Liberator Magazine :: Art, Culture, Education, Politics, Truth...

As a local observer of Minneapolis Hip Hop since 1984 I have witnessed a city that has shown little support for local Hip Hop artists. Throughout this time period there have been many droughts when venues refused to open their doors to local Hip Hop artists, getting a song played on the radio was as hard as finding a black ACDC fan. Then somewhere in the mid-90's Minneapolis was introduced to the Head Shots, which was only one of many crews at the time that were fueling the resurrection of Minneapolis Hip Hop.

Brent Sayers AKA Sadiq is one of the pioneers of this new Hip Hop scene that took Minneapolis Hip Hop from heads gathered in ciphers in local high school bathrooms and artists shopping the country for record deals, to becoming a scene that was based on the old punk-rock model of DIY (Do it yourself). It was a long and difficult process that was under-documented that brought Rhymesayers Entertainment to the point is it at now. Rhymesayers has managed to not only create a record label, but to build a scene that would in fact help support this label in the years to come.

As I pulled up to the storefront of Fifth Element, which at the time looked more like a construction site then a storefront and home to one of the country's most successful independent Hip Hop record labels, I'm greeted by a young man, Skye, who looks more like a baseball or hockey player then a record label executive. After greeting me and giving me a tour of the newly remodeled Rhymesayers headquarters, he leads me to the back and points to a guy who looks about 18 wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of white Air Force Ones with a baseball cap pulled low over his brow in typical b-boy fashion. “There he is,” referring to the label president and majority holder of the intellectual property that makes up Rhymesayers Entertainment. After waiting for about ten minutes, “Hey man are you ready cause this will never stop”, he said over the top of his desktop computer referring to the many phone calls and people asking questions, and then lead me upstairs.

Liberator: What would you say was the hardest thing you had to deal with in building the Rhymesayers Empire?
Sayers: The Hardest aspect really was staying focused, not letting shit distract you or detour you from your goal, so like once you get a goal in your head keeping your focus on that goal, and any thing that comes at you to shake you off just shake that off, and we have lost a lot of cats like that because it was that important, it was like you cant hang on to that dead skin. Accomplishing anything is like a fight in itself so to be fighting that fight, an internal fight with who you are suppose to be fighting [along side of] is ridiculous.

So at what point did what we are seeing from Rhymesayers now, become something you could see as a reality?
I think I always saw this, you know I have always been the type of person that looks ahead, and visualize what is obtainable and what is there and what isn’t there, so even early on I was like yeah and a lot of cats were like man you are trippin'. Like when I said we should open a record store you know, and that was like five years before, look ahead at something bigger.

Now as we look around, its like "damn an emcee out of Chicago got a deal with Rhymesayers," at what point did you realize it was time to start expanding and reaching out to artists outside of Minneapolis?
I always wanted to do that in order to be official, plus there is only so much talent here, you know people don’t wanna face it, you know, everybody and their mom is a rapper. The talent here is limited and I am always looking for talent. There are a lot of talented cats here that might not ever get there or I would never approach because they don’t have the right mind-state, attitude, or work ethic. You want well rounded people. Anything outside of that will just help bring you down, like I said, the fight is hard enough itself, so the people in my circle, I want them to be really solid people. So I was blessed to realize that I could not build that just out of here. I am always gonna be based here but it's gonna be all over the place. It is all about expanding and realizing that there is a caliber of talent that we might not have ever got to work with if we just limited it to here. And we wanted to be official in the industry, and not just be known as just a little crew you know. So we dropped that mentality and the whole mindset a long time ago of being a crew to actually being a record label.

So at this stage of the game what role do you see yourself playing?
Well I am still playing 50 different roles right now, ultimately I hope that will change but right now I am still playing the role of "wear whatever hat you need to get the job done" and that is the role I pretty much been playing since day one. What needs to be done you do it, if you don’t know how to do it you just figure it out, it’s that simple. Ultimately I see myself as someone who works directly with the artists to basically fulfill what they want to fulfill. Whether that means they don’t want to be a superstar, they just want to be able to make a living off their music and enjoy what they do, or whether they wanna be a superstar. I see myself being in that role and being more of a creator in the sense of brining things together. Now, you may find me doing layout design, you may find me doing promotion marketing, you come on the right day you may see me in the back putting on labels for press mailings. I do what needs to be done and that has always kinda been. I'm trying to build a team to do all that other stuff so I can kinda make sure the ship continues to sail. That is something I have learned from running a business that I didn’t necessarily know from jump.

