Extra Credit Bloggin’: Interview with Green Street MC A-Live (Part 1)

Oh yessir..shoutout AS and the good people at Hip-Hop Media Group..

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"I promised y’all an interview with Boston/Brooklyn based hip-hop artists Green Street, so here it is. MC A-Live has some pretty enlightening opinions on hip-hop, the internet, etc. Here’s part 1 of the interview. Extra credit style (up to ten points, right Rachel?)

AS: You’ve had a Green Street Records Myspace page since 2005 and just recently created a Green Street Blog. Which online medium do you think is better suited to promoting your music and communicating with fans? Have you used the internet in any other capacity to promote Green Street, and are there any future plans for YouTube, Facebook, or Hip-Hop Blog domination?

A-live: At the time we created the Myspace, that was really the industry standard for up and coming artists. Nowadays, as evidenced by rappers like Drake and Wale, blogs pretty much can make or break an artist and Myspace has taken somewhat of a backseat. I think having a Myspace is still essential because that’s where most people are going to go in order to get introduced to you, but once you have a fanbase, I think having a blog is necessary. Our experience with using our blog has been nothing but positive, and the traffic we are getting is very encouraging, so we are exploring more options with that. As for other outlets, our presence on Youtube is growing [Search: Green Street TV] and I think that will come as the buzz builds. And in terms of Facebook, I used to really hate it, but I’ve realized that Facebook is such an easy, essential way to reach people, that it really has to be utilized and we’ve made a lot of efforts to do that with good results.

AS: Do you read Hip-Hop Blogs? Which ones and how often? Have any dope blogs (other than Hip-Hop Media Cyber Group) ever covered Green Street?

A-live: I actually do follow a couple blogs, one of them being Nahright, the other being Niketalk and the last being OctobersVeryOwn. I got a Blackberry and an iPhone, haha, so I’m pretty much on these and other sites all day, just staying up with whats going on. I think blogs are great to reach people and be able to communicate a lot of important information extremely easily, they are no longer viewed and corny and emo… which I was guilty of boxing them into back in the day. In terms of coverage, we’ve had a lot of support from hip-hop blogs, from an interview with MVRemix.com, a spotlight on ‘Random Acts of Flyness’ (http://thekidampgreen.blogspot.com/), a spotlight on Lupe Fiasco’s Lup-End blog and a couple more. Also, I gotta shout out our Green Street A&R team of Mr. Dev and Chilly for keeping the people entertained on their blogs with our exploits, http://misterdev.blogspot.com and http://chillyray.blogspot.com. These are blogs that keep people updated on the other, ridiculous, everyday happenings of our team. Both those sites hold some exclusives that most people don’t know about.

AS: What other ways do you use the internet to access hip-hop media?

A-live: In terms of finding music these days, no one is going to the record store and searching through the “New Arrivals” to find their fix, its all found on the internet, so in that respect, both of us keep our ear to the big sites (Okayplayer.com, HiphopDX, Allhiphop, Nahright, etc) to find new/unheard music. Of course Youtube is great, you can find old freestyle footage clips of all the greats and all that, so that’s another huge..I think the internet has revolutionized hip-hop music, and its not necessarily all good, but truth be told, we would be nowhere without it.

AS: Green Street just released an EP, “Rise and Grind,” with beats by a German producer named “Thallus.” How did this collaboration come about? Does Green Street receive beats from aspiring producers on the daily, or was this a special occasion?

A-live: This collaboration was really a fluke to be honest, we receive a lot of beats from people, and its not many times we respond just due to the hectic nature of all our other projects. With Thallus, it was Ren (Green Street’s Producer) who went through the beats he sent (I didn’t click on the link because I thought it was spam or a virus, you just cant be sure these days) and Ren pushed me to give them a listen. Obviously, we found his music was pretty powerful and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to do the project. It also worked well as a sequel to our next tape coming out in June called Chess Moves and in the end, I’m happy Ren went through the beats because I had a lot of fun doing this project. Shoutsout to Thallus if you reading this!"

Part II w/ Ren, coming soon. CHESS MOVES, THE NEW MIXTAPE FROM GREEN STREET, COMING SOON.