Be on the look out for my NEW album, “Organized Chaos,” available July 19, 2011!
So check it out: I made a video of myself rapping Busta Rhymes’ part from “Look at Me Now” to prove to people that it’s not all that hard to do. Check out the video below:
-A.P.T.
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I’m a guy who likes to dream big dreams.
When I moved to Atlanta almost 3 years ago, I had a dream of getting my song played on radio. 1.5 years later, my “Obama Milli Remix” song got real popular, and played on radio stations worldwide.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to get my song to iTunes at the time, so it didn’t quite register on the charts.
Now that I DO know how to do all that, I have one mission for the summer: to get one of my songs to the top of the Billboard and iTunes charts.
Right now, my song “No U Aint” is getting the most favorable reaction – everyone I’ve played it for/every person who’s seen me perform it loves the song. The beat (produced by ATL’s own K.K.O.F.) is infectious, the lyrics are sing-songy, and it’s a sentiment everyone can relate to.
I WANT THIS SONG TO GET TO #1, PEOPLE!
As I have found, when you speak things into the universe, they tend to happen. Therefore, I’m saying it right now: “NO U AINT” WILL be a #1 song on the charts this year.
I don’t know how I’m going to get it done, but it’s going to happen. I’m going to push the heck out of the song and send it to every radio station I can, and perform it at every venue I perform at until DJs start spinning it regularly and it starts to catch on. But mark my words, it WILL be a hit.
So, how can you help? Easy:
This is going to happen. It has to – it’s been typed out for the whole world to see. Let’s do it, people!
-A.P.T.
Drake’s upcoming album, “Thank Me Later,” leaked. I’ve heard the album, and decided to review it. So, what did I think? Watch the video and find out!
You can also order your very own “No U Ain’t” t-shirts for $20 (available in all sizes, in 5 different colors including Gold & Purple for all you LAKERS fans!!) – write me at Aaron@APTsongs.com and I’ll send you the order link! Get it today, and help spread the “No U Ain’t” movement!
Oh yeah – Take a listen to A.P.T.’s NEWEST hit song, “No U Ain’t,” from the upcoming album, “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back!” (Out June 8, 2010)
To get your copy for .99 cents, click HERE (iTunes Link) or HERE (Amazon.com Link)! (Works on ALL MP3 players including iPods)
-A.P.T.
BTW: My album, “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back,” comes out June 8!
Now that the creating of my album is winding down, I’m starting to think of other ways I can make money.
A wise man once said, “The best way to become rich is to figure out a way you can help a large group of people, then charge them for it.” In other words, the more people you can help out, the more money you are apt to make.
Why, you ask?
Eh, who really knows. I think it has something to do with the fact that as you help more people, they start asking for more ways you can help them, and are usually willing to GIVE you money for doing so.
I’ve experienced this myself before. Most recently, I agreed to help some colleges of mine advertise their “No U Aint” t-shirts by making a song/anthem to the slogan so that they could make some money. Granted, by making the song I figured I’d be able to make money off the sales of it, but I wasn’t in any way looking to profit off the shirt sales. Despite this fact, they said I’d receive a profit off every shirt I helped sell.
Ultimately, it all goes back to the law of reciprocity: if you do something good for someone, they will usually want to do good to you so things will be balanced.
With all that said, I’ve been thinking about what kind of blog I could create that would (a) give people a positive outlook for their day, and (b) become popular enough to get me internet attention from publishers so I could make some money selling books. I’ve seen a couple of people become successful doing this (i.e. “Stuff White People Like” and “1000 Awesome Things”), so I know it’s possible. I actually had a blog a couple years ago that I did this with called “Why I’m NEVER Having Kids,” but it’s kinda hard to think of reasons I don’t like kids on a daily basis, especially seeing as I do my best to stay away from them.
So, I’ll have to think of some other idea that I can blog about and get rich off of. I know I definitely want it to be beneficial to people, but it also has to be something that has a catchy title, will make people want to pass it on to others, and is not so “me” focused like this blog is (which, of course, it has to be since it’s all about self-promotion).
In the meantime, though, the album – “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back!” – comes out June 8th!
-A.P.T.
Only 2 more weeks until the album drops!
