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• Eternal Sunshine Eternal Sunshine

  • From: kscarlett
  • Description:

    Eternal Sunshine

    Label Head and Rapper 'P-Duble' Has Utilized Optimism and Faith in Jesus Christ to make his 'Pike Street Music Group' One of the New Hip-Hop Powerhouses.

    A s the founder and CEO of Ohio based Pike Street Music Group Keith Scarlett has done exactly the opposite of what many Christian Music Entrepreneurs (or 'ministers,' as he likes to be called instead) have done. Known as the rapper, P-Duble, Scarlett has firmly planted his feet in a music industry that often catches people slipping.

    The thirty-four year old 'minister' began his run as a young MC freestylin' throughout the city of Indianapolis and across the region for anyone that would listen. Seeing that the field held more risk than reward, Scarlett stepped away from a partnership with two childhood friends to start doing things on his own in 1992. But dealing with himself taught Scarlett a valuable lesson. "When you sign a group, that's a lot of work," explains Scarlett. "Since it's you, it's even harder. Because the market was radio-driven and it's harder to break into rap, it's got to be something special."

    Something special would come in the form of a "happenstance-meeting" with one of the hottest artists and producers in the Midwest ; Ty Wills.

    "My wife and I were Christmas shopping in the City Center Mall in downtown Columbus , when I walked into this airbrush shop and saw these flyers advertising a studio specializing in hop-hop for only $25.00," stated -Duble. "So, I figured why not…it's worth checking-out for that price…"

    P-Duble quickly realized that Will's set-up was just right and that Ty Wills had the experience to help re-start what had previously been a dormant voice for the past 7 years. His first release in August 2006, "No One," has gone on to become an underground staple in the Christian hip-hop market. P-Duble would continue to build a following through shows and appearances and then really developed a buzz with his May 2007 EP, "My Album About Me." This 6-track joint, including the club hit, "No Trouble" has begun to put P-Duble as a nationwide entity.

    Using the blueprints laid by Southern rap CEO's like Rap-A-Lot's James Prince, Suave House's Tony Draper, No Limit's Master P and Slip-n-Slide's Ted Lucas, P-Duble and his label, pike Street Music, has begun to become a force and is even in negotiation for a distribution deal with Koch Records. Powerful chart performances by "No Trouble" and the other hit single from the newest
    release, "Round-n-Round," have started to set the stage for P-Duble to take-hold of a post-Babyface and post-Bone Thugs Midwest.

    "The success hasn't really surprised me, because the Lord can make all things happen," says -dub confidently. "But I wanted to make sure that it didn't become a one-hit wonder. Anything you build for the Lord has to have a foundation and that foundation is scripture and being firmly rooted in the Lord's doctrine. So we made sure the hometown people believed us. We made sure we became the best that we can and let the Lord take it on from there."

    Soon, P-dub had earned a unique reputation as an artist that had a street persona and radio-friendly music. Building on the previous projects, P-dub's first-full-length release in almost a decade; If I Die… , is completed and he has chosen to bring an even harder edge to his sound, while still maintaining his mainstream accessibility. P-Duble's breakthrough singles off the new project may just be the ones that he has been hard at work trying to perfect, and with a cameo from platinum hip-hop artist Mims, as well as the talented T-Huzzie, Ty Wills, BW + LX and Luppy – this release, may set a new standard in the Christian hip-hop world.

    P-Duble rates this past year as on the best, but 2008 will be holding its own challenges. While he will be releasing his new and first, full-length release in more than 10 years; Pike Street music is also branching-off and creating Kaulipepper Klik Productions: the production arm…and opening-up other aspiring artists' access to the production and beat-making that has thus-far been only behind the lyrics of P-Duble.

    It's that opportunistic outlook that keeps P-dub from slippin'. "Hip Hop is all about opportunity; opportunity to spread the message of Jesus Christ to those that need it," he says. "People say it's dying, but that's coming from people who don't take advantage of opportunities."

    "I wanted to make sure that it didn't become a one-hit wonder. So we made sure the hometown people believed us." - P-Duble

    
    
    --
    Pike Street Music - Colossians 3:17
    http://pduble.bravehost.com
    http://www.myspace.com/pikestreetm usicpduble
    
    P-Duble's newest release "If I Die..." - 6/1/08!!!!!!

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  • 2 years ago
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• P-Duble P-Duble

  • From: kscarlett
  • Description:

    P-Duble

    As one of the hottest up-n-coming artists in the industry…and more than 10 years older than most of his comrades, P-Duble has experience and maturity to bring to the table.

