Right here’s a vibe list for you
and some rough advice.
You can get a good idea of what we’re about by
buying the RUF029CD for £5 as it has 16 strong (we
think) tracks by various artists from 1999. We are
open minded about stuff but tend to stick to
mainly releasing hip hop / beaty stuff that rocks
the floors and minds and if it had got vocals –
come from a gifted MC with something to say.
Having said that Rufmouth likes all kinds of music
(except for manufactured pop and the uninspiring
easy listening sounds of today. He would like to
find a band or be part of a supergroup that could
mix up all styles and play at the biggest
festivals on earth and get over some part of the
section of his new Rufmouth Says writings (see
other side of site)! I dunno something like
Nirvana/Public Enemy mixed with Manic Street
Preachers/Jimi Hendrix but with a bit of a dance
edge and some kicking beats, audio madness going
on the decks, snyths, with VJ’s dropping the
dopest “reality” shows behind them… as you see I
still have dreams too. I love my hip hop … but
there is more to life and it comes from everything
else so I respect all artists trying to say
something original and from their fucking heart
(as Bill Hicks would shout).
Styles we like:
HIP HOP
PROPER ENTERTAINING, EDUTAINING FUNKY PARTY
RIPPING HIP HOP , HOPEFULLY WITH SOME FUNK OR SOUL
IN IT AND PREFERABLY WITH AN ORIGINAL DISTINCTIVE
EDGE, WE LIKE SCRATCHING TOO IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T
GUESSED BUT NOTHING IS ESSENTIAL OTHER THAN THE
VIBE.
Tunes that are actual songs that have hooks that
stay in your head but at the same time have
something raw, real and truthful about them.
SCRATCH & CUT N PASTE TUNES AND AMAZING DJ TUNES
ARE GREAT IF LIKE JEEP BEAT COLLECTIVE AND K
DELIGHT YOU CAN MANAGE TO MAK ETHEM DECENT CLUB
TUNES AND INTERESTING TO LISTEN TO, RATHER THAN
THAT NOISY NAVEL GAZING TURNTABLIST SHITE
It would be nice to find a new group who stuck
together and did shows properly but managed to get
a personality over, as I feel personality is
missing in music right now – everything is a bit
shallow to say the least. If we’re going to put
our hard earned into your skills – then come with
a finished live / DJ package that’s original and
fresh and get some proper experience at shows.
BASICALLY IT TAKES YEARS TO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER
AND TOO MANY FOLKS IN HIP HOP JUST THROW THEIR
SHIT OUT THERE WITHOUT GETTING IT 100% SORTED. IF
YOU DON’T TAKE YOUR SHIT SERIOUSLY – WHY EXPECT
OTHERS TO?
BEATS, BREAKS, FUNK
AND ANY PROPER MUSIC THAT HAS BALLS AND SAYS
SOMETHING OR EMITS AND ATMOSPHERE – EVEN BETTER IF
FOLKS CAN DANCE TO IT
A lot of the most successful records we have
released have had elements of all genre’s of music
and we feel too many hip hop artists box
themselves away too much and should enjoy their
influences more and let them shine through and be
a positive influence. Our stuff has taken in other
genre’s like
CLASSICAL (but no wack jiggy shit)
LATIN
ROCK (all sorts from everywhere)
BLUES
JAZZ
CHEESY POP
COMEDY RECORDS
KIDS RECORDS
PILES OF SOUNDTRACKS
SOUND EFFECTS AND LIBRARY RECORDS
ALL FORMS OF DANCE – FROM HARDCORE TECHNO THRU
CLASSIC HOUSE – TO TRIP HOP, BIG BEATS, NU SKOOL
BREAKS and on and on
Basically our advice is this. If you have proper
quality tracks done to a decent standard that fit
in loosely or solidly with the Ruf Beats style
then great send them in. We do listen to
everything that’s sent in, well at least a track
of the odd epic 20 track demo, but we don’t get
time to react to them all. However if we do like
it and spot a bit of potential we encourage groups
and artists along and help them a bit hear and
their with basic advice. However we would like to
point out that we are fairly small (but extremely
dangerous) and we need your help too. Suffice to
say that the artists we have released on the label
have been mainly close affiliates to Ruf Beats and
happy, positive artists and Dj’s in their own
scenes.
We actively oppose the false glimmitty glammity of
the corrupt corporate music industry and its 4th
Riech masters whether it be in areas of censorship
or morality. This tends to mean if you’re some
bling bling catthen sending us a demo is fairly
pointless.
We don’t tend to get many decent demo’s when they
are sent in when people don’t have an idea of what
this label is about. So do us a favour and grab
the sampler CD before you call us blind to what we
are.
DEMO CHECK LIST – Do’s and DON’Ts
If you have a demo – wait to send them in until
they are properly finished.
Make sure your all your bloody contact details are
written on the bloody tape in CD/Tape/DAT etc.
If you want it sending back if we can’t do
anything with it – then why not send us a jiffy
bag. Why should we pay for you being wack! (only
joking… hmmm)
Send in full info on CD tracks, times, producers
other artists etc preferably with some promotional
material about you and your group without being
too long winded. And by the way over hyping
yourself rarely works but humour often does. It is
an art form trying to sum up how to “sell
yourself” we prefer now to try to just be
ourselves and let the honesty shine through rather
than trying to over big ourselves up… After all
everyone in hip hop especially says they are the
dopest… it’s another thing entirely to paint an
accurate picture of who you are and what your
music is about.
