408INC.COM - WHERE SOUTHBAY HAPPENS.

HYBRID CREW presenting…

“BBOY ROYALTY“

*ADMISSION
$12 admission
$5 camera charge
$5 Bboy Form footwork workshop (free for 18 and under kids with school ID)

*WHO
DJ : Drift (80’s Babies / Hybrid Crew) | DJ Eternal (80’s Babies / Hybrid Crew)
Judges : EVADE (Hybrid Crew) | FORM (Brooklyn NYC) | SERGE (Beatz N Piecez) | ABE (Flex Flave)
Host : SCOTTY ALI 1st place : $200

Exhibition : SWELLZ (Flex Flave) vs FORM (Brooklyn NYC)

*VENDOR
Universal Bboy Clothing 

*CONTACT
MySpace: www.myspace.com/hybridcrew
Email: hybridbreakers@gmail.com

*WHAT
2 on 2 battles
1st place : $1000

“Shark Tank” ultimate circle battle
16 sign up
30 minute cypher battle
top 4 battle for

*WHEN
Date : November 29, 2008
Time : 3:00 pm - 10:30 pmBboy Form footwork workshop
Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

 

*WHERE
Mitchell Park Community Center
3800 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto, CA
(650) 329-2487

 

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www.408incshop.com

Direct to Criminal Records page: http://www.408inc.com/shop/index.php?target=manufacturers&manufacturer_id=9

Mr.21 - Mexican Phobia
Mr.21 - Devilz Advocate
Mr.21 - Ace King
Tekpot - Tek Guevarra
Tekpot - The Roach Motel
Criminal Records Presents: “Portrait of a Criminal Compilation”
Mr.21 & Criminal Records Presents: “City of Sharks Compilation”
Cartel De Cali (Mr.21, Big Chuco & C-Locs) -(Spanish Album)
Dos XX - The Most Hated
Brown Skin Artists - Street Stories
Scrilla Mac - On Da Hustle
Scrilla Mac Presents - “408 Riderz Compilation”
Criminal Records Presents - “West Coast Killaz” (Scrilla Mac, Blac & Traffic)

Also coming soon: Fada J - Game Recomp & Fada J - Too Young 2 Die

These are all hard copy cd’s…they will be available digitally in one week for you mp3 players, ipods and more.

- thanks

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Founder of the SBU (South Bay Union); groups such as White Cloudz and Big Gamezmen, and Who has worked with legends like Roger Troutman, San Jose rappers Assassin, Ray Dogg, Sicc Jay Tona, Menlo Park/EPA rap legend Chunk to name a few. China McCloud has been putting it down for 16 years in the independent rap game.

The year is 2000 a young DJ an MC step in to a studio for the 1st time. They’re greeted by the man they came to see, front man for BGM The hit maker from their home town  producer/ rapper and San Jose icon. China McCloud opens his home his eyes slanted and red as they come (that’s why they call him China).  China’s Cabinet is open for business.

My first encounter with China back in 2000 was game laced to say the least. We paid for studio time plus his engineering expertise. Little did we know what exactly was in store. Two young artist eager to learn as much as he was willing to dish out. He brought years of shows, collaborations, beat making to every session. Within a few sessions he extended his hand to my friend, producer and DJ; DJ Quest (Konquest now) to join the SBU as the official DJ. To give an up and comer an opportunity to showcase his talent in front of the world and to scratch and mix on a lot of his CD’s that’s something rare in these days. But China knows talent when he see’s it and has the ear and talent to produce hot beats and drop albums that will forever cement his status in South Bay history. So when you mention San Jose Rap, China’s name will forever be there with the respected OG’s that came before us and put it down!

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ECOSE: When did u start rapping? How Many Albums did you drop???
 
CHINA McCLOUD: I started in back in 92. Six albums They  were; White Cloudz “Smoke Sumn’(group), Gameilogy(solo), BIG GAMEZMEN  ”GOIN’ BIG TIME(group), Hard On the World (group w/ Stric-9) , Gameaholic (solo) and Game Way(solo).

