Local hip-hop veteran James Christos, an MC and originator of the Guerilla Movement record label, just inked a distribution deal with label EMI Music Publishing and Gracie Productions. How cool is that? Let him tell you after the jump:
PW: This is an amazing opportunity. How did it happen?
JC: There's a group called the Core DJs, which is a DJ pool, they have representatives everywhere. One of the head guys, named Wildman Teddy T, he really likes my music. He got ahold of it through some people and really liked it, he was like, "Yo, you're on some next-level stuff. I've got an opportunity for you." I'm thinking, yeah right, but I told him to send it my way and I'll see what's up. Twenty-four hours later, he had the president of the urban division of the company, which was Gracie, the sub-label with EMI, call me. I was like, whoa. They called and set the deal up. It's pretty much that simple. After all this time, it pretty much came down to 15 minutes worth of conversation.
PW: How long have you been doing this? Ten years?
JC: Man, it's been ten years since I started my own label, so I would count that as ten years of trying to pursue this, business-wise.
PW: I had heard that record labels were scouring MySpace pages and asking the Core DJs to recommend the freshest unsigned talent.
JC: It's definitely a great breakthrough just to have someone recognize the music. Me dealing with this business, like the article you did about people paying to play, I'm thinking, what's it gonna cost? How much do I gotta pay, let's get down to brass tacks here. And they're trying to convince me, "Dude, we're just trying to put your album out. It's not going to cost you anything." I was kind of annoying them because I kept saying that, and they were like, no, we want to be in the James Christos Guerilla Movement business. That's basically how it went down.
PW: It's a good deal of profit that you get to keep, right?
JC: Yeah, it's crazy. My publishing deal with EMI is 50 percent, and my CD sales and digital downloads is an 80/20 split, 80 percent on my end. I didn't get a crazy advance or nothin' like that, just enough to pay my rent and sustain myself until some things pop off, but just to get those things, boy, I woulda just took that, you know?
PW: Do you have to do your own promotions, or are they helping push it, too?
JC: The way it breaks down, Gracie, the sub-label, handles the marketing and promotion of it, and EMI handles the distribution.
PW: You have a single, "Punk Rock," playing on KPRS 103.3?
JC: Yeah, it's been put in the mix so you'll probably hear it late at night or on Underground Heat. DJ Fresh actually broke it for me and it's been getting crazy responses. The first night they played "Punk Rock," I was getting crazy emails and phone calls and text messages, and I was telling people, don't call me, call the station, you know? It's ironic, I just talked to the program director, Myron [Fears], and he said, "It's really growing on us, we're going to keep monitoring it." My whole goal is to get it put in straight-up, prime time, regular rotation. But it's such a step up from just last year.
PW: Your new album comes out when?
JC: The album's gonna be out at the end of spring, beginning of summer. It's gonna be called Punk Rap. "Punk Rock" and "No Words," the two singles I'm pushing right now, are going to be on that album. The album, I wasn't even anticipating putting one out, until this deal came about, but when you're an artist, that's what you're going to do. A painter around paint and a brush is going to paint.
PW: Tell us what's happening on January 27th.
JC: The 27th is our signing party at Karma. I just wanted to thank everyone for all the support they gave me all at once.
PW: What else are you looking forward to in 2009?
JC: I'm looking forward to having a successful year in terms of putting out my music. I just opened a studio on 43rd and Troost and I'm looking forward to offering services to the community. I'm doing it at a lower price just because I want people to come in and create. We just got through putting the actual booth and control room in. It's called Guerilla Movement Media Services. I'm looking forward to working with a lot of new people. And the biggest thing is, because my label is signed to this distribution deal too, I can start putting out other artists' music as well. When I position myself to where I think my name has some relevance, I will try to put some artists out from here, because that's my main goal. I want people to pay attention to this city and know that there's a lot of talent here.
-- Nadia Pflaum
Download MP3: James Christos, "Punk Rock"
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