Been a minute...Big changes...little sleep...

Over the past few months, things have changed. I've broken through from the local level to something equivalent of the regional level if explained in the old school linear marketing way. I have a bunch of soft core fans scattered all over the world, but only a small local following.  

I have started performing live more over the past few months, as well as appearances on internet radio shows. I've been doing open mics and jam sessions mostly, with a few regional performances outside the city limits thrown in for good measure. I'm going to focus on building a large hardcore fan base in the local scene. This will be my focus, at least until the first quarter of 2015.

"Keep On Pushing" has turned out to be a great success. After finishing the French-speaking world, USA, Canada, UK, Oceania, and most of Africa, I have turned to Europe with the campaign once again. I am now more than halfway through Europe. "Drinks Up" has garnered a lot of favorable blog press, as well.

I released 5 more mixtapes since the last update: "The End Game", "Rap Major", "Time To Eat Vol. 1", "Fukhandoutz We Standout Vol. 1", and "Drinks Up". I regained my #1 spot on the ReverbNation Louisville All Genres Chart, also made it within the National Hip-Hop Top 40. I have grown my online following to around 36,000 based on ReverbNation stats, but about 60,000 if counting all social networks.

The fans are all scattered. I have fans in countries you'd never expect. It's been cool being able to go out without people recognizing me everywhere I go, but I have to step it up locally. I'm trying to check off as many items on the A&R checklist as possible in order to increase my potential opportunities.

I've started working with the LUMA Project at the University of Louisville Music Archives. I donated about a third of my memorabilia a couple months ago. I've already gathered another third of my

memorabilia, but haven't donated it yet. I'm also working on organizing a benefit concert for the Ebola efforts in Liberia.

I've upgraded my promo pics and I've distributed over 1,200 flyers locally. I decoupled my Twitter and Facebook accounts and adapted a format based on my old news segments on WLBJ. I've started putting the finishing touches on my poetry book, "Poems of a Forgotten Griot". I'm adding a short bonus chapter of Lullian poetry for laughs, and I plan to add a few African poem structures as well before release. 

The cookbook idea took a hit. At first, I was planning it by myself but then started planning it with my girlfriend who I later broke up with a little over a month ago. So now I have a lot more recipes to fill in by myself. The cookbook should be shopped to publishers by first quarter of 2015.

My online marketing style has evolved. I'm now at the point where I'm attracting people who can really do a lot for my career, but the cost is starting to be in the $150-$750 range for everything. The old methods still work, but I can see the gap between their potential and what is required.

I'm going to transition away from mixtapes during the second half of 2014. I have some vault material that I'm allowing to see the light of day and be appreciated by the people. I guess that there are still maybe 10 more of these songs that are in good enough condition to end up on mixtapes. New songs will go on future albums, unless they are open collab tracks.

I received IMDB credits as a sound mixer on an episode of The Fly Trap and I'm working as a sound mixer on a horror movie being shot here in Kentucky this summer, with a possible sound track in the works. I want to shoot a professional music video to be released in the first half of 2015. I haven't done one and I think it's about time, and most importantly, I know how to do it. I also want to put together a pilot for a reality show.

There are so many projects that it getting overwhelming. I'm looking to outsource my grassroots promotion in the east end of Louisville and southern Indiana. I'm also looking for a social media PR company that can help me grow my brand and boost fan engagement. I have also come to the conclusion that I need a separate building for my studio. I have some new experimental vocal styles that are too loud to be recording in my condo.

I'm also reluctantly returning to the social media platforms YouTube and PureVolume. I love the fans on YouTube, but I despise YouTube since Google bought them. It has gone from being a fun platform to a knit picking, frustrating platform that gets on my nerves every time I use it. PureVolume is a music platform that tried to compete with ReverbNation, Soundcloud, and Soundclick, but fell short (with the possible exception of the rock scene). PureVolume seems to have lots of rock acts and fans, but not too much in other genres yet. Maybe I should get BandCamp instead.

Many of my friends have also regained their inspiration and picked back up their crafts. My income situation also improved in the last few months. Everything is coming together. But anyways, I'm gonna sign off and get some sleep. Thank you for reading!

http://www.purevolume.com/GodhandBlack

Many developments!

