Illuminati 2G

Exclusive Interview with: RythmIQ

By: Justin Melo

You all need to Shut Up & Listen on November 24^{th when RythmIQ drops his debut album that features an all-star cast of Twista, Stat Quo, Crooked I, Royce Da 5’9, Jay Rock, Willy Northpole, Juice, Hot Rod and Kam.}

Check out RythmIQ is this exclusive interview…

RythmIQ: (Laughs) I came up with it myself actually. I went by other names before and I felt they were too vague. I wanted something that really described myself and the music I create. I’ve always had a way with rhythm, which is apparent when I dance and my mom always told me I was extremely intelligent and gifted so one day I decided to take an IQ test and she was right. So I put those two qualities about myself together and came up with RythmIQ.

RythmIQ: I’m definitely different and unique. I have a lot of original sounds so I don’t want to put myself in a box there. However, my preference is to create a southern style hip-hop; stuff with high hats and 808 snares.

RythmIQ: Well I took several just to be safe and I scored about 140 on all of them, which is considered gifted. After I did it I had all my friends take the test too just to make sure it was accurate and one of the smartest people I know scored a 140 as well, but the rest of my friends scored around 100 so I figured the tests to be pretty accurate!

RythmIQ: I like Timbaland a lot; actually Danja Handz is who I follow more who is his under study. Danja Handz is actually my favorite producer. I follow all the greats like Dre and all those guys. However, I would say my single biggest influence is my mentor Jiggolo who is signed to Suave House because I had been producing about 4 years when I met Jiggolo. I was 24 years old and he really helped develop my sound a great deal in these last two years.

RythmIQ: No. I would say that was at 24 in these last 2 years.

RythmIQ: Yeah, that I could produce at that level. When I first started producing, I was also rapping. It took me a while to focus on my craft and really hone down on it and do things necessary to take it to the next level. Learning music and learning how to read music and re-create certain sounds was a learning process. It takes a while before you can do those types of things. I’ve been producing going on six years and it took about that long before I was at this level. For about the past year or two is when I’ve been at the level where industry rappers will pay attention to me and listen to my music, and possibly purchase them.

RythmIQ: Most of my sacrifices have come in the form of time and money. During the creation of this compilation I have spent a tremendous amount of time away from my family, my job, and my friends. In order to compete at the levels of a DJ Khalid or DJ Clue who have put out compilations like me, I had to learn to finish a project incredibly fast and with high quality. It took a lot of time, money, and persistence and my friends and family often took a back seat to my music dreams and aspirations.

RythmIQ: I had a master plan (laughs). I really sat back for a while and I had been working with rappers whose careers weren’t going anywhere fast. I really wanted to get myself out there and I determined the best way to do that was not to rely on anyone else. For me, I went out and built the relationships necessary and budgeted the money necessary to push a real project and get some talent on. It took me two years to plan "Shut Up & Listen" and that’s where we’re at now. It’s taken some time to make it happen (laughs).

RythmIQ: Definitely not. Our scene unfortunately and I may get a little backlash for saying this but most of us agree that it’s quite an immature scene. A lot of us haven’t been doing it for very long at this point. It’s a pretty new scene. But this year has been one of the most incredible years for our scene that I’ve ever seen. You have guys like Willy Northpole, Juice and Hot Rod who at one time weren’t dealing with each other – And these are of course are three guys that have major record deals or are associated with major record labels at the very least because you have Willy with DTP, Juice with Black Wall Street and now Hypocalypto Records which is Amare Stoudemire’s label, and Hot Rod with G-Unit.

For a while, Willy Northpole and Hot Rod were friends but they went through some things. But now, that is in the past. I talk to all them personally and I spoke to Willy [Northpole] yesterday, he’s taking the lead on bringing our scene together and I am a great supporter of his actions. That’s what is necessary for us to become an L.A. or New York, or Houston. Scenes operate together like a march or movement and that is what hip-hop is fond of. Arizona is not there yet but give us a year or two; you’ll see some really strong music coming out of the area due to these alliances and synergy.

RythmIQ: Absolutely. I’m a firm believer in you can’t do it by yourself. I don’t think that anyone will get anywhere without the help of others. There is a track on my album called "Southwest Arizona Remix" where I have 27 rappers from Arizona on it. It runs 13 minutes and it’s the last track on the album. I did that song to bring us together. You actually have guys on that track that have or had significant problems with each other without getting too much into that negativity that are on that track together rapping. That was a pretty big look for us.

RythmIQ: I feel like I definitely have been supported in a major way by the local scene. I’m sure there is jealousy, but I’m such a positive person I ignore and forget about it almost instantly. I show love to everyone, I conquer jealousy, envy, and hate with kindness & showing love that’s just me. I’m an extremely positive person and when I hit a negative of any kind I force positive energy through it.

RythmIQ: Yeah, it truly does. In a sense, it’s a double-edged sword because it makes it difficult to gain notoriety outside of Arizona; inside of Arizona, the people know the moves I make. They have a local sense and our focused on local movements. They see what I’m doing and there is no question about that. I’ve got a lot of notoriety here for working with Twista and doing "Shut Up & Listen." I’ve got so many people locally involved. I have about 40 rappers total on the CD, most of which are from Phoenix so I do have that notoriety. Outside of our city to get notoriety in California or anywhere like the major markets you were mentioning, it’s difficult. That is why I built those relationships with the national level artists such as Stat Quo, Crooked I and so on. I wanted to bring them into the project so that hopefully they can help Arizona get some shine on a national scale.

