So… any albums on the way or what?!?

Hey all,

As I type this, I realize I barely have time to type this. My life has been so busy lately: filming, starting a business, relationship stuff… it’s gotten to the point that I enjoy my days at home doing nothing ’cause it feels like I’m always doing stuff…

Anyway… so, I haven’t put out any new music of my own in a while. Not because I don’t want to, but mostly because I’m so focused on creating stuff that will make me some serious money, and at the moment music isn’t that thing. Yes, I enjoy making music immensely, but from a money-making standpoint I’ve never really wanted to do all the things artists have to do to be really, REALLY “successful” at the music game.

What do I mean? I hate the idea of having to do interviews; interacting with fans on a regular basis; having to uphold a particular image; being told by a music company what I’d have to create; performing on a night-to-night basis… the list goes on and on.

When I started doing music, it was with the hopes that I’d be recognized for my beats so that I could stay in the background and make music for others to enjoy. When I found I didn’t know how to meet artists to give my beats to, I started rapping on them in the hopes that artists would hear them and want to use them. I didn’t know it would result in me having a hit record, or having my music well-received by both peers and strangers.

Nowadays, most of the work I do involves me being in the background. I film/edit for other people; I make beats for various productions; and my puppet, Non Juan, allows me to be a puppeteer AND do voice over work – neither of which requires my face to be at the forefront of it. I also do background extra work for various shows here in L.A. (see: “Glee,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” various movies and commercials, etc.). I don’t have any desire to be a major actor, but I still like mingling with the crowd and it pays decently (especially if I have nothing to do that day – better to be getting paid to do something that sitting around not earning money).

Because of all this, putting together the kind of music I like to make has become harder and harder. I recently listened to my first two albums – “Attack of the Obama Milli Remix Guy” and “The Obama Milli Remix Guy Strikes Back” – and I still think they are both really good albums. Not only are the beats bangin’, but the various topics and song ideas I had still sound different than what most artists are putting out. Back then, though, nobody knew who I was, so I was doing all I could to say things to create a stir, controversy, whatever, in the hopes of getting noticed. And it worked, too.

But now, it’s become more challenging to think up those kinds of songs. And when I do, sometimes it feels like I’m doing it purposely to cause a stir as opposed to doing it to make a point. I guess it’s easier to think of those kinds of songs when you’re close to broke and no one believes in you – once you start getting money in and people KNOW you can do it, those songs become harder to write.

Still… I DO have at least one more album in me. I’ve been talking about making the “Organized Chaos” album forever – heck, I even have a cover made for it – and I definitely want to record it sometime soon. I’ve already got beats lined up for it as well as a few song ideas I’ve written but haven’t recorded… so I’m sure it will come out at some point.

Most of my focus these days, though, is on launching Non Juan. He’s starting to get a buzz as an “Unofficial Spokesman” as well as regular business, plus I use him to create most of my parody songs now.  I think that as Non Juan comes more into focus, the A.P.T. side of music will become more of a hobby and less of the main focus of my life…

Regardless of what happens, though, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time doing music.  People spend their whole lives hoping to get put on in music, trying their darndest to make that one record or one song that changes their lives. I was blessed to have been able to do it by my 5th song (i.e. within 1 month of officially starting my music video journey) and for that I am forever grateful. Here’s hoping for even more success in the future, however it may come!

-A.P.T.

The Re-Branding of A.P.T.

Okay, okay, I have a confession to make…

I’ve been playin’ around with this whole “rap” thing.  Don’t get it twisted: when I say “playin’ around,” I don’t mean I’ve been putting out whack songs.  I still believe I have the lyrical wordplay and song ideas to match anyone out there…

But I got into this whole music thing to make MONEY.

Screw all the B.S. about being an “artist,” or trying to make people like me and my songs for the sake of being liked.  At the end of the day, I know what works best for me.  Unlike most up-and-coming artists, I KNOW the type of music people want to hear from me.

And yet, I haven’t really been putting it out.

Chalk it up to me wanting to be a so-called “REAL” artist.  But that plan takes to long.  Out of all the songs I’ve done, the ones that have been most successful for me did NOT involve me being a “real” artist.

Oh, there’s real artistry that goes into those successful songs.  Still, sometimes my ego gets the best of me.  I want to prove to people that I, a suburban Black kid who went to preppy schools, can make songs rivaling people who came from a street background.

