Mike Petrone

It may have seemed like a lofty goal for an independent rapper to get Lil Scrappy and Iam of Soul Mafia on his first single. Not for Mike Petrone, whose breakthrough record "Crank It" is heating up the streets of his native Atlanta on the strength of spitfire verses and an insanely catchy hook.

The independent release of his epic LP "The Last Hundred Yards" is just the most recent accomplishment from this multifaceted individual who served two tours in Iraq, was wounded twice, and received his Purple Heart, all before the age of 22. The remarkable story of how Petrone received his Purple Heart is detailed in his music video for his song "Baghdad" which was filmed overseas during Petrone's second tour in Iraq. Authenticity is a prevalent theme from this artist who chose to skip a rap moniker and use his government name.

Trigger  warning  for  war  imagery

The buzz about Mike Petrone is hard to contain. Already, he has been featured on Fox News, Fort Benning TV, VH1, and various other media outlets. His debut single "Crank It" is additionally featured on To the Fallen Records Hip Hop's Volume 2. He has performed in countless venues nationwide and always dazzles his audience with energetic, electrifying live shows.

Petrone is frank and humble about his talent and his place in the rap landscape, "I've always been a fan of hip-hop first, and an artist second. Even if I quit rapping today, I'll still be a fan tomorrow!" Risking his safety everyday and watching comrades fall has undeniably inspired Petrone's modesty, maturity, and passion for life…or maybe he was just born to "CRANK IT!!!" 

How do you describe your music to people, Mike?
Deep lyrics meet knocking beats as Mike Petrone brings the energy of Lil Jon and raw emotion of Eminem to his southern rap anthems.

Tell me about how you originally got into your craft.
I was 14 years old and I first fell in Love with Hip Hop the night I saw The Lyricist Lounge Show. It was so captivating. The way someone would put words together and freestyle off the top making words rhyme in such a way that it sounded like they were meant to flow together. I wrote my first rap that same night and I haven't stopped since!

What is your favorite thing to do in the whole wide world?
Travel. I love experiencing Life and New amazing things that fulfill the soul!

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to running your business?
Doing everything yourself. Being an Independent Artist is a lot of work. It has its pros and cons and its always nice knowing you have the final say and being your own boss of your music but at the end of the day If something needs to get done you need to make sure it happens.

When you were a kid, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
I never really thought to much about what i wanted to be when I was younger. I know when I was in kindergarten I wanted to be a Solider like my Dad but once I became a teenager and music took over my life its all I ever wanted to do!  


In what way has your community impacted your development as a musician?
I love being realistic in my music. I love talking about everyday experiences so I look at the whole world and say that is was has impacted my music. From Politics to Women to Hanging with the Boys to the War overseas. Everything I've seen from my life, my travels and my experiences. My community plays a part in developing me as a musician being a proud artist from Georgia but only to a certain extent. I go beyond that! 

What other artists out there do you love?
My Genres of Music vary a lot. Im a huge Blues Fan. I love the Blues. Everything from Robert Johnson to Chris Thomas King. Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Bob Marley, Matisyahu, Reel Big Fish, Outkast and Eminem.

What does your future hold?
Lots of Travels. More music to share with the world. Over the next year I'm going to be taking some time to do a lot of volunteer work around the world, see new places, put out new singles and new videos and the end of 2011 start working on the sophomore album. A deal doesn't seem too bad either!

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Die Cut Business Cards #Giveaway

Designer Cards, blogger cards and so much more… UPrinting.com

UPrinting.com  is back with another giveaway!  Here is the prize:

250 Die Cut Business Cards for One (1) Winner
2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.75 x 3.5” (slim card)
Die cutting options available: Rounded Corners, Leaf, Rounded One-Corner, Half-Circle Side, Circle
Paper Type: 14pt Cardstock Gloss, Matte, or High Gloss; 13pt Cardstock Uncoated       
Color: 4Color Front, Blank Back; 4Color Front, Black Back; 4Color Both Sides      

Limited to US residents only  18 years old and above 

     

There are multiple entry opportunities.  Leave a separate comment for every action so that you get full credit for every entry!  Everybody gets a fair shake at stuffing the ballot box. 

