@Anyextee @AmalgamDigital CEO/Founder Executive Interview With #hiphoplt. / @SilkaSosa
byHipHopOnDeck
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Amalgam Digital CEO Anyextee Decides To Become a Rap Artist Check Out His Executive Interview With #hiphoplt.
Amalgam Digital
The founder and owner of Amalgam Digital talks the history of his record label.
Since starting his music imprint more than seven years ago, Next (now known as Anyextee) has come a long way. He helped to resuscitate the careers of Joe Budden, Lil B, and Curren$y, dropped new records from veterans, like Kurious, Juggaknots, and Tash, and introduced the world to Max B.
Despite of all the glitz and glamour, Next knows that running an independent record label isn’t easy. He has had his share of drama. He engaged in a dispute with Joe Budden who accused Next of blocking the Slaughterhouse/Shady deal in 2010. He witnessed Lil B on the verge of stardom not promoting his record. And he felt the backlash from the newly signed up-and-coming artists.
Next addresses all of this in the interview and drops some exclusive stories. He says that Amalgam has actually sold Max B’s catalog and that it’s going to take two years before the former Dipset spitter can do anything about his sentence. Next also recalls signing Joe Budden and Lil B, reveals that he was offered to release the first Slaughterhouse LP, and describes his upcoming solo album where he uses Cymatics, scientifically proved sounds and frequencies that have positive impacts on human body.
How did the idea for the record label come to you in 2006?
It came to me much earlier. I started DJing in the late 80’s and have been around hip hop ever since. It grew into selling mixtapes and participating in small independent record labels and distribution companies. By 2006, I already had some experience and was thinking about the future and where the things are headed. This made me start Amalgam Digital.
I was good with selling physical products like CD’s, DVD’s, and vinyls and was looking at the way of doing things digitally. I wanted to create a unique model that would basically become hip hop’s first digital store, record label, and distribution company so it would be all-in-one – a self-efficient and stand alone independent entity.
Did you immediately start signing artists?
Yes, but the bigger names, like Joe Budden, came later on.
At first, I tried to answer Nas’ questions “Where are they now?” I would go out and find artists that I grew up listening in the 90’s. I would acquire the rights to reissue their original records, and we would eventually put out their new albums, too. We did that with Juggaknots, Kurious, Tame One of The Artifacts, and Tash. We were doing this for several years.
Then by 2007, we wanted to take things to the next level. I picked two artists that I wanted to sign – Max B for his street rep and Joe Budden for his internet presence.
We initially wanted to get Treach of Naughty by Nature. We had these underground, conscious hip hop artists signed to the label and with Treach we saw the opportunity to get songs on the radio. We wanted to build a brand because the label was symbiotically working with The Platform, a digital store to sell music from independent artists. We knew that if we had a popular artist signed to the label, the attention we would get would help us to sell products from other artists. We imagined that with Treach we could do big songs and potentially get some radio play. But Treach was filming movies at the time so we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to work in terms of scheduling that, the touring and promoting the records.
We however made this New Jersey connection to the point that we came up with Joe Budden for Treach’s place. Joe used to be on Def Jam. He had a sort of cult following but hadn’t done much since ’03 and “Pump It Up”.
Max B came from Dame Grease who we were already working with. He took us to Harlem and introduced us to Max. This is right as he was starting to break away from Dipset and Jim Jones, trying to create his own movement. It just made sense for us to get together. It was a good platform for Max at the time.
Where did you see Max B and Joe Budden going with their careers?
Joe was already successful with a major label. He was a former Grammy nominee and had sold many records. But we felt that there was a disconnect between him and his fanbase. We believed that fans liked him for his introspective lyrics so we wanted to take Joe and rebuild him independently.
It was very similar with Max who has a God-given talent. He possesses that X factor. Immediately after meeting him, you could feel his energy and see his determination. You knew he was going to get big.
What’s the story behind signing Lil B?
I met him at SXSW when he was 16 years old. This is right when he was starting out with The Pack. I told Lil B that I was going to start a new-age internet hip-hop record label and that we’re going to take things into a new direction with the on-line store, digital only albums, viral videos, and live webcams. That sparked his interest.
He pulled me aside and said that he wanted to do a solo album. In the next few months we had several conversations, went back and forth but were unable to move because he had legal obligations to Too $hort. We maintained the relationship throughout the years, though, and I kept talking to him about what we’re going to do on the internet and how important of a tool it was to build your presence. He took it to heart and ran with the idea. When Lil B was blowing up, he had numerous YouTube and MySpace pages. His approach was very untraditional.
When The Pack disbanded, we were ready to move. He was standing on his own, willing to be a solo artist. We signed him for a two-album deal.
