Oh and my only question is how'd you pull all this together homie? I never even thought about doing my pilot idea as a web series but it's clearly a route I need to think about
The name "Blue Collar Hustle" has been with me since I was about 20 years old. I'd be on the Marta train/bus going back and forth from work all hours of the day/night. During one of these late night journeys, I thought to myself whimsically that if I ever became a rapper I'd name my first album The Composition, and the album cover would have a a Composition notebook with a pen bleeding blood onto its pages. The second album I'd name Blue Collar Hustle, and it would kind of be J.Cole meets Common type of music. Of course I never became a rapper lol, but the title stuck with me.
Last year when I became an Assistant Manager at Best Buy. I met Quentin Williams, who was only a part time associate during this period. He worked hard, but he was ALWAYS trying to get me to listen to his demo because we talked about Hip Hop all the time. If you've ever lived in Atlanta, EVERYONE is trying to get on as a rapper or singer, you get passed mixtapes every damn day. So I always brushed him off, but one day he gave me a flash drive and I was bored in bed and I decided on a whim to give it a listen. It was actually REALLY good! So me and another guy, Roberto Cruz linked up with him and helped him release the album. He raps under the name Que-Brick and the album is called A Souldier Story and it's available on iTunes, Tidal, and Google Play
http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/ziggiy1/media/Mobile Uploads/D7DD5AAD-154E-4A9F-8C28-3529E47FDEAE_zpsnyqmshhe.png.html]
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Now for those of you who have recorded and released music independently, it's a grind unlike ANYTHING you could imagine. The web series is a semi-autobiographical account of what it took to release the album, but that is just the surface. I want to explore the lives and mindset of young black working class men and women who are attempting to live by the concept of the talented tenth. To be the total opposite of what society at large says we represent. Every young black male is a rapper, actor, trapper or ball payer; is what they say. So what are the lives like of those black people who reject those notions in an effort to define themselves as "the good ones", even when it means that they have to suppress the creative parts of their very soul? What happens when the idealism and determination of one person awakens the dormant creativity and talent of the other? Can you work a 9-5 while having other ambitions? Can these ambitions put food on the table and diapers on a newborn baby? Can you survive the very racist and exclusionary cooperate grind while still maintaining your sense of cultural identity? Can you survive the Blue Collar Hustle?
