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Written by M. Rizal
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Monday, 19 May 2008 |
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Oh Yeah. I'm listening to some Thelonious Monk and this man is off the meters. On a crazy jazz trip and this ish is keeping me pumped up and active to get some work done on this site. Speaking about this site, Hip Hop Fellowship Blog has a couple of new sections, like Free Music/Video Download , where yall can just post and promote your internet releases especially the ones released under Creative Commons . Also, if you just got a great song to share that is available for free - why not share it with us too? But please eh. No pirates. This is strictly for music and videos that are legally licensed for free. Another new section is Online Streaming , here yall can post anything that is available for streaming online. Like that dope The Roots video clip on YouTube or your own favorite playlist on Imeem . Share good music, the right way. So gyeah! All these section can be easily access on our main navigation on the left and if you want to post anything under this section, register, log in and under 'User Menu', select the right Submit option and you're ready to roll! More about Guide to Posting in HHF here .  Be first to comment this article |  Quote this article on your site
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Written by M. Rizal
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Monday, 19 May 2008 |
1. Creative Commons.
When I first wanted to get serious with promoting music, the bit about Music Licensing was inevitable. Everybody in the local scene was talking about getting their music licensed through Compass, and how to get royalty money through radio airplays and etcetera. I didn’t like it one bit. One – it’s a hassle. Two – no radio station will be that interested in playing local hip hop music, thus the royalty money doesn’t really sum up to be worth it. Lastly, limitations, you have a lot of limitations in distributing and using your own licensed work.
Yes to some extent, if you really want to be big and are expecting your music to be in high rotation and all, licensing your work through those kinds of organizations might be worth it. But this article is really for the independent budding musicians. The Digital Era has changed the way we consumers buy music and licensing your work that way is just limiting your capabilities. The people favor Mp3 Players more than FM Tuners . So downloading your music for free is way more attractive than tuning into radio stations. So getting your music license somehow in a more lenient way is a good move because it gives the people the empowerment they want.
And Creative Commons fulfill those criteria instead of All Rights Reserved, now you can have your music to be Some Rights Reserved. You can license your work to be free for distribution and usage for non-profit purposes but if it’s for profit purposes, they will have to seek your permissions first. Not bad, eh? For example, you can make your music available for free download. Then one day, Lucy got hold of your music, she’s interested in using it for her non-profit school project, and if you license your work under the right license under CC, she can do just that! Imagine how much further your music can be heard.
There are a lot of different varieties of licenses available by Creative Commons . It covers a wide range of different rights, do check it out !
2. Blogs
This is probably the most underrated element in music promotion, especially in local Hip Hop. Blogs are basically online journals but the uses of this journal has been so diversified that you can also, in a way use it for your music promotion. Blogging is a great tool to interact with the people or your possible listeners/fans. Like how I said in my article about The Digital Era , the people are sick of just doing the listening. They would like to be empowered and feel that they’re part of your music. Blogging does just that – it is communicating with your listeners on a rather personal level. That makes it entertaining as well.
Blogs can be created for free using providers such as Blogger & Wordpress . Even your MySpace accounts have blogs, why not enable it and start blogging! Your visitors will love it. Once you got blog entries posted, it is also important to let it be exposed and known to people. A good way to expose your blog is by re-posting your entries in Blog Portals such as Hip Hop Fellowship.com . It is a central hub for Hip Hop fans to come by and check out what’s good around the blogs, and they might just be interested enough to check yours out! RSS Feeds is also another way for you to grab hold of your visitors. Users can subscribe your blog so whenever there’s a new post – they will be updated of it as well.
Blogs has the new entertainment value in The Digital Era . Combined together with your own creative ideas, the possibilities are limitless! It can even be more fun to go to Blogs then watching the TV!
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Written by The Rhymeweaver
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Sunday, 18 May 2008 |
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This article was reposted and modified from the original at http://rhymeweaver.blogspot.com/2008/05/word-please.html Mr. Julian Moore's blog at Frontend hasn't yet failed to amaze me. This time he's talking about the art of persuasion, and he picks up 50 points that are relevant to a struggling artist's promotion regime.
Click here to read the original post.
I won't rehash his post here, but I just want to talk about the power of the word 'please' for a struggling artist. I only realized it myself after reading his post, so it should be a good idea for you to read it, because you might learn something new like me.
When you were kids, you've probably been taught to say the word 'please' when you ask something from people. But the word 'please' is terribly overlooked and under-appreciated by struggling artists (who I can safely assume to be adults) who are trying to sell/promote their music. I saw a lot of MySpace comments, forum posts, blog comments etc that neglected the word 'please' like these examples:
Download our new song XXXXX now!
Vote for our band and get us played on XXXX FM!
Come to Lil' Bugger's gig at Club XXXX this Sunday! Now those read like commands rather than requests or suggestions, ain't it? No 'please'? Your mam would've said 'where's your manners?'
