am right now. FML.

About to watch this – Nicki is fine as fuck, Mariah is hot albeit loopy, so either way this should be a sweet perve.

Spotted @ The Audacity of Dope

The Smokers Anthem, it seems. Notion, what up?

Shouts to the homie Cy, who’s just released his first EP on HiPNOTT Records. Dope video.

Cop the Creator’s Kid EP!

I have no words…

Eclectic Method – Wu Tang Clan Mixtape from Eclectic Method on Vimeo.

Heat.

Week #5: The Decision

Aight, first post of the new year (although by the time y’all read this, it’s most likely well into 2009). Happy New Year, folks, hope everyone had a safe and wild entry into the next 365. Now that the niceties are out of the way, let’s get down to biz. So the past few posts, we’ve sorta given y’all some background as to where we came from and who we are, and now you might start to get what we’re doing here.

The main reason you’re even reading this right now is the big ass trip we undertook in September and October, 2008, to the USA and Canada (and New Zealand on the way home) to explore opportunities to extend our music to the other side of the globe (well, for us). So over the next bunch of posts, we’re gonna break down exactly what we had to go through – as Australian artists, particularly – to make this trip happen, and then what we went through on the trip itself.

The decision to actually undertake this trip wasn’t something that was taken lightly. We all work full time, so getting time off work would be an issue. It would cost anywhere between AUD$5000 and $10,000 per person (including all the shopping we planned to do), so getting the scrilla together would be a problem. Plus, Bekah and I have a mortgage, so we had to make sure that was covered. Shit was hectic.

But at the end of the day, the point of taking this trip was much more important than the details. Most of the interest in our music was coming from North America, so much so that we had built up enough contacts to warrant a quick visit to the homies in the northern hemisphere. We had grown fairly discontent with the Australian Hip Hop scene; I’ve mentioned this in earlier posts, but the politics, small-mindedness, tall poppy syndrome (cutting folks down who stand out from the crowd) and minimal market out here made us search elsewhere for an audience. And the interest from bloggers, producers, artists, managers, etc, from the US and Canada essentially made the decision for us.

The one thing that did it for me was my boss telling me around May that I had to take some leave before the end of September (bureaucracy, eh? lol I actually typed ‘bureaucrazy’, which seems even more appropriate) in 2008. So I was like, ‘I’m not gonna waste a couple weeks sitting around Melbourne’ and suggested this trip to Bekah and Notion, which I’d been thinking about for a while. They were initially apprehensive, mainly due to the finances and work pressures, but I persisted (see blog entry #4) and boom, it all came together.

Aside from the reasons listed above that could make taking this trip pretty damn difficult, we had people questioning what we were doing. Our parents (Notion and I are brothers) never really understood what we actually do with our music until they heard Notion mixing all the tracks for the latest mixtapes, so their initial reaction was of concern around money. Others felt we would be wasting our time in such a large, competitive market. Others were probably just jealous that we actually do something we love and are getting off our asses to make things happen for ourselves. But we definitely faced a lot of opposition.

So the decision was made, we were doing this. We were scared as fuck; Bekah and I lived in Toronto back in 2004 and hadn’t been overseas since. Plus we planned to hopefully do radio and live shows, as well as record with folks and network our asses off. This wasn’t gonna be no holiday (vacation, in American terms); it was just fun work. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Plug of the week: Along with a dope interview, Kevin Nottingham did lil spotlights on each of our mixtapes recently – check em out:

Notion – World Domi-NoTiOn (http://kevinnottingham.com/myblog/2008/09/15/notion-world-domi-notion/)
Cee & Bekah – The Soul Movement Volume 2 (http://kevinnottingham.com/myblog/2008/09/15/cee-bekah-the-soul-movement-vol-2/)

So until next time, stick with it, stick to it, stick at it.

And for those in Melbourne, the dude David Icke will be running one of his famous lectures on Saturday April 11th (the day after my birthday, son). If you wanna get educated on how the world really works, hit up www.davidicke.com.

Blessings,
Cee.
The Movement Fam.

Week #4: Persistence

Any given self help guru, successful musician or smug actor will tell you that persistence is the key to everything. That shit used to drive me crazy; like it was the answer for everything. As a teenager with a generally negative worldview, I saw most things as pointless; and persistence was the last thing on my mind with pretty much anything.

So as I got older and (arguably) wiser, I slowly and accidentally realised that what these folks have been spouting for years was actually not so far fetched. Personally, I’ve been into Hip Hop for around a decade and a half, and started spitting when I was maybe 15 years old. Nothing but a love for the music kept the passion burning, and as it got more serious and as I learned more, I never realised that I was actually ‘persisting’ with anything.

The various crews came and went; yet I never gave up. As one door closed, another one opened, as the saying goes. Every time. And I never quit. Yeah, there were times when I felt like ‘what’s the point?’, when I thought that everyone was against me and there was no way anything would ever come from all the heartache, when I momentarily lost the passion to do it as a result of the bullshit surrounding me. But every time, without exception, I got past it and something always appeared to show me that yes, young Jedi, it’s all worthwhile.