RythmIQ: HaveIT Music is my record label and it’s fairly new. For a while, I had HaveITbeatZ, which is the production company behind RythmIQ. Now I’m doing HaveIT Music, which is my label. I have several artists coming out on that label after we drop "Shut Up & Listen." After that comes out, I will be heavily supporting those artists and pushing their solo projects as opposed to "Shut Up & Listen Vol.2" for quite some time. I plan to push "Shut Up & Listen Vol.1" for several years while I build up my label. The current artists signed to HaveIT Music are Bass Black, Jae Lei, L.V. who is our singer, Mixxx, G MOE, and Bo$$ who are all working on solo albums. We hope to continue to hit people with good product over the next couple of years to continue building the HaveIT Music brand in association with good music.

RythmIQ: (Laughs) No, but that dude is dope. L.V. is Lavor Robinson and is an unknown at this time in the industry, but we hope to change all that. He is a very talented vocalist and writer and we are working on his solo R & B / hip-hop album.

RythmIQ: Laro who is the president of HaveIT Music and my manager also came up with that name. I thought it was a cool name. He does his own mixtape thing on the side to burn CD’s for people and he labeled one "Shut Up & Listen" and I thought it was a cool title. We just went down that road. Once I start thinking about it, it originally started off as a much more diverse compilation in terms of the content. It’s become a street compilation but it was gonna’ have R&B tracks as well as hip-hop. I did eventually decide not to go that route because all the hot tracks were street anthems. That’s what "Shut Up & Listen" became. It was just a nice title for me to say don’t care about the content of the CD, just "Shut Up & Listen." I didn’t want to limit the project based on the title.

RythmIQ: The release date for "Shut Up & Listen" is November 24th, 2009.

RythmIQ: It’ll be on ITunes, Amazon, www.cdbaby.com and so on. You can also pre-order it order it through www.haveitmusic.com and if you order it there actually, more money comes back to the label for us to produce new projects so that is preferred. You can get it anywhere you want once it’s out.

RythmIQ: Actually I didn’t. I sent a picture over to my graphic designer and he sent over that smiley face you see on the cover. I went with the symbolism of it because it’s a face that just screams "Shut Up & Listen" (laughs). The artwork I found infectious to the eye and very clean and simple. That is why I went with that.

RythmIQ: Anytime your selling an album your press kit, media, covers, artwork etc all has to be top notch. It may not sell you more records or get you more iTunes downloads, but it certainly will not hurt and people will take you seriously.

RythmIQ: My goals for this project were to establish myself as a very relevant and talented producer. That was first and foremost as for what I was trying to accomplish. My goals are to let it be known that I have the skills necessary to do it. I’m not gonna’ let anything stop me. I just got out and did it. What was your second part to that?

RythmIQ: Somewhat. I would like to say that my expectations are not to sell this album heavily. I don’t even expect to make back the money I put into it. What I do expect is for my brands, which are HaveIT Music and RythmIQ to gain the exposure I’m paying for as far as marketing dollars I’m spending on the project and what not. This is a very good product and a good example of music to push. I’ll continue to build and brand projects. Anytime you’re pushing your first project with expectations, I don’t expect it to sell crazy because I haven’t built a fan base yet; I’m just now starting to build my fan base.

RythmIQ: I think there is a lot of talent. I think that Monstaz Ink, P Thoro, Young Ocean, HaveIT Music artists and a lot of other young guys have the chance to really blow up if there noticed. I think that nobody is really paying attention to Arizona yet on a national scale. The deals aren’t coming up and it doesn’t help that it’s harder now than ever before to get a record deal. I think a lot of artists out here think they need that as rappers. They feel they need the marketing dollars and the deal to be successful. In my opinion, nobody needs that. I plan to be independent for life. I just really don’t see anyone controlling my music and having creative control over my music or project. I’m just not OK with that. I would much rather put out the music myself and have complete control over it while hoping the people love it and I hope to become the next Tech N9ne and sell a million albums underground.

RythmIQ: I think the west coast since 2Pac passed has had trouble finding a rock star so to speak. I think Crooked I is that guy (laughs). I’m pretty sure Crooked I, Jay Rock and Nipsey Hussle definitely have some strength. The Game I would say was the most relevant artist since 2Pac on the west coast. I think he made the biggest impact. However, he sort of died off and hasn’t done much as of late. He had an album a little more than a year ago and I don’t think it did as well as before when he was with Dr. Dre. I think the west coast needs that new star and that’s where you have Nipsey Hussle and Jay Rock starting up but for veteran sake, you have Crooked I. no matter what Crooked I does, it turns platinum but he really needs an album to solidify himself on the west coast. That’s kind of what I think about that.

RythmIQ: I put my heart and soul into this album. I can’t imagine anyone out there won’t like it so give it a chance. Visit www.haveitmusic.com and go pick it up. It’s worth it for only $9.99.