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WAX THIS



In today’s digital era it seems that more and more rappers are learning to hone the power of social media in order to push their product and create new fans. This week’s hot new artist is Maryland raised, YouTube sensation Wax. Wax has a unique style that blends an almost Johnny Cash sound with a Jay Z vibe. Most known for his freestyle rap called “New Crack”, which has accumulated well over 1 million YouTube views and is done while Wax is driving an SUV. The law may state that you can get a ticket for driving while talking on the phone but there are no regulations for shooting a freestyle while driving through traffic. Since 2006 Wax has released 5 mix-tapes and each of them have been labeled a huge success.

Wax has accumulated over 10 videos that have gone viral on YouTube, racked up over 20 million views and is known for continuously flooding his site, Waxdotcom.com, with fresh content. In early 2011 the famous YouTuber Ray William Johnson asked Wax to collaborate on a song called “Orphan Tears”, which has received over 15 million views to date. Finally, in March 2011 Wax announced that he signed a deal with Def Jam Recordings and simultaneously released his latest mix-tape titled Scrublife. The day before the release of Scrublife Wax’s lead single “Dispensary Girl” debuted on Entertainment Weekly and received critical acclaim.

Wax’s debut album is hinted to be released in October but has not yet received an official release date. Websites like DjBooth.net rave over Wax and hail him as one of the best underground rappers. I must say, when you listen to his mix-tapes his music is so unique and his lyricism is so laid back and comical yet profound and energizing. Because Wax is a social media conglomerate below you will find a plethora of videos and links to download his music. Scrublife is available for free and can be downloaded by clicking below and being directed to Wax’s blog. This week’s fresh track is none other than Wax’s lead single “Dispensary Girl.” And if you have 5 minutes to spare watch the “No Crack” freestyle below, it will blow your mind.




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Kendrick Lamar



Featured on XXL’s 2011 Freshman cover, Kendrick Lamar is on an accelerated climb to the top of the rap game. Lamar is one of those rappers that people look at and tag as “real” and true to his craft. Kendrick released his first mix-tape titled Youngest N***** In Charge at the age of 16, under the name K. Dot. Due to the immense amount of hype caused by the album he was signed to Top Dawg Entertainment and released two dominating mix-tapes. In 2009 he decided that he would change his stage name to his real name, Kendrick Lamar, and then released a self-titled EP; the Kendrick Lamar EP. This project got him major buzz and from there the west started getting behind the Kendrick Lamar movement. In late 2010, as his popularity grew, he was asked to go on tour with Tech N9ne and Jay Rock. Immediately following his tour departure he released a mix-tape titled O(verly) D(edicated) and was then approached by Dr. Dre to write on Dre's upcoming album Detox. Many fans believe that Dre gave him a new view on his flow and truly tweaked Kendrick’s lyrical ability

Kendrick’s most recent project, released on July 2nd, 2011 is titled Section 80 and has been critically acclaimed. Below you will find a video where the legendary Pharrell stops into The Record Plant of LA and actually approaches Lamar telling him how he played the album on repeat while he was abroad. Many praise Kendrick as the man who is going to uplift hip-hop and bring it back to the days of Nas’ Illmatic. One aspect about Lamar that you will notice when you begin to play Section 80 is that every track is considered difficult, there is not one song that lacks lyrical drive. This can truly be seen when listening to our track of the week, “Hol’ Up.” Initially, you hear Chris Brown sounding horns and you think the track is going to be a pop cut but then Kendrick comes in with a focus on religious hypocrisy. If you are sleeping on Kendrick I beg you to take the time to click the link below and download this tape, I put my word on it. Until next week, Stay Fresh My Friends. Dj Dolph

Download Section 80

DJ Booth Article on Kendrick Lamar

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Maybach Music's "Self-Made" Marketing Strategy

The hip-hop industry is one of the most saturated markets in the entertainment industry and with so many releases happening each day, it is essential that artists utilize social media marketing. If you venture to websites like hotnewhiphop.com you will notice that each day numerous mix-tapes are released and music is consistently being pirated onto the site. With competition so cut throat and the pirating of music so prevalent, it is shocking that artists even sell CDs anymore. Nevertheless, the album “Self-Made”, a record label collaboration album, from Rick Ross’s Maybach Music label was released on May 23, 2011 and has sold 90,000 copies in the US. This number is very high for a new group of individuals coming together for the first time to make an album. So the question to ask is how did this group achieve such high numbers? The answer is what we call “hype” in the hip hop industry but what is technically considered exposure, which today can be majorly attributed to social media and digital marketing. If you are a long time follower of my blog you will remember my former post about Kanye West's social media marketing strategy, interestingly enough Maybach Music followed the same strategy.

When visiting websites like hotnewhiphip.com, djbooth.net and worldstarhiphop.com before the release of this album you would notice “Self-Made” banner ads all over the place. This is the first and most obvious form of marketing and I must say they did it very well. They targeted key demographics and made everyone aware of their CD. Another form of social media marketing is the release of promotional videos that gain viral attention and are re-posted on numerous social media sites. Maybach Music’s Wale released a series of videos on hotnewhiphop.com called his “No Days Off Vlog”.

Here you can see one video, and you will notice that in each video he continuously shouts out “When I say self you say made….” This chant went viral and even when attending Rick Ross’ concert the fans went crazy shouting the name and date. The date of May 23rd was ingrained in every fans head and if you didn’t know the date by the end of the concert, something was seriously wrong with you.

