B: Oh yeah, most definitely. You know for the past two and a half years, I’ve been running my independent label called Conduit Entertainment with my man, who is originally from Arkansas his name Epiphany. He’s a rapper you know (and) that’s our first artist. He was out in New York, he went to Stanford too (with me). And after he got out he went to New York and he really wanted to pursue his ambitions of being a rapper. He was like hey this is what I want to do, this is my passion. So, he was out there, and at the same time I had got laid off from my job, so as it turns out I was working in a little tech start up or whatever. So I get laid off and I got a severance packet at the same time I’m talking to him. And I’m like “Aye, you know all the big time rappers have really done it themselves over the past decade.” That’s to say the ones that have really came up and made cake in the industry (have) done it themselves. And so I was like why don’t we do this?

So, we wake up and start the company and everything. We quickly saw in New York the importance of kinda having that type of hometown allegiance and having that background. So we upped and moved. I moved from Cali and he moved from New York we went to Arkansas. Little Rock, Arkansas, for me everyone was like “what are doing man? You done graduated from here, why you moving to Arkansas to start a rap label?” But for me though it was like the fact that they didn’t get it, that a lot of people didn’t get it (that) told me that I was on the right path. Little Rock is a midsize market that clearly got a base of people that like rap, (and are) into hip-hop, but there’s no sound that defines that state.

Very true.

B: You know so in states like Mississippi that’s just as small. And you know the population getting put on the map by folks like Banner. Who’s to say Arkansas can’t get put on the map if it’s done right? It’s no competition until we go in there. And then in less than a year and with our first release we had rotation on the number one hip-hop station out there. We were the best selling independent label out of Little Rock. And we was moving. And so we started acquiring new talent out there. That’s one thing that I learned too, there’s talent in every single city and every single hood in this world probably. You know I’m in small towns that I ain’t even heard of people coming here- Pablo, Arkansas; Setha, Arkansas, and finding jewels.

Like straight up, I signed this group Suga City, a two man rap group, and I’m really feeling them and they just some soulful cats. You hear their music and it’s almost like you can feel the South. It’s like, I won’t even say that they’re conscious, (but) they are for that average Joe, who just sits on the porch and lives that life. Then in a different city I signed this solo rapper. This young cat, his name’s BK. And he’s just vital you know, use to be on the block doing his thing, but then he had a baby and everything and he knew it was time to kinda get serious. And his flow was sick, so I signed him too. And since then we’ve been putting out mixtapes. We did over ten thousand sold independent, and we done branched out of Arkansas into like Tennessee and Alabama, Louisiana, they doing shows a little bit. (In spots like) Shreveport, Monroe, uh, a lot of the colleges in the area- Grambling, UATB and University of Little Rock. So the independent thing down South in a midsize market we started throwing the buzz out though. Continued on page 5 »