E: When did SBU (south bay union) start and who are the members?

CHINA: Back in 2000-2001 LSP, UTG, FULL CLIP, BLOCK 2 BLOCK, Y2K, MOBFIA, DON CISCO and HIGH MONEY FACULTY (CORPORATE THUGS).  And unofficially *CHUNK .
 
E: You also worked with ASSASSIN?

CHINA: Yeah he worked outta the studio.  I did a lot of his graphic arts for him and countless other artists.

E:  Many people may not know you have also worked with ROGER TROUTMAN can you tell us how that came about?

CHINA: It had to be a month or 2 before he got killed he came down (to do a few tracks for Don Cisco and ASSASSIN.  A few remixes to “More Bounce 2 the Ounce”,” Computer Love” and” Heard it through the Grape Vine”  and when he came over  just as soon as he stepped foot outside there was a shit load of people outside. He was signing autographs for people so the word spread fast when he was there… that was defiantly a blessing…

E: There was an incident at club SPY in downtown San Jose back in 2000? Can u elaborate on what happened?

CHINA: Basically the bouncers were trying to rush me and cut our time. It was me and my boys (BGM). we were not even half way done with our set and they told us we couldn’t rap told us to cut the music. I said look a lot of my peoples are here and they’re here to see us.(BGM). (Photo to the right is of China and his children) So for whatever reason they didn’t want us to rap anymore so I said alright everyone leave the club. So everyone turned around and left the club. (I was there! It was a trip seeing that everyone literally turned around and walked out)

E: So everyone walked out did u know u had that much clout?

CHINA: They (club management) thought they could run the whole script. But the streets run it and if the people are hood they going to do what the hood say.

E: So did u talk to MONEY B (digital underground) after u shut down the club and he wasn’t able to perform?

CHINA: Na that was Will wit Y2K and them. They discussed whatever they had to with him (money b)
as far as I was concerned it made no difference to me.  What they need to realize was this is our home turf, because money b was just a visitor and if we can’t get down in our own back yard nobody is getting down in our own back yard bottom line.

E: What was the basis behind putting the SBU together?

CHINA: We were getting over looked. Dudes were looking at San Jose as a joke. But they want to come down snatch our women up, drink our liquor, smoke our weed and party in our clubs and shoot up the place b4 they leave. So when we went out to Frisco or Oakland to do our thing we’d get only a lil 5 minutes or nobody was feeling us and basically its like this; u gotta get your house straight first b4 u can go out there. So that’s what we did and all the groups came together and if we have guys coming from all the sides in San Jose and everybody had 50-100 fans.

You put all that together and u got 500-600 people ideally at the show instead of 50 people at the door.  That’s how the show got bigger and better and when you get all those artist to come together in 1 venue and once all those fans see everyone come together and getting along from east ,west, south & north San Jose it makes it a lot easier to make music. It stopped a lot of hating and strengthened the infrastructure instead of weakening it. But when it 1st started a lot of people were kind of dissing. You know because u can’t have all these chiefs from all these tribes, but it wasn’t like I was controlling everyone. It was more of a network.

If I’m doing a show u bring your folks out and when u do a show invite me out and more people turn out at the shows and there’s no hating because one night theses guys are performing and your not all that hating was really creating division and its just gonna kill the music and that will leave any other city to come in and take over.
I mean u can compare it to the dope game for example. Where if you’re selling your product on my block (side of town) you need to step off and let me handle it. But in reality there is enough money in this music for everybody and we needed to shake that mentality and see that we are all artists and we are all doing the same thing and we from the all from the same area there’s no reason we cant get along.

