Concrete Magazine Nashville 53 by CONCRETE Magazine

concrete615.com 6-8 ........................... Yo Gotti 10 .................... Fate Eastwood 14 ................... Music Reviews 18 ................ Nashville 10: Honey 20 .................. Drupy / DJ Ceven 24 ......................... Money Layne 28-30 .....................DJ Holiday Publisher: Capo Ad Executives: Capo Art Director: Rex2-tm Nash 10 Photography: Tavell Brown Photography: Tavell Brown DJ Holiday Photography: Charles M Robinson Publishing Consultant: Bryan Deese

CONCRETE Magazine twitter - @CONCRETE615 concretecapo@gmail.com ÂŠ CONCRETE Magazine 2013

CONCRETE: You’ve recently signed a huge multi-tier distribution deal with Epic Records. What does that mean for you and your record label CMG? Yo Gotti: The partnership between CMG and Epic and the opportunity to work with L.A. Reid and the whole team put my label on a pedestal to where we are able to compete with the best. I still have a independent mind frame. Meaning I get up everyday and work towards my goal. I’ll be like that forever. The partnership and what we’ve done so far has proven its working. The ﬁrst record we put out “Act Right” was a top 10 record. I think it’s a good look for me and my team. CONCRETE: You currently have the Nov.19th mixtape out as promo for the I Am album. Are the songs on that mixtape songs that did’nt make the album? Yo Gotti: Nah the mixtape was something for me to give the streets. Let them know there’s an album coming out. When I do mix tapes I’m just having fun, just touching on what’s going on at the moment. I got to heat the streets up ‘til the album comes. CONCRETE: So the album I Am is due for release November 19th. What can the fans expect from this project? Yo Gotti: The album is going to be real put together. It’s going to be a classic. We got some club bangers and street bangers that your use to hearing from me as we’ll as those records that show growth like “Act Right” and “King Shit”. We are showing the growth at the same time keeping the core audience. CONCRETE: Any features that you can speak on? Yo Gotti: I worked with everybody TIP, Jeezy, YG, J Cole, Wale, Ne-Yo, Ross and Wayne. I’m still picking some of the last records to make the album so I’m not sure what others will make it. The ones I spoke on are the ones I know are locked in. CONCRETE: Who are some of the producers on the album? Yo Gotti: I worked with Toomp and Drumma drama but I got a lot of new producers on this album. I feel like they are hungry. continued on page 8

CONCRETE: “Act Right” has a strong Bay Area sound. How did that record come about and what made you want to tackle a west coast sound? Yo Gotti: I always try to be natural with the expression. I never plan to go after a certain sound like that. I don’t sit there and say I’m gonna go after a West Coast beat. I just don’t make music like that. I was actually in LA working on my album and had producers coming in and out the studio all day. Soon as I heard the beat I liked it and immediately went in on it. From LA I went to Atlanta and was playing records for Jeezy and he jumped on it. That’s how the record came about. It was all natural and an expression of what I was feeling at the time. It can never be thought out to the point where your trying to get on a “this” style of beat or “that” style of beat. CONCRETE: What would you say is the key to being a succeseful indie artist? Yo Gotti: Believe in yourself. Then work like you believe in yourself. A lot of people say they believe in their selves but their actions show different. You can’t be afraid to spend money. You can’t be afraid to spend time. You can’t be afraid to chase your goal. No matter what anybody tells you, no one should know you or where your going more than you. CONCRETE: What was that moment you decided this is something I want to do as a career? Yo Gotti: I always had the talent I just wasn’t using it. I was in the streets hustling and trying to provide for my family. Once I seen I made some music people where connecting to and it was turning into a way for me to provide for my family I didn’t have the time to hit the streets and hustle.

