Thursday, Sep. 24, 2009
Urban Oasis:
Unsigned Artists and Rappers Get Schooled at Surfside Music Summit
According to signs posted along U.S. 17 Business, Surfside Beach is known as “the family beach.” With its annual community-oriented surf-off in August, seemingly more golf carts than year-round residents and a smoking ordinance that rankled local bar and restaurant owners, the oceanfront municipality has made some noise recently while simultaneously keeping its place among the quietest communities on the Grand Strand. It’s got sandy beaches, beachwear stores, nice restaurants and the recent winner of the Dixie Youth baseball championship.
But for the last two years, it’s also been the home to an urban/hip-hop music summit attracting thousands of unsigned and independent artists looking for an edge in an ever-fractured, always-evolving music industry.
The event, which is known as the Southeastern Music and Entertainment Summit (SMES), calls Surfside Beach its home from Friday through Sunday and sets up shop at the Holiday Inn Oceanfront for four days of non-stop music industry forums and roundtable discussions.
It’s a music industry conference filled with people – including such notable past participants as Kanye West and John Legend – with the know-how and ability to get an unsigned artist heading in the right direction for commercial success. And it’s all happening in a town that is four-square-miles and is often overlooked by not only vacationers, but by Grand Strand residents alike.
So, why Surfside Beach? Why the Myrtle Beach area for that matter? And why South Carolina in general? Anybody who knows anything about popular music knows that this area is starving for commercial music success. And not just urban and hip-hop music; any kind. Any local bar, restaurant and or hole-in-the-wall you venture into will probably have some kind of live music going on.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of local bands, acts and singers who would give their left arm for a shot to make it big in the music industry, but for some odd reason, the Myrtle Beach talent pool seems to be stagnating with musical talent that never seems to find, its way out, with a few exceptions on the rock ‘n’ roll side of things (such as The Classic Struggle [IronClad Recordings/Metal Blade Records], The Drag [Island Records], and Echo 7 [In DeGoot Recordings/Universal]).
Maybe it’s because Myrtle Beach is a vacation destination that sees people come and go so quickly that there is not enough time to establish a true fan base? Maybe the locals in this area do not show enough to support their favorite local artists? Maybe there is so much musical talent in this area that it’s hard for groups and artists to separate themselves from the pack?
So, why would somebody want to bring a music summit to a town that isn’t exactly known for its musical exports?
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
To tell the story of SMES, you don’t have to go that far from the Grand Strand area. In fact, you don’t even have to go outside of the Pee Dee region. It all started in 2001 with an idea from two men who wanted to bring the music industry to their home state.
James E. Heyward and Tony “Chubbz” Marcus founded SMES in hopes of bringing people from the mainstream music industry to not only witness the beauty of everything the Carolinas has to offer, but to give unsigned artists in the region a chance to hobnob with music industry insiders and make connections that will hopefully pan out and forge a career in a dog-eat-dog business.
Marcus grew up in Darlington and like many kids everywhere, wanted to get into the music industry at an early age. In the eighth grade, he was a part of a singing group which had aspirations of making it big, moving out of Darlington and living the so-called dream.
The only bad part of all of that is that he lived in Darlington. In a small, Southern town that is known more for its NASCAR racetrack and its tobacco farms, it’s not hard to realize that this would be no Gary, Ind., success story and Marcus and cohorts were not the second coming of The Jackson 5.
“Music’s always been my passion,” said Marcus. “Like Michael Jordan with basketball, I knew it was my destiny, no joke. I always called myself a rapper, but I didn’t know about the business as a kid.”
He quickly switched his direction from performer to promoter and met up with a local deejay that had just graduated from Francis Marion University and was making a good name for himself on the local hip-hop scene. That deejay’s name is B-Lord, who has not only pulled in awards for “Best DJ in the South,” but has gained nationwide fame, including hosting BET’s now defunct “Rap City: The Basement” a record 35 times.
“When I started off, I was DJ B-Lord’s manager at the time,” said Marcus. “I would see him at parties and we got together and got him on TV and regional tours and I ended up in Virginia and became this hot-shot promoter.”