A lot of developments have happened lately. I'm on Eminem's upcoming mixtape, which should be out within a week or so. I will be on the cover of the mixtape (shout out to my photographer Dietrich Graves @DietrichGraves) and another track that I remixed will be on the mixtape as well. A track that me and Yung Miss did back in the day called "Lemme Hold Suhn" will be on another mixtape that is going to drop soon. Some complications with DJ Bankrupt's mixtape has resulted in "Up At The Club" being used instead of "Get Ya Where I Want Ya", so it looks like I'll find another home for that song. Also, an open collab track by me and Tequila from back in the day made it on to a mixtape called "My Better Half" (hosted by Three Words).

The song "Keep On Pushing" has continued to spread around the world. My stream team has almost finished all of the French-speaking world, after which we plan to hit Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, and Kenya before focusing on the German-speaking world. Lately, we've been interviewed by the media in the USA, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Mauritius, Senegal, Chad, and several other nations. The songs is receiving airplay in many more nations than that, as well. The song performed so well after first appearing on DJ Insane's mixtape "Hood Games Vol. 4", that it was reissued on Three Words' mixtape "Welcome To Germany". We plan to promote this song around the entire globe. In fact, everything has been going so well that there will be another collaboration between Godhand Black and Three Words on another positive vibe song similar to "Keep On Pushing".

There are also several other projects that I am working on. First is a song called "Runaway" by Turkish musician ASAP that I was supposed to finish years ago but never got around to because the Great Recession stopped me from doing anything but paying down debt for a few years. Next, there's a song called "Demolition Man" that Kriojinix and C Vegus will join me on. I found an old copy of a little-known remix of Adam F and MC Conrad's "F-Jam" that I rapped on way back in the day. I think that I'll touch it back up with my current set of plug-ins and se what happens. There is a song called "Tropic Thunder Kryptonite" that I've written the chorus and lift for, but still need to write the verses. It has an Andre 3000 meets Kid Cudi kind of vibe to it, though the delivery is nothing like either artist.

I'm about to get a radio show on Crescent Hill Radio, a local internet radio station that is going to get a low-power FM station. The show will be called "The Weekly Grind" and will cover news about that local music scene and advice for aspiring musicians. Several of my songs will also be featured in African movies this year, which is great! Also, spring is almost here so I will be hitting the road soon. I plan to put together a show or two in West Virginia in a month or so, as well as a radio appearance or two in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this May. I will also hit South Carolina in June, but I haven't mapped out the details yet. Other than that, I'm working on bringing a major music conference here to Louisville. But there aren't enough details ye for me to say more about it at this time.

I have been systematically weeding out egg followers, spammers, and bot followers from my Twitter account. I typically follow back anybody that follows me because I think that the whole point of social media is to be social and accessible. But I've picked up a lot of followers that are getting banned and suspended lately. This has caused my ReverbNation rank to drop occasionally. But after I'm done weeding them out, my Twitter fanbase will me much more interactive and my timeline will be more usable. I really enjoy connecting with followers on the Twitter platform and its hard to do that when there is so much spam in my timeline that I often dread looking at it.

I will also be performing at Poetry Night at the Wagon Wheel Lounge in Louisville, Kentucky this upcoming Friday at 8pm ($5 admission). There are also about a hundred other developements that I am forgetting right now. I am also to a point of needing either an artist manager or a fan club manager because it is getting difficult to handle all of the business side, fan interactions, and creative side (including engineering and producing my own tracks). Right now I'm doing most everything in-house and its starting to become a headache to manage on my own. But anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you have a great week ahead!

~Godhand Black~
@Godhand502

Godhand Black: The Rogue Is Back.....

Runaway Mine Train

The past week or so has felt like being trapped on a runaway mine train. My career has started to take on a life of its own and has begun snowballing. I've reached the point where I keep gaining fans off of momentum, even when I halt promotions. Around the same time that this happened, my mixtape dropped (with many mistakes), I got cofirmation that reggae artist Dutch Diamond will be on my album, and I came across a good rehearsal space. Also, I started to pick up celebrity followers on Twitter and I'll tell you one thing: when somebody with a verified account follows you, expect to see a spike in followers!

The song with Dutch Diamond will be called "Up At The Club" and will be a club banger geared towards people on their way to the club, with value as a dance floor song as well. I'm going to use some of the songwriting tips that I've learned from Ralph Murphy's video lectures. Hopefully, it will have serious radio potential.

