The "scrunch" face...

So I was listening to some Detroit CYDI preview tracks.

I made it.

I made the scrunch face.

Yunno the face that you get when you smell something nasty. Usually accompanied by much head bobbing and generally acting a ass. It's the face of good music, the most beautiful one of all.

If you want to see how dope someone thinks your shit is, there is only one true test. The scrunch-face, or intense physical reaction test.

When someone loves your shit, their face will scrunch, and they will bob their head stupidly, or get up and dance like a crazy person. This cannot be faked. When it is real, you know you have a great song on your hands.

Great songs will make you move. Song and dance are inextricably linked, and will be until the end of time. I don't know what it is; frankly I don't care to find out. I just know that when "the rhyming dictionary" drops, everyone will be clappin their hands...

***clap clap***

- sean upps.

Rule one about rap club: Never argue about rap.

It's a huge waste of time.

Instead of arguing, complaining, etc about rap, write your own shit.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

That is it.

~sean upps.

hotness....computer love

Ruf Jones shows you how to make computer love

* not love to the computer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-URfv6ug08

Make your album easy to find.

Finally. (c/o juicy J on M.E.M.P.H.I.S.)

After 4 weeks of searching, I finally found Foreign Exchanges' "Leave it All Behind". Cotdamn that is a great album.

Alas, the day after I got it...i found out that Q-Tip has an album out. And I didn't fucking know about it. Thanks a lot, Arista.

Niche marketing is cool. Find a group of people that likes your shit, and pump it to that market and that market only. Boom.

The problem with that is what if someone outside the market is looking for the type of music you make. They'd have no means of finding it, and will roam the earth until they die looking for your music.

So with this, I come up with the Detroit Cydi Marketing Plan. I approve this message.

Task number one: Make our music easily accessible to the people that really really want it. There should be no reason on the planet earth that I can't find my favorite cd's or not know hat Q-Tip has an album out.

Task number two: Be brave and venture outside of the niche. You never know. Good music is good music and it will stick no matter what.

Task number three: Make it stand out from other bullshit. Think of something very creative and push it that way. Chea.

~ uppercut

Studio Food

"let's go to the Coney."

We say this so much in the studio that it should be the name of our album. mwahahahaha.

As tasty as studio food is this shit takes a toll on health. In efforts to not look like Timbaland in the Jay-Z documentary [re: drinking a gallon of milk] I wanted to address a subject that many rappers might be considering...

studio food.

Well, I have no idea how to solve it. My best guess? Eat before you get there, and keep snacks there for energy. chea!

- uppercut.

Dynamic Elements and Hip Hop.

Quick thought. This is in response to a note one of the greatest emcees on the planet wrote:

Music is simply the arrangement and manipulation of energy reproduced audibly. Whatever that means to the individual is correct.

Hip Hop, as a whole, is a static genre. We throw on a beat, let it loop, and rap over it. While that works, it's like saying visual art should only be in two dimensions.

I notice in other genres that the music is more dynamic. Calling it as I see it. Colonel Uppercut just got back from this salsa concert. The energy of the songs never stayed the same. It was rising or falling or the music was changing...hype as hell even though I don't know spanish...lol

If talking about an album, a good analogy would be an amusement park. Every individual song is a ride. Some of them are like the Pirate Ship... easy and mild, others are the Millenium Force with buildups, dips, loops, intros and other complicated shiiet. Shout out to Cedar Point.

It's up to us to make Hip Hop more dynamic...to play around with energy and such.

~ The Uppercutamos.

Too much fun...

Creative process.

I'd tell you how CYDI makes songs, but really I don't know how. Somehow, magically, a beat comes on and somehow, magically, a song gets made. But the most important part of it is...

we enjoy it.

Supremely enjoy it. Between youtube videos, freestyle sessions, and shooting imaginary guns at each other when we walk in the door, our creative process involves a lot of fun activity.

My question, rappers....why so serious? Are you enjoying what you are doing? I hear a lot of rappers likea and...it's all "im on the GRIND," and "i GOTTA get this money". I mean, that's cool, but if you're rapping only for money then people will be able to tell.

Problem is...that takes the fun out of it. It becomes mechanical. I, Sean Uppercut am a fun loving person. DETROIT CYDI is a fun loving group. That is a very contagious thing...and people are drawn to this music.

Yes, make money with the music. But also enjoy it. Chea!

~ juan uppercut.