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| Original Soul |
Sitting in Original Soul’s studio surrounded by equipment, computers, posters from previous events, album covers, etc. my mind drifts away to the journey one takes when following their dreams. Looking at the various accoutrements he has acquired over his twenty years in hip-hop, I am reminded of all the hard work one must put in once they have found their passion. Original Soul is no stranger to hard work. He has invested his time, spirit and soul to his passion. Nothing has stopped him… neither the known nor the unknown. He keeps pushing. Keeps studying. Keeps learning. Evolving.
Passion comes from a deep seeded desire to follow your dreams via the path intended for you to travel. You become a student of your passions by constantly evolving. The blueprints are laid out with such meticulous detail ensuring every possible scenario is covered. With the change of time, thought and technology, one must reevaluate the blueprint. Retooling and re-tweaking is necessary to continue this evolutionary process. To follow your passion is to accept you become a lifelong student – forever learning, forever evolving. Complacency is not an option.
However, everyone’s path is different. The road Original Soul travels is one in which he carefully lays out all the necessary steps leading to the end result. Like a complex equation, one must know all the rules to each individual piece of the equation prior to solving it, taking one piece at a time to reduce a complex equation into smaller more digestible pieces ultimately leading to the solution. Utilizing this approach in life… in following your passion… leads to a positive and fulfilling result. It provides the blueprint.
Original Soul is drafting his blueprint. He is actively pursuing his passion. He is music. He is music by way of a voice sent here to deliver a message. A message that has evolved over time however always remains true to who he is and who he has become. Music is his passion. His soul embodies music. Some are here to receive a message. Others are here to deliver a message. Original Soul is here to deliver. Are you ready to receive?
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| 20yrs in the game |
Who are you?
“Who am I? I’ve heard that quite a bit actually, I guess I can start, I tell everybody my full name – Brandon Ernest William Medlock. There is a long story behind this, a really quick little story, but it is a long story. I tell everybody now-a-days that I don’t have a middle name because I have three first names. My mom wanted to name me Brandon. My grandmother wanted to name me Ernest. Somebody else wanted to name me William. Something happened and Mom got tired of hearing everybody argue and bickering about it so she just got frustrated and named me all three. So I tell everybody I don’t have a middle name, I have three first names. Deal with it!
Now I just go by Original Soul. I used to go by T.L.O.S., that was The Last Original Soul but the thing about it is people were never able to say it right. They would always call me T-Los or something that just did not sound right. I was like ‘That is not my name’; I go by T.L.O.S. you got to say it just like that. Just like a Pimp Named Slickback, you got to say it correctly. So I dropped the T.L. from it when I did a show in ’97. It was one of my first shows; it was the 21 MCs Show. The guy asked me ‘What’s your stage name?’ I just had to think of something real quick and on the spot because I didn’t want them to mess my name up, so I just told him ‘My name is Original Soul’. So from ’97, the name just stuck with me.
Later on down the line I found out from my uncle that the name had a little bit of significance as far as the Original Soul Stirrers. Apparently, there is some kind of ties between my family and Sam Cooke. I think there was a member of the family that sang backup for him at some point. When I heard that I was like ‘Okay, I’m sticking with the name Original Soul for a good long minute.’ Twenty years.”
Twenty years for Original Soul… What brought you to hip-hop?
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| Brandon & his Mother |
“The thing that I think brought me in to hip-hop was just needing to get in tune with music, basically. I remember once in sixth grade we had a contest in music class and it was right along the lines of name that tune. It was my turn at bat, I was having to try to guess this song and I couldn’t guess the song because back then I really didn’t listen to the radio. I wasn’t in to all the popular songs or what was out. I didn’t know anything about the song I was suppose to guess and for me it was kind of embarrassing because if I’m wanting to fit in I kind of need to know what everybody else is in to. That was one of the things that I didn’t get, so years down the line I’m starting to get in to music and really getting in to what everybody else is getting in to and trying to fit in.
Hip-hop is one of the things I really liked and appreciated. I felt like if there’s a voice out there that needs to be heard, I want to be one of those people that brings about that voice. I told everyone hip-hop is about that voice. It’s about the message. It’s about what’s being said and one thing people seem to have forgotten about is the message. For years I’ve tried to relay messages in my music. Even if you don’t want to hear it or it’s going to make you mad, it’s still a message that needs to be heard. So, for me, hip-hop is pretty much everything. It’s my way to express what’s going on with me, what’s going on in the world… It’s so much going on out there that people don’t know about and they really need to know about it. If I can give them my insight and my view on it then I’m going to do it.”
What would you say, or can you say, is your over-arching message? What do you think your message is that you are trying to convey to the masses?