Yo, I ain’t gonna listen to just my music all day. They would listen to the next mans music and realized there’s talent around and that allowed for us to put things aside and start working together. We all influence each other and when it came down to selling CD’s who u gonna sell CD’s to? Just your 50 fans??  When u come on my side of town people are gonna be like “na na I ain’t buying that u heard of china?” and when I hit your side they gonna be like “China who? You heard of block 2 block?” so once we put that to rest. then guys were gonna be able to go anywhere and sell because I can go to the East and be like I got this CD and I got ‘UNDER THE GUN’ and fans will recognize that and want to cop it even if they never heard of me.

Then when UNDER THE GUN goes to the South because they got me on it, it made it that much easier to get their CD off. So when u got artist from all 4 points of San Jo your then able to expand your fan base and sell albums across the board with lil or no backlash or anybody hating because their folks is on it. Once you get their folks on, it almost validates you and everybody else and that’s how we got guys to understand that and network together. Now once you do that everything opens up. You got the Mexican rappers/white boy rappers/black rappers u cover a whole spectrum of people and that was a beautiful thing there.

E: What you did was what hip hop is all about. Take it back to New York when it started  with your graph artist, DJ’s, break dancers and MC’s all from a diverse background and that’s what u did here lets get together and get money make good music and show everyone what we are about! (Photo to the left is of China and his son)

E: Why didn’t (SBU) last or progress as u think it should have??

CHINA: basically it was really the business end of things we did a lot of music but not a lot of artist had a lot of business sense to push it forward. I mean I can only do so much I was producing, making graphics, rapping bringing people together but I as one man can only do so much. Some artist wanted to be carried sum or didn’t want to (or couldn’t) put money in.  The ones that did break bread they seen a lot of other weren’t so why should they continue??  Some cats even kept their contacts in their back pocket sitting on them waiting for there opportunity.

E: plans for the future?

CHINA: My heart still pumps music .I got some music that’s gonna be released but at this time I got a script I just finished and its being looked at and we are gonna try and get that rollin soon. I started with the music grass roots and I’m doing the same thing with independent films. I’m taking it back to the streets. I’m taking all of the artist I worked with and putting them on film so u can see sum faces to the voice. Because honestly you have a certain life span in hip hop. Once they (fans) start seeing gray they really ain’t trying to hear that. But you can make movies forever… it just gives u more opportunities to create and be a performer which is what I’d like to think I am.

E: What made u step away from the music?

CHINA: I was constantly making music and my studio was open for 25 and hour but back in 2000 when the economy took a shit it really didn’t help in that aspect I lost a lot of clientele. (75%) within that time and that also lead to the SBU not continuing like it was. No money was coming in. I had to find away to support the family it was either get out there and work or be homeless and u can’t be homeless with a studio. so  I switched my main focus for a while because I go hard in whatever I do and That’s what pretty much happened. It was either rob people sell dope or get a job.  A lot of guys stopped coming around and a lot of other were friends and friends weren’t trying to pay for studio time. So when I started working that’s when I started pressing up my music and it was getting put out here. A lot was made. It was that time also it was getting out there. Me my brother and nephew (strict-9) got out and really hit the streets and filmed our videos…

E: How do feel about the 408inc since you found out about it?

CHINA: Its a good thing, many hands make the work load light .So anytime u get more people in the same mind set in a project and want the same thing and are not looking for something right back and its not a me thing its an US thing, and anyone who is trying to do that and bring people together and get the same goals accomplished I’m with it. I’m always wit it. If you guys are doing something on the same principal what I was doing I’m flattered and never will I hate .So I’m hoping that it will go further than what I did. And I if did something that touched someone and that was the goal. To open the eyes of a few people and see what’s going on in their own back yard…

E: Anything you like to say in closing?