    P-Duble is thirty-four and was almost 10 years removed from his last release, "Birth Uv A G," in 1999. The record, and P-dub's voice—classics in the now popular, but still young, Christian Hip-Hop World—set the stage for his hiatus and allowed him to learn some important life-lessons until the time was right for him to step back behind the microphone.

    Thanks to the persistence of such cultural icons as Sup C, Mr. Solo and T-Bone and reinforced by a mainstream culture that loves to occasionally dust off classic adages, P-dub has never really left the game, or missed a meal. He couldn't be happier that the Lord has continued to fuel his calling into the hip-hop ministry.

    "I appreciate that the Lord has allowed me to still stay in this game and I thank Him for the blessings He has bestowed upon me," P-dub says. "Not talking financially, just talking about my family, life and being relevant in His scheme." P-dub hasn't relied on samples alone to stay and get back into the game. He came-back on the scene with a vengeance with his 2006 release, "No One." This self-produced project tossed itself into more than 10,000 heads and set the stage for what has been a spiritual re-awakening on a major hip-hop scale.

    As for the rest of his history, P-dub first formed a group with some of his boys called "Dead On Arrival," back in 1990. P-Duble dropped himself from the group and saw the remaining duo sign with Philadelphia-based Bodybag Records and release an album…and then…saw it collapse on the shelves. P-Duble (known as Lil' Pookie at the time) then proceeded to drop his own underground projects, such as "Blak + Wyte" in 1992, "Bottom of my Boot" in 1994, "Pooc OG: tha' gangsta' chronicles" in 1995 and then "Birth Uv A G" in 1999.

    In between these individual releases, he combined with Michigan-based Luppy to form the "Outsiders." They worked together and collaborated on one-project that was released in 1996 and opened-up the door for Luppy to jump onto the scene with his own group, "L Outsiders."

    Lup and P-dub saw a future together, but the business and differing aspirations ultimately took a toll on their relationship. "That relationship got really messed-up for awhile," P-dub says. "I was so immature that I wouldn't allow myself to see eye-to-eye with him, which was a mistake, because he was right and he was so talented and was really the heart and soul of what we were doing. The music business is notorious for breaking up relationships because of everything that it entails. Ego, money. Those are usually things that are pieces of the problem, but it never should've been, especially with where we were both coming-up from and the fact that we were both Christian artists."

    P-Duble laughs matter-of-factly at the situation, and then turns his attention to today. He's preparing to enter the game with a thump through his reincarnated Pike Street music, the same company that released the final three of his previous releases back in the day.

    "One of the singles off this one is called 'This Is Why…' and features Mims and is based on the concept of the old records and MC's." The album is titled "If I Die … ," but P-dub believes that hip-hop is ready for someone to push the music forward creatively. "These topics they talkin' about. We already covered that in the 80's and 90's. You know, 'I Get Money?' Why hasn't the artist progressed conceptually? They're not diggin' deep enough. I wanted to dig deep and come up with neat concepts and things that haven't been done before."

    The high-pitched excitement that characterized his delivery as an MC also shows up in his speaking voice. In discussing his whereabouts, he's honest to a possible fault. He admits that he was and still is hesitant to pick up the mic as a mature adult because many may not want to hear a grown man rap.

    However that hasn't been the case at all. The public's reaction has surprised even P-dub himself.

    "The response has been crazy," he says about his comments in other interviews, which generated a great deal of fan reaction. "They didn't touch on the age thing. Maybe it's not as big of a deal as I thought it was, but then again the Lord has a way of over-coming even the most ominous of obstacles…there isn't any that He can't overcome. I mean, Jay-Z is older than me. I'm thirty-four. He says he's thirty-eight. We know Dr. Dre is in his forties. Even 50 is in his thirties. Personally, I would like to forget bout that and listen to the music. If it's hot, it's hot."

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  • 2 years ago
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• Curse of the Me Album Curse of the Me Album

  • From: kscarlett
  • Description:

    Curse of the Me-Album

    You know what I like about working for myself? No dress code. You wear what you want every day of the week and nobody much cares. Frankly, it's gotten to the point where if I've got long pants on between Memorial Day and Labor Day, my kids want to know who I'm meeting with. (If I'm wearing a tie, they want to know who died.) And so yesterday evening, when I arrived home wearing pants that weren't jeans and shoes that weren't sneakers, my family knew that something was up. "Where'd you go today?," my ten-year-old son Brayden asked over dinner. I told him that I drove to see someone in Pickerington (pronounced "Pink-er-ington" for those of you not-raised in normal-speaking parts of the world), a city about 20 miles away. "How long did it take you to drive there?," he asked. "About an hour each way," I said. "Rounding-up the time and not explaining that there was heavy traffic while I was on the road. I could see that the wheels were now turning inside Brayden's fourth-grade brain. "Wait a second," he said. "Why did it take you one hour to drive just 20 miles, when we drove to New York City in 8 hours… and that's a thousand miles away?" Now I was confused. Even ignoring the implication that my Ford Explorer could ever reach 250 miles per hour – something I doubt it could do if you dropped it out of an airplane – we live in Columbus, Ohio; New York City is only about 600 miles away. So I asked him, "What makes you think New York is a thousand miles from here?" "Easy. In that song Hey There Delilah , the guys sings: 'What's it like in New York City? I'm a thousand miles away, but girl tonight you look so pretty.'" His reasoning was based on a bad assumption, of course, but I had to admit, in a kind of topsy-turvy, me-centric way, it almost made sense. (The thought crossed my mind that he may play an important media relations role in some future White House administration.) For an eight-year-old, it's pretty normal to assume that the world revolves around you and everybody else shares your same perspective. Unfortunately, for musicians of any age, the same (flawed) assumption is often at work. Here's what I mean. Many musicians – whether they say it out loud or even consciously realize it – work from the belief that the way they're organized, the people they've got on board, and the products and services they sell, are of keen interest to their fan-base. It's a bad assumption. Here are some examples of how it often plays out: Your musical content formula matches the structure of your band. Time, Inc. publishes Sports Illustrated for Kids, Woman's Weekly and Land Rover World . And yet I think you'd agree that if they ever tried to combine the three into one magazine, they'd be very successful in appealing to nobody. By the same token, and while it's fine to have a company that sells auto insurance to consumers, health insurance to small businesses, and financial aid advice to college students, if you try to cover all those topics for all those audiences in the same publication – simply because it's what you do – you'll be wasting your time. Pick a narrow content focus and stick to it time after time. How narrow? As narrow as you think possible, and then a few steps more narrow than that. Your music is influenced by several different sources that you're probably not even aware of. Some musicians even rotate contributors with the idea of "getting input from everybody possible and letting our fans get to know us." That's a nice way to get buy-in and participation from within your organization, but again, it's a capital-L-Loser from the point of view of your fan-base, who don't much care about any of that. Settle on a clear, consistent, recognizable sound and stick to it time after time. Be willing to ignore certain groups of potential fans in the name of building a loyal following among others. Your music's topics and content all point back to you. As a marketing person myself, I appreciate the urge to keep citing your experience, pointing out your capabilities and gushing over your own wonderfulness when writing your music. After all, you may be thinking, isn't the promotion of our music the point of all of this in the first place? Yes it is. The problem, however, is that the minute your fans see you wander from the bright and cheery land of useful, unbiased information into the cold and calculating campaign bus of self-promoting half-truths, you'll lose them (sorry about the metaphors; I think I'm watching too much political coverage). Remember, you're building relationships, not closing today's sale – and relationship building is a strategy which in the long run is easier, more profitable and more long-lasting than trying to work the room at every turn. Here's the bottom line. If you want people to anticipate, open, read and pass along your music (and I'm guessing that you do), you need to put yourself in the shoes of your readers. Try to offer music that will help them live their lives better or will influence them in a way that you may never know, and your next fan will never be more than a few miles away.

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  • 2 years ago
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• P-Duble's new single "Respect, P-Duble's new single "Respect," debuts at #9 on Audio Street Charts!

  • From: kscarlett
  • Description:

    P-Duble's new single "Respect," debuts at #9 on the Audio Street Christian Rap charts.
    
    The link to the charts is as follows:
    
    http://www.audiostreet.net/charts. aspx?genreid=163
    
    The link to P-Duble's AudioStreet page is:
    
    http://www.audiostreet.net/charts. aspx?genreid=163
    
    --
    Pike Street Music - Colossians 3:17
    http://pduble.bravehost.com
    http://www.myspace.com/pikestreetm usicpduble
    
    P-Duble's newest release "If I Die..." - 6/1/08!!!!!!

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  • 2 years ago
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• Almost Famous Almost Famous

  • From: kscarlett
  • Description:

    Almost Famous

    My son Brayden is now famous. Here's what happened… About a month ago, Brayden and three of his 9-year-old friends got together on a Saturday afternoon and decided to make a movie. Using a digital video camera and thankfully not my basement, they spent most of the weekend making a 55 second epic. That Sunday evening around 7pm (prime time for young computer users), I helped them post it on a makeshift facebook page that I quickly created for them page. Within minutes, they had several comments, and, according to Brayden, many more the next day at school. And so the following weekend, they made another movie. This one was longer, more technically complicated and shot in more than one location. Sunday evening at 7pm, they posted again. More buzz, more interest. Last weekend they took it up another notch entirely, adding costumes, fire, moving objects, etc... and even a plot. This time, on Sunday at 7pm, kids were waiting by their computers. That Monday afternoon at school, the buzz had grown so large that the boys had to be escorted out of the building by two uniformed police officers. Okay, I totally made that last part up. But you get the picture… lots of interest in the student body. Some (actual) highlights from the past 30 days: Over 100 kids from Brayden's class have posted comments about the videos on this Facebook page. Many are now clamoring to appear in future episodes. Several people in town have gone out of their way to mention the videos to my wife Jodie and me, some of whom don't even have kids in the same school. The teacher who runs the film program at the high school got wind of the videos, sought out the boys, and wants them to enter a local film competition. "So what?", you ask. So this. What's happened to Brayden and his friends over the past month has everything to do with your project; whatever it may be . Because when you look at the impact they've had, you'll notice two important things: You can't force a following. They didn't promote the videos, they just started posting them. Kids found them, liked them, and told other kids. In this fickle music business, people are always asking me the same question: "How do we grow the size of our fan list?" My answer is always the same: "How did you find me?" Ha, ha! I am kidding. My answer is always: "Have something that your target audience wants to read/hear/see and word will spread." The Brayden Boys aren't creating their videos as a means to an end, they're just trying to create great videos. See if you can approach your own stuff in the same way. List size doesn't matter; talking to the right people does. 100 kids doesn't sound like a very big number. Until you realize that those 100 kids represent 80% of his entire class. In terms of getting the attention of the right audience (for them), these four boys are airing the SuperBowl every Sunday night. Now look at what you're doing. Are readers eagerly awaiting your next e-mail? Are they telling other people about your music? Are they sending you feedback, making suggestions, clamoring to be included in future editions? Until these kinds of things are happening with what you're doing, don't bother trying to grow your list. It doesn't matter. What you need are fans… not politely tolerant recipients. Because when it comes to generating actual fans for your actual project who will pay you actual money, ten of the former will outperform ten thousand of the latter. Before you worry about making your list larger, figure out which narrow slice of the universe you're trying to influence. Then provide content that those people will anticipate and pass along. Fans. Here's the bottom line. When it comes to your stuff, see if you can approach it more like a bunch of high school kids trying to stand out on Monday morning, and less like a marketer trying to sneak into someone's in-box. I know you want to grow your fan-base, but until you can crack the code on what your fans want, you'll remain invisible. As for The Brayden Boys and their video fame, I have no idea how long it will last. I'm just glad they've felt what it's like to touch a nerve and develop a following. Once you've experienced that – whether in growing a fan-base or simply growing a high school reputation – there's no settling for anything less.

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  • 2 years ago
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• Changes are Coming! Changes are Coming!

  • From: kscarlett
  • Description:

    There are some changes about to hit the music world soon and we want you to be the first to know. On June 1st, one of the more unique and edgier albums to hit the streets will drop.

    So what does this mean for you?

    Well, most importantly, you'll be able to download the entire project for free for a limited-time. You'll be able to access ringtones, photos and wall-paper; all for free and only for a limited time window.. Just keep your eyes open and watching not only your e-mail, but also checking the website:
    

    http://pduble.bravehost.com

    ...for more information.
    

    This is all in celebration of an album project more than a year in the making and what may be the final release from a veteran MC who has been spreading the gospel for more than 15 years. P-Duble's newest full-length release, titled: "If I Die..." is all set and ready to drop.. This Christian rap project is hard and rolls with a significant edge with a strong foundation in the scripture. Easy, right? Wrong! With many hours of writing, rewriting, recording, rerecording, etc....the project is strapped for those caught deep in the street game and may just be one of the edgier and harder Christian rap projects to have been released since the early 1990's releases from S. S. Mob, the CMC's and the Gospel Gangsters.
    

    This project includes 20 tracks and features cameos from the likes of Bridget Winterman, T-Huzzie, Ty Wills, Heavyweight, BW + LX, Mims and Luppy. Produced by the Kaulipepper Klik and co-produced by Quite Stankable Productions in conjunction with Stay Beat Music, the tracks are not only bangin', but the hooks are catchy and the delivery is on-point and constructed. This new release is not for the faint of heart, as it delves deep into subject matter than many turn their heads away from and may not even know exists, especially existing for the those whom have been saved by the Grace of Jesus Christ.
    

    We're really excited about the changes that we feel the Lord is planning to bring with this new project and we hope you are too. Remember, the Lord works in mysterious ways and even those trapped in the deepest of the concrete jungles need to hear the gospel and in a way they can relate to.

    In Him,

    
    

    Keith Scarlett

    P-Duble and the entire Pike Street Music ministry team

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  • 2 years ago
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