“Basically, just be aware of your surroundings. I say that because living in this area, I know this area from when I lived here before in ’94 and to living here now it’s just… the neighborhood is almost like night and day. Whereas in ’94 you weren’t scared to walk down the street with your Walkman on listening to whatever you’re listening to, to where now you’re almost scared to walk out the door. We just seem to put a Band-Aid on the situation, put a Band-Aid on the problem. No one wants to really hear about what they need to hear about. They’re just in to partying and in to fashion and to upholding an image because they’re like if they uphold this image they are going to be accepted by whoever. It doesn’t always work like that. I feel like in the end there is still a message that needs to be heard and I just want to bring about the message. Let everyone know ‘Hey, THIS is going on out here! There’s people out here that’s suffering!’
Two weeks ago, I went to the gas station just to get gas and there was this guy standing there and he looked hungry. He was asking me for change, at the time I didn’t have change because I was trying to get gas… get situated. So I go in, ask for gas, I come back out and he’s still standing there. I handed him a little bit of change. He looked at it and was real thankful. If more people would do something like that then there would be less crime out there. There would be less people afraid to approach others. Cause we have been so afraid to approach people it’s just ridiculous and people need to know that this kind of thing is going on.”
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| The deliverance |
“Probably because they are just scared for their own lives or they really don’t want to be bothered. Most of it is because people don’t want to be bothered and they feel like if somebody is trying to get me to do this, get me to do that, and their heart’s not really in it then they’re just going to keep moving on, going to do whatever is going on. But they will go home, look at their TV and they’ll see somebody... ‘Oh, they’re suffering! Oh, they need this! They need that!’ and they are just enjoying it like it doesn’t affect them. That’s the thing, if it doesn’t directly affect them, they don’t worry about it. That’s why hip-hop needs to continue to be that voice cause if you are aware of it and you keep hearing it you can’t escape it.
That’s how I think hip-hop was initially. When hip-hop came out it was all about ‘the message’ but of course, you know, we got lost in translation over the years. Do you think hip-hop with ‘the message’ will see its day again?
“It’s possible that it might. The thing about it is I believe that if there is a shift in the people who pay to have people perform and the people that see all of these other artists that are trying to do things. They look at them and say ‘Okay, this person looks like they are talking about something. This person they look like they may sell more records than that person.’ Like I said, it’s so image based now that almost anybody that can scribble two words on a napkin will get signed. But it’s the image; it’s the marketability that most labels are looking for mostly because the label is just trying to make money. They are so focused on the money that they are forgetting about the message. It all goes back in to the message.
I feel like the thing that could really change the whole industry is basically everybody get together… this is where I get lost here… because you never know what direction to go in… Well, I know one thing for me is for everybody to stop being about themselves. I’ve had the hardest time for the past two years just trying to get shows just to be heard. It’s like the people who have a message usually have a hard time getting heard because of everything else that is already out there. There is so much glorification of clubs, so much glorification about clubs, how many women you pulled. That’s something that I’ve never tried to talk about. I don’t even sound right talking it. So I really feel if more of the artists would band together and give the people who have a message a chance, then we would even have a fighting chance of just getting heard more… of getting more on the mainstream side.
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| Consciousness |
The mainstream side is more into whoever is paying them to play this song ‘X’ amount of times. The people that have a message they have to go through internet based radio stations or community radio just to get heard. Community stations, they don’t have much financial backing. They got to get financial backing from more of the artists that actually have a message. The ones that don’t need it – they have mainstream. Why can’t some of the artists that have the mainstream pull, pull in some of those that actually have a message? Will it ever happen? It has to be…”
Well that is funding your competition and that goes back to what you said in the beginning is people are there for self. So, unfortunately, it is sad but it’s like ‘Why am I going to invest in you when you will be my direct competition?’ and the way you grow and how much you grow potentially affects my pocket. And that is what it is. It’s the consumerism, capitalism and materialism that people have to get by…
Something I was thinking of when you were speaking was not only is it the artists [in and of themselves] kind of coming together, they can do that and that’s a good thing… but the place [to get to] is having ‘a place’ because that is what I think really is what’s lacking. Because, I think there really is not, that I can think of off the top of my head, a venue in the local Dallas area right now that’s supportive, really supportive, of the ‘conscious’ hip-hop artists.
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| Soul |
“See what happened… you got promoters out there, some good some bad. The promoters will tell the artists ‘Okay, we’ll put you on this show if you can generate ‘X’ amount of time in to promoting yourself and making sure that more people know that you are doing a show.’ Okay, let’s say I was doing a show, the promoter says he will give you a 15-20 minute set. You have maybe a week to two weeks to promote it. Which means from the point that he agreed to give you that show, you hang up the phone with him, you need to be off to the races. You need to tell people everywhere ‘Hey, I got this show on such and such date, can you come? It’s going to be such and such at the door, such and such when you get to the bar. You’ll get a chance to see me perform and some other people who will be going on the stage.’