It’s in Virginia where Marcus met a man by the name of Kenny Burns who would introduce him to many people inside the inner circle of the music business and get him rolling in the right direction.
Burns ended up as the vice president of the popular Roc-A-Fella Records, whose main artist and co-founder was finding huge success on the national hip-hop forefront (if this particular artist needs to be named, then please put down this article and crawl out from the rock that you’ve been under for the past 15 years. Hint: his real name is Shawn Carter and he’s also married to Beyoncé Knowles).
Marcus followed Burns to New York and became the director of marketing for Roc-A-Fella Records, a position that doesn’t exist anymore due to the huge success and profile of its main artist, who eventually took a position as CEO of Def Jam Records.
“I was with Roc-A-Fella for three-and-a-half years,” said Marcus. “When I realized that the ship was about to sink, I moved to Atlanta, which was becoming the new place to be in the music industry.”
It was then that Marcus co-founded SMES and started holding events bearing the company’s name. The first SMES conference was held at the Durham Marriott in Durham, N.C., in 2001 and was a one-day event that was intended to help expose independent artists to the marketplace and develop an outlet that would allow those artists to be successful.
IT HAS TO START SOMEWHERE
The first SMES drew more than 700 attendees and saw guest speakers such as the now-controversial Kanye West, Consequence, Little Brother, Petey Pablo and producer 9th Wonder, who still blesses the guest panel almost 10 years later.
“It’s more like a conference to bridge the gap between North and South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia,” said Chubbz. “What would be better than to see someone in North Carolina and Virginia network and reach the same goals
and grow together as artists?”
It was expanded to a three-day-event in 2003 and in 2007, moved to Myrtle Beach.
Two local artists we spoke with have been reaping the benefits of having the summit in their backyard ever since and both agree that it is crucial to attend the summit if you’re even thinking about trying to get into the music industry.
Hip-hop artist Neff (Lucio Armenta), who is nominated at this year’s summit as one of the “Most Slept-on Artists of the Year” and is the only Myrtle Beach emcee represented at this year’s award show, said the summit is a chance for him to network with people who are actually in the business and he looks forward to the conference every year.
“It’s like the movie ‘Scarface,’” he said. “I’ve probably seen ‘Scarface’ 50 times, but I realize something every time that I watch it that I didn’t notice before and I learn from it. The same thing goes with the summit. It’s very crucial, especially if you’re an unsigned artist and I learn something new every time.”
Local rapper Sunni G (Sean Grissett) also attends the summit every year and calls it refreshing. He says that it is a huge benefit to anyone who wants to get into the industry to attend the summit, not only to learn new things but because there are major players in the industry that come here and are looking to discover the next wave of talent.
“This is not a side hustle for these people,” he said. “These people are not here to say what they think is going on, these are the people who are doing it day in and day out. In hip-hop there’s no school, no book to pick up and show you how to survive, so if people take time to come to your city to show you how to do it, you should take the time to come.”
Sunni G/Grissett said even if he wasn’t an aspiring artist he would come to the summit to support the unsigned artists.
“Being that we don’t have [much of] a hip-hop market in Myrtle Beach, we need to show them that we do care,” he said. “But it only takes one great artist to be the flagship for this area. I’m not saying I am or am not, but whoever it is, they’re going to have to be strong because they will have a lot of people on their back.”
FOLLOW THE LEADER
If one looks into the past and the genre of hip-hop in general, that’s exactly what happens: one artist or act can break-through, and suddenly an area is mined for its talent. Fifteen years ago there was a virtually unknown rap group called Outkast who became one of the first popular, critically acclaimed hip-hop acts to come out of Atlanta, and pushing the genre in a new and exciting directions.
At the 1995 Source Awards show they were booed by their peers who, at the time, wanted nothing that didn’t come out of New York. Instead of creating a Kanye West moment at the award show, Outkast simply accepted the award and Andre Benjamin said “All I know is that the South’s got something to say,” and humbly walked off the stage.
Fifteen years later, if you’re anyone who is trying to make it in the music industry, you should probably make Atlanta a regular destination.