But… it doesn’t make me money.

So, from now on, I’m only focusing on making those songs that make me money.  I know what they are, I know how to make them, and I know how to put together videos to advertise them AND have them seen.

And so, the rapper you know as A.P.T. in his current incarnation, is DEAD.

Well, okay, not completely – I’ll probably put out a few songs here and there just for break’s sake.  But from now on, I’m goin’ with the A.P.T. that’s most known by people.  The one people fell in love with during my college years, and the one that helped me create my biggest song to date.

I’ll tell you all the rest of my plan later… all I’ll say right now is, I’m giving my new old self a new nickname, and this time, I’m fitn’a make some SERIOUS money.

That is all for now.

– A.P.T.

P.S. Oh yeah, one more thing – NEW A.P.T. EP COMING NOVEMBER 15. Details coming soon…

You Can’t Stop Me + This Week’s Video

Memo to YouTube: You can’t stop me, bitches!!!

Yeah, they took down my entire site, but so what?!?  I’m on a mission people.  One video/song (minimum) every Sunday for one year.  That’s 52 videos (minimum) from May 2008 to May 2009.

I hope you didn’t think losing all 316,000 views for my “Obama Obama” video, or the 4500+ views for my “The N!@@er Song” would cause me to go crying off into the sunset.  

And yeah, who cares if you messed up my advertising plan for my album – I STILL sold a few copies, and guess what?  I’m going to sell even MORE once the videos come out — on YOUR site!!

So… with that said, this week’s video is already in the can.  It’s from one of the songs off “The A.P.T. LP”, a hot dance song with a bangin’ beat and some… interesting… lyrics and scenarios.  Yeah – that’s all I want to say about it for now!

Okay, I’m done!  And HA HA HA to YouTube – you can’t stop a man with a dream, people!!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/NotoriousAPT 

Rebuilding

Well… my world was certainly rocked yesterday.

I spent over 32 hours straight the 2 days before (from Saturday til Sunday morning) editing my album, “The A.P.T. LP,” with no sleep, resulting in me not feeling too good on Monday. But that wasn’t the bad part. No, the bad part was when I went to check on my YouTube views, only to discover that my page had been taken down.

No page, no videos, no views… and, most importantly, NO advertising for my album.

Yes, all those videos I had that included links to my site where people could get my albums and mixtapes were taken down. Takes quite a toll on your album sales when you can’t even tell people where to find your stuff.

So, what do I do now?

Rebuild. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild!

I went back and read the terms and conditions of YouTube, and have a few theories as to why they may have taken my stuff down. One, I had quite a few videos up where I used other people’s beats without permission. Two, I was advertising my products on the site, mentioning the price in the process. Apparently if you’re not paying YouTube for ad space you aren’t allowed to do that. And three – and this is my uncle’s theory – someone from either McCain or Obama’s campaign took it down. My site was getting a LOT of attention and subscribers, and, with the Democratic/Republican conventions happening this week and next week, more and more people would probably be seeing my videos – and lord knows that might be disastrous for their campaigns!

Regardless of the reason though, I always like to learn lessons from my mistakes. The first lesson: if you’re going to use other people’s beats, get a license saying you can do so. That way, you can legally use them and not have your stuff taken down.

The second lesson: don’t put your eggs all in one basket. I placed all my videos on YouTube, but didn’t even consider uploading them to MySpace, photobucket, or other sites where it would have been hard for them to take down every post I had out there.

And the third lesson: utilize MySpace more. The site is set up so musicians can advertise and/or legally sell their music. Now that I know how to gain friends on the site, it should be easier for me advertising-wise to get to more people, and, hopefully, sell a few albums.

Am I down about all this? A lil’ bit – I had high expectations for how this whole album would roll out, and now I have to re-think my strategy on how to get people to know my stuff is out there. But hey, I’ve always been a person able to get knocked down, pick himself back up and try again, and this time is no different.

By the way, my new YouTube site address is www.youtube.com/APTsongs. There’s always a chance it could be taken down, but for now it works.  In the meantime, I’m still trying to figure out a way to re-post up my videos on this site – because wordpress doesn’t allow for HTML code, I can’t just load up the vids at another site and paste them on here.   Worst-case scenario, I move all this stuff to blogger.com, where HTML code is appreciated!

-A.P.T.