CONCRETE: You’ve worked with a number of local artist but you also worked with national artist like Yo Gotti. What’s that like? Fate Eastwood: Gotti is a super creative person. He isn’t an average artist he will take the most basic record and turn it into a club banger or an anthem. He took a record that I had, that I felt was just a plain record and put Lil Wayne and Birdman on it. Gotti is smart as hell and super talented. I feel good working with him cause he brings a whole different energy and vibe to what I do. CONCRETE: You recently moved back from Atlanta. What made you move there? Fate Eastwood: Opportunity. Just the chance to work with a lot of different people and a lot of different genres. There was way more opportunity in Atlanta for my type of music. CONCRETE: Having had a taste of the Atlanta life now coming back home, how do you feel about the local Nashville scene? Has it changed since you left? Fate Eastwood: I love Nashville. The hip-hop scene is coming around where people can be their self. A lot of people weren’t doing that at first, but I think that’s the style of music now. Everybody is pretty much being their self. They don’t have to be what they see on TV. CONCRETE: What was your first big break that established you as a producer in this industry? Fate Eastwood: I think it was back in the day with the Bezzeled Gang. I did a record called “South Be Ballin” and I think that kind of just established it for me. CONCRETE: What’s some of the projects we can expect to hear you on that may be coming out soon? Fate Eastwood: You can hear me on The Architect Architect. That’s a project I dropped a while back on LiveMixtapes. The Step Brothers 2 project which was a lot of fun cause working with Lito and Trip is like throwing a steak in a cage full of lions and seeing what happens. I will give them a beat disc, and let them go to work. I was also in the studio with Gotti and may have placement on his I AM album. CONCRETE: How do you find great samples to use? Fate Eastwood: Im a crate digger. Ill spend all day in a record store buying crates and crates of stuff. I might be anywhere and hear some thing. I use a lot of Sound Hound. One day I was in Kroger and I heard a song, it’s actually a record on the Step Brothers album. But I heard it in Kroger and was like damn that shit is dope, so I Sound Hounded it, went home and made it. Star ended up coming to the studio that same day. I pulled it up and I wasn’t even done with it but soon as he heard it he was like, “I need that.”

Corona Bois - Toast To The Champions

Corona Bois and DJ Smallz bring you Toast To The Champions. There’s a lot of stuntin’ and money talk going down on this album. The Corona Bois spit catchy hooks over trunk bangers. The song “Work It” features Bebe the Body and is a straight strip club record. That’s not all they speak on. “Death To My Memories” is a in depth look into their time deployed defending our country and the impact it had on their lives. Great work on delivering a quality project.

Drupy - Pop World 2

This is a extremely well rounded album. It should be classiﬁed as a new genre called Hip Pop. Drupy shows his growth as an artist by mixing the perfect blend of hip-hop, rock, pop and R&B records. Songs like “Pop World”, “International Man” and “In The Air” are uptempo club records that you wouldn’t expect to hear a rapper on. Some how Drupy makes it happen. Don’t get confused this album isn’t all high end fashion, expensive art and trips to Europe. Drupy reminds the listeners he is still a MC at heart on “Epic” and “WTF”. The album features Chancellor Warhol, Beta Pop, Kyle Lampi, Fyutch, Ducko McFli, Layne Harper and more.

Black Catﬁsh - Ocean View

Black Catfish have been teasing their fans long enough while building anticipation for their Ocean View project. Well they didn’t let us down. The trio teamed up with Atlanta’s own DJ Holiday to take this project to the next level. This is one of those albums that rides from start to finish. The album doesn’t have a bunch of features and its not filled with DJ Holiday yelling over every song.The single off the project is “Been There Done That” featuring Rich Boy. It’s 15 tracks of dope production, creative word play and over all strong records. This deserves a spot in your playlist. Salute for creating a TN Classic.

Mont - Greatness In The Making

Mont may be new on the scene to some of us, but one listen to this project and you can tell music is nothing new to him. He starts out ﬂexing his lyrical muscle on “God Of Rap”. With strong punch lines and a mean delivery, Mont catches your attention in the ﬁrst minute. On “Addicted To Hustlin”, he goes in depth over a sample-based track. It’s about the come up in the dope game and getting addicted to the money. “On My Way” is his motivational single. The kind of record you play while getting ready to go get it. Mont’s paints a perfect picture while Robin Raynelle lends her amazing voice for the hook.

Johnny Cashville - American Rebel

Johnny Cashville gives us a look into the world of white trash trailer park living. All though he seems to be making fun of the life style he also embraces it for those who really live it. Johnny Cashville has never been an artist to bite his tongue and he didn’t start on this album. Going in over super dope production Johnny Cashville keeps you nodding with his clever and some what comedic punch lines as he delivers that “Straight Raw” for all his ﬁends, erghh fans. American Rebel is some of his best work yet. Go Down Load your copy today.

