And now something extra chill from The Left Coast, derived from left side of the brain. Mike Baker The Bike Maker is the personable Honor Roll estudiante and he’s lounging in the cut for his latest project, Mike Plays It Cool. With the production primarily conducted by Trackademicks and 1-O.A.K, appearances from the multifarious Nikki Jean and Josie Stingray, Mike B. is giving you an alternative to the melodrama and gangsta trauma and putting on his cool for the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Signed, sealed & delivered as promised. Read the rest of this entry »

This year’s VH1 Hip-Hop Honors show has taken on a whole life of its own.

Building from the momentum of previous years, the show & the channel are proving to be accurate to the essence of Hip-Hop music & culture. Digging deeper into the history each year, they’ve managed to recognize artists whose catalogs were not sacrificed for the sake of fame or critical acclaim. By choosing respectable artists, VH1 has garnered the attention & praise of fans across the map.

And some of those fans included a new crop of MCs, DJs and producers.

Which brings us to the topic at hand: Mick Boogie’s The Honor Roll. A musical mashup, the endeavor is a well engineered project featuring music from the catalogs of this year’s honorees, covered by a new generation of emcees & producers.

For more of the back story on how the project came together, The Crew’s Gotty™ got up with Mick Boogie, impresario Dan Solomito & Notherground’s 6th Sense for an impromptu Q&A about what all went into the making of The Honor Roll.

TSS: Whose idea was the tape originally?

Mick: Mine. Two weeks ago, I was sitting on the beach in Miami with my wife and we were talking about how dope the Honors are every year. And the idea just hit me. So for the rest of our vacation she sat at the beach reading and sunning while I sat under an umbrella with my Blackberry and iPhone and got the thing in motion. Then when we got back, I commissioned a few of my friends to really help get things popping, since we had less than two weeks to knock it out. Since it was so last minute, VH1 was not involved initially but they are very impressed and we are in negotiations to make it official next year, which is really exciting.

TSS: Who all helped out with this project?

Mick: In addition to myself, my homie Dan Solomito, who also manages Kidz In The Hall, stepped in and brought some cool new artists to the table that definitely deserve to be on this project. The kid that runs my blog – PressPlayFashionForward – his name is Christopher Truth. He definitely stepped up and helped coordinate stuff because I was out of town a lot. Lastly, one of my favorite new producers in the game, 6th Sense, produced the majority of the project and coordinated the engineering and mastering on mostly everyone else’s songs.

TSS: Dan, how did you connect with Mick Boogie to assist with this project?

Dan: It was great finally working together. He did a project with one of my artists, Kidz In The Hall, called Detention, which was an idea I had where we brought a mixtape DJ over to the RIAA-approved side of the business. I had him host a mixtape formatted album which was all original content and therefore legal to be sold via an exclusive we did with iTunes. But our interaction that project was minimal. It was not until The Honor Roll where we truly had a chance to work together; brainstorm, come up with some great ideas, and bring this project to fruition…and all in just under two weeks.

TSS: Can we expect more collabos in the future from two nerdy white guys?

Dan: We already have some big ideas on a few new projects. Mick is doing a great Obama-related mixtape and shirt coming next week. It’s always nice to come across someone in the music industry who has the ability to balance the rigors of the business side while still being passionate about what they do. Mick Boogie is that guy.

TSS: 6th, how hard was it to coordinate all of these beats at the same time?

6th: This was one of the first experiences I had with sending ProTools sessions back and forth. I’m used to doing everything in one studio, but this proved to be a little bit of a challenge. It wasn’t like I just sent the beats out and that was it. All them cats sent their vocals back and I would mix the song. Lotta credit to everyone, all the MC’s, managers, and engineers. Mick, Dan, everyone that helped out. I mean we did the damn thing in a week and a half. Beat creation, lyric writing, recording and mixing. I tip my hat to everyone on that.

TSS: And you guys got MC Serch to narrate the project. How did that come about? Read the rest of this entry »