Tag Archives: Rostrum Records

Video: “One Last Thing” Mac Miller

Posted on by — No Comments ↓


(MTV.com) – For Mac Miller, Blue Slide Park, his childhood hang-out, is a sanctuary, an untainted place he can go to clear his head when the pressures of rap fame gets to be a bit much. So a year after the November 8 release of his #1 independent debut album Blue Slide Park, Miller revisits his old stomping grounds with a special commemorative video for “One Last Thing.”

“In honor of this last year and blue slide park’s first birthday, I give you…,” the Pittsburgh spitter tweeted Thursday night before blasting out the link to the Rex Arrow-directed “One Last Thing.”

The five-minute video starts off with a montage of all of BSP‘s previously released visuals, “Frick Park Market,” “Smile Back,” “Party on Fifth Ave.,” “Missed Calls” and “Of the Soul” before jumping into the album’s closing track. “Everybody wanna ask where I came from, young kid who bang drums/ Money, don’t you worry I’ma make some,” Mac spits to open while a number of agile dancers sway around him.

More artistic than your standard rap affair, Miller spits from a dimly lit house with blue shading and in some scenes from a bathtub with no water. It’s clear that as he gets set to release his second official LP Watching Movies With the Sound Off at the top of 2012, Miller can never go back to his life before BSP, but that doesn’t mean he can’t look back and find comfort in his humble beginnings. “You just entered in to Blue Slide Park, a place where dreams comin’ true/ That’s where you find heart,” he raps on the Clams Casino-produced song before he closes wailing: “I wanna go back home.”

Rex Arrow Films, Rostrum Records & TreeJTV Present Mac Miller “One Last Thing” Blue Slide Park Anniversary Edition. Watching Movies With The Sound Off Coming Soon…

Directed & Edited By Ian Wolfson
Produced By Noam Harary

Rostrum Records 2012
Rex Arrow Films 2012

MTV: Mac Miller’s ‘Three Fans’ Didn’t Stop Him From Making It Big

Posted on by — No Comments ↓


Mac Miller made history last year when his independently released album, Blue Slide Park, debuted at #1 on the Billboard albums chart with sales of more than 144,000. On the second installment of MTV’s “This Is How I Made It,” the Pittsburgh rapper explains how he went from having just three fans to becoming one of the most popular rappers in the game.

“If I had three people anticipating a video, I would be like ‘So, who’s ready for this video? You guys ready?’ ” Mac Miller reveals in a preview of the upcoming episode. ” ‘I’m about to drop it any minute now!’ And it’s like three people. And most people would be like, ‘Ok, man, I hate myself. I have three fans. I suck.’ But to me, it was like, ‘Up! You guys ready?!’ “

Get More:
Music News

Despite starting off with just three fans, Mac Millions built his loyal fanbase organically and saw the fruits of his labor pay off when his first album became the first indie debut LP to hit #1 since 1995′s Dogg Food by Tha Dogg Pound.

“I thought the ticket to making it was being signed to a record label, you know?” Mac said. “There was just no kinda way that was going to happen. I couldn’t figure out how to do it. That’s when I took to like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to try and build a following. So, I always just wanted to flood the Internet with material and content and character and personality. I wanted people to know who I was to know what I was about — kind of let people into my life a little bit.”

In the episode, Mac reveals one of the first rhymes he ever spit: “First name Mac, last name Miller/ From Pittsburgh, so I rep them Steelers.”

“You kind of pretend you’re bigger than you are,” Mac explained. “It sounds weird, but you want to make it seem like you were established.”

Mac is currently busy completing his second official album, Watching Movies With the Sound Off, but before the sophomore project is released, he’ll be dropping a collaborative Pink Slime EP with Pharrell Williams before the year is out. Mac took to Twitter two months ago to drop the first single, “Glow,” from the EP.

Mac Miller’s “This Is How I Made It,” episode airs Saturday at 12 p.m. ET on MTV.

Video: “My Way” Boaz

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Rostrum Record’s newest signee Boaz with his official music video for “My Way” (Produced by K-Salaam & Beatnick) off the forthcoming project Bases Loaded.

Executive Producer Benjy Grinberg
Directed By @DanMeyers

Rostrum Records 2012
“Based Loaded” September 2012
BoazOfficial.com
www.facebook.com/Boaz412

http://official.fm/tracks/ZWEp

Pittsburgh Rapper Boaz Speaks on Signing to Rostrum Records

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

(XXLMag.com) – Late last week, up and coming MC Boaz officially signed to Rostrum Records. It had been a long time coming for the official partnership between the Pittsburgh rapper and his hometown label.