Karim - Piece Of Mind

Listening to Karim’s album Piece Of Mind is like owning a copy of his diary. The production is top notch and complements his style as if they were made for each other. Karim’s got a little something for everybody. On the song “Guilty” he pores his heart out over a soulful sample with a deep piano playing in the distance. Tracks like “Stop Me Now” and “Gibberish” featuring Young Quael will have you bobbing your head and ready to turn up.

photo: Tavell Brown, Brown Photography

Hometown: Shreveport, LA Turn on: The ability to hold a relevant conversation and Burberry Touch Cologne Turn off: Ugly feet, bad breath and a tacky fashion sense Favorite Designer: Christian Louboutin Three artists in your iPod: Miguel, Elle Varner and Wale

CONCRETE: Can you tell us about your new project? Drupy: Yeah, I got the LSD2 (Lake Shore Drive) project coming out on Halloween. It features Chancellor Warhol, Kaby, Fluid Outrage pretty much every body that’s everybody is on there. Production from Ducko and Syk Synse. I’m also working with Peter Keys from Lynard Skynard. CONCRETE: Peter Keys? How did that come about? Drupy: Well I’ve been working with a producer by the name of Sean Giovanni. They were in the studio working on Peter’s music and some how one of my songs came on and he was like, “Who is this? Is this someone local?” Then he texted me out of the blue like “It’s Peter Keys. I want to work with you. Come by the studio so I can meet you. I haven’t had a young muse in a long time especially one that can cross over.” He said, “We have a production deal with Universal /WB. With the right music we can walk you in there and get a deal done.” I said why not. I’ve been doing this too long to not have someone that truly believes in me. That’s what I realized its all about, you investing your own money and have a group of people that truly believe in you. CONCRETE: What other projects are you helping with this year? Drupy: Man this year I’ve grown exponentially. A whole bunch of different things have happened this year. I added a DJ and solidiﬁed my situation with my band. I also brought in a new artist by the name of Tanya Ali, and we are doing this whole Fli Gang movement. We are going to follow up after my project with DJ Ceven’s compilation and then Tanya Ali’s debut solo album. We are suppose to be doing the Soul Train Awards. SESAC has sponsored a tour for me, and that will be coming the last couple of months of this year. Also I’ll be releasing some new videos for “What The Fuck”, “Red Bottoms” and “Kanye”.

CONCRETE: How would you categorize yourself as a DJ? DJ Cevan: Im a party DJ cause I want people to party and have a good time but Im also a Technical Dj I can get down with the scratching and mixing as well. CONCRETE: Your currently getting ready to drop the Fly Gang EP, Tell us what we can expect from that. DJ Cevan: The Fli Gang EP is just the entire movement. You got me, Drupy, Tanya Ali and Big Kev, we are getting back to that real hip-hop. A lot of music has lost its lyrics. That’s what we are getting back to the essence of hip-hop. After this project me and Drupy are going to be dropping a project called I’m ’m the Rapper, He’s a DJ paying homage to the classic duo’s Eric B Rakim, Gangstarr etc.

CONCRETE: Where are you from and how did you get your start in music? Money Layne: Im originally from Grundy County, Tenn just a real country town in the mountains about an hour out side of Nashville. I started rapping at a young age, and I got hooked up with some cats out of Mcminnville. We started a group called the Cartel which turned into the Cartel Fam. We started recording with Tim Hill and been dropping music ever since. CONCRETE: How would you define yourself as an artist? Money Layne: Well I speak about my life. Everything you hear me say you can go back and do the research and find out it actually happened to me. Your not going to hear me rapping about riding in my lamborghini unless my homeboy has a lamborghini then I’m going say I’m ridding in my homeboy’s lamborghini. I believe in the realness of what I write, I believe in that a lot. CONCRETE: We recently heard that you came across a new situation can you speak on that? Money Layne: Yeah, about a year ago I ran into my first manager Clayton. He has a company called Automatic Fame. He caught wind of my music and sent it to his boss Dre Jackson. So I ended up signing a small deal with Dre Jackson’s company which is called 613MC. So the past year he has had me on a college tour with Nappy Roots, Crime Mobb and Juvenile and a few Rich Boy shows also. Its been working out for me. CONCRETE: So with your current situation do you still have creative control over your music? Money Layne: Most definitely. My album has really been done for a while. I’ve always had total control over my music. The only thing that changed is now I have a team. They make suggestions, ask questions and really work with me. Like I said, all the music was really already done, we just went back in and added stuff to it like live instruments. I just added some live violins to a track. So it’s been pretty crazy. CONCRETE: Whats the title of the album and what can we expect on it? Money Layne: It’s titled Under Estimated. We don’t have an exact drop date. But the first single is called “My City” and it features Princess from Crime Mobb and B. Stille from Nappy Roots. It’s already done, we are just working on shooting the video now. The first single already got picked up by E1 Distribution formally known as Koch. So hopefully it catches like wild fire.