CHINA: Of course I’m not gonna stop wit the music… im planning on collaborating with artists again. And Scrilla (Scrilla Mac) always calls me when something’s going down so yeah ill be out there and keep me in mind if somebody digs what I’m doing give me a call ill be more than happy to come out and get down. And I’d like to give a thank you to 408inc.com for showing love and respect…peace…(Photo to the right is of China at his 9 to 5, he made it a point to show that some rappers still do work and carry on a normal life outside of music)

*CHUNK REPS MENLO PARK/ PALO ALTO BUT HAS DONE TONS OF WORK WITH THE SBU AND CHINA AND IS ACCEPTED PART OF THE UNION. BIG UPS TO CHUNK A BAY AREA RAP LEGEND!

Interview by: Ecose (steelbornmusic@gmail.com)
Purchase China’s Catalog at the 408INCSHOP by clicking here
More Photos from Interview can be seen in the 408INC FORUM
Photography by: BrownDNA (browndna@yahoo.com)

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San Jose RnB Recording Artist Ja’Niah will be performing live this friday night in San Francisco, CA at Club 525 off Howard St. Her new single entitled “I Don’t Want U” is getting great reviews. 408INC’s Playa Rae & Ant Dawg will be in the house that night as well as Movin’ 99.7, Sony & Interscope. It promises to be a great night, for more info email: 408INC@GMAIL.COM Also, be sure to add Ja’Niah to your myspace friend list: www.myspace.com/janiahbluenote

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www.408incshop.com - slide through….there is so much added.

NO MERCY RECORDS:

WEST COAST GOLD COMPILATION
JIGGALO - BULLET PROOF GAME
YOUNG HEAT - HEAT SEASON
THOUROUGHBRED HOGGS COMPILATION
CHINA/INTENT 2 SELL RECORDS:

CHINA McCLOUD - GAMEILOGY
WHITE CLOUDZ - BURN SOM’N
CHINA’S CABINET PRESENTS - FORESEEN
PDR SUPERSTARS - HARD ON THE WORLD
BIG GAMEZMEN - GOIN’ BIG TIME
REBELLION RECORDZ:

BLAC - BLAC HEARTED
We’re gettin alot more product, classics and new shit all the time…come through and get your SOUTHBAY ON yall…..

PRODUCT REQUESTS: 408INC@GMAIL.COM

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READ MORE & DIRECT PURCHASE LINK:
http://www.408inc.com/shop/index.php?target=products&product_id=221 

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[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FLYER & PRINT]

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MEDIA ADVISORY
For Immediate Release: October 6, 2008

 TOWN BUSINESS NETWORK PRESENTS “WAKE YO GAME UP!” THE ALBUM

The “Wake Yo Game Up!” Album aims to engage the urban & Hip-Hop communities in a series of events and activities that encourage voter participation & political activism, leading up to the October 20th voter registration deadline. 

*****************************************************
Hip-Hop is ready to push the envelope again. Town Business Network (TBN) has assembled a group of the San Francisco Bay Area’s hottest acts to change the face of American politics. “Wake Yo’ Game Up! Is a hip-hop album that promotes social change and empowerment through community awareness and the act of voting. Artists are free to explore the theme of Voting & Social Change with two limitations: songs are non-partisan and do not contain curse words. Wake Yo’ Game Up! is part of TBN’s broader Culture of Voting Project, which aims – among other things – to register 125,000 voters by October 20, 2008. Based on the paramount importance of this goal, all artists have agreed to donate their time and creative talents to this project.

TBN has released the first song and video off the album entitled, ” Vote (Ready or not)” by Yung Moses. The music video will be used as a promotional tool for the Culture of Voting Project and the “Wake Yo’ Game Up!” Album. The album will be distributed to a variety of venues in the Bay Area, such as high schools, colleges, shopping centers, barbershops, and community events. Through a generous in-kind donation, 1,000 thousand free copies of the album will be provided by TBN for distribution. These copies will be distributed at no charge to prospective voters throughout the country.

