Through his video interviews, Grade A Muzik provides Alabama’s hip-hop artists a forum to introduce themselves to the world and allows their fans to put faces to names. But there’s a lot more to Grade A Muzik than just interviews. He’s got his hands in several different pots – mixing, engineering, producing and rapping – and he’s only just getting started. So if you’ve ever wondered about the person behind the camera, today’s your lucky day. Read on to find out more about Grade A Muzik, what makes him tick and how he hopes to be a part of Alabama’s hip-hop movement.
YOU'VE SEEN HIS VIDEO interviews all over the internet lately. You know them when you see them. Q&A-style video's that last about ten minutes, each one about a different mover and shaker on Alabama's hip-hop scene - artists, DJ's, promotors, radio personalities, whoever. People like Attitude, DJ Full Moon, Mr. Bigg, and Ali Shabazz are just a few of the folks he's interviewed. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about Grady Ellis.
Oh. I’m sorry. You don't know who that is do you? I didn't either. That name is nowhere on his company's MySpace page. You won't see it on the YouTube channel where all his interviews are posted. And It's not on his company's voice mail either. But if you've been paying attention to the videos posted all over your local artists' MySpace pages and websites, you do know his working name. You know... Round logo? Black and white? Bottom right corner of the screen? Ohhhhh! Now you know who I'm talking about: Grade A Muzik!
YOU MEAN GRADE A Muzik is a person? Yes. He is. Grade A is a play on his real name, Grady. Born in Selma, Alabama he moved around a lot in his younger years due to the fact that his father was in the military. But now he resides in Montgomery. “I lived probably half my life in Montgomery - at least the last 10 or 15 years,” he says.
But he’s been on the hip-hop scene for a lot longer. He got his first real exposure to hip-hop back in the mid-‘80's in Korea - of all places - where he lived on a military base with his family. He recalls a group of kids on the base who had a dance group and would get together and break-dance to various rap songs. "That was when hip-hop was bumping - really starting to get out there in the mainstream," says Grade A Muzik. As he got older, he got more into hip-hop. [I was] "the typical white kid buying rap music" like NWA and Public Enemy.
Eventually, he decided to become a rapper himself, but it wasn’t long before he ran into a little snag. "I needed somebody to record me. Well, I didn't have that, so I had to learn." But he soon found that the more he learned, the more he needed to learn. “I learned that stuff, and then it got to a point where I had to learn more.” Finally, he decided to take a more formal path, and in 2002, he enrolled at Full Sail University. "I learned about recording and stuff, and when I came back to Montgomery, I worked with the group, Dirty," says Grade A Muzik, adding that he engineered Dirty's first album, Love Us or Hate Us. “That was how I got introduced to Southern hip-hop,” he says.
Although he got his beginnings as an engineer, he eventually began mixing and producing. Slowly, his love for doing these things began to rival his desire to be a rapper. "I started working with other artists as the years went on and became more of a behind the scenes [person] as opposed to trying to be an artist,” says Grade A Muzik.
Actually, he’s still an artist. His rapper name is Scragg Lee, but, he says, “I don’t promote that as much as I should right now. I’m more about Grade A Muzik.” While he enjoys being Scragg Lee, he also enjoys being Grade A Muzik. “[With] Grade A, I get to be behind the scenes, more hands on and making beats and mixing stuff and really creating that sound that I feel like for so long wasn’t all the way there [quality-wise]; and now with digital and pro-tools and recording, it’s easier to make the sound better.”
OKAY. I MUST ADMIT that before this interview started, I thought Grade A Muzik just did video interviews of Alabama’s rappers, but by this point in the interview, I’m beginning to realize that there’s a lot more to it than just that. Grade A Muzik is a business. “This is how I make my living,” he says. But it’s kind of difficult to pin-point exactly what kind of business it is. Grade A Muzik, the man, wears a lot of hats and his company has a wide scope of activities, so it doesn’t easily fit into one category. Heck, even he seemed to have a difficult time telling me - in a concise manner - what the company is. But he did tell me a lot about what he does, and based on that information, it seems that Grade A Muzik is a multi-faceted business that actually fits into not one, but four different categories: recording services, production, record label and artist advocate.
"I'm just trying to show love to artists in the state. I always try to support the artists,
so that's where the interviews come from."
First of all, there’s the recording side – the technical stuff. As I stated earlier, Grade A Muzik got into the game through engineering, mixing and recording. While he initially learned these things to further his own rap career, he now provides these services for artists. “I’ve mixed songs for everybody. [I’ve] recorded songs for everybody.” Second, there’s the production side. He was taught how to produce by Montgomery, Alabama’s Dr. Fangaz, and now “I do tracks [and] I try to get my tracks out there to hot artists.” Third, Grade A Muzik is a label – kind of. Although the company is not quite set up to be a label and currently has no artists (besides Scragglee), “its been a label at one point.” And he seems to still consider it to be one. He even has plans to sign other artists in the future, so for now, we’ll call it a label. Lastly, there’s the artist advocacy side – Grade A Muzik helps other artists to get exposure by helping them to get radio spins and BDS Scans among other things. And of course, the video interviews are definitely a help to artists who are looking to be seen as well as heard.
