Sean Taylor…One Year Later

Sean Michael Maurice Taylor was an American football free safety who played for the NFL’s Washington Redskins franchise. Collegiately he played for the University of Miami, where he helped lead the Hurricanes to a national championship in 2001. Due to his ferocious style of hitting, several of his pro teammates nicknamed him “Meast,” a reference to “half man, half beast.” Among his many football accomplishments, Taylor was widely considered one of the hardest hitting defensive secondary players in the NFL.

Taylor was murdered on November 27, 2007, at the age of 24, dying from critical injuries from gunshots by intruders at his Miami area home on November 26, 2007. His death led to an outpouring of national support and sympathy, especially in the Washington D.C. area where Taylor was a fan favorite as a Redskin. In honor of Taylor’s passing one year ago, I caught up with DC  rapper Wale,  he discusses the moment he heard the news, the love, and the man Sean Taylor was.

 

  

Image via Getty Images // Sean Taylor Bio via Wikipedia

Sonic The Hamilton

Pt. 1 Charles discusses his style, his recreated XXL cover, and what you may not know about him.

Pt. 2 Charles discusses his buzz, fans, plans for his music and his hair.

Pt. 3 Charles discusses his 21st birthday, his love for pink and his theory on woman.

Jay Rock…The Introduction

I stop by the Warner Brother office to kick it with their new signee Jay Rock. Born and raised in Watts, California’s notorious Nickerson Gardens Projects, Jay Rock got his first encouragement from his music-making relatives, who noticed the impact his deep, melodic voice made on song after song. “They were like, ‘you’re hard. And you’ve got a voice for it, too,” Jay Rock recalls. “A lot of people started hearing me and they would tell me that my voice catches them. So, I started working it, working on my craft and got more and more confidence.”

Jay Rock’s confidence led to a string of heated appearances on neighborhood mixtapes. The gifted rhymer’s clever phrasing, gritty realism, storytelling swagger and powerful voice grabbed the attention of Top Dawg Entertainment boss Dude Dawg. Once in the studio with an independent company backing him, Jay Rock’s output increased and improved.

After shopping his demo to a number of major labels, Jay Rock and Top Dawg earned a deal with industry powerhouse Warner Bros. Records, also home to E-40, Murs and Talib Kweli, among others. The Warner Bros. executives were impressed with Jay Rock’s distinctive flow, his vivid lyrics and, of course, his “voice”. I on the other hand was impressed with much more, Jay rock has a humbleness and demenor that hasn’t been seen in new emerging artist. Jay Rock & I spoke on his deal, relationships with west coast rappers and much more.

The Introduction….Drake(Q&A)

This is karencivil.com, and this is something I like to call the introduction:

 Drake: My Name is Drake I am a rapper/singer/actor/rapper/ writer, from Toronto Canada. Like I said I started out acting for 8 years on a show called Degrassi. I’ve always had a passion for music, most recently in the past couple of years, I decided to pursue it more and its going great.

 

You had the single “replacement girls” with Trey Songs, that record did well for you and everything but the last few months your records with Wayne hit the scene hard. Can you tell me how did that happen?

 Drake: I met Wayne threw a friend of mine from Houston, basically what happen is; I was getting my haircut one day and I got this call, I thought it was him; I picked up on some regular shit. It was Wayne and he was like ‘What’s up this Weezy, I’ve been listening to your cd, can you get on a plane tonight”, so I hoped on a plane and went to Houston, and I waited like 8 or 9 hours to even meet Wayne. When I meet him he was getting the wings tat, the huge ones on his side that took forever, we all just kicked it, and he played me the Carter III. It was like almost instantly we had a connection that we had a connection about music and rap, lyrics’ and verses, we saw eye to eye on a lot of things. I end up staying with him for like a week and half on the road, and one night we were at HOTBEATS in Atlanta we just recorded like three songs that night. After that he was like a mentor to me, we built from there; we do songs all the time. It was a great situation to meet Wayne and great for my whole buzz.

 

Explain your whole label situation to me, some people say your own Interscope, but your MySpace says your independent.

Drake: Well my deal is in the works, it’s being negotiated, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, its going great though. I got a great situation with Interscope, Cortez Bryant who manages Wayne and Gee Roberson who manages Kanye West. I got great little situation hope that it goes through, knock on wood by the end of this year.

 

Which artist do you have on heavy rotations, what’s on your iPod?

Drake: Lately, I’ve been listening to all of Kanye new stuff, all the leaks that have been coming out. I’m a big, big Kanye West supporter, and I don’t even want to say fan, I appreciate and respect that man for what he does. I’ve been listening to Dwelle’s album a lot. Rapper wise: I mean I like Gucci man, Andre 3000, obviously Wayne, my stuff. There is a lot of music I appreciate, I go on the blogs and try and keep up with new stuff that comes out. I’m a big fan of south rap, cause I’m always a fan from something I’m removed from. I love Gucci man, because I could never do what he does.

 

 So what are you working on now:

Drake: I have an album in the works tentively titled “Thank Me Later”, the concept behind this title like you said the reason where doing this interview, I put in a lot of hard work, and because of my past as an actor or I necessarily don’t look like the typical rapper or whatever the typical rapper looks like. it may go over peoples head, this first go around people may not know who I am, so I know I’m about to create a timeless project, and that’s the concept behind this project. I have a mixtape called so far gone, basically me getting to do everything that just too far for an album. I love singing, I love doing a lot of stuff that may not necessarily fit the slots for the album. “So Far Gone”  will come out right before the album, probably be a lot of stuff I did from my heart that won’t just get to make it this go around, so I give people two projects to listen to.

 

Productions wise / feature wise:

Drake: I don’t like to talk about that, I work with a lot of people, I don’t know what’s going to make the album, there is a lot of people I enjoyed working with.

 

What callabo have you don’t that you really liked or just stands out in your mind:

 Drake: I worked with a lot of people, I like working with Justice League, I sat down with Polo we talked about our approach on this album, I look to forward with working with him. I got a chance to hop on a record with Chris Brown it’s never going to come out, but I look forward to working with Chris on our own record. There’s a lot of people I’m looking forward to working with, hasn’t happened yet but I know it will. Like Ye’, Pharell, DipLow, there a lot of producers in the game that’s very talented, at the come up stage they seem out of reach but you got to look forward to it, I have some great solid records for the album right now, without those guys, and I can’t image when everything comes about.

 

Well this is the introduction; you can leave them with a few words.

Drake: This is the introduction, hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of each other, Octobers Own, check us out on octobersveryown.blogspot.com, I’m looking forward to giving everyone some timeless material, hopefully I can make the soundtrack to your life, cause I know I’m making the soundtrack to mine.