The thing is they are promoting music that has already saturated the market. So you have a whole show with 10 to 15 artists on the bill, the show starts about 9 – 10 o’clock, the main artists don’t get there till 10 – 10:30. You are basically standing around waiting, listening to all these other artists because you got there when the door opened. The door opened at 9 o’clock and you are there waiting. You are waiting for your chance to perform but you are watching all of these other artists. All the other artists are starting to sound like everybody else to you - the same sound, the same style. The people that didn’t come there to see anybody in particular they are going [to the show] wanting to see some hip-hop, they want to dance, they want to drink. They’ll get their drink, they’ll stand by the stage, and they’re not really interested in anything going on ‘on the stage’ because everyone sounds the same and pretty much if they wanted to hear that same stuff they can just turn on the radio, sit at home and drink whatever they got at the house.
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| Architect of his own sound |
I really feel like that is one of the things that killed a lot of venues is the same artists, the same music, getting up there performing the same songs, the people aren’t interested. If the people aren’t interested, that’s pulling money away from the club. It’s making the artists look bad because the artists isn’t pulling in anybody to come see the performances. The bar isn’t making anything because no one is there. So what does the venue do? They tell the promoters ‘Ya’ll have to go’ and they shut down because no one shows up. None of the venues can stay open because of the artists. If the artists would step out and do some different things and stop trying to sound like everybody that’s mainstream maybe there would be a difference in how many clubs, how many venues there are in the city. Until there is a change in them, it’s not going to happen.”
You know everybody’s reason in to hip-hop is different. You have those that will have a message. I do believe you need to have a venue once again that is to support the local ‘conscious’ artists. I really do think that’s necessary, not just your standard club environment per se because that’s for the masses. I think the underground, conscious hip-hop ‘I got a message. I’m going to teach you something.’ that is a whole different genre right there.
“See, when we had Reciprocity back in the day it was… you could come in to Reciprocity and get there early, we’d be packed at 10:45. Until later on when people started finding out more about it, they were like ‘Okay, well, here is a spot where I could come and do my thing. I heard somebody else do poetry, I can do poetry too. So I’m going to quickly write down something and I’m going to get up there on that stage and do my one or two pieces and I’m going to go.’ When it started becoming more of, I don’t want to say a fashion trend, but when it got more popular I guess you can say that’s when people started thinking ‘Okay, I’m this… I’m that…’ So they started getting up there later and later. Then people wanted to get up there and do their whole book and keep you there all night listening to the same thing. When stuff like that started happening, that’s what I feel like destroyed the industry, it started becoming more about one person.”
So… what can we do about it? I mean… something has to be done! What do you think? What’s a solution?
“A solution would be to turn off the radio. The reason why I say that is… if you stop hearing one thing for so long then you will eventually start to venture out to find something else. When you have to go out there and find it, that’s when it starts having that renaissance feel. It’s like I told somebody not too long ago, back in the day when you used to really sit and listen to the radio, I use Michael Jackson for an example, when Billie Jean was hot if you caught it on the radio you might have caught it at the beginning or either you caught it at the tail end. If you caught it at the tail end, you wasn’t hearing that song again for another three hours.”
Or more than that…
“Now-a-days, you may hear the same song thirty minutes each time. That needs to change. It can change if we start turning those radios off and making people go out and find the music. Cause see what’s happening now is CDs are slowly getting phased out. Cassettes are already gone. Vinyl is only set aside for DJs. So when CDs go the way of the dinosaur, what’s going to happen?”
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| Separation 1999 |
Yeah, it’ll all digital…
“Yeah, and you see all the stuff going on now with the whole piracy laws and the people trying to download music for free online that’s going to become a thing of the past. It’s like if you are going to find the music you are going to have to pay for it like you had to back in the day. I got a collection of CDs in there - 900 CDs or more. Back when I first started working, I would get paid every Tuesday. After I got my check, I headed to Best Buy and got one or two CDs per week and I built my collection. And I kept just listening to stuff, what I would do is I would buy something that I wanted and I would buy something that looked interesting. The stuff that looked interesting made me start working on my own stuff and start working on my own skills.
I feel like that can come back. It can come back if we start making that inner change and stop listening to everything already out there. We can cut the radio off for a minute, cut off 106 & Park for a minute, and just think about how music used to sound. We all the time talk about, ‘I remember the old school. I remember how this used to sound. I remember how that used to be. I remember what I was doing at that time.’ You know? The nostalgia of it really makes you think ‘Can music sound like that again?’ You got some artists out there that are making that change. It can happen. It’s just you have to be willing to make it happen.”