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

Myspace + My First Promo Video for “The A.P.T. LP!”

Another week, another video in the can…

Now that I’ve finished the video for another one of my “The O-Bama Mixtape” songs (“I’m Gonna Make It”), I am now in full promo mode for the album, and I couldn’t be happier.  I’m still mixing, mastering, recording and pasting together songs… but I’ve always been a last-minute person, so even though I’m doing all of this stuff within a week’s time, the album is going to be HOT when it’s done!

Okay, so since I’m not signed to a label, I have to do my own advertising and hype.  One of the ways I’m doing this is by making promo videos each day this week to give my fans insights into the album as well as my life.  It’s advertising 101, basically: the more people know about you, the more likely they are to buy what you’re selling.  Plus, I like the idea that I can talk about myself and people actually want to listen!

Here is the first video I made this morning:

Also, I’ve discovered that more people go to my MySpace page than this site to check up on me.  I like WordPress, but they don’t allow you to post up html code as easily for certain things like MySpace does.  For example, my “The O-Bama Mixtape” was downloaded onto Datpiff.com, where people can actually hear the mixtape before they download it.  I’d love to post it here, but all I’d be able to do is post a link to the site vs. the actual box containing the music on my page.  And, as you may know, people are lazy – they’d rather go to a site where everything is incorporated on it instead of having to click links to leave the site, then come back again.

With that said, I’m still keeping this site open, but I’ll be doing a lot more stuff on MySpace now.  I have over 600 friends there right now, and that number is growing rapidly everyday (thanks, in part, to a Friend Blaster program I have where I can send up to 400 friends request out each day).

That’s all for now – buy the album, “The A.P.T. LP,” Sunday, August 24th!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmil.com

MySpace: www.myspace.com/notoriousapt

Untapped Potential

This is one of those rare blogs on this site… that isn’t about me.  It’s about YOU.

Now that I’m 26, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: people around my age start living in the world of “reality.”  It’s the world of 9-to-5 jobs that are unsatisfying, marriages that aren’t all that happy, and sad lives slowly wasting away as the dreams people once had become nothing more than unfulfilled fantasies that they no longer try to go after.

It’s all very, very depressing to me.

I was a theater major while at Hampton University, and all my fellow thespians had the same dream: to become famous and make it big in some aspect of the entertainment field (theater, movies, commercials, music, etc.).  That was back in 2000 when we were all freshman with idealized thoughts about how easy it would be for us to land parts on stage or in film.

Fast-forward 8 years later, and many of those same people are not doing anything involving entertainment.  Instead of becoming that great actress, they’ve settled for being a teacher (and, as I always say, those that don’t know, teach!).  Instead of traveling the world, they’ve become young parents who use raising their children as an excuse to not pursue their own dreams.  Instead of being a touring musician, they’ve put all their musical instruments into the attic, and replaced them with a tie, a briefcase, and 8 hours-a-day of pure torture.

If only these people hadn’t given up so fast!  Many of my peers had such potential when I saw them in plays, or doing dance routines or music sessions, that it just sucks to see that they’ve fallen into the trap that so many people fall into: the “That dream I had can’t possibly come true” trap that is detrimental to their own beings.

People don’t realize how much God will help them out if they only keep going at it.  They don’t like to wait for results; they figure, if they can’t achieve their dream within the first few tries, they might as well throw in the towel and forget what they really wanted to do in exchange for a “secure” job.  Have you SEEN the job market today?  Companies are downsizing employees left and right – you’d have a better shot at so-called “security” by taking your talent and marketing it the right way than to sit at your job praying you don’t get fired!

But hey, if you don’t believe you can do it, just look at me.  A few months ago I was a guy who wanted to get his music out there.  A few years ago, I was running around Philly and Richmond, taking my demo to radio stations and asking them to play just ONE of my songs on the air, even if only for a quick second or during one of their 2 AM “nobody’s up listening to us” shows. 

Now, I’ve got an international hit playing on radio.  INTERNATIONAL.  I have a song that’s playing on BBC radio in the U.K., and nightclubs in Germany.  My classmates back at Hampton University would have never thought that was even possible.  I never knew if it would happen either, but I always had the dream of getting at least ONE of my songs on at least ONE radio station – which goes to prove my other point: if you follow your dream, you never know how big that dream will get realized. 

