Feat. tech B Sykes Alabama’s Own MusikCards & You myspace.com/bsykesonline | C.Matkins 256-651-5704 Written by K. Cannick After hearing his record “Aint She…”, which placed as the top song on volume 4 of the On The Grind Mixtape series, Kevin Shine (A&R Consultant to Jive Records) invited this Huntsville, Alabama rapper down to Atlanta to audition for The Premiere A&R Showcase. Growing up on artist like Outcast, Ice Cube & Scarface, B-Sykes reflects on the lack of balance in today’s hip hop. Reminiscing on his youth he talks about how hip hop shaped his life and the elements he pulled from it, that he wasn’t receiving at home. His goal is to take things back to a time where music is less about your one particular song and more about the body of work.
ing to secure the proper funding and exposure he needs to make a real impact on both the industry and his community. As an avid exercise enthusiast he is a big advocate of health education, especially coming from Alabama (a state ranked 3rd in the nation for obesity). Ideally, He would love to secure sponsorship from a company like Vitamin Water or PowerAde. B-Sykes is looking to connect with producers, DJs and anybody else that’s about their business. For more information email rightlaneent@gmail.com
“It’s all about balance. Yeah, you need the club records [because] sometimes you just need to disconnect from everything. You also need to speak on what’s going on outside of the club, but you can’t rap about trapping without offering an opposing view. Hopefully if you a d-boy that’s not want you wanted to do. It was more likely something you were forced into. We all know only a small percentage will ever see any real success from that. The rest will get scooped up.”
-Kelby Cannick
I remember sitting in the dorms my freshman year with my boy Juan and a couple other independent artists. We were having a discussion about the future of music formats, the transition from records to 8 tracks and from cassette to CDs. Half way through the discussion Juan blurted out that in the future all the music was going to be invisible. Well, the conversation quickly came to an end as we all started to make fun of such a ridiculous idea. For the next couple of days I would show up in Juan’s dorm room bobbing my head, bumping my invisible CD player. I’d complain about not being able to find my new Jay-Z CD because it was invisible. A couple of years ago, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have made fun of Juan. While the wording may have been over simplified the concept was dead on. Music has indeed become invisible. C a s -
settes and CDs have been replaced with MP3s & WMA files. You can now buy and listen to an album from your computer or cell phone without going into a store. Music is without a medium just a series of 1’s and 0’s floating in the ether waiting to be interpreted by your IPOD or other MP3 enabled device. There has been a lot of resistance in the industry to the concept of music without a medium. While the production cost of a download is much cheaper than manufacturing a CD there is the issue of piracy. The Big 3 Majors have been so obsessed with trying to prevent people from illegally downloading they have totally overlooked one of the greatest advantages of going digital. Continued on Page 6
Considering his self to be a well rounded artist, B-Sykes is look-
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The Atlanta Grind - January 2009 | Pg. 3