In the meantime, I’m doing all I can to get the word out. Right now, that means focusing on two very important things: radio play and performances.
Of those two things, the “radio play” aspect is usually the trickiest. There are people who will say things like, “Oh, you can’t get radio play because (insert one of the following reasons here: ‘you’re not signed to a label that can submit it;’ ‘radio stations don’t play songs solicited by the artist himself;’ ‘they only play the same 20 songs, so getting your song played is going to be hard’).”
Of course, when people say this to me, they forget they’re talking to someone who had their song played globally without even TRYING to submit it to a radio station. And as the old saying goes, “I did it before, and I can do it again!”
The song I’m pushing for radio play right now is “No U Ain’t.” In my mind, radio stations SHOULD play my song because it’s a no-brainer. It’s a hot song, one that people can chant along to; lyrically, it’s not so difficult that people can’t memorize the words; people can relate to the sentiment of the song (namely, that someone who’s lying to them about how successful they are should be told the truth to their face – i.e. “No U Ain’t!”); the beat, courtesy of K.K.O.F., is a straight BANGER; and – most importantly – it’s got a T-shirt to go with it! With all of those elements, ANY radio station should be more than willing to play it.
All it takes it just ONE station to play it just ONE time. It’s like that first domino – once it gets pushed down, all the other ones tend to follow suit.
In the meantime, though, I’m well into the second aspect, performing. I performed some of my new two Saturdays ago and got a GREAT response. My next performance will be Sunday night at one of my friends’ birthday parties. Whereas the last performance was more of a “get back out there and start performing” show, THIS one is going to be even better. More people in the audience = more people being exposed to me and the song. I’m making CD copies of the single to pass out (the single will have a mini-sample of some of the other songs I have on iTunes as well), and my ultimate hope is that I’m able to get requests for more performances after this one. Plus, people will get to see me wearing the shirt, which will mean more people will want to buy it.
Beyond that, the rest of it is just recording and getting my stuff ready for the release date on June 8th!
-A.P.T.
Check out this EXCLUSIVE preview of a NEW A.P.T. song, “No U Ain’t,” from the upcoming album, “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back!” (Out June 8, 2010)
You can also get your very own “No U Ain’t” t-shirts (available in all sizes, in 5 different colors) for $20 – to inquire, write me at Aaron@APTsongs.com. Order yours today, and help spread the “No U Ain’t” movement!
-A.P.T.
Greetings!
For those of you who weren’t able to catch me on uStream yesterday, here is the full 24:35 video of that session. In the video, I talk about the inspiration for the NEW album, “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back” (out June 8), plus I give you a sneak peak into some of the beats used for the album, as well as an EXCLUSIVE preview of a never-before-heard track.
Oh yeah – in case you’re wondering how I was able to post up a uStream video into a wordpress blog… well, I’ll save that for another blog. Enjoy the video!
-A.P.T.
JOIN ME ON USTREAM TUESDAY, MAY 18TH 2010 AT 4:30 PM PACIFIC (7:30 PM EASTERN), FOR A LIVE DISCUSSION ABOUT MY NEW ALBUM,
“THE OBAMA MILLI REMIX GUY STRIKES BACK!” Follow me at http://www.ustream.tv/aptsongs
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I performed on Saturday! It was great!
Yep, after 4 long months, I finally emerged from my cocoon to perform at the Zabumba Bar and Restaurant in Culver City. I invited some of my friend to come see me a few days before…
…and then it dawned on me that I needed to actually practice before going on stage!
So, I spent two days practicing with T. Whistle (a.k.a. my performing partner-in-crime) to make sure we had the songs and stage movements down. By the time Saturday evening came, my voice was starting to go a bit, so I drank a LOT of tea and saved my voice for the performance.
But I digress! It was great! About 13 of my friends showed up – most of whom had gone to Hampton with me, so it was like a mini-reunion – and I was the opening act. I got up on stage and RIPPED through a couple of songs from my already released album, “Attack of the Obama Milli Remix Guy!” – “What Had Happen Was” and “Obama Milli Remix” – before getting into two songs off the NEW album, “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back!” – “I Knock Your Lights Out” and “No U Ain’t.”