But you’ll never even get a small taste of success if you listen to everybody who says you can’t do it, or decide to doubt yourself and follow what everyone else is doing simply because it seems “normal.”  Normal isn’t always a good thing; in fact, oftentimes it’s BORING, non-challenging, and will keep you in a rut.  So, if you have a talent, and you think you could make a living doing that talent, STOP WASTING TIME NOT BELIEVING IN YOURSELF AND GO DO IT.

This message has been brought to you, in part, by “The A.P.T. LP” – Coming Sunday, August 24.  Yes, I’m advertising here, because I have an ALBUM coming out that people want to actually BUY.  See what dreaming big can do for you?

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com

MySpace: www.myspace.com/notoriousapt

“The O-Bama Mixtape” – Coming This Sunday, 7.27.2008!

Ladies and gentleman… “The O-bama Mixtape” is here!

Yes, after being asked over and over again, “Hey, are you going to release a mixtape??” for the past couple of weeks, the mixtape songs have been completed!

Putting together a mixtape was HARD.  Not because I didn’t have enough songs, but for the opposite reason: I had so many songs, and wanted to put all of them on this mixtape!  I was going to put dang near close to 20 songs on there, but then I remembered that mixtapes are really meant to be teasers, an appetizer, if you will, for the actual album.  Plus, I figured it would be nice to have more material to put out another mixtape should I decide to do so!

With that said, the mixtape will probably be 12 to 13 songs, most of which are songs I made using beats from popular songs.  Most of these are NOT parodies – they are real songs I just happen to make off other people’s beats using my own flow (i.e. not purposefully copying anyone).  With that said, there are 3 songs on there that are parodies: “Erectile Dysfunction” (a parody of Snoop Dogg’s “Sexual Seduction”); “I Get Honeys” (a parody of 50 Cent’s “I Get Honeys”), and – of course – “Obama, Obama” (a parody of Lil’ Wayne’s “A Milli,” just in case you haven’t heard it by now!).

I also have a couple of songs on there that were produced by me that I was going to save for the album, but they use vocal samples from other recorded songs.  Since I don’t own the copyrights to those songs I can’t legally sell them – but I CAN release those songs for FREE and still get people rockin’ to them!  I will also probably record a few other songs this week – they may not make this mixtape, but they could always be used at a later date…

I still have some small parts to record, like the intro, the small interludes between songs, and the parts near the beginning and end of songs where I mention my upcoming album.  If you think the mixtape is hot, just wait until you hear the album! (Coming out in late August – to find out the name of the album and its release date, DOWNLOAD THE MIXTAPE!!  HA! Now you HAVE to get the mixtape!! But it’s free, so you might as well get it anyway!)

So, mark the date people: Sunday, July 27, 2008 – “The O-Bama Mixtape,” the hottest mixtape to be released this year!!!

-A.P.T.

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

Setting Up a Tour… Um… How Do I Do That?

Another week, another video in the can.

As of right now, I’ve done 10 videos – 8 really, if you don’t include “Erectile Dysfunction” (which was really just a bunch of pictures) and “Hey Jesse Jackson” (which just had a picture of Jesse Jackson showing while the song played).  Making videos is hard work, but it does have the GREAT bonus of getting exposure for both my music and my face – people, for better or worse, at least know what the person making all these songs looks like, and they can get a taste of my personality.

There’s another advantage as well: people are starting to request for me to come to their towns and perform.  I already got an offer from some guy that wants me to possibly tour around on a college tour this fall (offer still pending), but now I’m also getting requests from cities outside of Atlanta to perform (D.C. and South Carolina come to mind right now).

One small problem: I have NO idea how to set up a tour!!!

But to be honest, I had NO idea I’d actually become popular off this whole “One-Song-a-Week” thing.  After passing around my music, performing, making songs and trying to send my stuff off to record companies for almost 4 years without any forward movement, it’s kinda hard to plan for what happens once you actually HAVE an audience of people!  I have fans, I have people that want more of my music (both free AND with a price tag – woo-hoo for that!), and – now it seems – I have people that want to see me perform live.

So far, I’ve only performed once since I started this site.  My brother’s 25th birthday party was this past weekend in D.C., and he asked if I’d perform “Obama Obama” at it with him as my DJ/hypeman.  So I did – there we were, me and my brother, performing in front of an audience of people, most of whom weren’t all that familiar with the song… and we ROCKED it!  I meant to film it but I couldn’t find my camera – a darn shame, because we had so much energy, we played off each other well, and the audience went CRAZY, both for the song and the performance!