So where do you feel that you ‘fit in’ in the whole scheme of things?
“As long as I do music I’m going to speak from my heart and a lot of people are starting to see that now in the music that they hear in the mainstream in artists that are actually saying something. I always tell people if you speak from your heart the people are going to hear you. They are going to feel it. They are going to understand you. Which is why I feel like over the past 20 years I’ve done music that anything that I’ve said… they always say ‘Soul is the truth! Soul is the truth!’ because I’m just going to speak how I feel. It’s just going to come out in truth, you know, there’s power in me. If they hear it and they believe what I’m saying and they can relate to it, they’re going to accept it. That is another thing I feel like is missing from music - people aren’t speaking from the heart. They are speaking from that dollar sign. As long as you speak from that dollar sign, that dollar is not going to last too long. What happens to a dollar? A dollar loses value as soon as you spend it on one thing. The dollar now is the new quarter. I’ve been telling people that now - the dollar is the new quarter. Stuff loses value - as soon as you get it off the lot it’s done.
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| Lesson Plans 2000 |
So I feel like there can be a change there too. If you start writing what you really feel. It’s like ‘Are you REALLY going to kill somebody today? Are you REALLY pulling two or three women at the same time?’ I mean let’s be realistic, if you’re doing that then you are in the WRONG business, you should be out there pimping. You are NOT a pimp, you ARE an artist, so let’s be realistic. The people that are buying the music shouldn’t be buying into you saying you’re pulling in two or three women. They shouldn’t be buying in to okay you have THIS many cars. Really? I have one car that I’ve had for the past twelve years, got the same factory everything on it. And you are happy because you have this size rim on this kind of car? Really? Who really cares about that? The listener is so complacent with hearing it they feel like there’s nothing they can really do. Yet I talk to folk that listen to music and they’re like ‘I’m just really tired of how this sounds. I’m really tired of listening to people like Lil Wayne. I’m tired of listening to people like Drake.’ But… you are not doing anything to support the cause. You got artist out there that’s actually doing something and saying something but you’re not supporting it. You are not going to the shows when we have a show but you’ll go to another show where it’s 20-30 people who all sound the same. So some of it has to be on the listener too.”
Right, that is true. That’s definitely true. I want to kind of not go off on a tangent but… you’ve been mentioning how you’ve been in the industry, been an artist, been a hip-hop artist for 20 years now. How have you evolved over that time? Do you see an evolution?
“Yes, definitely! When I first started I was trying to sound like everyone else that was out there. That’s why I say that there needs to be a change - when everyone is not sounding like everybody else. When I first started I had influences, like the stuff I was listening to was Eazy-E, NWA and then at the same time I was also listening to KRS-One, was listening to Guru. But the thing about it is I was more in tune with the KRS-Ones because of the message that they were saying. I was more into BDP even though I was also on the side listening to NWA, the 2 Live Crew, and all the other stuff that was out there, No Limit. Cause I had everything that No Limit ever had!”
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| Applied Knowledge 2001 |
I cannot see you as a No Limit fan!
“Every time they had a CD come out I went to go get it until I had everything they had out! Then I started seeing its value, started listening more. Everybody on the label was on every album but it’ll be this one person that it’s suppose to be their album but it’s more like a compilation. That had to change for me, so a lot of that stuff I started taking away. I started getting it out of my collection. I started putting in my collection more of the stuff that fit me and people would always tell me ‘You sound more East Coast. You sound more like Andre 3000. You sound more like a person on that side of the tracks.’ I’m like well I’m going to listen to who I feel fits my style. If it’s a style more comprised of a message as opposed to me cussing at you or me telling you something about myself that isn’t true… when I started that is more like how I sounded.
That had to change from within. Over the years when I started doing albums I evaluated myself. I had one album; think it was like my second or third album, I started listening back to it and I just started listening to my words. As I was listening, I was like okay I used the ‘N-word’ like 400 times on one album. That had to change because you start thinking about who is purchasing your product. You also start thinking ‘Okay, I can’t tell my mother this.’ I can’t give this to my family because I don’t want them to know that these are words that I’ve used after they said ‘If we catch you saying this you will be in hot water mister!’ You start thinking about that. Do you really want to put this message out there? Do you want your family to be listening to this? Do you want anybody that’s buying it to listen to this? Twenty years down the line, does it have value? If it doesn’t have any value because of the content then that needs to change. That was one of the things I had to change. On the next album, the ‘N-word’ was gone. The album after that the curse words were gone. Then I just started thinking if I could be more creative with my words without saying these words… I found my unique sound.