“It was just the right time with the expansion of the resources and everything, it made things a lot easier,” Boaz told XXLMag.com. “It wouldn’t have made sense for me to go anywhere else. It’s such a powerhouse, and me being from Pittsburgh. It was just all love. It came together at the right time. I had a few meetings with a few different labels, but with them knowing me personally, and which direction my career wanted to go in, it made it a comfortable fit. We basically starting from this ground level. They got this indie hustle and they know what it takes.”

“I’m very excited that Boaz is joining the Rostrum family,” Rostrum President Benjy Grinberg said in a statement. “I have been a big fan of Bo and his music for many years, and I’m looking forward to working with him in a more substantial way.”

Boaz has collaborated with both of Rostrum’s flourishing rap acts—Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller—in the past, and is excited to now officially be part of the team. “With a situation like that, with the artists they got signed now being two of the most influential artists in the game, it’s gonna open up a lot of avenues,” he continued. “It’s a lot of work ahead. I wanna be able to stand up to the plate and go hard. Me and Mac chopped it up about two weeks ago at The Bamboozle Festival. It’s been in the works for the last couple months, so it’s something we all knew was gonna happen, it’s just a matter of when.”

He’s not about to relax now that the ink has dried, though. On the contrary, Boaz is ready to build his momentum, as he’ll be joining Wiz and Mac for the Under The Influence of Music Tour this summer, and dropping his free project, Bases Loaded before the fall. “Right now, with the opportunity that presented itself, it’s looking good from all angles: promotion, marketing, booking,” Bo said. “I’m at the plate with everything in front of me, I just gotta swing and take this shit out the park.”

—Adam Fleischer (@AdamXXL)

Boaz Joins Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa on Rostrum Records

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

It was announced today that Boaz signed to Rostrum Records. What an exciting day in Pittsburgh hip hop! Check out the official announcement below via Rob Markman of MTV.

Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller’s Pittsburgh gang just got a little bit bigger.

On Friday (June 1), independent label Rostrum Records announced that they’ve signed Boaz, a bubbling MC from the ‘Burgh who has made his mark with a number of street-hardened mixtapes. And this summer, Boaz will join his new labelmates onstage for the Under the Influence of Music Tour.

“I’m very excited that Boaz is joining the Rostrum family,” label president Benjy Grinberg said in a press release issued to MTV News on Friday. “I have been a big fan of Bo and his music for many years, and I’m looking forward to working with him in a more substantial way.”

“It wasn’t a decision that was very hard for me given their track record of developing talented learned musicians into great artists,” Bo added in the release. “I’ve known the folks over there [at Rostrum] for some time and I think it is a good fit for both parties!”

Rostrum took a teenage and then-unknown Wiz and helped build him up through the mixtape and live-show circuits for several years before releasing his gold-selling, major-label debut, Rolling Papers, last year, cementing him as one of hip-hop’s brightest stars. With regard to Mac Miller, Grinberg and his Rostrum team have taken the independent route, choosing to grow Mac without the help of a major label. All of the hard work paid off when Miller’s Blue Slide Park debuted at #1 on the Billboard albums chart when it was released back in November.

Boaz, however, brings something distinctly different to the Rostrum mix. “I just bring that underground feel,” Bo told MTV News in December, describing his deeply rooted street sound. “I embrace the culture of that poverty line that I’m speaking about.”

Bo’s last mixtape, The Transition, released in May 2011, featured guest appearances from Mac Miller, Jay Rock and GLC and received critical acclaim among rap’s underground. Next, Boaz will drop a free Internet-based project titled Bases Loaded; expect it early this summer.

What do you think of Boaz signing to Rostrum Records? Tell us in the comments!

Mac Miller Shows Off His Favorite Pittsburgh Studio ID Labs

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Get More: Music News

Contrary to popular belief, Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller didn’t grow up together. Though they both hail from Pittsburgh, are signed to Rostrum Records and have jumped out into the national spotlight, the bond that they share didn’t start in the streets of the ‘Burgh — but instead at ID Labs music studio.

E. Dan opened ID Labs in 2003, and since then he’s recorded some of the city’s biggest hits inside the dusty, vinyl-laced studio. Wiz Khalifa’s classic 2010 mixtape Kush & Orange Juice and a huge chunk of his gold major-label debut Rolling Papers were recorded in ID Labs, as was Mac’s Best Day Ever mixtape and his #1 debut Blue Slide Park.

The studio has been pivotal in Mac’s development, so a few hours before his first homecoming show on December 9, he took MTV News on a tour of ID Labs.

“There’s definitely a sound within the people that work out of here,” E. Dan says of his studio and its in-house producers, Big Jerm and Sayez. “It’s hard for me to say what an actual definitive sound of Pittsburgh is; I think it’s probably a combination of a lot of stuff. We’re not in New York; we’re not in L.A.; we’re not in one of the epicenters of hip-hop. I feel like, we’re, if anything, a combination of all that.”

