"When I left Russia there wasn't a hip-hop scene," DJ Alibi recalls of his familys immigration to Toronto when he was 12. "Five years ago is when hip-hop really took off. Due to the internet probably.
No doubt the web is bridging gaps across the world when it comes to music, and landed Alibi a record deal with Thes One's Tres Records when the People Under the Stairs producer took a chance with a mouse click. "I just asked him to check out my site, which was for my first independent album, and he did. Don't assume it's that easy to land a deal with Tres now though. "This was when Thes just got a computer and didn't know back then that you shouldn't click on someone's random MySpace link, explains Alibi. "But he checked my site and liked it so he asked me to send him something. I sent a CD of four tracks and got signed on the strength of that.
His first Tres release, One Day, is an incredible achievement in craftsmanship that pieces together organic hip-hop instrumentals and a few MC-based compositions that sound like the work of a seasoned veteran at only 21 years of age.
Though self-promotion and software manipulation is simpler than ever, there will never be anything more important than genuine talent. "Everybody and their grandmother is a producer, so when someone says I make beats then I'm already suspicious, Alibi laughs. "I remember when Marco Polo was just coming up and making beats with an MPC five years ago in Toronto. No one had really heard of him and I found out through a friend of mine, who said My friend makes beats so of course I was like, Oh no. But I heard them, they were banging and guess what? Now he's signed to Rawkus and making big moves. You can always see from the start if someone's going to end up anywhere, you know?
No doubt the web is bridging gaps across the world when it comes to music, and landed Alibi a record deal with Thes One's Tres Records when the People Under the Stairs producer took a chance with a mouse click. "I just asked him to check out my site, which was for my first independent album, and he did. Don't assume it's that easy to land a deal with Tres now though. "This was when Thes just got a computer and didn't know back then that you shouldn't click on someone's random MySpace link, explains Alibi. "But he checked my site and liked it so he asked me to send him something. I sent a CD of four tracks and got signed on the strength of that.
His first Tres release, One Day, is an incredible achievement in craftsmanship that pieces together organic hip-hop instrumentals and a few MC-based compositions that sound like the work of a seasoned veteran at only 21 years of age.
Though self-promotion and software manipulation is simpler than ever, there will never be anything more important than genuine talent. "Everybody and their grandmother is a producer, so when someone says I make beats then I'm already suspicious, Alibi laughs. "I remember when Marco Polo was just coming up and making beats with an MPC five years ago in Toronto. No one had really heard of him and I found out through a friend of mine, who said My friend makes beats so of course I was like, Oh no. But I heard them, they were banging and guess what? Now he's signed to Rawkus and making big moves. You can always see from the start if someone's going to end up anywhere, you know?
