Happy b'day scribe

Well it's scribe's b'day tomorrow

but that was unbeknown to most who came out to throw him a surprise b'day party on tuesday nite. It was mad cool and a bit of a mini hip hop summit with most usual suspects there, of course the dirty crew....dawn raid...illegal musik....sirvere...Arch Dynasty (Nesian label)...Che and a whole host of nz rock legends like Jon toogood (I reckon that names to awesome to be real) from shihad and Boh Runga etc. But more importantly his family Ladi, Tyra, Bonnie, his uncle Vic and some aunties....and lots of cousins. It was mad fun & shout out to YDNA the milli-man shouting the brothers....when we hit that milli it shall flow freely back my bro lol

It was all set up by his manager as a surprise with the help of his fams. So we all arrived early to try get in before he came, problem was we were all having so much fun we didn't see him walk in and after a delayed reaction the surprise call went up about 10 seconds after he entered. Me and Malo go back to 94-95,I've seen where he started his music career from and where it's heading which has been an exciting journey to watch and anticipate. So from the nesians and my famz happy b'day oldskol.......if you didn't already know hes started work on the new album which is after initial material listening session is sounding more a balance between the 2 last records. I'm looking forward to future projects with nesian and him ;) peace

P.S- I know i said that track will be available today and hopefully it should be up like cinderella before the clock strikes midnite :)

S out

How meki? tu meki! PI awards bling to the power of 4

It was a stellar evening last night; we took home 4 awards including a tui for best pacific album. I over use this term but seriously “stoked”, warm fuzzes all round. I don’t want to bore you with a sob story of the hard times but it’s up lifting for your music to be recognised by your peers and community. As I spoke about in my last blog we were up for 4 awards and astonishingly we walked away with all 4. We had a lot of family present with no word of a lie more than 40 people in the audience probably closer to 50 which added to the atmosphere as you can imagine.

There were more than 4 awards presented on the night so I need to make a special mention of life time achievement award presented to Tigi ness (yes che-fu’s dad), for anyone growing up around grey Lynn you would have heard his music at all the festivals. Tigi is the man, the first person to put his hand up to support community events and has always been behind us.

Ladi 6 took home best female artist and Devolo took best male which was well deserved as they were 2 of the biggest success stories last year, to be honest I thought Ladi was going to get album of the year. Ladi’s parents accepted the award and their speech was a crack up with Uncle Vic pulling out his line from the anti violence campaign “it’s not ok”. Snap....I just remembered David Tua was in the house presenting an award and the brother busted out a verse rhyming which had the crowd in frenzy.

Savage got a standing ovation for his international breakthrough award and was a real touching moment; it was one of those historical occasions where new ground was recognised as being broken by one of the brothers.....a moment I put up there with King Kapisi in 1999 wining the prestigious Apra silver scroll award. There some memorable performances with the stand out being the tribute Che and the Krates did for his dad....one of those wooww moments.

The dirty records crew brought out their number hit everything featuring the whole roster Vince Harder, David Dallas, PNC & Scribe. Which brings me to that promotional time, our boys PNC has his new album dropping beginning of next month keep an out for it and now that I think about it all of those artist on dirty I mentioned have albums dropping this year including the name I forgot to mention which heads the crew P money.

Illegal musik came out swinging with their showcase featuring visual effects and a nice a ray of new talent all produced by my man Nox so shout out to my boy....by the way still waiting for some beats bro. J Williams held it down for his crew as the first artist off the Illegal musik roster but I’ve also got to show love for our Nesian affiliate Erika who sung on one of our tracks on elevator musiq “I don’t usually” she’s just released her first single last week and next in line after J to pop off for Illegal Musik. Her man funnily enough plays keys for our live band “the elevators” which closed the night doing Mr Mista for the first time with Che-fu & Cydel it was crazy way to finish the night.

I could go on forever if you couldn’t tell it was a mean night, my special highlight was being presented an award by my first MC mentor Scribe that was special. Forever I’ve looked up to that dude and to receive the award he got the year before was something awesome. That track i promised is on it's way just being mixed....check in 4 days and I should have it for your exclusive ears only.

Chur S out

It's the return

I know it’s the nature of the blog beast that sometimes we lose momentum but in my defence I have written two blogs which in the middle of loading them up my computer froze and I hadn’t saved them, hard lesson learnt indeed. But hey like Ma$e welcome back.....

We’ve been busy finishing the video shoot for RSVP featuring PNC which is probably the most fun shoot I think we’ve ever had. It’s a one take video which took 15 takes to actually nail, as effortless as the vid looks it was a lot of mayhem outside the view of the camera at all times trust me.

On the recording front I think we’ve officially finished the next album but after thinking we’d got the title it’s once again all back up in the air. We had a writing retreat about a month ago which saw the last few additions to the album added. Now’s the real task of trying to cull down the tracks, all up we’ve written around 40 something songs but we’re aiming to have 15 on the record.

Over the years we’ve learnt the lesson of being lesser friendly as some times to much of a good thing sadly makes it a bad thing...you feel me. Some of my favourite artist have produced albums which feel like a marathon to listen to and end up being very disconnected, there are exceptions like 2pac’s “all eyes on me” & Notorious “life after death” but straight up those were 2 legends arguably in their peak at that point. On the flip side some people bring out albums which a more like EPs, so finding the right balance is everything. There’s definitely an art to creating an album opposed to just releasing individual songs as singles.

You can expect the first track off the album to drop late August at least that’s the plan, which is not far away at all considering we’re almost in the middle of the year. While writing this blog I’ve also decided I’ll drop one track a month in the build up to the first single. As I’m not tech savvy that should be an interesting promise to try keep but spread the word. The first one should be up next week, keep your ear out.

We’re up for the P.I music awards next week which should be a cool night. Yes it’s not the glitz of the nz music awards but that’s the beauty of it, it’s really about the music and the people. My dad’s the chairman of the board for the awards so I know a lot about the effort that goes in preparing the occasion. While I’m on the subject I heard some stink comments recently regarding us making 4 of the categories for the awards as being rigged due to my old man’s position, to clear it up there is a judging panel made up of artist who select the finalist and have nothing to do with the board. On that note we’re performing at the awards with our live band “the elevators” which will be awesome as it’ll be the first time we’ve performed with some of the featuring artist.

On the performance tip we performed at the gourmet Hangi put on by Hinewehi’s music therapy fundraiser. It was awesome day and the food wasn’t too bad either, the line up read like a who’s who of maori music with a few exceptions missing. It’s those kinds of events which really remind you the real reason you do music aside from the general benefits it’s the ability for music to bring people together. It was mean and the highlight for me was Dave Dobbyn dukes a legend and an amazing song writer but it was even more unbelievable when you see him with just a guitar. Funny being the only rappers when your performing to a room of 700 full of people whose average age is 50.

Lastly I was walking with my daughter this morning and this dude stopped me. I admit it’s not uncommon for people to do the double take and say “aeoow aren’t you that fulla from nesian?” and that’s what initially happen this time. But then the guy went on to thank me for telling real stories he could relate to and that he was proud of us, he even “went and bought the latest album bro no burns”. This little moment kind of made me think of how I can easily get caught up in playing industry looking at units sold, marketing plans, new promotional angles etc and I felt really humbled. I found myself looking at the times I’ve been disappointed with sales or a turn out for a gig and I was reminded of how the fact that any one gets in to what you do and supports it is a massive privilege and thrill. Enough of the doctor phil moments get ready to be excited about your life lol.

Peace signing out S