The Music Industry pt 1

Written By: D. James Rice on January 27, 2010 No Comment

Over the next couple of weeks I will conduct interviews with many people that have ties to our community in one way or another. Today I am doing a interview with Shod Harris the Director of Marketing and Promotions for Mic Fiend Music. Shod has toured many places throughout the area promoting his artists. Many people like Shod have gone against the grain and have chosen to put their hand to using their talents to making money outside of the traditional job.

So Mr. Harris what is it that you do?

I am doing a lot of things these days. I handle all of the marketing and promotions for the Indie record label, Mic Fiend Music. I’m also in the process of getting my paperwork done to launch my own promotions company, called Mic Fiend Promotions. I’m also a partner in blog site that caters to independent artists, Undergroundfuzion.com. So pretty much everything I do is catered around promotions for the most part.

That sounds like a lot of work. How did you get started?

I got started a few years ago when I was at a cross roads trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I have always been interested in marketing and promotions, because as a kid I always tried to figure out a way of getting legal money, and I always wanted to work for myself. So it was only obvious that I was going to be doing something in the business world. Also every since I was a teenager I had been heavily influenced by hip-hop, and had a deep love for hip-hop. So sooner or later those two roads had to cross and that led me to creating my first site that was catered towards underground hip-hop, called Newbloodmusic.net. After awhile I started to meet more people in Virginia that were working in the industry and that led me to meeting my business partner, G. McCaslin, and together we started putting together the pieces for Mic Fiend Music with our artist, Thadd Williams and our DJ, DJ Precise. So now we are ready to take over the music industry but for now we are just ready to take over Virginia.

What are your personal goals?

My personal goals are to continue to build strong relationships with my family, my girlfriend and friends. I also plan to strengthen my relationship with the lord and continue to put him first in my life.

My professional goals would be to continue to get exposure for Thadd Williams and Mic Fiend Music as the brand. I would like to continue to build up my personal brand as well, as a strong, intelligent, hard-working individual. Im also going to be officially launching my promotions company Mic Fiend Promotions in the very near future. So I hope to build a strong team around me as well within the next couple of weeks and months. So this year is looking very good so far.

Also make sure everybody goes to www.micfiendmusic.com and download that new mixtape from DJ Precise and Thadd Williams, Radio Killa 2.

Looks like you have your dreams in place. Let me switch gears a little here. In your opinion what kind of effect does today’s music have on relationships?

That’s a great question, I feel that music doesn’t really have an effect on relationships. I feel that it does have an effect on the way men and women interact as a whole. I’ve been in a relationship for the past 2 years and besides the work I do, music doesn’t really affect my relationship. I think the only thing that it affects is the way that women and men interact. Some guys when approaching women will get disrespectful if they are dissed. I believe that comes from the way some rappers act towards women. Which I think if you are strong enough as an individual that really shouldn’t affect you at all.

Is Hip Hop universal or do you think it’s geared toward a certain type of individual?

I believe in its raw essence that it is universal. When I say the raw essence I am talking about, when the labels don’t try and make everything sound alike. When the labels don’t try and make everything sound alike, hip-hop is definitely universal. There is something about it for everybody. You have something for the people that just like to hear good lyrics, there is music for people that like to party, there is music for people that are in the streets, and there is music for people who are feeling sad about life. So there is music for pretty much everybody and music for pretty much any situation in life that you could be going through.

Give me three positive aspects of Hip Hop that you feel are overlooked by the general public.

First, a lot of the rappers are great business men. If you think about it, a lot of these rappers usually come from close to nothing and come out of it making millions of dollars for years. So I don’t think the general public realizes that how great some of these artist’s business minds are to be able to create lasting brands for theirselves. Second, hip-hop is actually an art. The great majority of rappers write their own lyrics so to be able to craft full songs, with intricate wordplay, creative metaphors and just in-depth storytelling. A lot of people just think rapping is about making words rhyme. It is a lot more in-depth than that. Lastly, I feel hip-hop has brought people together and has helped with race relations. If you really think about it, hip-hop has brought together people of all races and cultures. To be honest a lot of black people don’t buy rap albums so most of the rap sales come from other cultures and races. So that should definitely tell you something.

That is some great information. I would like to thank you Mr. Harris for taking the time to share with my readers your hip-hop expertise. Is there anything you would like to say to the people reading this blog?

I just would like to thank Mr. D. James Rice for this interview and giving me the opportunity to give my take on hip-hop and relationships. Shout out to my Mic Fiend Music fam and my beautiful girlfriend. And make sure everybody checks out the latest mixtape from DJ Precise and Thadd Williams, Radio Killa 2, presented by Mic Fiend Music and Yk2daily.net. Check it out on www.micfiendmusic.com. Once again THANK YOU.

Thank you Shod for your time. Be sure to check out Shod’s work at www.MicFiendmusic.com and www.UndergroundFuzion.com.

Thanks for reading

DJR and Shod Harris