Brother Ali (@ High Noon tonight) Q&A pt. 2: on Rhymesayers' major label distribution deal, commercial radio spins

hastings | 4/20/2007 2:48 pm | Emcees Without Voices

Brother Ali indignantly invokes Rhymesayers DIY-ethic on Undisputed Truth opener "Whatcha Got":

^{Y'all ain't heard nothin', I gave you ya first lesson/ for what you discussin' over the percussion/ You'll ne'er compare to me...repeating what you hear flyin' through the airwaves carelessly/ The meaning gets lost in translation/ You a copy of the author's first page/ Tryin' ta get money, only get it in small denomination/ You'll never be dominant, face it, ya imitation/ Equals saccharine, cheap-ass generic aspirin/ Fructose corn syrup, similak-in'/ We used to distribute our music ourselves/ Our records shouldn't even be held on the same shelf}

And a press release sent out earlier today underscored how that ethic has Ali's record charting alongside majors in its first week:

• #6 on Billboard indie chart
• #24 Billboard rap albums
• #48 Billboard r&b/hip-hop albums
• #69 on Billboard top 200 (10,781 SOLD)
• #1 selling in Minneapolis (2028 UNITS)
• #3 hip-hop release on iTunes
• #63 top 100 on iTunes

So when I spoke to Ali last month, it seemed natural to ask him what he thought about Rhymesayers' a la carte deal with Warner Music's Independent Label Group... and how he got Clear Channel airplay in the Twin Cities. [Part 1 of this Q&A is available here.]

ewv: On Undisputed Truth's "Whatcha Got" you said something about "distributing music ourselves"... so I was wondering what your take on the distribution deal with Warner was.

BA: I mean this is just the way I see it: I don't run Rhymesayers; I do my part, which is make music and tour. The thing that I've always loved about Rhymesayers is, really the amount of emphasis that's put on the way we interact and communicate with the people that support us, with our fans.And so the idea with everything is to never jeopardize that--but if there's any way to enhance or add to it, then we've always been really interested in that. So basically, like Rhymesayers was offered some really big deals in the past years: Sony and Interscope both offered label deals and Rhymesayers turned 'em down.

I think the thing about this one is that we're able to still have complete control over what we want to do. There's different levels of involvement that each artist can have with Warner depending on what they're tryin' to do--and we have different types of artists.

So on my album--I've never had distribution before, and there's places that we go on tour, you know, places like Oklahoma City, Oklahoma--I don't know if they have an independent store there, youknowwhatimean? If a kid or a person that wants to buy music lives in a place where there's no independent store, and they don't have a credit card, or they don't have access to the internet--then they pretty much have to wait for us to come through on tour--like it's almost impossible for them to get our stuff.

So this deal with Warner--like my cds are going to be at Target for like 8 bucks, which is not a money thing for us, necessarily--that kinda costs us money--but it makes our albums available to people who want to get 'em and it doesn't limit--we still keep all our independent stores, but we just get to add that to it. And if one of our artists wants to go over to Warner, then they can do that.

ewv: Have you noticed anything in the inititial build-up--your album was the first to be affected by this, right?

BA: Yeah, mine will be the first go through there.

ewv: Even though it hasn't been released yet--have you noticed any tangible results from the deal?

BA: Are you talking about from the fans?

ewv: I read something that said you could use Warner's promotional services--

BA: Yeah, we haven't elected to do that with this album. That's the thing about it--it really allows us to do as little or as much with them as we want to. It just basically means we have all those tools at our disposal if we want to use 'em.

One of the things I've really learned from Atmosphere is that they've always kinda grown naturally from album to album--so I think that's the approach I'm taking. If we wanted to and felt like it was a good idea, we could probably bring in some of their promotion people and try to get on commercial radio and stuff like that--where that just doesn't seem like a logical thing for me right now.

I saw something where you said the local Clear Channel station in the Twin Cities was putting "Truth Is" up against Justin Timberlake, and Akon singles.

ewv: For someone who lives in a radio market where that sort of commitment to local music doesn't exist on the commercial spectrum--what do you think has to happen in order to push a station towards that?

BA: That was essentially one guy that made that happen. Basically, my record got played on there 5 times, youknowwhatimean? But this was a person who came to Minneapolis from Boston--a DJ named Peter Parker. He had been a fan of underground hip-hop, and so when he moved here he was like "well Rhymesayers is here, how come nobody's playing Rhymesayers? This is like the biggest thing in underground rap."

And so he has this thing anyway where it would normally be Beyonce vs. Ne-yo, you know, and so he was like "I'm just gonna throw Brother Ali in there". He didn't tell us he was doin' it, he didn't tell the station he was doin' it,he didn't talk to anybody about it, he just threw "Truth Is" in there. We didn't find out until the next day that it had even been played, and that it had won. And so he played it day after day--and people started callin'.. and he said that was the biggest response he had ever got to that thing, you know?

And I think he just did it to make a point that there is support for other types of music. And for him to do that was really risky, was really a ballsy thing--and it felt good too to know that people in my city would wait by the phone until it was time to call and wanted to make sure that I won.

But I mean... People just have to--first of all--not be so scared that music becoming accessible to other people is gonna ruin it. I think there's like--a lot of artists are scared that their fans will leave 'em if other people start hearing their music--and I'm not scared of that. And also just moreso voicing our opinion, when something that we like gets a little play or a little whatever, to support it.

If Sage Francis is all of the sudden at Target or somethin' like that--then we should there and buy it, just to let people know that this is what we really want--we don't want this other shit... We don't want Lil who or Young whatever. Like we want to buy this music, this is what we want you to carry.

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Brother Ali's set w/ Psalm One, BK-One, Trama, Toki Wright is tonight, @ the High Noon... 701 E. Washington, 9:30 PM, $12, 18+

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"interviews" | Brother Ali | hip hop | show "previews"

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