I tell people ‘Be mindful of the words that you use cause people will accept you.’ They started accepting me more because they could play this music around their children cause the music was basically geared toward the youth since hip-hop started with the youth. If it started with them they will evolve and they will come into their own. Once they come in to their own then they can tell somebody else. You know the chain effect starts when you tell three friends, they tell three friends, and so on. If it starts like that than you know it starts from within. That was one change I had to make, I had to get rid of all the impurities, all the bad choices of words, bad usage of words, just really thinking about what I’m putting in the message to really make the people understand and to really feel it.”
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| Old Man Ghetto 2001 |
What would you say out of your whole catalog are you favorites, your absolute favorites? If anybody had to go through and they had a choice to listen to ‘this’ of Original Soul, what would that be, what do you feel should be the recommendation?
“Actually, a lot of my latter stuff because I evaluate myself and I’m like if I was to stop doing music today and I was to put out a greatest hits compilation which ones would get the most play? Or am I going to compile all the CDs in one box set and be like ‘Here you go!’ There are a few artists out there and a few people out there who have everything I’ve ever done. But like I said a lot of my latter stuff I would definitely go back to. A lot of my earlier stuff I wouldn’t because of the content. There’s just messages I really don’t want to put back out there. There was a lot of stuff I just had on my brain that I really just wanted out there at the time but really shouldn’t have been out there. So, like I said a lot of my latter stuff like when I did Beautiful. Beautiful got so much response! People were thinking ‘You need to do the R&B thing full-time.’ At the time, that’s just how I was feeling. Let’s Talk About Us ended up one of the best albums I’ve ever done. Followed that with The Glass Album and people where like okay he is really in to something. He may sound like he’s bitter, he may sound like he’s angry, but he is speaking. Follow that with Pure CD. There you have it! That’s the Tribeca right there, it’s those three albums.”
Right there! List them one more time for me. What is the first one?
“Let’s Talk About Us that came out in ’05, The Glass Album that came out in 2007, and then Pure: Reflections Of Self and Beyond that came out in ’09. Those three, you got to have them! It’s like if you’re stranded on a desert island and you had nothing to do but listen to those three albums for the rest of your life until you die, you can listen to those from cover to cover and not get tired, basically because of the content.”
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| Soul and Blues 2003 |
We did touch on briefly about going into the R&B. Where did that come from? I mean, because you straight up was doing hip-hop. Okay! You go through this transition of this combination of NWA meets KRS-One meets Guru meets No Limit Soldier guy. Right? So we go from there, we transition into the more conscious hip-hop and then all the sudden ‘BAM’ we get this R&B CD. I mean, what was that all about?
“The thing about it was I like doing music. I like entertainment. I like getting on a stage and presenting you a package or rather somebody told me that I do a meal. As far as when I do an album, it’s a meal. You get this, this, this and it’s a full meal so when you listen from cover to cover you’re not skipping anything. You are not leaving something still on the stove. You are not leaving left overs behind and then they get old. I DO MUSIC! So it doesn’t matter if it’s hip-hop or doesn’t matter if it’s R&B. If it’s something that I’m feeling, it’s something I want to give to the people; you know it’s just what it is. When I did songs like Beautiful and when I did Winter Coat those came from feelings, from speaking from the heart, speaking from what I feel like people need to hear. People that have listened to it they’re like ‘You should do R&B, you should do a full R&B album’ and so I do a full R&B album and I don’t know for some reason it just didn’t get quite accepted like it should have. I just felt it was kind of like at a standstill. I’m like okay did I not give them the R&B feel that they wanted? Cause I’m going to do music the way I feel like should be out there and if they couldn’t relate to it then hey it wasn’t for them at that time.”
You would be surprised because for instance I had purchased Jill Scott’s The Real Thing CD I think right when it first came out. I did not listen to that CD for about two years. You know, I just didn’t listen to it. I don’t know, normally I put a CD in and I listen to it and I ride that one CD forever but with that particular CD it just didn’t happen. About a year and a half or two years ago then all the sudden I listened to it and it has been in my rotation ever since. So [I say that to say] maybe at that time, in that moment and space in time it wasn’t the time. You know? You never know, that may not have been the time for it but it’s out there and you never know what’s going to happen next.
“Right. A lot of them, the people that were asking me to do R&B, it was almost a dare in a sense like if you’re doing music you should do R&B all the time. They heard me doing all the production. They heard me do all the background vocals because I do my own singing background vocals. I do everything here. Package it up ‘Here is the CD.’ It’s the next CD in like 8 or 9 months ‘Here you got another CD.’ Then somebody was telling me ‘Okay, well you’re putting out music too quickly!’ Prince did like 2 or 3 albums in a year, ya’ll didn’t say anything to him but when I do it it’s a problem. I do music cause I like to do music! No matter what kind of music it is. Before there was hip-hop there was R&B. I listened to R&B before there was hip-hop. I’m just going to do what I feel like doing. If they like it they like it, if they don’t they don’t.”
