G. Love and manager speak to music majors
Emily Beaulac
Issue date: 2/17/06 Section: Entertainment
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G. Love and manager Jason Brown spoke to a classroom of about 40 students. Brown discussed his experience as an artist manager in the Music Business, and the differences between working for a major label and an independent label. G. Love talked about his career as a musician, then gave the group a live performance of the Eric B. and Rakim song that inspired his musical style.
After the discussion, G. Love did a short interview with The Triangle about the industry, his music and his plans for the future:
?: What parts of the music industry do you love, and what about it drives you crazy?
G. Love: The best part of it is getting to play. The best part is playing music. The worse part is … airplanes. I mean, I like to travel but the physical part of traveling becomes kind of a grind. And, dealing with the business sometimes is frustrating. The reward is always a good show or a good recording session. That's the best high.
?: When did you first get your "break" as a musician and start getting noticed by people?
G: Well, I started as a street musician in Philadelphia, and then I moved to Boston to do it. And then I got some gigs, which led me to meeting my drummer. And, we put the band together; that was in '93. And from the time of the first practice to signing a record deal was nine months. We met in December of '92 and then by the fall of '93 we signed a deal with Epic Records and then released our record spring of '94. It all happened pretty quick.
If you're outside the music business, you're a million light years away from it. I kind of relate it to a party. The minute they invite you to the party, you go there. But, once you get in it's a very small and incestuous world. Then there are different stages of being in that party, you can be one of the people that just knows where the party is, kind of waiting at the velvet rope to get in. Or, you can be one of the people that gets in, then there's all kinds of V.I.P. rooms inside that you can make it in to.
?: How did you begin playing your unique style of music?
G: One night when I was playing out on the street, I was playing just an acoustic blues rhythm, and I started rapping the Eric B. and Rakim song "Paid in Full" over it, and that was when it kind of clicked for me. That was when all the music I was immersed in as a kid kind of combined, from being a folk singer and a blues man, to being a kid that grew up not far from here in the city and wrote graffiti and listened to the Beastie Boys and L.L. Cool J. It all kind of collided.
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