The crowd was energetic, the ladies were pretty hot, and by the end of each song they were all chanting the choruses – a good sign that I’m on the right path in terms of song creation.
Now that I’ve performed, though, I’m actually eager to do it in some more places. It’s definitely good promo for the album – coming out June 8 – and it’s just fun to be able to get on stage and rock out!
That’s all for now – be sure to join me tomorrow on uStream, where I’ll be discussing particulars of the album. I’m OUT!
-A.P.T.
JOIN ME ON USTREAM TUESDAY, MAY 18TH 2010, FOR A LIVE DISCUSSION ABOUT MY NEW ALBUM,
“THE OBAMA MILLI REMIX GUY STRIKES BACK!” Follow me at http://www.ustream.tv/aptsongs
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As you can see from the big-@$$ advertisement that sits above this sentence, my NEW album, “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back,” is coming out on June 8th.
Ideally, I would LIKE for the album to show up at iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, and other retail outlets on the same day. However, it’s very well possible that the album could end up at those stores either BEFORE that date, or afterward.
The service that I use to get my songs to iTunes – Tunecore – gives a list of what online retailers they send your music to, as well as how long it takes for each site to actually have your songs LIVE in their system. The amount of time it takes for each store to post up your song can vary from “a very, very short amount of time” to “dang near forever” before your songs go up.
Amazingly, this can actually be true of the SAME retail store. For example: I’ve sent songs/albums to iTunes where it took the song dang near 3 to 4 weeks to post up, while at other times it only took a matter of 3 to 4 DAYS.
This is the only part of using an online service that is frustrating. It would be ideal for me to be able to have an album done, send it to Tunecore and say “Hey, make sure this album posts up on June 8th.” However, I’m sure they have to go through all the songs and listen for various items (explicit content, type of music, any obvious samples) as do the various online stores before they can post it up.
With that said, the album will still be coming out on June 8th. I have other stores and online sites I can use to GUARANTEE that my album gets posted on that date, and I can post those links at this site. Hopefully, though, those online stores will be swift enough with my music to post it up by the release date, if not sooner. 
-A.P.T.
JOIN ME ON USTREAM TUESDAY, MAY 18TH 2010, FOR A LIVE DISCUSSION ABOUT MY NEW ALBUM,
“THE OBAMA MILLI REMIX GUY STRIKES BACK!” Follow me at http://www.ustream.tv/aptsongs
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In gearing up for my album – “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back,” out June 8th, 2010 – I’ve been going through tracks and trying to cut down the amount of songs on the album.
Now, in this day of and age of music where an artist can post up their own songs on iTunes, one could technically post up however many songs they want to, collectively, on ONE album. The service I use allows you to post up an album for $46.99, and the LIMIT for the amount of songs you can put on that album is – are you ready for this? – one HUNDRED songs.
A new artist might look at this and think: “Oh man oh man, that’s AWESOME! I can put up an album of 100 songs, and it’ll only cost the buyer 9.99?!? I’m going to post ALL my songs up right now!”
And logically speaking, it would appear, at first, to make sense. After all, $9.99 is a BARGAIN to pay for so many songs.
BUT…
An artist who did that would be lucky to sell even ONE album.
Placing TOO many tracks on an album – especially for an artist that’s unestablished – is a DEATH sentence for your career.
A few things new artists should consider:
Remember: things often work the OPPOSITE of the way we think they should. One assumes that offering more songs at a discounted price would make people want to buy their stuff, when in actuality they’d be better off putting together an album of 10 to 12 songs. The possible consumer will see the album and, instead of thinking:
They will think:
As for me… well, I’ve had a hit song, and I’ve released an album on iTunes, “Attack of the Obama Milli Remix Guy!” That album was 12 songs long, which sprawls out to about 46 minutes. It’s long enough so people think they’re getting a good deal, but not so long that people will start to get bored with me. Yes, I’m an artist and I think my songs are the shiznit, but I also know that, after a while, no matter how good an artist is, people are going to want to listen to someone else.
And if they just want to listen to my stuff? Well, having a shorter amount of songs will leave them wanting for more, which only helps me to sell the NEXT album (coming in… oh, wait, let me get this NEW one out the door first before I start talking about THAT)!
-A.P.T.