1. Leave a comment on this post saying how you would use the banner if you won. 
2. Blog about this giveaway, linking back here (and comment here that you did it).  Good for one entry.
3. Same deal on Facebook or MySpace or whatever other social networking site you use.
4. Tweet about the giveaway. (I'm @suchcoolstuff ) You can do one tweet per day for extra entries (and comment here every time you do it).

Be sure to leave a way to contact you either in the comments or in your attached profile.  The usual Fine Print applies [That's for you, FTC!]

Deadline for entry is noon Central time September 20, 2010.  Good luck, y'all!Bonus: Don't forget to check out the Giveaway Directory to see more stuff you can win!

Cubist Literature

Craig Hunter runs Brooklyn-based Cubist Literature. He designs and produces silkscreened t-shirts and handmade knit garments.

Tell me about how you originally got into your craft, Craig.
I started Cubist Literature as a sort of diversion to the mundane academic life of university. I started out appliquéing felt pieces to vintage/thrift clothing. Eventually I got into knitting. When I moved to NYC about two and a half years ago, I dropped the appliqué and learned to screen print. I fell in love with screen printing because it enabled me to get my designs on clothing very quickly. The extra time gave me more time to come up with more designs and outlets for Cubist Literature.

What is your favorite thing to do in the whole wide world?
Knitting! I love to knit sweaters mostly. They're great to work on while watching movies or riding the subway. It's probably one of the best stress relievers I can think of. I like to hand knit---and can do so pretty quickly---but when I thought Cubist Literature should have a line of knit garments, I figured I needed a knitting machine. This has also proved to be very satisfying because I can see my ideas come to fruition much faster than if I were hand knitting everything. Hand knitting everything didn't make much sense to me. (That would be like hand sewing a whole line of garments.) I had to teach myself how to use the knitting machine. It was a LOT of trial and error, but I got the hang of it. I did my first collection last fall.

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to running your business?
The biggest challenge I can think of is the fact that you have to be your own motivator. It's easy to go into a regular job that you don't care about and put not a lot of heart into your work because it's not really you that's on the line. When you work for yourself, however, that sort of half-interested attitude will not cut it. If you aren't 100% enthusiastic about your work and your business, others will notice. And your business will suffer.

To quote Kim Gordon, "People pay to see others believe in themselves."

When you were a kid, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
When I was five, I wanted to be a birdwatcher.
And then in elementary and middle school, I thought I wanted to be an engineer. The kind that works on roller coasters.
Then in high school, I thought I was going to be a psychologist.
In college, I thought I was going to be an English professor.

And now I'm doing this...

What item in your collection would you most like to receive as a gift if someone were shopping for you?
If someone were shopping for me, I'd want this!

This sweater is so comfortable and warm. It can also go with a lot of things.
It is a piece that truly makes me excited about the oncoming fall and winter.

What other artists out there do you love?
There aren't too many visual artists I'm in love with. But Francis Bacon comes to mind. I like his paintings.

I fall in love with A LOT of garments/outfits in fashion shows, but I definitely only have a couple favorite fashion designers: Martin Margiela and Sandra Backlund. They work on a much more conceptual level than I would say I do, but they are truly inspiring to me.

And right now since it's really hot in my studio, I'm thinking about cool sweaters I own, especially this really intense Fair Isle knit cardigan made by this really awesome Norwegian fashion company called Arne & Carlos. I love their (over)use of Fair Isle knitting.

Favorite writers: Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein.

What does your future hold?
I am just going to keep designing t-shirts and knitwear on a small scale for the time being. I have hopes/plans for Cubist Literature, but since I'm doing this all DIY, things happen more slowly and naturally. I wouldn't want this any other way. When I get to that level of success I'm heading toward, I want to make sure Cubist Literature (and myself) is truly ready. I don't want to get in over my head.

Demon Lovers and Household Goddesses: The Apocalyptic Intimacy of Charming Hostess’s Bowls Project

Writhing sea monsters and demon divorces. Magical amulets and secret sexual desires. Black metal and Blind Willie Johnson. The Bowls Project evokes the cosmopolitanism of ancient Babylon with an eerily contemporary weave of war, sex, and supernatural wonder.

