Well, we might be on our way to having that with the Sphere of Hip Hop.
Sphere of Hip Hop is an awesome XM radio show but I've been visiting them for their site and forums which are awesome places to hear about good, underexposed Hip Hop. The best part is that they specialize in Hip Hop that is clean, and the songs have lyricism, ranging from fun songs to very deep topics such as life and God. If they get enough support, they might become their own channel on XM Radio and that would be fresh, so they're trying to get as many listeners as possible for their special 3 hour edition that is airing this Saturday at 5pm Pacific time on channel XM 31 or DirecTV 829.
If you don't want to get XM Radio you can listen on the computer by using a Free Trial. This is a great opportunity to listen to 3 hours of Hip Hop for Free that you may never have heard otherwise. And it's a good way to support music that has some meat to it.
Hit up their Myspace profile at Myspace.com/XMRadioShow to get more info on the show and to listen to an exclusive commercial featuring emcee Braille.
Simply visit the XM Radio Online trial page and fill out the information to receive your online trial subscription. If you dig the online version, a standalone XM Radio Online subscription costs $7.99 per month. Then you can catch the Sphere of Hip-Hop show every Saturday night!
Get more information on Sphere of Hip-Hop at any of their websites including:
* Sphereofhiphop.com (online magazine)
* SphereofhiphopMP3.com (download some tunes)
* SphereofhiphopTV.com (watch videos and live performances)
* SphereofhiphopStore.com (online hip-hop shop with CDs, vinyl records, downloads and some other stuff)
* Myspace.com/Sphereofhiphop (add the main Sphere profile as a friend)
I recently bought a new instrumental, this would be my second from d.C. from SoulplusMind. I'm thankful for it because I want to perform a rap to it soon at the Hip Hop Hunger event at my school (http://hiphophunger.blogspot.com/). I'm looking forward to it. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to do something at the event, but I figured since I've been working hard on putting it together I might as well have some fun at it and bust at least one rap!
So now I have two song/instrumental combinations and my goal is to have at least four within three months so that I can then perform a set. In six months I want to have 8 song/instrumental combinations and then I'll be praying and thinking about if I should make an 8-song EP or wait and build my name up a little and do a full album. This would be my first release but until then I'm just taking it one step at a time as God leads.
I haven't laid down any serious recorded tracks but I want to perform anyway man! That way I'll have some practice and have the songs down before going into a studio where time is often money that I don't have :)
by the way, you can check out d.C. from SoulPlusMind at http://www.soulplusmind.com/. He's definitely got beats with unique sounds and he's cool to work with.
On Saturday I did my first public performance of a written rap. It was a lot of fun! I was nervous but I remembered the lyrics and I was able to deliver all the words. The rapping itself had complicated parts and I was glad that the audience got into it. The name of the event was the Beatnik Cafe and it was definitely like a cafe, so the Hip Hop song I did was a change of pace from acoustic music. The first person to perform, a guitar player and singer, was very good and I expect to see him get famous in the future. There were lots of amazing student musicians and poetry readers and the host of it was Shawn Laramie who is a friend of mine and a very good stand-up comedian.
When none of the four stand-up comedians showed up to the event, Shawn improvised and made a joke that there must be a comedian plague going around and that he could be the next to get taken out by it! That was the most fun I've had this school year so far, and I definitely want to get a set of four songs with music together so that I can perform a whole set.
This is a big year for me.
- I did my first beat purchase in the last week of 07 and the first week of 08.
- Hip Hop Hunger http://hiphophunger.blogspot.com/, a great Hip Hop event I've worked on, (also the first time I've ever done something like this) with the purpose of raising money to fight hunger in Africa is happening on February 27.
- I'm probably going to perform at a talent show at my school, and if so, this would be my first performance.
- I'm graduating High school, becoming 18, and it's the first year I can vote.
Christmas came early for me last fall when my grandpa won an iPod in a raffle and gave it to me. The main thing that I was excited about was Podcasts (I'm still a CD person). A podcast I started listening to is the "CD Baby DIY (Do-it-yourself) Musician Podcast." It covers things important to aspiring and independent artists. I recently listened to an episode about performances at nontraditional venues. Another episode was about using video to promote music. I've only listened to about four episodes, but I'm looking forward to listening to the other episodes too.
I did my first beat purchase ever. I guess it's a little Christmas present to myself. I plan to rap to it at a talent show event coming up at my school.
On Saturday I spent about 8 hours making a beat, and I like it a lot. What's interesting is that when I listen to it, it sounds really slow, but the tempo is actually quite fast, like 112 bpm. Just start freestyling to it and you'll see what I mean.
Right now I'm writing lyrics to it so that I can use it in a talent show at my school. That would be my first show! The plus side of the talent show is that this talent show is less of a talent show and more of a showcase. A good place to build up from. What they do is they take all the couches from teachers' rooms and they turn the commons into a coffee house. Which is why it's called the "Beatnik Cafe."
The types of things they are expecting are poetry reads, so that means that it would work if I performed a chill, lyricism-deep song that isn't meant so much to rock the party as it is to chill and convey messages. Of course, this "chill lyricism" song I'm referring to is not one that is found on this website yet, because the instrumental of it wasn't made by me (so there's no point to uploading it until I record vocals on it). Actually, there's not much of point to me putting my beats up on the site, but I figure, "hey, why not?"
Also, there's going to be an awesome event coming to Rogers High School in Puyallup, WA on the end of February that is completely different from the Beatnik Cafe, because it's going to be an all HipHop show. I am actually working on a website for it, and I'll put that up in the second week of December. It's for a good cause and it's going to be awesome. But more about that later.