Similarly, ten years ago, there was a virtually unknown white dude that came out of Detroit (again if there is need to mention his name, put this article down and go crawl back under that rock you came from) and made a name for his city, restoring the Motown’s reputation for urban music. Although Detroit is not the place to find a lifestyle of the rich and famous, there have been countless artists to come out since that crazy Caucasian sometimes known as Slim Shady made industry heads turn.
The point is, is that it only takes one artist to succeed and bring the music industry leaders to start looking at a certain area. Remember what Nirvana did for Seattle and R.E.M. for Athens, Ga.? After the 1990s success of South Carolina artists Hootie and the Blowfish and their buddy Edwin McCain, label reps were known to be sniffing around the Grand Strand quite a bit, but it seems interest has since waned – no doubt affected by the weakening of the recording industry due to the Internet and other technology, and the country’s economic funk of the last two years.
That is the reason the SMES holds an artist showcase at the summit in which aspiring entertainers have the chance to show off their skills in front of everyone, including record company Artist and Repertoire (A&R) Managers whose main goal is to find the next big artist.
“The unsigned artist showcase is not designed to tear you down, but to give you an honest opinion,” said Marcus of the “American Idol” style showcase. “Obviously if everyone in your group is 50-years-old, you might not want to start getting into the business.”
And if you’re a good performer, it doesn’t mean that an A&R manager is going to scoop you up and carry you into the sunset of industry success. The summit isn’t all about finding the next big thing, either.
“Our ultimate goal is to have success stories, but all of those stories aren’t always going to result in a record deal,” said Marcus. “The relationships that are made here are the main importance. We want people to come away with something they didn’t have before they got here and build solid relationships that they can take back home with them.”
One person that definitely holds the summit close to his heart and says the summit got him on the road to success is Marcus’s old friend DJ B-Lord.
B-Lord started attending the summit in 2002 when it was being held in Durham and he won
“Best Club and Mixtape DJ,” while accomplishing the same feat in 2003. In 2007, DJ B-Lord won the coveted “Make it Happen Award” and now sits on the SMES panel and will help the attendees learn exactly how to get radio airtime.
“I’m behind the SMES because I know the type of person that Chubbz is,” said DJ B-Lord. “He’s very influential and the SMES played a major part in my career.”
DJ B-Lord now lives in Columbia and hosts a radio show on HOT 103.9 six nights a week while he does a radio simulcast two nights a week on Florence’s WYNN 106.3 and DJ E93 Jams in Savannah, Ga.
He spins at clubs up and down the East Coast and has made a name for himself, not only in the Southeast region, but around the nation winning “South DJ of the Year” at the 2003 Tech.Nitions Coolout Conference in Las Vegas.
With all of that on his resume, one might think that B-Lord may try to take his game away from the Carolinas and try his hand in the national spotlight.
But he’s going to stick around and enjoy all of his hard work once the Carolinas start making a wave in the music industry. He says it will happen eventually and he wants to be here when it does.
“Timing is everything,” said B-Lord, who credits Eric B. and Rakim among his early influences. “We don’t have the money resources that markets in other areas have, so we have to make our own buzz. But we shouldn’t be waiting in South Carolina for it to happen. That’s one good thing about SMES, we get to network with people from outside markets and benefit from that.”
So, the question still remains: why Surfside Beach/Myrtle Beach of all places? If Atlanta is the new hub of the urban music industry and all who want to make it in the industry should move there, why isn’t the summit held there?
Sunni G/Grissett puts it best: “I think being from Myrtle Beach, we see tourism everyday. But from the outside, everybody wants to come to the beach and they want to enjoy everything that the beach has to offer.”
Sunni G and DJ B-Lord believe visiting recording industry people will find a diamond-in-the-rough when they get here.
“Being that we don’t have a hip-hop market in Myrtle Beach, they look at it as untapped,” said Sunni G/Grissett. “And we don’t have a distinct sound like other areas. It’s harder for the industry to grasp it, which makes it harder to sell.”
But that doesn’t mean that it will never happen.
“Two years ago I would have said that you would have to move away,” he said. “We’re so far behind in South Carolina that it is hard. But with the tools and resources that we are now being given, I think the Carolinas will soon cement a spot. I ain’t tryin’ to be cocky, but I ain’t chasing a deal. I am the deal.”
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