This embrace of sophisticated ideas and visceral sounds comes naturally to Jewlia Eisenberg, composer, vocalist and mistress-mind behind the wryly subversive, musically mischievous group Charming Hostess. Their latest endeavor takes inscriptions from earthenware “demon bowls” once buried beneath Babylonian houses, and transforms them into songs that draw on everything from Iraqi pop to American roots music. As Eisenberg noticed from the first moment she idly opened a seemingly fusty dissertation filled with translations of these Aramaic texts from the time and place of the Talmud, these bowls speak—and loudly. They tell of demons, angels, and gods from a half dozen ancient cultures, all entwined with the secret passions and household heartbreaks of women living 1,500 years ago.

“I was instantly mesmerized by the voices in these bowls. In the entire Talmud, you never hear women talk about themselves in the “we” form; in demon bowls you hear it all the time. I chose to set Jewish bowls, but the form is cosmopolitan and deeply porous—a Jewish bowl might define the Divine as a Bird of Rivers, call out to Dlibat, the Babylonian goddess of love, or cast a spell from a sea monster. Demon bowls contain the greatest supernatural powers right next to small domestic scenes; normal household concerns interact with fiery angels and demons,” Eisenberg recounts. “If you read one bowl text, you see this dynamic; the apocalyptic intimate. You don’t have to be a scholar or read Aramaic.”

Over four years, Eisenberg began putting these texts to music, building on her fascination with the sounds of the female body—breaths, claps, sighs, stomps, and silence. With her fellow members of Charming Hostess, she incorporated elements from the drive and clamor of black metal (the martial exorcism of “Bound and Turned Aside”) to American roots music (“Hangman”) and the devotional songs embraced by Babylonian (Iraqi) Jews (“Yedidi”).

Yet the touchstone remains the bowls. They record a world full of supernatural activity, haunting even the most ho-hum daily grind. Disguised demons afflicted families, and might even trick the unwary into marriage, forcing their unwitting spouses to seek divorces. The Leviathan shakes the earth. Angels march with swords, blocking gossipy neighbors and insuring sexual arousal.

“Demons and angels may seem remote to many of us, but in the world of the bowls, they were experienced as frequent house-guests with supernatural powers. They had rights, too, as members of the community,” notes Eisenberg. “You could try to appease them, cajole them, or bully them with bowl incantations, but whatever you do, they are around, participating in everyday life. This is very clear in the bowls, and in the traditional music I chose for the album.”

The thought of spirits swarming through the home may sound frightening, but their presence can also bring protection, as Eisenberg suggests in her haunting and unexpected transformation of the American religious song “Dying Bed (Khevra Kadisha).” With a nod to both Blind Willie Johnson and the Jewish rituals of keeping watch over the dead, Eisenberg invokes the intimate connection and peace that flows from encounters with forces beyond.

The bowl texts—written down at women’s request by professional scribes—are filled with hybrid deities and syncretic spells, spiraled incantations for health, fidelity, protection, and love.

Christians and Zoroastrians, Animists and Jews all shared gods, demons, and images as they recorded the secrets of their households—and then hid them, silently, in the earth, to protect their homes.

These women’s voices were forgotten as other texts and teachings from the time moved from the margins to the center. “The great canon of Jewish law, the Babylonian Talmud, is from the same era as these demon bowls,” Eisenberg comments, “The Talmud became the shape of post-exilic Judaism.  But at the time of its compilation in 200-600 CE, the bowls were the mainstream and the rabbis were at the fringe!”

This absorption of female power into male authority is stated explicitly in some of the texts themselves. “’Smamit’”, Eisenberg explains, “tells how three angels became empowered to protect babies in crib and women in labor. The story unfolds on the body of a woman with her own supernatural powers, which she loses along with her children, but these angels get the power. You rarely get to see the move away from female magic explored so deeply.”

Eisenberg began to break the silence, as war raged in Iraq and a new crop of these artifacts turned up on the world market, due to looting, shelling, and theft. The bowls provided an unexpected entry, a chance for connection not only to women living millennia ago, but also to contemporary Iraqis and the ordinary lives of people often lost behind the civilizational myth of Sumer or the tortures of Falujah.

Eisenberg’s arrangements honor the often broken and fragmented nature of the bowls and their voices. Many of the bowls were found in pieces. And to confuse demons, the incantations would often include unpronounceable names or repeated letters. Eisenberg felt the unpronounceability had to stay: “Some of the text will just have a letter over and over again, a kind of a hissing sound to block a demon. Or it will have the letter ‘H’, a name for the Divine. I wanted to take the text and play with the parts that can’t be pronounced and the fragments,” as she does in “Malakha.”