This was never as true as with The Movement Fam. All of us have been through similar experiences over the years, so we understood each other. And I guess there is a shared knowledge – nay, belief – that we will, whatever the odds, succeed with our music. This belief has resulted in an unwavering persistence that is uniform throughout the Fam, and we just know that it will be the one key aspect that will take us to where we wanna be.

And just like everyone, we’ve experienced a lot of people telling us to quit. I dare say we’d almost experience more of this than the average North American, due to the fact that we’re Australian and folks down here just don’t understand what we’re trying to achieve. Most of the scene here doesn’t aspire to succeed outside their own city, let alone make an impact on the other side of the world, so the fact that we’re unashamedly doing so doesn’t go down too well with a lotta people.

There’s also hella ups and downs (as with anything in life). Some days, it feels like everyone is on our side and we can do no wrong; other days, it’s like noone cares and what we’re trying to do is hopeless. Either way, we find the guts to just keep at it. And I think the main thing is that every day, without fail, we always manage to do something, no matter how small, towards our music that helps us move in the direction of our goals. All that shit adds up, you know. And before you know it, boom, you look back and are amazed at how much you’ve achieved. It’s a crazy thing.

Plug of the week: My man Kevin Nottingham did a great interview with us just prior to our US/Canada trip:

http://kevinnottingham.com/myblog/2008/09/12/artist-spotlight-the-movement-fam/

So until next time, keep at it, keep movin’ and keep educated.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com Do yourself a favour and check it out.

Blessings,
Cee.
The Movement Fam.

Week #3: Get Your Hate On

More Loud blog…

So last week we were in love with the internet. Now it’s time to get our hate on a lil bit. It’s healthy, really. And I wouldn’t call it ‘hate’ per se. ‘Hate’ is a strong word. I’ll call it ‘the truth’.

Aight, we have a gang of reasons that we’re aiming to crack the North American market, as a priority over our homeland. The population is one. Australia has 22 odd million folks; the USA and Canada has pushing 400 million heads. You do the math. Also, the US is the home of Hip Hop; it’s ingrained in your culture. In 2008, folks of most age groups, genders, cultures, backgrounds, professions, sexual persuasions, whatever, feel Hip Hop, listen to it, and better yet, understand it. That’s the key; the average Aussie still views Hip Hop as a violent, foreign, and unrelatable culture from the other side of the world. So essentially, y’all have a market for it. And yes, we realise that with so many people and music being so easily produced and released these days, the competition is greater than ever. I still reckon there’s a better chance of making some noise over there than Down Under.

Now, seeing as the US created Hip Hop, why on earth would Americans (and Canadians for that matter) be interested in Australian Hip Hop artists? Well, that’s what we thought; until we started getting more interest from that side of the planet than at home. And as this continued, we started to pursue it as oppose to just take it as it comes (no homo).

The Australian scene is mad young in comparison. Our good friend, Canadian MC Eternia, told us once that she felt that Australia (Melbourne in particular) reminds her of Toronto or New York twenty years ago, in the sense that we still have the ‘purist’ attitude out here; artists generally haven’t been warped by the corporate machines. In Melbourne, there’s a strong graffiti community, regular b-boy, DJ and MC battles, and most folks do it for the love as opposed to legitimately making a career out of rap; they don’t think it’s possible. And for the most part, they’re right. Whenever a Hip Hop act does a show in Melbourne, it’s almost a guarantee that the majority of the crowd will be staunch, screwfaced MC’s. Well, that’s our experience, anyway, and that of a lot of our mates in the scene. It’s not the best atmosphere to rock a show in. We found the same thing in Toronto, actually, hence the name coined by Theo 3, ‘The Screwface Capital’.

One striking difference we found from dealing with cats in the US and Canada is the overwhelming willingness that people had to help us out. It blew our minds, both before we left and moreso when we got there. Not one meeting went by without that person putting us in touch with someone else that they felt could be beneficial to our trip. It was amazing. The thing is that you would rarely find that sort of attitude in Australia – most folks here are out for themselves. And maybe we only were looked after as we were foreigners and not so much of a threat. But at home, nobody does shit for nobody, particularly within Hip Hop. I believe it’s due to a belief that the ‘pie’, so to speak, isn’t big enough to go around, so people protect what they have.

Whatever the reasons, our experiences with North Americans have been incredibly positive, and we are inspired more than ever to keep at it.

Plug of the week: Wake Your Daughter Up! Blog did a lil write up on us for our trip, so have a bit of a read:

Cee & Bekah interview (link to: http://www.wydublog.com/2008/09/new-artist-spotlight-cee-bekah.html)
Notion interview (link to: http://www.wydublog.com/2008/09/new-artist-spotlight-notion.html)

So until next time, stay real, stay raw, stay rugged, stay grimey. It’s the only way.

Blessings,
Cee.
The Movement Fam.