So, I definitely want to start doing more shows.  Only one problem: I don’t have a car.  I don’t have a car!

Of course, there is something to be said for catching a bus to some of these places.  All I really, REALLY need to perform is an instrumental of my songs and a microphone.  Of course, bus tickets cost money, so if I were going to perform someplace, the venue would either have to pay me enough to cover my bus fare and possibly an overnight hotel stay.  But I certainly wouldn’t mind doing it.

But again – how does one set up something like that??  How would I know which places would have a large enough A.P.T. fanbase for me to spend my time going there to perform?  How would I negotiate costs and payments?  How could I get into contact with bigger acts looking for openers?  There is still so much I have to learn about the industry…

…but at least it’s nice to know that I have people wanting to see me perform, as well as other things.  I have to figure out how to make all this stuff possible – I would LOVE to be a paid touring musician, making money off performing songs I created that people have grown to love… man, that’s the life.

For now though – I’m getting some dinner, ’cause I ain’t eatin’ in 8 hours. Peace!

-A.P.T.

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

One-Song-a-Week: Song #9 – Crank That (Yeah!)

Help A.P.T. get his music career started – SEND A DONATION! Click HERE for more info!

This week’s song/video is “Crank That (Yeah!)” (Produced by Fire Kraka)

INSIGHT INTO A SONG:

For a song that’s so simple, the making of it had a whole lot that went into it.

I look for beats online, and when I find a beat I like I’ll usually start freestyling to it to see if it I could use the beat for a song.  Some of my best songs so far have resulted from this (see: “Shout Out 2 My Big Girls,” “Back 2 The Future,” and other yet-to-be released songs), and I try to do it at least once a week.

When I heard the beat for this week’s song, it instantly reminded me of last year’s hottest record, “Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)” by Soulja Boy.  The words to his song were admittedly simplistic, but as I always tell people, some times simplicity is better than trying to be all deep and complex.  I started freestyling off some random stuff into the mic, not thinking I’d actually make it into a song.

Then, I came up with the chorus.  It was so good that I just KNEW I had to make it a song.

However, I didn’t necessarily want to make it into a video.  Up until now, most of my songs have had some form of plot line, or talked about real-life situations.  Even in the case of “Obama, Obama,” as funny as it was it still had a main focal point.  This “Crank That” song I made was about nothing more than doing the crank dance to any song that comes on!

I recorded the song prior to 4th of July weekend.  During the holiday, my friend Michele came from DC to visit me.  On her last day, as we were packing her up to go home, I asked her if she’d like to record a few parts for 2 songs I had made, one of them being this one.  The part of the song she recorded for me sounded so good, I just KNEW I had to figure out a way to make the song into a video so that she’d be able to see it!

Some Interesting Song Tidbits:

(1) The original title of this song was “Crank That $#!+.”  However, I decided to change it for a few reasons.  One, I have younger cousins and relatives that are hip to this site now, and, seeing as I grew up in a family that didn’t cuss around each other, I’d like to be able to keep it to a minimum.  Plus, I really don’t cuss that much in real life, and even the songs I have up now that do have cussing don’t have a lot in them.

More importantly, though: my song “Obama, Obama” is getting regular radio play, part of that being because I didn’t cuss during the entire song, which made radio DJs feel okay about downloading and playing it.  This song’s pretty catchy, and I’d hate to think I’d be blocking myself from even more exposure simply because I wanted to say “shit” every few lines!

(2) People think these types of songs don’t take long to write.  And… well, they’d be correct!  However, for these types of songs, it’s not really the words themselves that matter as much as the FEEL of the words.  How they are enunciated and phrased has to be in line with the beat so that people will be able to dance to it.

(3) Because this is a party song, there has to be parts in their where the club audience is persuaded to sing back certain parts.  You’ll hear a few “Yeaaaah”s and “A.P.T.!”, as well as Michele’s line in the song, which ALL girls will have to say!  It’s actually a very good psychological trick into making people like your song!

INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:

As is usually the case, I had NO idea what I was going to shoot.  I wanted to just do like Soulja Boy, and tape myself dancing for 4 minutes straight with no edits.

HA! Like THAT was going to happen!

