B.Reith leaves Gotee Records, goes indie

Blue eyed soul brother B.Reith announced yesterday that he has ended his relationship with Gotee Records. In a blog post titled “Goodbye Record Labels, Hello Independence,” the rapper/singer said that the parting was mutual and mostly a result of the changing business models of the music industry.

He praised Gotee co-founders Toby Mac and Joey Elwood for their handling of the situation and said he cautiously looked forward to his newfound status as an indie.

On February 1 he’ll be hosting a live chat to talk with his fans about these changes in more depth. He later Tweeted that he needed to hurry and get offline so that he could lay down vocals for an upcoming Knine & KamBINO mixtape.

When B.Reith was in Houston last summer to shoot "The Comeback Kid" video I spoke to him about his hip hop connections and whether being on a big time record label was all that it's cracked up to be. Video of that conversation is posted below.

Vidz: B.Reith shoots "The Comeback Kid" video in Houston - Behind the scenes with SketchtheJ

Photo by Sketch the Journalist

A few months back my man DJ Promote gave me a call with a heads up that Gotee Records artist B.Reith was bringing his hip-pop sound to Houston to film a video for "The Comeback Kid."

They needed some extras for shoots at the Prince Complex boxing gym in 5th Ward and The Serial Box near Minute Maid Park and asked if I could help get the word out. As it happened, I also got an unpaid gig playing the role of a nerdy reporter type (a stretch, I know) in their press conference scenes.

The video was shot by Donald Kilgore in conjunction with Stop the Nakedness/Fig Tree Collective and the fruit of that labor was dropped on the web last week.

Here's the final cut:

B.Reith "The Comeback Kid" from Gotee Records on Vimeo.

I also captured this behind-the-scenes footage:



B.Reith has toured with CCM-fave Toby Mac and can be stalked online at: breith.com

Mat Kearney & Flynn Adam = Same video?

This weekend I noticed Mat Kearney's new video for "Closer to Love" on VH1's Top 20 Countdown show and immediately had a flashback to Flynn Adam's "Dishes" clip.

The connections are pretty crazy:

• The funky hats
• The anachronistic technology
• The telephone storyline
• Both artists have been involved in the Christian hip hop scene (Kearney even won a Dove award for "Best Rap/Hip Hop Recorded Song" in 2006)
• Both have connections to Gotee Records (Flynn's new set of EP's is being released through the label and Kearney rapped with Knowdaverbs on an early DJ Maj mixape)

Watch 'em both below and decide for yourself.





VH1 TV Shows Music Videos Celebrity Photos News & Gossip

Vidz: Flynn Adam / "Such a Time"

Peep the alterna-rap freshness from Mr. Eartube Empire - Flynn Adam Atkins. This is the new stuff coming out of the revamped Gotee Records.

SUCH A TIME

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.