Mac Miller returns to Blue Slide Park.

Sledgren, who isn’t technically a part of the ID Labs production team but frequently works out of the studio, remembers what it was like coming up with a sound for Wiz’s Kush & Orange Juice. “We were just young goin’ to the club, knowing what everybody wanted to hear, and we just gave that our own twist,” he said of how he and Wiz came up with tracks like “Never Been.” For Sayez to think that two artists of Wiz and Mac’s magnitude just so happened to come out of ID Labs is mind-blowing. “That’s just crazy that two of the major players in today’s hip-hop culture, music culture are doing it so big that they just happened to come through this building,” he said.

“Everybody who worked in this building … put in ridiculous amounts of work and sacrificed so much to be able to put out good music and be there and try and get the city movement goin’.”

Wiz Khalifa motivates Pittsburgh’s up-and-coming artists.

The fact is, both Khalifa and Miller have the option of working in higher-end studios with more notable producers, but the fact that they choose to keep coming back to the ‘Burgh to work in ID Labs speaks fathoms. “It felt great, Wiz coming back to work on his album because he could’ve worked with anybody,” Big Jerm said of the Rolling Papers sessions that took place in ID Labs. “He could’ve been in with Pharrell, but he chose to come back here. I think it’s just comfortable for him, he’s comfortable with us. I think it’s a good situation for everybody really.”

Stick with MTV News all week as Mac Miller takes us back to the ‘Burgh and spotlights the city’s vibrant hip-hop scene.

- courtesy of MTV.com

MTV: Wiz Khalifa Wants To ‘Motivate’ Pittsburgh’s Hip-Hop Up-And-Comers

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓


Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s hip-hop roots run deep. Wu-Tang Clan‘s RZA once called the Steel City home, and mid-1990s Death Row Records MC/producer Sam Sneed held the city down as did Dr. Dre’s production affiliate Mel-Man. Still, when Wiz Khalifa put the ‘Burgh on his back with his 2010 hometown ode “Black & Yellow,” the city had officially arrived as a hip-hop hot spot.

“Everybody’s hardworking and it’s not like a big music scene out there, so when you got somethin’, you just go with it,” emerging Pittsburgh MC Chevy Woods said in a December interview. “Everybody sees the light that shines on [Khalifa] and Mac [Miller] and now it’s trickling down to everybody else.”

CLICK HERE TO SEE WIZ’S FULL INTERVIEW

After Wiz blew the doors off, Mac Miller came next. Though both rappers are signed to Rostrum Records, a local label, they came up separately. Khalifa has his Taylor Gang crew, while Miller has the Most Dope collective.

“With the music, it’s a whole new avenue we done opened up for kids and for people to look up to,” Khalifa said of how he helped shine a spotlight on the ‘Burgh, paving the way for future MCs. “It’s a reality now out there, so it’s really important for us to just embrace ‘em and motivate ‘em and push ‘em forward.”

As a kid, Wiz moved around a bit but began to call the ‘Burgh home at an early age — particularly the rough-and-tumble Hazelwood section. “You really won’t get it if you’re not from there,” Wiz said of his hometown. “Just growing up in Pittsburgh and knowing different neighborhoods, having family there and just loving it, it’s like no other place.”

As far as Pennsylvania goes, Philadelphia has churned out the most rap talent. From Schoolly D to Will Smith to Beanie Sigel’s State Property and now Maybach Music’s Meek Mill, Philly has had no shortage of rap representation. While they sit within the same state lines, Pittsburgh and Illadelph couldn’t be more different.

“We always had love for Philly. It was harder for Philly to embrace us because we’re a little bit slower to them or to more East Coast towns,” Wiz said. “Philly is more East Coast than Pittsburgh. It’s closer to New Jersey and New York, so the vibe is way more fast-paced. Pittsburgh, it’s just laid-back … Midwest almost on some country stuff.”

Stick with MTV News all week as Mac Miller takes us back to the ‘Burgh and spotlights the city’s vibrant hip-hop scene. Then tune in to “RapFix Live” on Wednesday at 4 p.m. on MTV.com for exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from Mac’s hometown shows.

- courtesy of MTV


Video: “Best Day Ever” Mac Miller

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Rex Arrow Films, Rostrum Records & TreeJTV Present…

Mac Miller
Best Day Ever (prod. ID Labs)

Shot & Edited By Ian Wolfson
Additional Footage Shot by Dave Prokopec & Alex Surgent
Childhood Footage Shot By Karen Meyers
Lil Mac Played By Lil T
Executive Producer: Benjy Grinberg
Marketing & Promotion: Arthur Pitt

Rex Arrow Films 2011
Rostrum Records 2011