I had a few days where I went out and fliered most of Louisville with the ads for the old mixtape just to get rid of them. I kept about 600 of them just so I'd have a few for merchandise tables at shows or trade show booths. I noticed that there are far less community bulletin boards in stores as there were when I started rapping. The stores feel more cold and corporate, less warm and community-engaged. I miss the bulletin boards because they had a much higher conversion rate. If I fliered total strangers on the street, maybe 1 in 50 people would show up. With the bulletin boards it was more like 1 in 20.

Lastly, my song "Don't Stop Now" ft/ Big Beat is on 'Coast 2 Coast Mixtapes Presents: The Indie Top 50 EDM Edition Vol. 1', which was released on 1/10/14. I've worked with Coast 2 Coast back in the past when they were establishing their brand with good results, but this time around is something totally different. There was a voting contest to see who would be on the top-tier mixtape, the rules stating that the top 5 songs would automatically be on Coast 2 Coast EDM Vol. 7 w/ DJ Dysquo. I came in second place, only to get a form letter in my email saying that I wasn't selected but if I paid them $75, they would put my song on the mixtape that I had supposedly won a slot on through the voting contest. When I replied that I wasn't going to pay $75 after going through a long drawn-out voting contest that I won, they immediately (in less than 2 minutes) had my song on the second-tier mixtape as the first song after the intro.

If that wasn't bad enough, the second-tier mixtape has generic cover art and only streams (no downloads). After playing email tag with several of the people at Coast 2 Coast mixtapes, I have come to the conclusion that it's not very organized over there. Nobody seems to know why only 23 of 50 tracks will download, or have any idea at all about how to fix the problem, or even care, for that matter. It's almost like nobody understands coding and troubleshooting over there. I'd send detailed error reports and get incoherent replies like "you gotta use a computer dog". WTF?

Until Coast 2 Coast fixes the problem, I'm taking my foot off the gas pedal on promoting the mixtape. We reached 25,000 streams which is okay. If everything was done properly, I would have no problem getting the mixtape to over 500,000 streams once the full force of my street team focuses in on it. But if nobody can download the song, what's the point? It's basically just an internet radio station with only 50 songs that always play in the exact same order.

Unless Coast 2 Coast rectifies the situation, I'm done dealing with them directly unless a REALLY popular artist hosts it. I'm still down with a few of their affiliated DJs (no beef towards them, for the most part they've been great) and will continue to do their mixtapes, but I'm not down for Coast 2 Coast's annoying vote contests followed by demands for payola, and bad coding.

But anyway...at least I have a second mixtape coming out this month and I have much more faith in the DJ releasing that one. Peace.

PS: A big shout out to The Artist Formerly Known As DJ Dietrich for hosting such a dope bourbon tasting party last night. It was a blast!

New Mixtape!

This week has been hectic. I've begun changing my photos on social networking sites to transition away from the pimp image that I had. So far, I've changed the pics on Twitter, Facebook (but only the main pic), and ReverbNation. In favoring visually exciting backgrounds over relying solely on female eye candy to draw attention.

I've also amassed enough quality beats to do 3 albums. I will be in a recording frenzy for the next few months. My goal is to have a commercially released full-length album on my own label and a 2014 wall calendar ready to go by the Kentucky Derby (early May). Live performances will not be a major focus for me during the first half of 2014.

I've started to dabble with search engine optimization. I have two street team members working on optimizing the keywords for my sites. Hopefully, it'll help me get on the first page of Google searches more often. I've added backgrounds, headers, and themes to a few pages and I have 3 intro videos made. Next, I'll work on a YouTube channel introduction video. I already have the spokesperson, I just need to get it done.

I have a song that will be released on a mixtape later this month. A remixed, remastered version of "Get Ya Where I Want Ya" featuring The Event will be on DJ Bankrupt's new mixtape 'The End Game', which drops Sunday, January 26, 2014. The original version of the track was from a live performance at Highlands Taproom back in 2003. I found a surviving copy of it on an archived mirror of one of my old websites. After touching it back up, I figured why not let people enjoy it? So I decided to throw it on a free mixtape as opposed to letting it continue to collect dust.