So what about the critics that say you all don’t mess with the thugs-doo-rag-jersey-type cats who seem too in the mainstream represent Hip Hop?
Umm I mean well I will put it like this, I feel that we have people that can play for that crowd but are a little bit above that crowd. Would you call I-Self a part of that? I think he is unique and extraordinary for that crowd but I think he can appeal to that crowd, I think Ali can appeal to that crowd but I think he is extraordinary for that crowd and that is why we'd rather have artists like that, rather then someone who is just your flavor-of-the-month, because trends change and those things come and they go and that is why you see so many artists that have number one singles and then disappear.

So how has Rhymesayers managed to avoid the disappearing hit makers in a time when the industry is falling off? How have you all maintained for ten years?
Like I am saying, it starts with solid artists, and good work ethic, you know. We bust our asses. I guarantee you that nobody works how we work, and I know that is a part of it, and even fools that think they are working I guarantee you they have no idea about real work. I was here till 5:00 in the morning last night, I have a family but I was still here driving home when the sun was coming up went to sleep until about 10:00, got up and came right back to work and started working again. That’s my day and these idiots be like "man these fools are balling." We are living and we are all eating, and we are striving to get to a higher place but that is not the focus, and I think people really need to step up their work game, and you have to have quality artists. I have quality artists, I don’t stock pile artists that can rap their ass off. Big deal. But it doesn’t stop and start there, there has got to be more then that and that is what we have been able to do. So it is all about getting solid artists and working, and it is a lot of work. To get to where we are today has taken over ten years, and we are still not balling out of control, but to be doing this for ten years and having had the success that we have had means that we are standing on a strong foundation, which is the best thing that we can do cause you can’t tear that away.

Your staff seems to have a lot of confidence in you.
What is there to be afraid of? From day one we have always done it on our own conditions and by our own means. We never bent or buckled to anything that has been put in our face, and a lot has been presented to us, we could have taken the bigger pay day we could have went off and signed with major labels, it wasn’t what we wanted to do we never had nobody bankroll this ship. Our biggest bankroll was me maxing out the couple credit cards I had early on. When we started things and we took everything we earned and we rolled it back in, we kept doing that until it got to the point where we were like ok we are going to hire you, and we would make it official and now we have turned that into something bigger, but it was a long process. I'm like cool do your thing cause it is all a dice role and maybe someone will catch that lucky dice role and hit a lucky 7, and it will pop off but there have been a lot of cats waiting on that dice roll. I am not trying to wait on that. It is my philosophy I gotta do for myself cause I am a firm believer in that, cause if you do something for yourself nobody can take that away from you, it’s like we own this building now you cant take that away from me, I mean the government if they wanted to they could, but as long as things stay the way they are you can't take that away from us. Everything else could fall down but we still own this building, those are the kind of steps we have been trying to make while trying to continue to diversify what we do so we are always trying to do things that will put another brick in the foundation.

Have you gotten an official Rhymesayers check and what did that feel like?
Yeah of course I mean I have been working fulltime for the last ten plus years, but it has never really been like that cause there are months to this day where I may only make a thousand dollars or I may only take a thousand dollars, cause it is not about that yet, it is still about the growth. I don’t look at it like, okay, now we gotta get my pay check up to $90,000 a year starting this year. If I need something I try to build the company to where it can provide that need. I don’t pinch off the company cause I need the company to survive.

So you all got a ten-year anniversary coming up and how does that feel?
It feels like "damn I am getting old." It feels good man to look back at something and be like we’ve been doing this for over ten years, cause ten years is not the official count that is really just dating the birth of the Label with the first real release being Beyond’s "Comparison." It feels good but it is a really odd thing cause I spend so much time working that I don’t really get to look at it from an admiring point of view. It feels good that I have had a job, and been able to provide that same thing for other people that have been able to work for themselves doing what they love for ten years, that’s amazing, and that is the real special part. I don’t play a roll on stage with the glitz and glamour and all the little perks that come along with being in that role, so what fuels me is seeing the cats that I grew up with and be able to be like this dude is in a better place he just bought a new car or a new house. That’s a hard thing to do -- keep people focused and on point for that long a period of time -- so I look at those things as my real accomplishments.

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