Going the independent route definitely isn’t going to work for everyone. What advice do you have for other independent artists in terms of knowing their value and not letting people shortchange them? None of the people I know, fortunately, regret anything at all. Maybe something didn’t go right with the deal, but then maybe you didn’t have anything before it. You have to take the good with the bad, for sure. Have you seen some of your peers get record deals, then regret it later? You’ve been rapping for about a decade now. When your music comes out in June or July, you’re trying to do a blockbuster, Independence Day-style. Get Home Safely wasn’t really attached to a season, but I guess you could call trying to put something out for the summertime the Will Smith approach. Around that time, kids’ll be getting out of school. You’ll want that little two-step, graduation-time music that you can ride around to. 2 will probably have more of the feel that you were talking about. 2 is definitely coming out in the springtime, so people can look forward to that, and Vol. That’s just how the timing lined up for me. I knew that music spread better - you do more shows and people share music more. When I first started releasing music, it just felt right to me. 1 dropped two days before Christmas in 2016. is always going to be strong - that’s what it means to me.įans typically associate your music with the warmer months given your past release dates but you put out your second album Get Home Safely in October of 2013 and Los Angeles Is Not for Sale, Vol. That title is a mindstate, and I hope people continue to walk and live with that. There’s no bargain it’s nothing you can buy your way into. The stories I tell, the people I know, they aren’t on an auction block. The game of rap is like real estate - it’s a monopoly and everything is just out there for sale. I thought of it a little while ago as a response to things that are always going on in music. It was the title for a song I had at first. Let’s talk about the new album Los Angeles Is Not For Sale. The person who won the ASCAP or BMI award two years ago probably wasn’t even invited this year, so if that’s all we’re talking about, that’s really not relevant to me.
That’s something that I’ve always wanted to keep in tact, so I never really worry about rapping over other people’s songs or work with every producer in the meantime. If you’re always chasing styles or trying to measure up to what’s relevant at the parties you go to every month, you’re never true to yourself or developing anything distinct.
Not being involved in that helps my ideas when I do want to drop something, because it allows me to see what I have to add. There’s also a lot of plagiarism in the music, the styles and everything. That doesn’t mean you don’t have something coming. You don’t have to show people your car that’s coming out in 2018 when you’re working on it in 2016. I look at it as allowing yourself time to come up with something new. Why are you so comfortable with falling back where others aren’t? You rose during the blog rap era of the late 2000s, but you aren’t an “Internet” dude, based on your music and interviews. There’s going to be a new person that’s current and relevant, there’s always going to be a new this and new that, so I think putting something real in your music gives you longevity. You can swing that in your favor it allows you to stick around, but you definitely want to stay relevant in the rap game, because it’s out of sight, out of mind. To me, music that’s good and real is going to last a lot longer than something that’s just trying to be relevant. It’s hard being such an individual, knowing that time is on your side. I think sometimes the same things that work for me work against me. How have you learned to succeed while moving at your own pace?
There’s so much emphasis on being current and relevant in the music industry, but you never cared about that. a couple of my artists - Jay 305 and the homie Niko G4, but mostly just that. We have some fresh new music that’ll be coming out in 2017. Working on Los Angeles Is Not For Sale, Vol. You took some time off from releasing new music for a while. Dom Kennedy Talks Upcoming Mixtape, DVD Project and Tupac's Legacy
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