I'm thinking about throwing a mixtape release party at a local strip club as opposed to a music venue because I don't really want to have to come up with a few sets of songs and carry the entertainment for the entire night. At a strip club, the entertainment is already there and there are enough people that will come anyway, regardless of wether there are any special events or not. As long as a strip club can spin a few of my songs during the course of the night and possibly allow one song to be performed, I'm cool.

I've recently started to receive some very interesting fan mail in my email account. A few female fans are starting to send me pics and even twerk videos of them dancing to "On Lock" (maybe I should make a YouTube video for "Drinks Up"). It got me thinking that maybe I need to start a new online show. Nothing like "Godhand's Casino of Gold" or "Godhand's Counsel". The new show will be similar to an urban take on the Howard Stern type of format. It will be more free wheeling and will involve eye candy. I'll probably start featuring the fan pics and videos in a segment of the show.

I recently had a producer send me a track that was subpar and I mentioned it on Twitter this week. I'm actually not that mad anymore. I've decided to simply use the beat as background music for suspense scenes in films (free use in exchange for screen credit). One of my personal assistants is working on contacting film production companies.

There have also been a few scrapped projects. I've scrapped the idea of writing an erotica e-book. It just doesn't work with the image change and doesn't provide enough of a boost for how much effort would go into it. I will, however try to complete a cookbook this year (proceeds of which will help fund the family reunions).

But aside from all that, the next big project will be getting professional quality promo photos made so I can fully change up my image. I will try to find a relative that does photography (in order to keep it all in the family) before turning to Deal Chicken, Groupon, or any of the other big discount sites. Once that is done, my digital graphics team will have something to work with.

Until the next time...

Godhand Black

@Godhand502

Image Changes

I know I said that I'd post this last night, but I got wrapped up in following back everybody who has followed me on Soundcloud, which took some time. But anyways, here we are. I want to talk about something that has been generating some controversy and misunderstandings: my image as a recording artist.

Since I've restarted my push towards making it in the record industry, I've had people asking me what's up with the pimped out pictures and songs. Some have gone as far as to believe that I've turned to a life of crime. Whatever.

The truth is actually much more mundane than that. In the fall of 2010, creditors descended upon me as the last buffers I had against the recession were used up. Everything shut down overnight. I stopped in the middle of promoting a mixtape and didn't even log back in to any of my accounts. And that's how it was for 3 years.

Now, summer of 2013 rolls around and I decided to jump back in because the creditors have been paid off. When I started back up, all I had were what was left from the last time I was grinding. Most of the promo material had a pimpish/mackish theme to it despite the fact that the image was dated in 2010 and it was hella dated in 2013. But it was all I had.

Where most people would have been frozen with inaction until new promo material could be created, I charged forward with what I had. I began promoting the same mixtape that I left off with exactly as if I had hit a pause button for the past 3 years, same songs, pics, biographies and all. While it wasn't optimal, it was better than sitting at home doing nothing, waiting for the stars to align perfectly.

So, to answer the questions: No, I am not hanging out with strippers, dancers, adult models, or any other women with ties to the sex trade. That Godhand and what he stood for has been gone for many years. The infamous picture of the girl in a thong was taken over 6 years ago. I never dated or had any relations. It was a professional photo shoot with signed contracts, photocopied IDs, and the whole nine. It wasn't some trap house escorting gig that turned photo shoot when somebody pulled out a camera phone while shouting "Worldstar"!

So the feminist police can stop frothing at the mouth: I didn't coerce or take advantage of anybody to get any photos or voice samples. All women freely and gladly contributed their services in exchange for compensation that exceeded their goals. I didn't trick, con, or mislead anybody.

The songs that I led out with were also the same songs I had lying around. "Nod Ya Head Musick" was already released on a mixtape. My next release will be "Get Ya Where I Want Ya", a remastered version of a song that I used to perform every gig back in 2003, that will drop on a mixtape next month. After that, I will work on getting "Nights Over Egypt" sample-cleared by the summer. I decided on that song not because it's the least offensive song in my repertoire. I'm doing it because Eddie's song comment over of Soundcloud (yes, I read EVERY comment). If somebody really wants a song to be released, I'll usually make an effort to make their wish come true.