“WAKE YO GAME UP!” The Album Can Be Downloaded at :
http://www.divshare.com/download/5551815-6c4

Also here at 408INC: http://www.408inc.com/shop/index.php?target=products&product_id=234 
 
Also be sure and visit  www.wakeyogameup.org
Here is the line up to Wake Yo’ Game Up! The Album:
 

1. Intro- Ise Lyfe (Def Poetry Jam)    produced by Nick James
2. Vote (Ready or not)- Yung Moses   produced by J-REMI
3. Change the World-    Too Short feat.  B Rad produced by  Beat Roc
4. Broken Dreams- Shake Da Mayor produced by D-Sharp 
5. Vote, Why?- DLabrie  produced by Dex Beats
6. Neva Get By- Esinchill produced by Beat Roc
7. The Don’t Vote Anthem- Silence produced by Faded Monk
8. Make A Decision- Del Tha Funky Homosapien produced by DEL
9. Just Can’t Take No More- Kev Choice produced by Kev Choice  
10. Wake Yo Game Up- N.E.W Oakland J-Stalin, Beeda Weeda, Mistah F.A.B produced by  Beat Roc
11. Fight To Vote- San Quinn feat. Tellymac produced by  Dex Beats                     
12. Outro-  Ryan Nicole   produced by DJ Tou’re
       
Resources are currently available to carry ‘Wake Yo’ Game Up!” through initial production. However, additional support is required to promote the album and continue distribution to mass audiences. TBN is also pursuing funding and other resources to support its Culture of Voting Project. Any support you can provide will ensure that more prospective voters are informed or engaged in their community. 
 

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About The Town Business Network (TBN)

TBN, an Oakland-based non-profit organization, works to mobilize the Hip-Hop community around issues of education, non-violence, economic empowerment, and civic engagement. TBN’s founder, Chuck Johnson, an East Oakland native and community organizer, envisioned bridging local politics and entertainment to mobilize the community, and began organizing voter awareness concerts, around the time of Oakland’s primary elections. The popularity of the concerts, combined with the energy and enthusiastic response he received when visiting local colleges, inspired Johnson to grow the vision and build a movement. The “Wake Yo Game Up!” Initiative was developed as a result, with a focus on addressing voter registration and participation in urban communities.. The goal of the Initiative is to reach young men and women in areas that have had a traditionally low voter turnout, mobilizing them to take action through civic engagement. Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums lends his support to the TBN’s Initiative, stating, “‘I am a citizen’ is a profound political statement. We need the Hip-Hop community say to themselves, ‘I am a citizen.’ By being a citizen, you have to get out there and be knowledgeable, be informed, take action, and assert yourselves.” 

*********************************************************************
 
For more information about the Town Business Network and the “Wake Yo Game Up!” Initiative,
contact Chuck Johnson at (510) 776-4644 or via email at charles@wakeyogame.org. Learn more about Chuck Johnson and TBN online at www.wakeyogameup.org.

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If you are interested in trying to submit something for this, you can contact Tha Critic here: criticentllc@yahoo.com He’s looking for new tracks and your best tracks to display what the Zae has to offer the hip hop game. It’s going to be a free d/l mixtape offered at www.408incshop.com Make sure to tell him you heard about the mixtape through 408INC. New artists out there…this is a dope opportunity for you all to get your name out there if you have dope music and haven’t really had the chance to be heard. Take the time to contact and submit something. The cover is below….cover design: Playa Rae. If you need cover work: 408inc@gmail.com Serious Inquiries Only…No Handouts.

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You read right…anything for promotion of a business or just exercise?

Well, it’s a little of both. 408INC has been getting an amazing response both on and offline any promo we can get we’re taking it. So, yes…(I) Playa Rae will be running the San Jose Rock ‘N’ Roll 1/2 Marathon which is about 13.1 miles in total. Wish ya boy some luck out there….although this has nothing to do with our music scene, it has everything to do with me promoting the site/company that represents our music scene 408INC.

I’ve trained the best I can for this and hopefully will finish with a respectable time hahaha…you can read more about the race here: www.rnrsj.com and I will try and get a little video up and some photos too.

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