A biography is sort of essential.. but don’t
overblag what you’ve done. EG If you did one show
supporting a US act DON’T say you did a tour with
them – it’s a bit of a different thing. If you had
500 copies of a tune out – don’t be tempted to say
it sold 2000 – thi sis not big and not clever and
can end up costing us and you time and effort.
Honesty is the only policy in a business swimming
with snakes folks so let’s get this straight from
the start.
Regarding photo’s – if we’re interested we’ll meet
you. I don’t care what any group looks like
whatsoever… it’s spirit I’m interested and truth..
aswell as beats that make people go crazy.
DON’T Phone us constantly and hastle us about
listening to it – if all your info is on there
then we’ll give you a call if we like it.
DON’T Get all attitudy if you’re asking us what we
think of it and we’re brutally honest. Although
Dave is not a Simon Cowell hate figure he is
pretty honest – if you can’t take it – don’t send
it in. We always try and be positive in our
remarks having struggled personally to master
shite equipment over years before finally after 6
years in 1993 being able to then launch a long and
distinguished career in probably the hardest music
genre in which to survive in this fucked up Big
Brother country that is Great Britain.
OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS – ROUGHLY ha ha
In the future we basically want to give ultra
cheap or even free downloads of everything on the
label and start encourage others to do the same
and thus take on a destroy the mediocre machine.
We will also drop limited edition and full
releases on the original format limit VINYL with
CD runs too to serve the real fans, who hopefully
will be moved by your music enough to buy if and
if not hey.. they might come to one of your shows
or buy a T Shirt etc. By us putting your stuff on
our future website and releasing small, high
quality specialist releases we hope tohelp you
build up a reputation quicker than you could be
yourself –but at the same time encouraging links
with your website, your business, your live/dj
bookings etc. the business is changing – and we
don’t want to own nobody cos you know what you ARE
FREE – you may not feel it sometimes but you are.
At the same time the mediocre music machine
currently existing is just selling kids (and
sometimes grown adults) pure fantasies or untold
riches, bitchs and MTV dross. There has got to be
more to life so we hope to learn to live with the
age old simple formula of – what goes around comes
around… and if you have to work twice as hard to
get noticed to scratch (pardon the shit pun) a
living out of it, then so be it. You can always do
a crap normal job too and then do your music on
the side..(although we do tend to find that people
who only do music are forced to take it seriously
rather than piss about with a 12” release every 3
years (hello K Delight –I know I’m being tight
mate).
Lets get this one out of the way - we do not fund
recordings for our artists – those costs are up to
them. We just make it possible to get those
recordings out at no expense to the artists and
then split any profits 50/50 with the artist.
We do not pay advances – what do you think we are
a bank. People who pay advances charge you
interest, you may not notice it but they do – they
own you and inevitably fuck you up.
What we do pay is very simple and devoid of all
the false accounting major business bullshit. We
pay you as an act 50% of whatever NET profit on
every individual release is, exactly 6 months
after release and then every year after that. The
accounts are simple and easy to understand. As you
may know it’s really hard to make profit on less
than 1,000 singles but there are ways and we know
most of them by now after 12 years. We do quite
well licensing on records too – and you get 50% of
that, we pass on any other interested parties too
regarding shows, interviews etc and basically look
for an occasional direct relationship with you
with no bullshit.
A brief word about Commitment… we have put out
individual 12”s by artists, but mainly only
because we wanted them to get to the point of
having an album, however most part timers simply
don’t get it together and this is a bit pointless.
I always think it’s best to come out with a few
releases or build up a steady slew of releases
that in turn gets you noticed so that when you
drop that album you’ve opened people up. It is a
bit silly to just drop a whole album when no one
knows you, although sometimes if the idea,
concept, music etc is dope enough it doesn’t
matter. We advise groups to do stuff for other
labels too and YOU ARE COMPLETELY FREE TO DO THIS
aswell as any mixtapes, broadcasts etc whatever –
it all connects back in somewhere. On the whole we
want to put out amazing releases and like special
one off releases too, but ideally we want a long
term relationship that means dope singles, track
contributions for our other projects, maybe
remixes of our artists and of coarse regular
albums whenever possible. However all this is
changing – if the website takes off we’ll soon
simply be able to issue tracks FREE (or v cheaply)
every month on line and then press VINYL/CD to
approx demand which saves money and big pile of
vinyl under the stairs syndrome (which is healthy
for no one.. except spiders).
It does help if you are in touch or supportive of
Ruf Beats. This may sound odd but you would be
surprised (no you probably wouldn’t) of how many
people want you to release them for purely selfish
reasons and have no other contact with the label
–if that is the case just forget it now. To me
respect is first and foremost, if you don’t
respect the label’s stance then don’t get
involved, this doesn’t mean you have to like all
the acts. You could just be supportive of the mail
order, buy the odd release, do shows or
collaborate with others occasionally or even bring
some contacts in for us – what I’m saying is that
working with RUF BEATS is a two way thing. Fevered
Ego’s are not welcome, there’s far too many in
music. We want to connect and build consciousness
TOGETHER we have more chance of getting it out
there wider this way as I’ll be more motivated.
Registering for MCPS, PRS etc etc is up to you. We
currently have a Publishing deal administered on
our behalf that means we can include it – if you
become a regular releasing artist. However it is
only really worth it if you are getting big radio
play and it’s hard to get that in the Uk without
spending the 50x the return on so called record
pluggers.
A final note RUF BEAT is just me RUFMOUTH and a
bunch of friends. No B/S allowed! Written by
RUFMOUTH 7/3/04 |
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