The clubs don't need your songs to bump up the party; the average hip-hop head does not feel obliged to download your songs, and the human society does not require your songs to function. You are trying to persuade them to do something for you, by downloading your songs and coming to your gigs and stuff. And I think the best way to get them to do it is by being courteous, and that involves putting the word 'please' in your exhortations. Make it sound softer.
The word 'please' makes you sound more human and more humble, and that in turn makes you more accessible to your fans/potential fans. So they would want to download your song/come to your gig/buy your merch and stuff.
Let's attach the word 'please' to the aforementioned sentences:
Please download our new song XXXXX now!
Please vote for our band and get us played on XXXX FM!
Please come to Lil' Bugger's gig at Club XXXX this Sunday! It sounds better now ain't it? Maybe some people would think, "nah that sounds pussy". Well, it's up to your personal preferences. Maybe you could experiment with the word: try putting 'please' in comments delivered to several MySpacers, and omit it in another batch of comment to another group of MySpacers. See what happens.
Don't think I'm a hypocrite, I've also done this before. I would just copy and paste comments on MySpace saying 'download my song now!'. I was effectively commanding people to visit my site and click 'download'. No wonder I didn't get much attention back then! But now that I've learned it, I'll be putting the word 'please' in every instances where I interact with my listeners or promoting my music to potential fans.
However the word 'please' alone does not guarantee your songs reach 1000 downloads overnight. Combine it with careful wording of your online promotion and a kickarse song.
I'm no authority on this shit, but this is what I learned.
And it's always good to be courteous and polite. The world will become a better place if everyone is polite (especially struggling artists).
Cheers
The Rhymeweaver
Have you ever wondered how a zombie outbreak during the Renaissance would sound like? Listen to The Rhymeweaver and wonder no more. Be first to comment this article | Quote this article on your site |
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Written by M. Rizal
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Sunday, 18 May 2008 |
For the past few days, or maybe week, I have come to see different reactions on my opinion and rants in this blog. Some gave me props and thank me for saying those things out but mostly, took it as a personal diss to their representation and contribution in the local scene.
On both sides, it is understandable and justifiable.
Yesterday, I went to catch Rogue Squadron live in The Arts House, the event was organized by 65 & Hope and yes, I did receive some pretty hostile vibe from some of the individuals – people who used to acknowledge my presence now ignores me. And this is quite disappointing, you know?
But I have come to realized, that my articles, although it might have some possibly valid points, it did came harsh on cats and peoples who are constantly sacrificing and still fighting for the scene’s survival. Because picture it like this, here we have a bunch of people sacrificing their time, money and effort for the scene and here I am questioning their contribution’s effectiveness for the scene in the near future. Of course it looked like a diss, right? Honestly, I do not mean it this way to these peoples. But I have to face the reality, indirectly, whether I like it or not and whether I want it to be seen that way or not, for these individuals it is being perceived in that manner.
What I failed to see is that, you know what; we still have a scene, although it has flaws but at the end of the day, we still have people fighting for it. It might be heading down the wrong direction – but screw it, if the scene keep producing hardworking individuals like these, one day, what I said will makes sense and people will act towards it. Even if it doesn’t, right now, I doubt the scene will die because we always have these cats to keep holding it down for the scene and keep it alive – even if it’s not a expanding scene yet, but it is certainly not a dead scene. That’s a great thing, and I should be thankful for that.
I have a lot of respect for these people who continually sacrificing bits of their life for their passion and these people interpret it as those articles are disrespecting them. I can’t leave it like that because, for one, it goes against my own beliefs of unity – if this goes on we might not be able to work together ever again and I can’t take the risk of losing all the possible opportunity we could work together and contribute to the scene and Hip Hop because it is only hurting our own potential. So I’m giving in because it is understandable that to some extent I’m being unreasonable to these peoples.
And because of that, I humbly apologized to the affected individuals – especially 65 & Hope (Fazli aka FreakyZ) and them XS.1 cats.
I want things to turn out positive and whatever that will be the better of us and for the scene; I will give in to it. And after only attending one gig, and receiving that kind of vibe and being misinterpreted to this extent – I certainly think it will not be good for the scene and I don’t want it to continue. We’re very passionate people, I don’t want this passion to kill and separate us – I’m all for unity. If I did something wrong, which to some extent, I probably did crossed the line during some of the articles; I humbly apologized.
And, if the handful of you, who thought that, maybe I did made some valid points – great. Thank you for receiving it with patience and open mind. If you think there’s something that needed to be done – please do it and use this blog whenever appropriate.
Other than that, let’s all do our own shit right now. Instead of being too direct and explicit in putting down my thoughts – I will portray my ideas and propose it to the right individuals here, in this blog for all to see and feedback/comments.
You do your own thing and I will do my own thing. But let's try to work together. Be first to comment this article | Quote this article on your site |
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