The heart of the Bowls Project is connection, with a past, with people distant and different, and with a deep aspect of our shared experience. “These bowls are so personal that you can’t not relate to them,” Eisenberg muses. “They are similar to our own experience even though they are phrased in their own apocalyptic intimate way. And if you can relate to woman living 1,500 years ago in what’s today Iraq, you can relate to someone living there now. That’s really central.”

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Guest post Via World Music News Wire

Kenya

A singer, songwriter, pianist, musician....a mother, a wife, a woman...a soul who is simply sharing her passion and gift of music with all who wish to experience innovative music.

Kenya is a soulful singer/songwriter who delivers soothing vocals accompanied by music that embodies a contemporary groove. Inspired by American singer/songwriters such as Stevie Wonder, Lalah Hathaway, John Mayer & Norah Jones and international groups like Incognito, Brand New Heavies and Jazzanova, Kenya admits that "Music = air"...without it, she simply doesn't breathe. Kenya (whose full name is Kenya McGuire Johnson)has been singing since the age of 8. Raised in Denver, CO during adolescence she was active in citywide choirs, jazz bands, show choirs, and musical theater. In college she was a member of the renowned Howard Gospel Choir at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and after college did background vocals for various independent artists including the former group Hue, Maritri, Nick Cassarino, Shana Tucker Williams, and The Soulfolk Experience. As an adolescent and during college while performing in combos and groups, she opened for such artists as Art Blakey, Bebe & CeCe Winans, and Yolanda Adams.

Her debut EP titled "Starting Over", produced by Grammy Award winning producer Maurice Joshua (best known for his remix for "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce), is a testimony to Kenya's journey- she is returning to the gift of music after being away from the craft (having a family and career as a physical therapist and educator). Kenya truly feels blessed to have this remarkable rebirth.

How do you describe your music to people, Kenya?
Soulful, soothing, contemporary groove...a blend of r&b..."good" music!

Tell me about how you originally got into your craft.
I began singing and playing the flute at 8 y/o.  My father is a percussionist and introduced mostly jazz and soul music when I was much younger than 8.  By 13 y/o I was singing in citywide choirs and then began piano lessons.  From there, I became very active in the arts in school.

What is your favorite thing to do in the whole wide world?
Finding a very quiet moment to myself and searching for the most obscure, delicious music ever!  I can spend hours doing this, which is a rarity given I'm a mommy, musician, wife, etc...  Another favorite thing to do is having long, deep discussions with my husband about relationships, spirituality, and simply living your best life.  Our marriage has really evolved and it's incredibly fulfilling simply having profound discussions.

What is your biggest challenge when it comes to running your business?
Being a new independent artist, the better question is what is NOT the biggest challenge!  I love music and the creative process, so it's very easy to become overly absorbed, leaving a small space for balance.  My goal is not to have the business control me, but rather me control my business.

When you were a kid, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be so many things...a child psychologist, lawyer, even a soap opera actress!!  I always dreamed of singing and doing music, but never imagined it being actualized.  I now understand with faith and belief in oneself, dreams truly can become reality.

In what way has your community impacted your development as a musician?
I have always been drawn to and surrounded by people who are in the arts.  My village of close family and friends are filled with musicians, artists, poets, writers, etc.  Similarly, the areas I've felt most comfortable living in are cosmopolitan, urban regions that are filled with artistic culture.  Living in Chicago now gives a wonderful balance of having access to producing and performing music while also creating a good family life.

What other artists out there do you love?
This is always a fun question because there are so many artists I love. Some of my ultimates are Stevie Wonder, Lalah Hathaway, Jazzanova, Incognito, The Foriegn  Exchange (I think Nicolay is brilliant!), Brand New Heavies, Beady Belle, Janita, Rasmus Faber, John Mayer, Jill Scott, Lisa Fischer, Ledisi....the list really is endless.  Each of these artists not only are incredible performers, but they are incredibly progressive with their music.  They take risks while still being true to their craft and who they are as artists.

What does your future hold?
Hmmm.....I think the future holds infinite possibilities.  I pray that songwriting is where my career will land and stay on solid ground. But, at this point, I simply want to create good music and share it the way so many wonderful artists have shared their music with me.

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