CONCRETE: How did you get your start in radio? DJ Holiday: My homie Stix Malone, one of my business partners sat back and watched me for a long time doing clubs and stuff like that in Atlanta. Then he brought me up as a intern at Hot 107.9 a few years back. I pretty much just ran around and got coffee and sat back like a ﬂy on the wall. I watched DJ Drama and those guys when they got their radio shows there. I watched what to do and what not to do and how to critique certain things and put myself in a better position to break records. It blossomed into a situation where I knew a guy named Steven Hegwood, who is my boss now on Streetz 94.5, and he always told me to work hard and he would give me an opportunity of a lifetime. So right before I was about to take a job in New York on satellite radio, he asked me if I wanted to do 6 to 10 in my own city. I was like, ‘Man how could you pass up on that?’ Being able for your Mom, your grandparents and all my peers to listen to me every day on the radio, that’s like a lifetime achievment to me. CONCRETE: How did you get your start as a DJ? DJ Holiday: I got my start as a DJ in college around 2005. I was throwing my own parties just doing it for all the local fraternities and sororities. It bloomed into a situation where I wanted to throw my own parties,DJ my own parties and host my own parties, it just kinda blew up from there. I left college around 2006, I moved back to Atlanta with my Mom for a couple of months and just grinded it out. I started my promtional company Plushable Entertainment. We threw our own parties and the success of it just grew and grew, being at high demand is when all the artist came. CONCRETE: When did you realize you wanted to DJ as a carrer? DJ Holiday: I think when I ﬁrst got a check for the record “Bricks” with Gucci Mane, Yo Gotti and Young Ralph. When I seen that coming and getting consistant from throwing parties every week, I was like, “Yo I can pay my bills with this.” What’s funny is me and my guys, we used to sit back and talk about, “Man what if someone would give us a thousand dollars to do something.” Now a thousand isn’t even close to what it should be. So that’s an exciting feeling to dream about something and it comes true.

CONCRETE: You recently droped the single “Miley” with Waka Flocka. How did that record come about? DJ Holiday: Me and Waka are always thinking of new ideas to keep the movement going. He hit me and told me he had a dope ass track. I told him I was looking for something to drop for summertime to get the movement going for the records I’m about to start dropping. He had a perfect record, so I told him I’m a fan of Wiz Khalifa. I hit Wiz and told him I had a dope ass track I wanted to put out as my single. A lot of people thought they was beeﬁn’, but they wasn’t. They had already squashed that. Actually it being called “Miley” was Trinidad James idea. I played it for him in the head phones when he came to do his interview, and he told me I should name it that. You can download it on iTunes right now. I’m excited man. It’s going to be a big record. CONCRETE: Can we expect any other singles? DJ Holiday: Of course, the next single is called “Flexin” featuring T.I., Meek Mill and Future. Another record with Problem,Wiz Khalifa,Too Short and Snoop Dogg and another record with Rich Homie Quan, 2 Chainz and August Alsina. I got some hits, so if your a fan of the mixtape brand and anything the Commision does then you’ll be ready for these records. CONCRETE: Can we expect an album soon? DJ Holiday: I’m dropping singles, and I’m very excited, but right now we are just enjoying the independent grind of putting out big-ass songs and putting dope visuals to them and building my brand nationwide bigger than the mixtapes, bigger than the radio or club appearances. The possibility of an album could come, but I’m not doing that until I’m ready. I’m just gonna keep dropping hit after hit and build anticipation, so when we are at the point where I know everybody wants an album I’m going to give them one. CONCRETE: You recently DJed the BET HipHop awards. What was that like and how did that situation come about? DJ Holiday: I DJed the BET HipHop awards for the third time this year. It was excellent. I had a good time.Shout out to Steven Hill, Debra Lee and everybody over there for reaching out to me and respecting the brand and knowing when you come to the city you have to rock with somebody like myself to represent the DJs in my city. It feels good to be held in that light, to be a DJ and represent for the city. And it’s just such a big stage at the BET Hip-Hop Awards. continued on next page