True 2 Life in concert…

Slang announces new mascot backstage at Trinity College Concert…

So the True 2 Life boys were back at the ‘nell this past weekend. And it was dope, a very positive overall experience. We were panelist on the a panel discussion featuring Cornell Alum in Hip Hop / Entertainment Industry. It was an honor to be peers with such accomplished and esteemed Cornell Alum, we’re talking some serious serious power players in the hip hop industry. So not only was it dope to tell our story to the audience as panelist, but also just to be attendees at event.

So instead of my play-by-play here is the write up in the Daily Sun.

Alumni Visit ‘Hottest Hip Hop Ivy’
April 13, 2009 - 12:00am
By Brendan Doyle

The University’s appreciation and deep-seat in hip-hop culture has been steadily gaining tread this past year. And it “don’t stop,” as Black Students United and several other clubs sponsored The Hottest Hip Hop Ivy Weekend. In the same spirit of Afrika Bambaata and Pete Rock, who made their marks on campus last semester, the weekend centered around a panel featuring the University’s most illustrious alumni involved in the hip-hop industry.

The brain child of Fritz Celestin ’86, the focus of Saturday’s panel was for the alumni to impart valuable wisdom on how to enter the recording industry. Celestin is a music video director who has worked with prominent names such as Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige, as well as on keynote urban films such as Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X. As moderator of the panel, Celestin joined an elite retinue of hip-hop movers and shakers. L. Londell McMillan ’87, the new executive publisher of The Source magazine, was present along with Linda Berk ’74, general manager of AJM records and talent consultant responsible for big names like Ashanti, and Reggie Osse ’86, an attorney and co-author of *Bling*, a coffee table ode to all things garish and diamond studded in hip-hop.

Also gracing the panel were recent grads Kevin Edwards ’05, Kenan Goggins ’05 and Chukuma M. Ogude ’05, also known as K. Words, Concise and Slangston Hughes respectively, who comprise the group True2Life. Having rocked the stage with T-Pain, Nas and Joe Budden while at the University, the trio have since been breaking new ground in the game and recently debuted their major music video, “Poppin’ On TV,” earning them a seat at the table of Cornell hip hop royalty.

In the modern landscape of music downloading and illegal MP3s, the panelists emphasized the most important facet to success as taking advantage of all media of trade.Hip-hop Ivies: Alumni speakers share their experience in the hip-hop industry on Friday. See page 12 for an interview with True2Life.Hip-hop Ivies: Alumni speakers share their experience in the hip-hop industry on Friday. See page 12 for an interview with True2Life.

“It’s truly about entrepreneurship now,” Berk said. “There’s money out there to be made. It’s just being made differently than it was 10 years ago.”

Berk continued to emphasize that in an industry with roots in the hustle and flow of urban life, innovation is important now more than ever.

Though the genre may be evolving, the concepts of grit and determination remain crucial.

“Hip-hop is just a term used to describe a group of people who love a certain energy,” McMillan

said. “It’s pretty much any and everything you want to do. Whether it’s hip-hop, or anything, you just got to be really good at what you do.”

Like many other panelists, McMillan is at the apex of his game. A lauded attorney who has represented numerous hip-hop acts and was cited by Osse as “the reason Prince changed his name for a couple years,” his new ownership of The Source puts him in a pivotal position to lead a fresh direction in the industry. This direction manifests itself not only in the music, but also in how business is done. McMillan emphasized that he intends to use his positional clout to put the youth movement in overdrive.

“My goal for The Source is to create an global media brand, that connects people and inspires them to go hard and be great.”

McMillan said: “Hip-hop to me is like sports. It’s intergenerational. Each generation has its own heroes. Revolutionary culture is just part of the youth experience, and we should embrace that.”

Panelists also emphasized that the Internet is what separates the college generation and its musical sensibilities, and also what will continue to change the sound of hip-hop.

“The more the Internet becomes accessible to the disenfranchised youths, the more creativity you will see,” Celestin said.

The men of True2Life noted their own experiences in the new digital age of music. The trio manage themselves, in addition to doing their own production, and explained the networking and business skills they honed on East Hill were as crucial to the success of their sharpened wordplay.

“We are self-sufficient out of necessity,” Ogude said. “This is our business and our life, and if we want to see it blossom, we have to put in the footwork.”

The group noted the importance of their blog and Myspace for striking deals and communicating with other artists, as well as for consolidating and expanding their swelling fan base.

The panel finished up with a question-and-answer session, in which McMillan stressed the importance of the Ujamaa residential community for keeping alive the urban spirit that many students bring to campus. This youthful energy was evident in the audience, as listeners ranged from aspiring rap icons to doe-eyed acolytes of the business moguls on the panel.

“I wanted to understand the business behind hip-hop,” said Michael Brown ’10 of his reasons for coming. “I think it’s important for students to get that context.”

Brown noted his admiration for the speakers, as well as his appreciation for the knowledge gleaned from the discussion.

As inspired students approached the speakers for autographs and chats, McMillan’s encouragement to “go hard” lingered.

“Whether it’s positive or negative, if it’s hot, people are going to find you,” McMillan said.

Word up. So after the panel we had to dip to another interview and then to a performance at the Phenom Step show. The show was tight, because we got to see how these events that we were apart at college were continued and thriving years after being removed from campus. Even though we barely knew anyone there anymore it was like we never left.

In the college spirit after the weekend, we recorded a remix to Asher’s single “I Love College”. Soon as we get a finalized mix we’ll share it with ya’ll.

