Beatmart is back? New releases

Beatmart Recordings, the label that brought you polished releases from Soul P., Japhia Life, Rob Hodge, and Eric Cross will be offering its entire instrumental catalog for digital download today -7/28/09.

The tracks will be available for purchase at iTunes, Amazon.com, and all major online distribution sites.

“At Beatmart, we want to reinvent ourselves by investing greater into the individual consumer through the digital space. We want to share our assets with the people and offer our help in getting them where they want to go musically,” Beatmart president Todd Collins said.

“If giving them access to our catalog of instrumentals helps accelerate that process, then we will count it as a success – one person at a time."

Does this mean the company (once considered dead) has been resurrected?

"Beatmart is planning to make a comeback,” Collins said. “It won’t be without a lot prayer and hard work, but we see this release of our instrumentals as a small step in heading back in the right direction.

"In the meantime, I hope people can use what we were blessed with to be able to create through the years so far. We have plans to bring many more down the line.

Related:

R.I.P. Beatmart & Gotee Records - S.O.U.L. Magazine article by Sketch the Journalist

R.I.P. Beatmart & Gotee Records - S.O.U.L. Magazine article by Sketch the Journalist

I've been meaning to post this blurb about my article on the demise of Beatmart & Gotee Records for a bit. It also covers the business struggles of other gospel rap labels and was recently published in the latest issue (#11) of S.O.U.L. Magazine.

Here's your tease, then please go get your copy at: www.thesoulmag.com

On its face, it’s easy to understand why one would perceive Christian hip hop to be an easy, even lucrative, business.

After all, mainstream hip hop has a strong track record of sales, influence, and popularity – primarily among the coveted youth and young adult demographics that have fair amounts of disposable income. It’s also conceivable that if you cleaned it up a little bit, rounded off the rough edges, and injected it with Jesus talk it would be even more commercially attractive to parents and churchgoers who like to buy music for iPods that belong to them or their children. Add the “God-is-on-our-side” argument and you’ve just about got a license to print money, right?

Not exactly. There are still those lingering issues of truly understanding the gospel rap mindset, getting paid by your distributors (on time or at all), nurturing an entrepreneurial willingness to accept market mistakes as learning experiences, and a host of other challenges. Just ask Beatmart or Gotee Records – (apparently) two of the latest tombstones in a graveyard full previously powerful holy hip hop labels.

“I don’t think you have to have a degree from MIT to figure out that the sun is clearly setting on [us] as a traditional record label,” Troy Collins, president of Beatmart Recordings, said. “But I think that’s just a symptomatic condition of where the music business is right now.”

As it stands, the company’s last official release was Eric Cross’ The Art of Composition on April 1, 2008. But Troy (brother to producer and Beatmart CEO Todd) Collins promises that Beatmart isn’t dead and is instead evolving toward a, yet publicly unspecified, viral marketing / community-building entertainment company that will serve the Christian hip hop culture.

“Beatmart is still very much in business, but not in business as the consumer would perceive it,” Collins said.

Unpublished: Willie Will review

Here's an older review that got sacked before it could see the light of day. Enjoy.

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The kid’s got heart. He’s got concepts. There’s a well-known and talented producer behind the boards. There’s depth to his lyrics.

But listening to Willie Will’s major label debut, Reflection, there still seems to be some sort of disconnect.

I mean, I liked Will’s cameo on Soul P’s “Do My Thang” and we’ve heard him sound nice on the Best of the Submissions mixtapes…. but I’m simply not “wowed!”

That’s not to say there isn’t any quality work here though. “Say So”, in particular, caught me in the second round with its clever, two-fisted hook:

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so / “So!”
If you’ve been redeemed by the Lord say so / “So!”
Let it show / put your fist in the air and say /“So!”

Which later turns into:

Man, I used to see you in the club… / “So?!?”
Man, I used to see you smokin’ bud… / “So?!?”
Man, I used to see you with them thugs… / “So?!?”
Man, you was with them chicks gettin’ love… / Man…“So?!?”

In truth, that’s actually one of the dopest turns of phrase I’ve heard in a while.

And “Blame Game” does a cool perspective shift in each verse where Will narrates the story of finger-pointing Christians named Johnny, Donny, and Ronnie. Again, you may not catch it on the first listen, but as you give it a second or third spin the pieces of the puzzle come together to create a cool little portrait.

I was also impressed at the honesty and storytelling of “Help Me” where Willie Will admits his fight against Flesh to lend tangible aid to those in his immediate vicinity who are suffering. In this song you get several snapshots with poignant details that paint a clear picture of the scene and situation.

So that’s at least three check marks in the “Plus” column right?

Maybe it was the over polished production. Todd Collins has been known to make some nice beats and guide a project to success with equal amounts of commercial and street acumen. (See Soul P’s “The Premiere.”)

But most of the backbeats here just fall flat. The only real heat is found in “Move Somethin’” and “Say So.”

And if those are the head nodders, the head scratcher may be the indiscernible chorus of “All For You.”

This track is very similar to Knine’s “For You” in that it tells the Easter story from the perspective of the Crucified Savior. Unfortunately, in this version you can’t tell what the words are in the hook.

Is he saying “It’s God baby?”, “It’s all baby?”, or “It’s on baby?”

It’s the most powerful story in the world and yet the muddy loop leaves the listener in the dark. Quite puzzling indeed.

Perhaps my ambivalence toward this record is that whenever there’s a featured performance (Soul P on “We Don’t Back Down” and k-Drama on “Shine”) I’m more drawn to the guest’s verse than Will’s.

It could also be that on a song like “No” Willie Will sounds like a right-wing Republican hitting all the key platform issues of gay marriage, school prayer, and keeping the word “God” on our currency and in our national pledge.

It’s not that I think these items aren’t worthy of discussion or exploration. It’s just that they seem

1) out of place on this album,
2) like talking points from the “No Spin Zone”, and
3) like it’s a calculated attempt to reach a target demographic.

So, what’s the final grade? I have to conclude that it’s an unbalanced sum of highs and lows that make it an average contribution to the Beatmart catalog.

Willie Will has both talent and potential. It’s just not reflected in great portion here.

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Video for "Shine"