24-Introduce yourselves to our readers online and around the
world.
Baysiqly:
What’s up world, I go by the name of Baysiqly, AKA Dreamer. Thanks for having
us 24hourhiphop.
E.R.:
What they do world, it’s E.R., one half of the Vagabonds checking in!
24-How
long have you been recording music for and perfecting your craft as composers?
Baysiqly:
I have always been around music ever since I could remember, but I really
didn’t start getting into it until 2004 or 2005. Although I look back at what I
did before and look at where my craft has come to be, and there’s a HUGE
difference.
E.R.:
I’ve been writing raps since I was in sixth or seventh grade, and started
dabbling in beat making around ninth grade. As far as recording goes, I never
really started producing for other people and recording tracks until after I
graduated high school, so this is something that I knew was a jit I wanted to
do, so I happened to just spend most of my teenage years perfecting my craft as
opposed to doing the typical teenager stuff.
24-I’m
aware that before becoming a Duo you both were solo artist’s. Tell me a bit
about how it all came full circle and the meaning behind The Vagabonds.
Baysiqly:
I haven’t always been a solo artist, I was involved in a previous venture where
I was in a duo with another person, which that didn’t work out. As far as
teaming up with E.R., he has always been riding with me and a couple of people
since we were both young. I think I met him when he was only 15, but E.R. and I
have always had the same ear for music. Even when I was making music where I
wasn’t necessarily being myself, I would always look to him to make me the type
of beat that I would feel more comfortable spitting over. We didn’t become a
producer/artist duo until last year where we had a falling out with our
previous squad. It’s something that happened gradually, during the summer of
last year he hit me up and asked me if I still made music because at that time
I was going through some things and I was ready to give up on making music. I
shot him an idea for a song with a Max Romeo sample and he created the
“Space Music” beat. After I heard it, I was like “okay, I got
this”, and ended up lacing the lyrics and it was history from there. We
had the right chemistry and shared the same Ideas for what we wanted to
accomplish both as musicians and as business men. We ended up incorporating
Vagabonds Music Group, LLC and it was a snowball effect from then on.
E.R.:
Yeah like Baysiqly said, we’ve been both solo artists and fellow group members
as part of a previous endeavor. Pretty much, some parties involved didn’t want
to take this seriously as a business, and let egos and outside issues come to
the forefront, and it destroyed what we built. I don’t regret it, because soon
after Baysiqly hit me up with an idea for a track and “Space Music”
was born, and the 20,000 downloads that song got off pure word of mouth lead up
to everything we’ve accomplished thus far.
24-You
recently released your first mix tape together as a duo titled “V For
Vendetta”. Tell me a bit about the mix tape as well as the sound that you
both were trying to project on this project.
Baysiqly:
With the mix tape itself, we wanted to show that not only could we flow on
original tracks with certain topics but on industry beats as well. There’s a
couple of tracks on there that let’s the listeners hear what they could expect
from us in the near future. The purpose of the mix tape was to bring forth our
sound but not to the extent in which they’ll be able to hear in a couple of months.
We also wanted to keep it strictly us two because we wanted to expose our
message more, except for the third bonus track, “Still Piff With It”,
which featured Brooklyn-based MC Faceman and our publicist, Jay Fingers.
E.R.:
“V For Vendetta” was a mixtape we put together in a day, really. It’s
Baysiqly and I lashing out our frustrations the music industry has caused us
over the course of this VMG endeavor. Everything is so political, most people
involved are fake, and we got a lot of backlash for being ourselves and not
being who they want us to be. The overall tone of the mixtape is dark despite
the variety of topics, because that’s how life was at that point, but at the
same time we were showing off our skills, making sure to use only 16 bars on
most tracks to challenge us into impressing the world using 45 seconds of each
track, because we’re both that passionate about this hip-hop things.
24- The video for the first single off the mix tape “V For
Vendetta” which was directed by one of Miami’s hottest up incoming
director’s Dre Films has been circulating the net and has been receiving great
reviews. Tell us a little bit about the video and how you linked up with Dre on
this Video.
Baysiqly:
I reached out to Dre on Twitter actually because I saw the work he was doing
with other acts and he responded back to me quickly and was down to put
together something with us. It was good working with him because he saw our
vision and where we were trying to take the video. We weren’t looking for the
normal champagne poppin’, ridding on spinners, and half naked women bouncing
around in our video. We were trying to tell our story about how political the
game can be so we wanted that gritty feel to it, nothing flashy at all just raw
footage. Dre did a great job with the video and we definitely mind working with
him again.
E.R.:
The video was a crazy experience. We spent the whole day shooting two videos
worth of footage in Little Havana’s Riverside section, which is where I grew up
at, and in North Miami, which is where Baysiqly grew up. We wanted to capture
the natural look of what the hood really is, as you can see in the “Je
Mappelle” and “Exhibit E” portions of the video. “First
Day” of school follows the concept of the song, so you’ll see school kids
and Baysiqly rapping in front of his elementary school, Natural Bridge
Elementary. My song “Say You Will” sets to black and white and
focuses more on face close ups to set the mood of the beat and lyrics. We
linked up with Dre courtesy of the big homie MJ Flix, who told us about Dre’s
work when we did a photo shoot with him last year.