The first project we did with him was “Angels Exodus”. We put it together, brought him out to New York, set up the release party, and got everything ready. He never got behind the record because his buzz started to take off. Next thing you knew, he was on the cover of The Fader, getting a lot of attention. We were there, working behind the scenes to help him blow up. But he was suddenly so big that a lot of different labels were talking to him, questioning why he’s signed to an independent company. It got to the point that he didn’t mention that he was signed and had a deal with Amalgam because he felt it might prevent him from taking other opportunities down the road.
We were gearing up towards having a really big push for Lil B. We dropped “Angels Exodus”, and he never promoted it. Nobody really knew it was out. He dropped three videos that were not album related. It was very disappointing. He was the same guy who came to us and was excited about the situation and strived to get a deal and represent the brand. I remember that when he signed on, he wanted the whole building behind him and aimed to be Amalgam’s flagship artist.
After that, he started working on his second album which was initially called “Glassface” but then it changed to “I’m Gay”. Amalgam has always given most of the creative control to the artists. Obviously, there’s something that we need to fit the business model but generally we support whatever the artist wants to do. Lil B made a whole bunch of statements and has done a lot of unconventional moves in the game. We backed him 100%. We chose to sign him so it only made sense. We endorsed everything he did.
Looking back, is there anybody you wish you’d signed?
Yeah, Big K.R.I.T. (laughs). We were on the cusp of signing him before he got his deal. He’s the one I truly regret not doing a deal with.
At the time we were pulling off the Curren$y stuff and we just signed an artist in Boston called Young Riot. We were kind of in a transition period. We’re going to open an office in Atlanta and we wanted to wait so the office is open before we sign Big K.R.I.T. We’re focused on working with Young Riot and K.R.I.T. didn’t want to wait. He had another situation come up with Cinematic Music and ended up taking that. They did really well together. I’m happy for his success.
What did you take out of the whole Shady/Slaughterhouse situation where you were accused of blocking the deal for Joe?
Joe and I have had our history. It’s public knowledge that we got into a Twitter beef. After a while of working together, it became evident that Joe and Amalgam were having some issues. The story with Slaughterhouse went like this.
I was approached first with their record. They asked me if we wanted to sign Slaughterhouse to Amalgam. I turned it down. In fact, the day I declined the offer is the day they ended up signing paperwork with E1. It was a great move for E1 because they hadn’t been putting out that many great records at the time. I had the president of E1 call me, trying to do a deal for Joe with us. He saw what we were doing and congratulated us when we released Joe’s album because “Padded Room” was very successful, especially coming from a label like Amalgam. It charted on Billboard. Along with Curren$y’s record, it was one of our biggest sellers.
But I turned the Slaughterhouse record down because the label was already experiencing problems with Joe and his manager. So instead of dealing with one artist and one manager we would be dealing with four artists and four managers. That didn’t look good. It was important for us to move forward. Last thing we wanted was to get stuck with Joe and experience the same problems all over again.
I knew some of the guys, though, like Joell Ortiz. I put out his first CD in ’02. It’s a little known fact but before Joell was signed to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath, he had an independent street CD called “Who the Fuck Is Joell Ortiz?” We pressed that up and put it out. And the first Slaughterhouse song was actually birthed on Amalgam; it appeared on Joe’s “Halfway House”.
Max B’s appeal was denied last year. What is his situation like?
His appeal was denied, however it doesn’t mean that there’s no possibility of him getting out. We’re looking at every possibility there is for him to be free again.
Most recently, we sold Max B’s catalog to a company in New York. It’s part of the plan to get him out. It’s a bigger company with enough resources to put together a legal team we always wanted. I wasn’t a fan of Max’s legal representation. As a friend, I have advised Max to let us find him new lawyers in New Jersey. Amalgam was willing to pay the bill, but he had a relationship with [lawyer Gerald M.] Saluti and that’s who he chose to go with.
I was there with him during the trial. I would drive everyday back and forth from Boston to New Jersey to watch it. I saw it all go down. I was disappointed with his legal representation. But now we sold his catalog, and this company will bring the financial resources to get him out. Nothing is definitive, but it’s looking like it’s going to take two years to go through [before anything happens].
Did you expect that he was going to get such a high sentence?
I didn’t. When we first signed him, we were unaware of that situation and we ran into other legal issues with Max. Our original plan was to put out Max B’s album “Vigilante Season” back in ‘08. Right when we’re about to release the record, we get a cease and desist letter from Jim Jones. We wanted to take every legal precaution and spent two years battling Jim Jones in court up to the point that we actually won and the judge ordered all the rights to go back to Amalgam. Once we get this situation sorted out, Max gets locked up over the other situation. We didn’t really see that coming.
I invested in Max, we built a plan together. I could see his star quality from miles away. It was evident that this guy was big. His presence is still felt as you can hear his influence in some of the songs they play on the radio today.