So where now? I'm going to continue transitioning into my new image. It won't be pimpish, but it won't be choir boy either. It will take awhile for me to get new publicity photos. If you're looking for me to not offend anybody and to please everybody don't hold your breath (especially if you are not from a demographic that even PURCHASES MUSIC). There are some people out here complaining about my stuff not being G-rated, but the hilarious thing is that these same people probably have not bought an album, single, or movie LEGITIMATELY from whoever made it in YEARS. If all you do is pirate bootleg media at the salon and complain that nobody is catering to your tastes, then cry me a river.

Also, folks shouldn't criticize aspiring recording artists for saying something, then act like the exact same thing is all cool when Jay-Z or Beyoncé or Rick Ross says much of the same thing and they let small children listen to Nicki Minaj. Let's stay consistent.

But the criticism is all a temporary thing. Because we all know what will happen if I make it....All those whose delicate sensibilities were so offended will be standing around holding champagne glasses, laughing, and acting like they were always on board from the jump...despite the lonely path behind me. 

Happy New Year, y'all!

Godhand Black

@Godhand502

Matrix Revolutions

Lately, I've been getting asked why I stay grinding so hard that I'm routinely functioning off two hours of sleep each night. Some wonder why I don't just take it easy for a second now that everything seems to be falling into place? The answer is that I don't relax because I've been here before. Several times.

For those unfamiliar, one of the movie of The Matrix trilogy was Matrix Revolutions: a film in which it's revealed that there were other Neos who had previously tried  to liberate everybody, but had failed. Similarly, I've been right at the threshold of making it several times before: the 2003/2004 campaign and the 2010 campaign are good examples.

In 2003/2004 I was on top of everything. I was an underground purist, so all my songs were either battle raps or party songs made for drunken crowds. I had a couple of weekly repeating gigs, I was running The LAN Collective website (which had over 20 million visits before closing), I had a cable access show in the Greater Louisville area, I had the "LAN All-Stars" album, the "Net Beef 2" album, "Astro Train" was on the Peak Summit Festival compilation CD and the Hope and Play movie soundtrack, "Fireflies in the Moonlight" was in rotation at WLBJ 1570am and had been glowingly reviewed by Louisville Music News, I had poetry being published, and a few independent labels were biting. So what happened? Why didn't I make it then?

The reason is that many things broke down all around the same time: my aging live sound rig was breaking down from all the shows, my computer's hard drive crashed and I lost the ability to edit my cable access show and thus my show, Benk lost his studio and his producer Lil' Jay left to go write songs in Atlanta, Dietrich started dating a chick (who's dead now) that disapproved of all his creative endeavors, Fry's living situation became sketchy when his chick kicked him out, I had a falling out with Peak Summit Festival, and The LAN was running out of competition from other crews and disintegrating into nothing. I went from having unstoppable momentum to being totally out the game.

Then I got back into the music and eventually in 2010, I was standing right on the edge again: "On Lock" was blowing up, "Drinks Up" was selected by FutureMusic magazine as a reader hot demo pick on their accompanying CD, I was #1 on the Myspace Unsigned Hip-Hop chart, "Nod Ya Head Musick" had just been selected to be on DJ RPM presents The Showcase 169 mixtape, and I had the owner of JT's asking me to host a weekly repeating gig, and a few major labels had A&Rs checking me out. So what went wrong? The answer is that the recession caught up with me. I had survived it up to that point, but in 2010 the debt collectors finally cornered me and I ended up having to put everything into clearing my debts. This effectively shut down activities at Chamber of Nights Records. Also, there were a few other factors such as Fella not signing a contract after we completed "On Lock" so the label interested in signing us moved on, not to mention Darryl disappearing in the middle of "Drinks Up", leaving me with an unclearable version of the song (once again, an interested label moved on), and MySpace had their falling out with ReverbNation which eliminated about 8,000 of my fans from being counted in the rankings. All this hit around the same time and I ended up drifting out of music.

Now it's 2013 and I'm once again in a good position. I'm not taking it easy because much like Matrix Revolutions, I've been here before and failed to make it. So I'm going to continue through all of the long nights with no sleep, all of the driving on empty, all the hard work, all the family members who disapprove of me being anything other than a passionless puppet, all the collaborators with cold feet, all the equipment failures, and all the smiling faces on Pleasure Island telling me to relax and sip the champaign like I already made.

I'm staying the course and not relenting one bit this time. It's grind time. All of my tomorrows start here.