Besides, it would have been too boring. Plus, I didn’t want to look so goofy or bore people to death to the point that they’d click off the video before even getting into it.

At the same time, since the lyrics of this song are extremely simple in comparison to the first 8 videos I put up, I didn’t want there to be a backlash from a letdown of expectations.  I know now that I’m early on enough in my career where I can experiment with different styles, but you never want to catch a brick so bad that you can’t recover from it.

And, to top THAT off, I was on vacation this week in DC for my brother’s birthday.  However, this ended up being a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to film in a location OUTSIDE of my apartment!  Still, I didn’t know what I was going to do…

…until I remembered the online feud Soulja Boy has been having with Ice-T about who’s responsible for “killing hip-hop” vs. “helping hip-hop.”  I have another song I wrote called “Retirement Home” where I bash old-school rappers for not giving credit to the newcomers who are helping to continue the genre.  I figured out that I could do a two-part video, with “Crank That (Yeah!)” being part one and “Retirement Home” being part 2, thus giving me a legitimate excuse for this song’s/video’s existence!

Because I wanted to show that actual work DOES go into creating a crank-type song, I decided to make the video a 7-step instruction manual on the creation of one, from finding the beat all the way to putting it on YouTube.  I was able to run with this idea, and it only took me about 1.5 hours to film. I also had to film half of next week’s video, where I respond to a hater who’ll be hating on this week’s song.  Always thinking ahead, people!

All in all, I think it came out pretty great!

Some Interesting Video Tidbits:

(1) The hotel used in the video is the Crowne Royal in Alexandria, VA.

(2) The first shot of this video? Me in the shower.  I don’t know why I decided to start filming while showering, but who knows when or where inspiration will pop up?!?

(3) “Theory” is the nickname my friend Michele used in college when she did radio.

(4) To film the editing of the video, I had to take my first set of shots, load them up, and then film myself editing the shots I just loaded.

(5) I have no idea what the estimated loading time is because I was trying to edit this thing all day, while at the same time preparing for my brother’s birthday festivities.

That’s all for now – enjoy the video, and I’ll see ya next week!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com

Vacation Time + I Got It!

Ahhhh, vacation…

I’m in D.C. right now.  My brother is turning 25 next week, but he’s having his birthday party this Saturday.  He invited me up to come to the party, plus he wants me to help DJ it.  AND perform.  Geez, can’t a brotha get a lil’ R&R when he goes out of town!

Not that I’d be resting too much anyway.  I’m staying at the Crown Royal hotel, and have lots of downtime.  Which, of course, means I have time to film my next video… well, actually, TWO videos! 

I finally figured out how to do the song I wanted this week, and do a video for it in a way that’s not corny.  All I can say is this: it’s a dance song that’s very catchy and has absolutely NO message to it.  Just one of those fun songs I came up with during a freestyling session where I wasn’t trying to say anything too serious. 

At the same time, though, given how basic the lyrics of the song are, I had a fear that there’d be a backlash if I did the video for it in the wrong way, i.e. something out of my normal character.  However, I received a message this week for a video idea that I had already kind of thought about doing, but figured out how to expand the idea so that it’s a two-parter.  The video for this week is part one; the part-two “response” video, of sorts, will be next week.  This way, I have a legitimate reason for this week’s song to exist while at the same time having an excuse to make a song with simple lyrics.  Genius!!

But back to the vaca… so, my bro wants me to perform my “Obama Obama” song at the party.  Me, being the planning ahead person I usually am, figured it would be a great idea because I could film the performance and add it to my ever-growing press package.  Between the 9 videos (and counting) I currently have up, along with the two interviews (and counting) I’ve done, as well as the large amount of radio play I’ve been getting, I should be able to shop myself around to various record labels.

Then again, there is something to be said about letting them come to me.  I haven’t been sending out anything to anybody since I started this site, but now everyone – from interviewers to radio stations to fans, fan letters, etc. – has been coming to me.  I guess the old adage is true: “if you build it, they will come.”  Actually, I think I stole that from an old Kevin Cosner movie.  Still holds true, though!

Lastly, my cousin Katia posted a note on my Facebook wall yesterday saying she heard my song at radio station 92.1 in Richmond, VA – my home of 18 years before I moved to Atlanta.  It feels good to hear your stuff on the radio, but it feels even BETTER knowing it’s being played in the place you grew up. 

Truly, God is great!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com