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| Escape From The Outside 2003 |
What came first for you, being a writer or being a producer?
“For me being a writer cause I started actually writing songs in ’89. Broke off from it, I was just trying something to see if I could do it. I was envisioning myself being on someone’s label and visioning myself on someone’s song. Like ‘Okay, they did that verse, I’m going to be on the second verse’, how would I sound? That’s how I started writing. I got into the producing when I got tired of waiting on people to make beats for me. Everyone said ‘Okay I can do beats’ but when I asked for beats, they’re too busy to work with me. You get tired of waiting on folk. I learned how to do music myself. Bought my own equipment in ’97 and never looked back. Started teaching myself how to play, went to college to do Digital Music Production. I got into the engineering side; I started learning how to do stuff there. They were in love with me there so I just never looked back. I’m going to continue to do music for as long as I can do it and for as long as I can stay sane enough to do it.”
Well a little insanity in your music might be okay. You might find a whole different unique sound. I don’t know.
“I mean a lot of times I get tired of it when you are waiting to do shows and you are not really hearing anything. When your albums don’t really sell like you thought they would sell. Even though you said you was going to make this many. Push it out to these people and these people don’t jump on it like they said they would and you’re sitting on all this product. So it gets frustrating when you are seeing your peers and they’re out there doing a show that you would like to be doing as well and you’re not. So you’re just kind of like just sitting and waiting. You’re like ‘Okay what’s my next move? Do I need to just step back from it? Do I need to slow down?’ You really don’t want to slow down.
So, me continuing to do music, coming in this room, looking at this keyboard, listening back to the playback of the stuff I’ve done years ago, how can I change this, how can I change that… that’s what kind of keeps me going with it. Keeps me at it because I could have hung this up a long time ago and just stayed in healthcare, continue to do jobs, stay out there working, keeping the house up. I can continue to do that. But so far there is a message I want to get out there.”
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| Lets Talk About Us 2005 |
I guess I am going to piggyback I might even be overlapping what you just said but… where do you see Original Soul going from here? What’s your next evolution?
“Well one of the biggest changes that I made this year is I changed label names. Dropped label names and tried to develop more of the roots and to maybe bring about a little bit of buzz, actually just a complete renaissance. It’s like if there was any negative energy that was inside the last label or inside any of the previous projects I’ve put out, let’s just put that to the side and let that be what it is and just move on. I feel like with the new label I can do that and I can start fresh. I can start… basically just start over and if I can start over and just do what I do maybe I can generate a different type of buzz. So far the buzz hasn’t jumped off yet but you have to give things time and basically just start a movement… trying to get the word out in a different way, just feeding off ideas from other folk and seeing stuff that is already out there. Who is doing this, who is doing that. I’m going to deal more with this side of the fence and I’m going to move more to their crowd.
My thing this year is Music for Grown folks, Music for Grownups, Made for Greatness. That’s why I’ve been telling folks M4g, M4g! I want it to stick in their head that this is for an adult crowd, a mature crowd because I do grown folks music. You are not going to hear me do anything that’s going to be for the wrong crowd. If the other crowd jumps into it, great! Jump ship, come over here with us. Why not? It’s basically about feeding in to the crowd that is feeding in to you. It’s getting in to that crowd that really is on your side and giving them what you feel like they need to hear and they accept it. Instead of trying to make a crowd accept something that they’re not with. Cause I mean, there are so many different styles of hip-hop now, we got to get it right. Rap is what you do, hip-hop is the culture.
There’s so many rappers out there, the market is so saturated with one type of thing. You’re probably not going to hear Common do a song with Lil Wayne. You’re probably not going to hear that anytime soon. And if you do that means somebody put some financial backing into making that happen and there is a purpose for making that happen.
I’m purpose driven to make music for grown people and my thing is if I’m doing conscious music in a club and the club is mainly focused on dancing, that’s probably not going to work. Because I’ve done shows and it’s been hard for promoters to put me on shows when mainly the type of artists is more on a swag, trap music kind of feel and then you stick one or two conscious folks in there in the mix. Or you put a poet up there or an R&B singer up there and right after they get done its right back to the same swag music. Think about how that’s going to work. You got a bunch of people standing in line waiting their turn to get on stage and they’re listening to the same old thing. I tell people when I get on stage I intend to bring it every time as if my life depended on it.”
