SXSW Can Help Your Career In The Entertainment Business.

What’s good everyone? 

This week on Real Talk I want to talk about SXSW (South by South West) Music Conference that’s held every March in Austin, Texas. Well it’s actually a music festival that started in 1987 and grew currently into a film and an online interactive conference as well. SXSW states that their original goal was to create an event that would act as a tool for creative people and the companies they work with to develop their careers, to bring together people from a wide area to meet and share ideas.

Well if you ask me, we really needed something like SXSW, especially in the region where I’m from. Being in the music business as a rap artist out of Oklahoma is not the easiest thing to do and the resources were like slim to none. SXSW created a great resource for entertainment business people to network with others and create future business partners or job opportunities.This was very important for us, especially for the independent artist in the South West region.

SXSW offers a variety of resources to help us in the music business as well as the film and interactive communities.  Resources like talk panels, for professional discussions in music, film, and interactive industries. SXSW also have shows going on about 100 different stages showcasing new artist around the world. SXSW has a program called Startup Village. Current and future entrepreneurs benefit from learning and networking with investors, technology trailblazers, media representatives, as well as digital creatives from their exciting industries. Along with the Startup SXSW offers Accelerator. Accelerator is a competition of companies in presenting the latest innovating technologies in music and the interactive industries. They also allow companies to sell equipment to potential clients in the expos for music, films, and interactive, which is the cutting edge in technology like video games and software etc. This type of resource for independent artist is extremely helpful for our careers.

SXSW has been around for years. Since it’s conception, it has grown to over 48,000 registrants from the music, film, and interactive fields of the business to Austin Texas every March. They have affected all of these industries in numerous ways since they started. By bringing like minds from all around the world together and to give them an opportunity to discuss and share ideas with each other or even receive advice from a professional in our field of entertainment business is priceless. Thanks goes out for SXSW for giving us a platform for entertainment business heads to collide and expand the industry with knowledge we share. So if you haven't beent in a while or never attended before, make plans to make it to Austin in March to the SXSW Conference for an upgrade in your entertainment business network. Real Talk!

Videos Are The Way To Go!

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This week I want to talk about Kevin Alloca, a TED speaker that works for You Tube as a trends manager. Kevin watches You Tube videos for a living. Kevin’s unusual job is very informative for many of us out there especially those of us who are in the music industry and need to know how important it is to upload and promote your videos.

Kevin is an expert in his field and he examines videos everyday and he see’s which videos go viral and which ones that don’t. He says that it’s three things that make uploaded videos go viral. They are unexpectedness, community participation, and tastemakers. Tastemakers are the influential people that always bring new and interesting things to a larger audience. People like Jimmy Kimmel, Tosh.0 and Oprah Winfrey. These are the people that has a big influence on everyone. Once we think it’s cool to them then we want to be cool like them and do what they do. This happens more when the videos are unique and has something unexpected to them. By sharing, remixing and twitting about these videos we are community participating with them. This is how they go viral.

This approach works for anything new we do creatively. Kevin teaches us that unexpectedness, community participation, and tastemakers are characteristics of a new media and culture where anyone has access and the audience defines the popularity. We should utilize this media for our music careers. This is the future in entertainment.

We live in a visual world and these days it’s important to do as many videos as you can and upload them on You Tube. This is very good for building a buzz and a fan base for the artist. When I say videos, I’m not just talking about music videos. I’m talking about the behind the scenes action. Let the fans get to know the artist on a more personal level. People love reality television. This doesn’t mean go and do stupid incriminated stuff to get some attention on camera, that stuff can get you locked up.  Real Talk! 

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P.S. Here is a site that I came across that has plenty of pointers of how to promote your videos online, http://promotingyourvideo.com

Mr C.D. Wright

                                   

R. Kelly Still At It

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R. Kelly has done it again!

R. Kelly has done it again! After all R.Kelly has been through, he still sells millions of records and writes hit songs for himself and many other artists. R Kelly continues to show up and show out in the music game with his newest efforts, Write Me Back, which is a twelve-song collection that is part of this year’s -- The Year of the R. Also with his new album, R. Kelly is publishing his first memoir, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me.
R. Kelly is definitely staying busy on his marketing efforts. He recently signed with the IFC Channel to add chapters to his hip-hop opera Trapped in the Closet. I can’t lie ya'll, I was kind of caught up like everybody else when the first series of Trapped in the Closet came out. They had me waiting to see what else was about to go down. This new series is featuring all of the original players in 20 brand new chapters. It will debut this year on November 23, Black Friday. 

R. Kelly is utilizing several angles of entertainment to stay relevant in the music business. These mini-series he keeps putting out are showing us more and more of his skills as a writer, producer and  an actor. His talents spans across the horizon. I'm not posting this story of R. Kelly because I'm in his fan club or anything I just have to recognize his hard work in the music industry. He is definitely doing his thang, Real Talk!
 
I mean really, does anybody even remember when R. Kelly was in trouble with that sex tape scandal that almost ended his career? I barely do. You don’t even hear about it anymore. Shout outs to his publicist and his record company for saving his life and his music career by helping him deliver his musical gift from God to the rest of the world. Maybe it’s over, I don’t know, but I know that R. Kelly must be one of the hardest working-men in the business. Real Talk!

Hip Hop Hooray!

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Hip Hop Hooray!

Bet Hip Hop Awards Show 2012 was a great night for Hip Hop.  I had to admit that it made me get that old good feeling about Hip Hop again.  I was starting to think that Hip Hop needed a flushing but I have to say the cyphers this year was one of the best thus far. It was like a movie starring all of your favorite actors or a comic book with some of your favorite super heroes.  I got to see Mystikal, DMX EVE, Snoop Dogg, DJ Quick, Kendrick Lamar & E-40 again. It was great! If you ask me Kendrick Lamar killed it. Once again I felt proud to be involved in this magnificent art form.

The night was filled with memorable moments. You had Taylor Gang leader, Wiz Khalifa in a black leather jacket performing his hit “Work Hard, Play Hard.” Young Jeezy joined him representing the ATL. to the fullest.

P Diddy came through with his Bad Boy Records entourage that included Machine Gun Kelly with his off the wall antics performing “Wild Boy.” French Montana also stole the scene when he showed up in about 100 gold chains. While Future brought his #1 hit single, “Turn off the lights” to be joined by all his Bad boy comrades.

Leave it to 2 Chainz to show up or show out jumping out of a Gucci printed coffin performing his smash hit “Birthday.” He was dressed in a white shirt with a suite jacket and tie. He reminded me of Samuel L. Jackson in “Pulp Fiction”. Then to top that off he sat down at a white grand piano playing the keys like a pro for the intro of his hit “I’m Different” that blazed the stage.

The night was toped off with a special tribute to the great late music executive, Chris Lighty. Artist like; LL Cool J, Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Missy Elliot, and 50 Cent performed their hit records they recorded during the times while being managed by Lighty. They all were representing Violator and the Chris Lighty brand with high regards.

The Bet Hip Hop awards, by far has out down themselves in 2012. From the commercials of Kevin Hart’s new show to Mike Epps hosting the entire extravaganza, Bet’s Hip Hop Awards show 2012 left a great impression on the world for the genre. What a night for Hip Hop!