I usually stray away from interviews because I’m most often asked to divulge information about artists and labels I’m working with or they ask for specific details about projects I’m involved with.
I obviously can’t discuss that type of information, but when Cyber PR Urban reached out to me about discussing social media and how artists today can use social networks to their benefit, I happily agreed.
One thing I’ve always enjoyed as a music fan is the concept of microphone marriages.
What’s a mic marriage?
A mic marriage is a song with one male artist and one female artist. Not only does it offer 2 different voices, but it also offers 2 different perspectives of the same story. It doesn’t have to be a love song (although it almost always is), it could be any type of record, as long as it’s one male and one female on the song.
From a business perspective, this can prove to be a great method of combining 2 separate fanbases with similar tastes and traits, that can easily crossover to each other, as well as create a new market for the collaboration of the 2 artists together (in other words; 1 massive pool of fans & 3 different streams of products to sell them).
On a personal, music fan tip though, I love the combination of 2 great artists offering 2 separate voices to the same story.
One example of a mic marriage is Kenny Lattimore & Chante Moore. They recorded an entire album together called, “Things That Lovers Do”. (This album is a must for your collection of mood music). These two are actually married which made the album even more relevant, but a mic marriage doesn’t have to be two people tied to each other in any other way other than on the song itself.
But as a music fan, if you could pick one mic marriage pair-up to record an entire album together, which one would it be?
I asked this question on Twitter a few days ago and I was overwhelmed with how many people replied with the same answer - Method Man & Mary J. Blige.
That’s probably one of the best examples there is.
Others answers included Ginuwine & Aaliyah, Nas & Lauryn Hill, Jay-Z & Beyonce and Avant & Keke Wyatt.
I like all of those pair ups, but truth be told, if I could pick only one, there’s another pair-up that I could only hope for to make an album together. They’re both well known artists, but their collaboration together is not as known.
But before I tell you who it is and you click on the play button, in order to really enjoy this song, you need to be in your personal zone
If you’re at home, just shut off the TV for a few minutes, close your eyes and listen. If you’re at work or school, just put in your earphones, zone out and just listen.
Here’s an interesting video I found of Jimmy Iovine discussing his views on today’s music industry and his vision on the direction it’s taking. (Note: The video is about a year old)
He offers advice for new artists as well as talking about possible distribution models, what makes a great producer and the future of Interscope and the traditional record label.
That one, simple question is the basis of one of the hottest social networking tools around, Twitter.
For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s basically micro-blogging mixed with instant messaging. Essentially, it’s more or less the same as Facebook and MySpace’s status field, but it’s meant to be updated more frequently and you can reply to other users as well.
It’s pretty easy to update and follow other people’s “tweets”, as the limit to each message is only 140 characters.
You can stay logged in from the home page, or install a Twitter client (I’m using TweetDeck right now). You can also update via text message or by adding Twitter as a buddy on your favourite instant messaging client.
Check out this video to see how others use Twitter for both business and personal:
Shout out to Aura and CJay who are featured in the video!
If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can sign up for one here. It takes less than 1 minute and you’d be surprised how useful this tool can be.
Artists, DJs, producers, managers, bloggers, journalists, general fans… anybody really can benefit from it. It’s easy to use and takes only a few seconds to update your audience on any news or event you want to share.
It’s also great for general fans who want to stay updated with instant news and have a platform to communicate with others you might not have any other means of contacting.
Make sure to add me and browse around my Twitter friends; you’ll find a lot of interesting people there.
AC’s being making noise for a couple years and now he’s decided to go a new route with his latest mixtape, “Attack Of The Blogs”.
AC released 20 different songs to 20 different blogs which pulled together as a scavenger hunt style contest. The mixtape came out about a month ago, but I just saw the video about 10 minutes ago and thought I’d give AC and his team props for their creativity; not only for the song and video, but also for their approach. They’re thinking of new ways of marketing and having fun with it.
Anyways, I usually don’t do spur of the moment blog posts (I’m going to try to do them more often though), but here is a link to download AC’s new mixtape, “Attack Of The Blogs”.
And here is the video that made me post this:
(Props to the director, Steven Tapia, for his creativity on this one)
I was sent this video that I want to share with you guys.
When you set out to create a viral video using controversial content, you have to be careful with how controversial your content is and how you approach it. You might want to push a few buttons, but don’t blatantly offend people; especially not with racist content.
The guy in this video has a company that produces “controversial” video skits for the web and mobile devices. Funny thing is, in the Press section of his website, he has a cartoon depicting a suited exec-type asking him how to get bloggers to talk about their company, and his reply being “Easy. Create something that doesn’t suck so bad it doesn’t make people want to kill themselves.”
Well buddy, you definitely kept to your word with this video. I don’t think anybody wants to kill themselves after watching this video - but they probably want to kill you.
“But Moe.. controversy sells, plus he got you talking about him, and that’s the whole point of controversial marketing isn’t it?”.
Yeah, controversy sells; for sure. Some people make a career of it including Howard Stern, Wendy Williams and even that other one there.. what’s her name… Ann Coulter.
These people know that by sparking controversy, they will generate a reaction from a mass audience. And when you have the attention of a mass audience - any mass audience - there will be companies kicking down your door to give you money; usually for access to that audience in the form of advertising (gossip, tabloids, etc).
These shock jocks and controversial personalities generally have some sort of plan before they open their mouths. (Well, maybe not Ann Coulter.)
I don’t know about this guy though; he doesn’t seem to quite “get it”. I watched some of his other videos and his “controversial content” is not really what I’d call controversial; it’s more sarcastic criticism than anything else. Seems like he stepped out of his element on this video and wanted to try something that would “take it to the next level”, but unfortunately failed miserably.
Apparently, there are petitions circulating calling on Verizon Wireless to terminate their relationship with this guy and his company.
Seems like he might’ve just Don Imus’ed/Kramer’ed his reputation and career.
Oh yeah.. the Verizon thing? Turns out he recently struck a deal with Verizon Wireless to distribute his “controversial videos” through their VCast & Fios services.
Seems like just yesterday that Verizon cut their ties with Akon for controversy surrounding one of his performances. Let’s see how/if they handle this.
Here’s the video. Let me know what you think in the comments.
UPDATE: Turns out this video/issue is bigger than I thought. The video is actually almost a year old and stirred up quite a controversy when it was first released, but stayed within the tech circles. It’s only recently gained wind due to the contract he signed with Verizon.
This blog is about my personal journey in the music business. I'm not really a blogger.. I'm just continuing my everyday grind and sharing my journey with you. From time to time, I'll also feature interviews with key decision makers, tastemakers and other young professionals doing their thing. Feel free to drop me a line or leave your comments.
- Moe Arora
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