Social Media Manager Creative & Social Strategist Journalist

Tag: <span>NYC</span>

Dakari

INTERVIEW: Producer Dakari on His African Roots & How He Became G-Eazy’s Top Engineer

Originally posted on Billboard 12/10/2018

Hip-hop may have originated in the Bronx but not even Kool Herc could have imagined the reach and impact that his art-form would soon achieve. Rap officially kicked down the door in 2015 when Spotify reported that hip-hop was the most listened to genre in the world. In 2017, Nielsen’s Music year-end reportshowed that R&B/hip-hop had taken the crown from Rock to be the most purchased music in the United States.

That kind of global reach has empowered new creators from all over the world. For Zimbabwean producer Dakari, hip-hop has provided a way of life for him that he couldn’t have dreamed of. After moving to Dallas, DG would have his coming of age moment in high school that would eventually lead to a world class internship and writing and producing for G-Eazy.

Read More
Nip

INTERVIEW: Nipsey Hussle Teams Up With Recording Academy For ‘#NoCover’ Documentary

Originally posted on Billboard 10/5/2018

It’s been a groundbreaking year for Los Angeles MC Nipsey Hussle. This past February, his major label debut album Victory Lap peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and his acclaimed LP is garnering Grammy buzz. On Thursday (Oct. 4), he teamed up with the Recording Academy for #NOCOVER — a new documentary series that takes a look at what goes into putting together a concert experience. Swanky West Hollywood digs played home to the screening as

Reporters and industry professionals gathered in West Hollywood for an early look along with a chance to speak with Hussle about the process.

Read More
Skyzoo

INTERVIEW: Skyzoo Breaks Down Secrets To Being A Professional Ghostwriter & Talks Role In “Patti Cake$”

Originally posted on HipHopDX 8/6/2017

For MCs as technically gifted as Skyzoo, there are many lucrative paths your career can take you. The Brooklyn Knight has lent his pen to many top secret projects. Fresh off the release of his hardbody new project, Peddler’s Theme, Sky stopped by the DXHQ to talk with the #DXLive crew about how the ghostwriting game truly works and his role in the upcoming film, Patti Cake$.

Read More
Casanova

INTERVIEW: Casanova 2X Describes How Chris Brown Pushes Him To Be Great

Originally posted on HipHopDX 7/9/2017

It’s not every day you can turn on a Hip Hop record and feel an authenticity once reserved for the genre. For Flatbush MC Casanova 2X, that’s not an issue. Having served three separate stints in the New York prison system for everything from selling drugs to assault with a deadly weapon, the Brooklyn Knight’s music oozes reality. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his journey is that Casanova has only been rapping for a year and has a deal with Memphis Bleek’s Warehouse Music Group imprint. Cas recently stopped by the DXHQ to talk shop with the #DXLive team about the lack of authenticity in Hip Hop, his journey to get where he is now, and how Chris Brown pushes him to be a better artist.

Unlike most, Cas never thought about being a rapper. It’s something that fell into his lap. “You hear ‘Boom boom boom’ everybody getting shot but really dudes not shooting nobody,” Cas exclaims. “I can say I shot people because I went to jail for it but these dudes that are rapping these days are really not what they say they are,” Cas exclaims. “It’s music. I never really wanted to be fake but I guess after I went through what I went through I had a story to tell. I been around a lot of rappers and I was like, ‘I can do that.’ Once you go to the studio with somebody and see how they come up with something it’s like, ‘hold on let me try it myself.’ That’s how it happened.”

Read More
MC Eiht

INTERVIEW: MC Eiht Reveals Origins Of Shelved Movie Opposite Bernie Mac & Lisa Raye

Originally posted on HipHopDX 6/27/2017

Perhaps one of the biggest mysteries of MC Eiht’s career is that we never saw him in a major role on the big screen after his standout performance in Menace II Societyas the cap-pillin’ South Central native, A-Wax. While the Compton MC explains his lack of interest in Hollywood, he divulges of a potential Blackbuster hit that was seized by the feds before it could ever see the light of day. 

“I’ve never really actually went after movie roles,” Eiht explained during a recent episode of #DXLive.” [If] somebody felt that I was fit for a part or do good in a particular situation then I would usually just let them come and ask me if I wanna get down. As far as like getting an agent and going after movie roles, I never got into that. I was strictly emceeing. That was my thing. A lot of times when you get into the Hollywood thing, you gotta conform to somebody you really don’t want to be or they try to change you into something. I just felt that trying to keep my own authentic direction with music that I wouldn’t go after roles. It’s not like people didn’t call me but a lot of stuff was comedy shit, a lot of stuff was Uncle Tom shit so I just backed away from it. I did Menace II Society and then that came with Thicker Than Water and then I had a little role in the Freeway Rick story. Just little bullshit. Who Made The Potato Salad, I did a little role. Then I shot a movie in Chicago that was called Reasons but it was government, political drug shit so they seized the movie and it never came out. We shot this movie maybe 15 years ago. Bernie Mac was in it. Lisa Raye was in it. It was a drug movie. A dude called Nathaniel Hill; he was a pretty big drug dealer and he basically made a movie about it. They seized the movie because he basically told the story of how he came up. He was on a worldwide run, they extradited him from Africa. We shot it in Chicago. It took us maybe four months to shoot it. Real big movie. Spike Lee’s producer [Monty Ross] directed it. It was gon’ be a big, large movie. I played the lead role. It was a real neighborhood pic but it was governments and indictments and courts and all that; followings and grand jury’s so they basically seized the movie.”

Read More