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| The Glass Album 2007 |
I’ve been to your shows and one thing I can definitely, definitely, 100% cosign is that you bring it in a performance. I do appreciate that because some people can’t do that. Now they can deliver a studio packaged CD to you but they can’t bring a stage performance and that is so important because there is where you connect with your audience. I’ve seen you perform and I definitely appreciate that as being part of the audience.
“Thank you! See that’s what I try to tell a lot of people now, I say ‘When you get on stage you need to perform like it’s your last performance!’ That’s one of the things that one of my first managers told us “Perform like it’s your last time up there, if you don’t do that than that crowd is not going to have you at all.’ I’ve been to shows, so many shows where they get up there and they perform like they just don’t care. But you expect people to come in to the club and pay good money after they got hair done, nails done, they went and bought an outfit to come see you perform and then you get up there and you perform just like you are at home just sitting around in front of the television eating a bag of chips. That’s not giving the audience what they want and that’s another reason why the venues aren’t packed anymore.
And then they wonder why no one claps for them after they get off stage. The host of the show is like ‘Ya’ll give it up for such and such! I guess ya’ll didn’t hear me, ya’ll give it up for such and such, yah!’ That’s the only time you hear them give response is if they say it twice. If your show is not up to par - where the audience isn’t even interested, you need to go back to the drawing board. You need to put more effort into your live performance because that ultimately is where your money is! People aren’t buying CDs any more. They are buying performances and if you’re not giving a performance then you may as well get ready to hang up your mic.
When I get on stage, it doesn’t matter where I’m performing at, I could be performing on a stage and the other twenty artists are all doing the same sounding music but when I get up there on the stage I’m bringing you a package. I’m presenting you a package and I’m going to bring you in to this story and most of the crowd is already in to it because you are projecting the words. Most people don’t even know how to get in front of a mic and present themselves in front of a mic! You can’t understand anything that they are saying! You got to take time to pronounce what you’re saying in order for them to be able to sing along with you. People have to be able to sing along, if they can’t do it they are not going to buy it and then you get off stage and you don’t build with anybody that gave you props.
When I get off stage I got people in front of me saying ‘Man, you are so inspiring, just thank you for this! How can I get in contact with you? How can I get some of your product? How can we do something together and work on something?’ You don’t see that with many of these other artists because they are not giving the audience anything to be approachable for.”
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| Pure: Reflections Of Self And Beyond 2009 |
Okay, is there anything else that you feel the people need to know about Original Soul?
“They should know I’m still out there. I’m still standing like Antwone Fisher. I’m pretty much not going anywhere. Some kind of way I’m going to be doing some sort of music even after I stop trying to be a front man. My big thing now is I’m doing mixing and mastering professionally. I might go back into doing a lot more producing. I’ve kind of slacked off on that and started using a lot of outside producers so I might get back in to doing that. Just getting on the technical side of things but I still love music so there is always going to be some sort of music going on with me whether it be me writing for somebody or me mentoring somebody.
I have family now that’s doing hip-hop and I have family that’s doing R&B. If I can help them in some sort of way by giving them the knowledge that I’ve got for the twenty years of going out there and dealing with different managers or dealing with shady promotion. Dealing with nights when sound systems just didn’t sound right or dealing with nights where I really felt like I could have said this or that different. If I can give them that much knowledge, I feel like that would help them know what to look for when they go out there and they become front man/front woman. It’s all about evolution, all about them growing into themselves just like I had to. I could give music to mom back in the day and she would appreciate it. That’s kind what I want to give back to folk. I give by nature. If I can give them that much it’s probably something I would continue for the rest of my life.”
How can someone find you? Where are the avenues for the people who have not heard of Original Soul? Where should they go?
“The can definitely go to my website www.originalsoulonline.com. Some people try to go to originalsoul.com and that is somebody else. I don’t know what it is, it looks good wish I had their web designer but I don’t so you got to go to originalsoulonline.com. I built the site myself so all my web links to where you can go and listen to music is there. I got a video on there. I’m in the process of doing new videos now. I’m in the process of doing new music. I still got music for sale on the site and I still have some music on iTunes and a lot of the other places that powers music. The links are still there.”
‘Original Soul’ - would that be the search or the key word?
“Yeah, actually, I think I’m still top listed on Google. If you hit ‘I’m feeling lucky’ after you type in Original Soul it will take you straight to the website.”
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| Life Changing Vol. 1: The Voice 2010 |
What is the name of the most recent project?
“Well, it was actually a two part project it’s called the Life Changing Series. Volume 1 is the all R&B side. Volume 2 is the all hip-hop side. The way I tried to construct it is almost like a dream cause the R&B side starts off with different people saying ‘We’d like to hear Original Soul do an all R&B album’ and you hear others in the background like ‘That is what we were trying to tell him for a long time!’ I tried to make it seem like I’m dreaming so by the time the hip-hop album came out, I wake up from the dream and I go right back into my hip-hop side.