24-Besides being an artist’s I’m aware you are also a producer.
Was it hard for you to transition into that position being an MC? How long have
you been producing for? And what are your goals as far being a producer goes?
E.R.:
Honestly, not at all. I’ve been writing raps since I was a little kid. I grew
up strictly around hip hop, so to me what makes a rapper is their flow, lyrics,
and content. My taste in what an MC should be is a bit more old school than
most people my age. I would literally listen to rap 24/7, so I understood the
concept of flow, verses, hooks, and concepts pretty early on. It was nothing
for me to implement beat making into the picture, and then finally being able
to call myself a producer. It’s not about just the beat making, it’s also about
bringing the best out of a song and the artists involved, and I feel like I’m
doing that for the first time with Baysiqly. At the end of it all, I want to be
known as someone who brought something new and creative to the table and leave
a legacy of great music telling our story how we want to tell it. I also want
to be known as someone who along with new and creative music, brought and
experimented with new ways of doing business because the current record
industry is on it’s death bed. Musically, I’d also want to collaborate with
artists outside of our genre so they can bring their sound and style into our
Vagabond raps.
24-Being that you are from Miami how do you see the Miami music
scene today compared to how it was a few years back
Baysiqly:
I see a switch happening in hip-hop. There are new voices out there that are
starting to get heard. I feel the music and the content of it has gotten a lot
better. I mean the talent is there, now it’s just up to the people to actually
give it a listen, and once they do, trust me the scene will never be the same.
I can officially say I see the fire once again pumping through the soul of
Miami.
E.R.:
It’s been improving. We went from only having Trick and Trina being relevant
for a while before the whole Ross, Khaled, and Poe Boy explosion happened back
in 2005 and 2006. Pitbull sky rocketed to international fame, but a lot of
people feel those who weren’t tied to a bigger name were being over looked,
which I agree with. Things are getting good now, it seems the
“underdogs” are coming to the forefront in 2010 and 2011 and we
couldn’t be happier to be a part of that. I still believe we need more unity
between artists, but we’re doing our part on that over here.
24-What are you guys currently working on? Any plans for an
album yet? How about collaborations?
Baysiqly:
We are working on doing collaborations with some of Miami’s hottest acts,
whether it’s up and comers or veterans to the game. We also wanted to expose
the raw talent that Miami has to offer and knd of unite all of these artists
such as our self together and make something magical happen. We’ve currently
reached out to artists such as Protoman, Saheed, LMS, Dashuis Clay and Cynic, to
name a few and trust me, there’s a lot more.
E.R.:
We’re currently working on an upcoming debut album to be released early next
year. I PROMISE you’ve never heard anything like it before. Baysiqly as just
speaking his reality and I closed my ears off on the world and just
experimented with different sounds, drums, chord progressions and genre mixing,
but it’s still 100% hip-hop based, just pouring my soul and heart into every
beat. We’re working on a ton of collaborations like Baysiqly mentioned. We’re mostly
reaching out to who we consider to be some of the more talented artists in
South Florida, and as a matter of fact we just knocked out a SICK track with
the homie Protoman, who I’m sure y’all know from Fort Lauderdale. We’ve also
got a track with MC Faceman out of Brooklyn, and a track with Lazarus, who is a
long time homie of mines from Georgia.
24-
Besides music, is there any other business ventures you guys are a part of or
thinking about getting into?
Baysiqly:
Yeah believe it or not I actually got a hustle on the side, I have my own
vending machine company It’s just to make extra cash here and there but it’s
worth it. Not to be typical, but I also plan on starting a clothing company in
the near future, I’m not sure exactly sure what the concept will be, but it’s
definitely in the works. I have so much in my mind for the future but as of
now, Vagabonds Music Group, LLC is my main focus.
E.R.:
That’s definitely something we’ve always spoken about between each other. We’re
100% into our craft and will always make music because we love it, but we both
come from rough backgrounds and have mouths that need to be fed and
unfortunately, this music money may not come in forever, so I definitely have a
couple of tricks up my sleeve in and out of the music business once I’m in the
position and have the resources to roll those plans out.
24-Before we check out let everyone know where they can reach you guys for
booking, check out more of your music, and stay on top everything that’s
“VAGABONDS”!!!
Baysiqly: You guys could check out everything
about us at our official website, www.vagabondsmusicgroup.com.
For all you Facebook heads out there check us out at www.facebook.com/vagabondsmusicgroup and
follow me on Twitter @_baysiqly_. But we definitely want to thank 24hourhiphop.com for having
us, its all love.
E.R.: As far as booking is concerned, the best point of contact would be vagabondsmusicgroup@gmail.com.
To check out all our music as it’s released to the public, you can check
out http://vagabondsmusicgroup.bandcamp.com.
To be up on our EVERY move, you can always check out our official blog, http://vagabonds.becoolent.com,
which is ran by our publicist Jay Fingers. For behind the scenes footage and
things of that nature, our YouTube channel is there for your viewing pleasure
at www.youtube.com/vagabondsmusicgroup.
Of course, if you’re feeling lazy, like Baysiqly said you can find ALL of this
on our official website,www.vagabondsmusicgroup.com. One time for 24hourhiphop.com for
having us, and be sure to follow me on Twitter, @ER305 if you wanna build with
us!
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