While the recording and production services that Grade A Muzik provides to other artists are his bread and butter, the artist advocacy side is not about making money. In particular, the videos are simply his way of paying homage to artists and helping them to get exposure. “I’m just trying to show love to artists in the state and trying to help promote. I feel like we [have] so much to offer.” However, he says, Alabama still has some work to do and still has a long way to go. Regardless of that, he wants to be there to see Alabama through to the end, and his videos are a way of doing that. “I always try to support the artists, so that’s where the interviews came from.”
AND NOW, FINALLY, WE'VE reached the subject of Grade A Muzik’s video interviews. All of his videos follow the same format: approximately 10 minutes, question and answer style, the same basic questions every time. And there's no host. The questions appear on the screen ("I don't like my voice"), and then the artist answers the questions. “I want this shit to be as stale as possible,” he explains. “[I want] to have everybody be on an even playing field where they know what they're getting.”
Grade A currently tries to do two or three interviews a week. "Sometimes, I'm in spots [where] there's more people there, and I can catch more in a short period of time." He would like to interview on a more frequent basis, maybe even conducting as many as one interview a day, but unfortunately, getting around to the different cities is not always easy. “I have to kinda schedule that shit now,” he says.
And for good reason. Grade A Muzik has interviewed a whole slew of artists from all over the state of Alabama, most of whom are from Alabama's four largest metro areas: Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile and Huntsville. When I ask him to name some of the people he’s interviewed, he rattles off about twenty names, including Rich Boy and C-Nile from Mobile, Birmingham J and Twaun Pledger from Birmingham, 6-Tre Gangsta and Jackie Chain from Huntsville, and “pretty much everybody in Montgomery”.
But for every city that he's been to, he can name just as many more that he'd like to cover real soon. “I need to get up to Tuscaloosa... I need to get Selma good. Tuskegee…[the] Opelika area…Dothan..." One of his priorities right now is to get back down to Mobile. But from the sounds of it, his first stop is going to be up top. “I really need to get Northern Alabama real heavy,” he says. “I gotta hit Huntsville. It’s a bunch of people up there. They doing they thing right now."
Grade A Muzik is feeling a lot of local artists right now, but the two that top the list are King South and Killa Katt, both from Montgomery.
Grade A Muzik decides who to interview based on several criteria. First of all, his own preference plays a big part. “I’m a fan first," he says, "so I’m looking and trying to see who’s hot from Alabama.” And of course, it's a given that he'll interview many of the artists who've already made names for themselves. But word of mouth seems to have the most weight. "I may interview somebody, and I may ask them who they feel is hot in their city and they might say some names I ain’t never heard.” If he hears the same name several times, then he knows he's struck gold. “Artists are egotistical. Most of the time they talk about themselves, so when you ask ‘em who’s hot, they gon’ tell you the truth.”
And don't expect any handouts from this guy. Grade A Muzik is looking to expose artists who are really on their grind. If that's not you, you might just wanna keep it moving. “If you ain’t really out there pushing for your state or for your city or where you from,” he says, it’s not gonna fly. “You’ll probably have to pay for an interview if you trying to get free promotion. I don’t really do it like that." He continues, "I’m here to help contribute, but you gotta put in work too. You gotta do your half as far as make good music, and put yourself out there. I'm just something extra to help make it that much bigger."
"Once Alabama crosses that line where it's getting national exposure, Grade A Muzik is gon' be right there to help represent Alabama."
BIGGER. THAT'S JUST HOW Grade A Muzik imagines his company in the future. "I feel like it's gon' be big," he says. "Where it goes and what it'll do, I don't know yet. I'm just trying to push it out there as far as I can and get Grade A Muzik more exposure." He wants to build Grade A Muzik into a recognizable brand. “The [name], Grade A Muzik, and the logo kinda grew on me, so I’m just going with it. He’d eventually like to get into movies and clothes and even win a Grammy or two. “I’m just trying to brand this, and put it out there.” But don't just assume that he's only thinking about himself and his bank account. While he both likes and needs money, he has a higher purpose: "I do it cause I enjoy music."
He also enjoys being part of a movement. He wants to be there to help develop Alabama's music and artists and to help create a signature sound and style for Alabama. And then? "I feel like once Alabama crosses that line where it's getting national exposure, then I feel like Grade A Muzik is gon' be right there to help represent Alabama." But he acknowledges that it’s going to take a village to raise this child. There's no way he can do it all on his own. "It's gon' take a team. It's gon' have to be other labels and musicians and artists and producers...I just wanna be part of that push."
IT'S APPARENT THAT GRADE A Muzik understands what being a part of Alabama’s hip-hop movement is all about. "It's about exploring yourself and making better music for your area - for where you from - and just bringing something to the game.” You see, he knows that to be a part of a movement, you have to contribute something special. Not necessarily big. Just special. And that’s just what he plans to do for Alabama’s hip-hop movement. “I wanted to bring something different, and Grade A Muzik, I want that to be that [something] different.”