I think back to when I did the Soul and Blues Project. Soul and Blues Project was almost like a double album of sorts, it was like 29 songs. What I did, I put out a bunch of songs on like a second disk which in that whole project that was like lost music, almost like remixes. This next venture that I’m going with, I’m doing a self titled project so there is no telling what you are going to hear on there. I’m just going to go into a bunch of things as I pretty much always do. Remember I’m still going to give the message. You just never know what the message is going to be on this particular go.
Life Changing was really just me experimenting with different sounds, experimenting with different producers, but still there was always going to be a truthful message in the music. Also, I got a chance to talk about a few things that I never got a chance to talk about. I talk about the neighborhood in general. That’s something that I just never really did. You have all kind of artists out there; they talk about what hood they’re from, what city and state they’re from. That’s just something I never been in to. I don’t feel like it’s about the state, it’s about the music. But this time I decided, you know, ya’ll want to talk about the hood, okay, let’s talk about the hood. I’m going to tell you what’s going on in my neighborhood and you compare notes.
I read something earlier today about the top ten worst cities to live in. When you see two states with several different cities in those states and like three of four of those are in the top ten worst in that state, then that’s a problem. People don’t know about these things and they won’t know because they are too busy listening to this other mess. That’s where that message comes back in, the people needing to hear about what’s going on. If hip-hop was designed to be about the voice then let’s use the voice for what it was intended for! I mean ya’ll was listening to Melle Mel’s The Message from back in the day, that’s what he brought to ya’ll. Telling ya’ll what’s going on, the line ‘Broken glass everywhere’, think about that. No one knows about these things anymore and they listen to the song like ‘Yeah, I remember that beat because such and such used that beat too.’ Sure Ice-Cube used it but he used it his way. Melle Mel brought it a different way, he wanted ya’ll to hear what he had to say.
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| Life Changing Vol. 2: The Words 2011 |
Not to say that a lot of these newer artists aren’t really saying anything but a lot of them aren’t. For years that’s all I’ve ever tried to do is be different. You got to dare to be different now-a-days because the listener, they’re tired, they want to hear something new. They want to be entertained enough to buy music. We stopped buying music. We stopped being interested in it because no one is talking about anything. We are talking about the same thing that the next man is talking about. Where is that difference maker? There’s has got to be a difference maker that is why I side with the people like Common. I side with people like Kanye West. Even for all his rants, his raves, he is different. He is going to pull you in to what he has to say and you are just drawn to whatever he has to say. The controversy makes you feed into what this guy is doing.
Another thing I’m working on is trying to create an image that is so dynamic that you can’t help but be drawn to it. It has to be more than just the music alone. It has to be more than just the content alone. It’s like what is going to make you stand out. I feel like the one thing that makes me stand out is I’m speaking on something other than the norm and I just have to bring that image in to a whole different light. Which is why I say M4g Entertainment should and can make a bigger impact.”
Is there anything else you want to include?
“New album coming in 2012.”
No release date yet?
“No release date yet because we haven’t finished everything yet, I’m still in the process of writing stuff.”
But it is going to come.
“It is coming this year. I will start doing stuff this year, I’m going to get back out there and start performing again. I want people to understand that the longer they sleep, the more they’re going to miss. There are so many artists out there that are so getting slept on that actually have something to say. But they won’t get seen as long as there is so much ‘other’ out there in their face. Not that everything is bad but there is so much out there that’s waiting. So people need to learn how to have more of an open mind because there is no way for them to escape it. I’m just going to be there.”
Original Soul has been in the game for twenty years. He has not only observed the evolution of hip-hop, he is an active member in its evolution. He has come a long way from little Brandon who could not name that tune in the sixth grade. Taking something which was once just a way of fitting in has now spawned 11 CDs! Original Soul does music! From wanting to be the voice to actually delivering the message, crafting the sound, and producing the product, Original Soul does it all. He did not let the unknown be a hindrance; on the contrary, he took the time to become a student of hip-hop - forever learning, developing and crafting his blueprint. He has become that voice. Original Soul’s message is loud and clear: hip-hop must change! People’s thoughts and actions must change! We have to take the time to reevaluate what is being presented to us and what we are permitting in to our personal space. If we continue to allow our thoughts to be polluted with negative messages where does that leave us when it’s all said and done? Are we going to sit idly by waiting for change to happen from an external source? Or are we going to dare to be different? Are we going to begin drafting our own blueprints? Original Soul has. Are you? Now that is something for you to ponder while beginning your travels off the grid...
Be Strong… Stay Strong… Live Strong… Love Strong… Asuecion
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