If I haven’t said it enough already, thanks to everybody who’s downloaded “The O-Bama Mixtape” so far!!

As of now it’s been downloaded over 300 times, and – seeing as this is the age of bootlegging – I’m sure it’s been copied, given out to friends and/or uploaded to P2P sites by now.  Just like I wanted!!

If you think the mixtape is good, just WAIT until you hear the album!! I can’t give the title away yet (until I get my songs for it copyrighted – after all, people LOVE stealing good ideas), but it comes out August 24th, and it’s going to be HOT!!

Okay, so my original plan for the album was to make all the beats myself… but honestly, I’m in more of a mode these days to write songs and let others focus on the beats.  Luckily, I always think ahead, and made a LOT of beats back in the days when I still felt like making them, so I have a plethora of them to choose from for the album.

Still, though, I wanted to expand my range and get other sounds on the LP.  My productions are great, but I don’t have all the fancy-smanshy high-end equipment that other producers have.  To that end, I have found other sources of beats whereby I can lease the beats I want to use.  This is different from owning a beat exclusively, as the original beat-maker will still be able to sell the beat.  The upside is that I can lease the beat for relatively cheap ($25 – $50 for most) as opposed to paying a LOT for an exclusive right to a beat ($100 – $1500 or HIGHER). 

Some people might think, “Geez, A.P.T., why not just own the beat exclusively so others can’t use it?” Easy: again, we live in the age of bootlegging, where other people are going to steal it anyway.  I didn’t even release the instrumental version of “Obama, Obama,” yet lo and behold, people managed to download it, slice out the “Obama” vocal, re-make the beat and make their own song anyway!! (I see you, Tyga – nice job on MY beat!!) Heck, I used other people’s beats for MY mixtape – even if that other person couldn’t sell their version of song, they could still get famous off it, so why spend all that money!??

Speaking of money: there are a LOT of beats I’ve found that I want to use, but at the moment I only have enough money to pay my rent, my phone, and my internet bills.  At this point in my life, though, I don’t let problems like not having money stop me from doing what I’m doing.  To that end, I already have a person who said they’d do my graphics for FREE (in exchange for name exposure – not a problem at all!), and I got financing for the beats that aren’t mine that I want to use on the album.

The LP itself is mostly done, but I’m going to re-record a few things so they sound good, and record some newer songs, too.  All in all, the album will probably have 12 or 13 songs on it.  I used to think this wasn’t enough songs, but I’ve bought many albums where they ran close to an hour and 20 minutes, and it seemed too long.  I only want a hour of your time, people – after that, you can play me over and over again until the next set of songs comes out!

Lastly: my video for this week.  Actually, it’s already up on my YouTube site, but I’m reposting it because (a) I put it up before I started this site, so it hasnt’ gotten much attention, and (b) it’s a song that’s on my mixtape, so it makes for good advertising.  I was tempted to place 2 videos up, but I’m trying to keep with my original mantra of one song/video a week (which is actually getting HARDER now that I’ve got all these video ideas floating around). 

I’ve already started next week’s video, and after that I’ll start putting up videos for songs that will be on my official album so I can get people excited about it.

That’s all for now – it’s hot in my apartment, and I think I need some fresh air.  See y’all on Sunday!!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/notoriousapt