Self-Made


Ads like this were placed all over the Internet, it just says the title of the album and fans instantly realized that was Maybach Music’s new album. At the same time leading up to their album release, the rappers delivered a non-stop flow of music. This music kept fans interested and wanting more, so by the time the album dropped, it was an obvious buy. When artists release songs, videos and pictures to the public then those fans usually post this content to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. When fans post and repost this media then they are actually helping out Maybach Music because they are doing the marketing for them! Click the link below to support Maybach Music and enjoy the song of the week “600 Benz”. Stay Fresh My Friends: DJ Dolph

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Rate My Blog Please!

Hello everyone, this week I am trying to get some user feedback about my blog! Take this survey and let me know.

Keep it fresh: DJ Dolph

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D-Pryde, D-Marketing

The music industry is ever evolving and in the more recent years has transformed into a digital download contest. Even more specifically, the hip-hop industry has become a playground for digital download and free content. With the advent of websites such as djbooth.net, hotnewhiphop.com, worldstarhiphop.com and hiphopisdream.com, music is available at the click of a button. At the same time hip hop music is becoming easy to homebrew, aka throw together in your college dorm room, and therefore, the market is becoming heavily saturated. Every day thousands of mix tapes are uploaded to Datpiff.com and millions of songs are uploaded to limelinx.com for illegal download. With so much music available at the click of a button it seems almost impossible for an emerging artist to make his mark in this digital congestion, right?

Well, recently the industry has seen several individuals step into the rap game without label support and mostly due to their success using digital marketing. To learn more about how this is done I will introduce this week’s fresh download candidate: D’Pryde. This 17 year old Canadian rapper/songwriter/producer just recently released his first mix tape titled Mars and collected over 150,000 downloads in the first three days. The question is how did this teenager create a buzz large enough to reach these kind of numbers and the answer is digital presence. Over two years ago D’Pryde set up his YouTube Channel and started doing ‘freeverses’ over popular songs, filming them and uploading them to his page. One year later D’Pryde had uploaded 150 videos amassing over 30 million views. Last summer on July 14th, 2010 D’Pryde got a call from hip hop commoner Dr. Suss One and was signed to his label Mars Music.

With the help of Dr. Suss One and several other experts D’Pryde was put on track to grow a large fan base. Over the next few months the team focused on placing ads, like the one seen below, all over popular hip hop websites and social media blogs.

Soon enough D’Prydes YouTube channel had reached over 50 million views and he has created a fan base well over 500,000 people. In a recent interview with Channel APA D’Pryde expresses how he thanks all of his fans for viewing his material online and contributes his success to his video postings. Head over to this LINK and check out the Mars mix tape, in the mean time enjoy D’Prydes newest song titled "No Sleep".

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Tinie Tempah, Big Attitude


If you are from the UK you have heard of the stateside newcomer Tinie Tempah. Tinie has been on the scene in the UK since 2006 with the release of the semi popular jam “Tears”, which received a great deal of airplay on Channel U. In 2009 as Tini was performing at the Wireless Festival, an A&R scout from Parlophone Records fell in love with his style. A few weeks later president Miles Leonard inked a deal with Tinie and set him on track to release his first studio album Disc-Covery. Tinie is known for him quick tempo British flow that does not mask his accent.

In early 2010 Tinie released his debut single “Pass Out” with Parlophone records, which entered the UK Single Chart at number 1. “Pass Out” remained number one on the charts for two weeks and sold over 92,000 copies. Recently Tinie has been touring the UK with pop superstar Rihanna and has pushed back the release of his second studio album to early 2012. More recently Tinie Tempah has released his second single off Disc-Covery titled “Till I’m Gone” and features none other than emerging powerhouse Wiz Khalifa. The track truly shows off Tinie’s quick rapping ability and leaves no room for guessing that Tinie is a full-blooded bloody Brit. Wiz handles the entire chorus, flowing melodically over a quick catchy beat made by none other than “Black and Yellow” creator Stargate. The transition from UK rap star to US rap star has been a challenge for many foreign rappers but with tracks like these it seems evident that Tinie is about to take the US by storm. For those of you who take a liking to this British rapper, on May 17th Disc-Covery was re-released and features several new songs, so cop that! In honor of this drop this week’s song of the week is “Till I’m Gone” featuring Wiz Khalifa, as always stay fresh my friends: DJ Dolph

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BIG SEAN's BIG DROP


Any of you who have been following Big Sean for the last 5 years all know of the 23 year olds' insane story from nothing to stardom. In 2005 Kanye West was doing a radio interview at 102.7 and Sean Michael Anderson aka Big Sean decided to show up. Sean followed the rapper into the building spitting 16 bars to Kanye, as he was in mid stride. Kanye stopped bobbed his head took the mix tape and signed the rapper in 2007. Later that year, on Septeber 31st, 2006 Big Sean released Finally Famous: The Mix Tape and his single “Get’cha Some” attained quite a bit of digital attention. The series continued with UNKNOWN BIG SEAN dropping in April of 2009 and Finally Famous Vol 3: BIG dropping in August of 2010.

If you listen to Big Sean then you know he has a very smooth flow similar to Kanye’s, very witty and on point style, yet with a fresh young vibe. It took Sean four years of solid grinding to produce a truly mainstream popular single but on March 1st, 2011 Big Sean released his monster single “My Last” featuring the current king of pop Chris Brown. The single is sitting at position 54 on the US Billboard Hot 100 list and 5 on the US Billboard Rap Songs chart. To make the situation even better, G.O.O.D. Music has finally chiseled in a date and it has been declared that Big Sean’s debut album Finally Famous will finally drop on June 21st, 2011. The excitement is brewing and to add to the hype Big Sean has released his second single “I Do It”. The track is produced by the legendary beat team No I.D. and the Legendary Traxster, featuring numerous synth hits and quick tempo snare hits. Sean kills verse after verse and shows that he is ready to drop a big album. So keep your eyes out for Finally Famous and as always keep it fresh my friends: DJ Dolph.



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