- ‘cise boogie

Jackie Rob takes it back to 2001 after the performance at Trinity Show…

I pop a tag before the show…

-slang mob

After rocking out on stage, we catch up with the performers at the March 27th Trinity College Concert

click the “HD” button view video in High Definition.

visit the youtube page to see the other videos…
also follow us on the twitter at twitter.com/true2lifemusic

more to come…

-cise

What’s Poppin?!

For starters…we have to apologize for the lack of activity on the blog. If you didn’t follow us we are just getting back to NYC from a 2 week hiatus in south Florida (Ft Lauderdale / Miami / Miami Beach). The condo we were stationed at didn’t have wireless internet access so our laptops were desperately out of touch with the net. So bad news is we have alot of catching up to do via net, good news is we got od amounts of dope recording in. We could have the next few projects lined up…we CLOCKED IN. With some stupid fresh new new. so we’ll be releasing some of those records shortly…

(Gutta on Ocean Drive)

We had to cut the beautiful weather and music creation short for our concert tomorrow, Friday, March 27th with Fabolous and Juelz and Mike Jones at Trinity College (and we miss our northeast peoples). We can’t return for the WMC weekend either because of interviews and some press opportunities…but anyways

Here is the link to Trinity’s Blog about the show: http://trintalk.com/2009/03/scholarship-concert-3-27/

It’s a benefit concert. More information about tickets and all that can be found on facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=57252383508&ref=mf

Come rock out with us and 3 hip-hop biggest stars…

best,
‘cise works

Chea…

So we’re back on our show tip. Damn we miss performing live. Recently we’ve been recording a lot and had to pass some show opportunities, but now we’re back on it. We have 2 live performances the night of Friday the 13th in NYC.

First one is at The Proxy Magazine’s Release Party, being held at the Lerner Space at Columbia University. The event starts at 7pm and it’s free for all, but you must be included on the guestlist. So get at us to get on the guestlist. Email: true2lifemusic@gmail.com. We’ll be performing around 8pm-ish.

For efficiency I will connect you to the facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=58710809186

The second show is at the Afrik Brand Launch Party (we love fashion). You may have caught me in the yellow Afrik hoodie at our Rutgers show with Lupe Fiasco pictured above. This event is being held at Katra Lounge (217 Bowery St) and starts around 8pm. The event includes a fashion show and course a live performance from us. We’ll be performing around 10pm. Come enjoy some dope people, models, gear and music. Word.

Here is the facebook event link for the Afrik event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=48379071187

And yo…dead serious, we’re gonna KILL these shows. Make no bones about it, the beats are gonna get murdered with the killer rhymes. So join us as we execute our friday the 13th performance line up!

-cisington

bonus: here’s a pic from monday night at sway . we’ll be uploading the rest to our facebook!

Here is some footage of us over at Club Passions in Hartford, CT for New Years Day Performance…

Happy New Year True 2 Lifers!

Here is our first show of the year…catch us at Club Passions (145 Newfield Ave, Hartford, CT) tonight, Thursday, Jan. 1st, 2009. Ladies are free before 11. Guys are reduced before 11. There is a model search and the winning lady will win a bottle of Moet and $500 to ease economic woes. Ricky Blaze will be performing too, you may have caught him at Jingle Jam (Hot 93.7). 18+ (still 21+ to drink).

Full Details here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=41540843262&ref=nf

Whats Good True 2 Lifers?!

Last night we performed in front of an electric crowd of about 3000 at Rutgers University to open up for Lupe Fiasco. Jerz was in the building and as you can guess we’ll say…the show was dope.

But for real tho…the show was dope. Like our last show at Loyola and Towson the crowd was live and we WENT IN. We were feeling good from taking the stage soaring through performing our latest single to close out the set. Then Lu took the stage and ROCKED OUT. His show set gets better and better every performance and its a dope benchmark for any performer out. Word. Lu did a back flip at the end of his set. Seriously. And for real…True 2 Life is heading to that point where we can offer others the same opportunity to open and become that level of inspiration.

Thanks to everyone that came out and thank you Rutgers for having a good time with us. We had mad fun.

If you were there, send performance reviews to jeezy44@gmail.com for lupefiasco-lupend.blogspot.com

And let us know what you thought as well (true2lifemusic@gmail.com)

Here is lupEND Blog’s Post on Lupe and True 2 Life at Rutgers:
http://lupefiasco-lupend.blogspot.com/2008/10/true-2-life-and-lupe-fiasco.html

Peace till next time,

‘cise

Greetings True 2 Lifers,

We’ll be performing this Saturday, Oct 18th, at Rutgers University with none other than Lupe Fiasco. This will be another show from a series of performances we’ve done with Lupe. If you missed us last weekend at Loyola you missed a dope dope stupid crazy performance. Lupe did his thing thing and we rocked out for one of our best and favorite performances. We’ll have pics and video from that show soon. But if you are in the Jersey / NYC area, try to check us this weekend at Rutgers. The show is going to be crazy. It may be hard to get tix this late…unless you do something like hit up craigslist and/or random student. Apparently, its sold out already.

Details:

When: Saturday, Oct 18th, 8pm
Where: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Jerz
What: 2 acts performing dope hip-hop, live.
Special Invited Guests: Micheal Young History, Eli The Lion, The Streets, The Game, R.A.G, Bishop G, 2pac, etc…
After party: tba