Vice: not a bad deal
STL rapper gets 80/20 split from Universal arm
By Bill Beene
Of the St. Louis American
Vice.
That’s yet another St. Louis name to remember – if it isn’t already on your radar.
Sedrick Martin, who carries that rap name, is about to blow.
This year his Eclectic Records inked a favorable 80/20 percent deal with Universal’s new Fontana arm.
He has the money deal, but he isn’t taking it for granted and he’s navigating all the perceived proper channels. And for Vice that meant having a few words with Nelly.
“I spoke with him after his afterset at Plush after his concert at Savvis Center, and he congratulated me on my deal,” Vice said.
“It was my chance to school him on what I’ve been doing, and I told him I didn’t want any problems because I’ve seen him and other artists mess up their relationship.”
As a matter of fact, Vice has seen a lot break up and hardly any making up in the local music scene.
He’s even had his own run-ins with the Trak Starz (Zo and Sham) and Chingy over his contribution to Chingy’s “One Call Away,” which landed the four an ASCAP Award last month.
But he’s not ruling out future projects with them and explained that they -especially he and the Trak Starz – “need to iron out some things.”
Meanwhile, Vice is getting ready for an early- to mid-August release date for his Vice Versa CD, with the hip-hop single “So Real” leading the way.
Of the single, he said, “It’s like the set-up to what kind of sound and personality you can expect from me,” which, he said, is “good guy/bad guy.”
But he isn’t toting the “gangsta” tag.
“I don’t necessarily have to talk about guns, dope or the inner city,” Vice said. “So you won’t get that kind of music from me.”
Vice isn’t your average rapper. He carries a computer science degree from Southeast Missouri State University.
Gangsta, to him, is being able to create the kind of music that he wants to make instead of what the industry demands.
That means battling radio. Vice says since the industry’s ideals have filtered into radio. The medium is governing things and has club deejays working as fellow lobbyists.
“They’ll tell you that in order to get on the radio you got to be playing in clubs, and clubs tell you you have to be on the radio,” he said. “It’s a double-edge sword and a Catch-22.”
Vice is beyond that grind, and his people will talk to their people. He’s on to the bigger and better task of mass distribution: TV.
He has already wrapped up the video for the lead single, though No. 5 on the track list gets my No. 1 nod. It’s called “My Philosophy,” an obvious and immediate hit anchored by a special blend of rap and R&B. Okay, it’s a Marvin Gaye sample so it was born a hit, but Vice and his team didn’t waste it.
The song is nothing more than Vice and Artafax’s (rapper Classic and D-Win, Vice’s former rap crew now on his label) philosophy on dating women, but the lyrics are clever and the beat a somewhat sultry midtempo flow.
The Sade sample doesn’t work as well, but the lyrics are still there just as they are on most of the tracks.
Though the music industry is currently stuck on the Southern sound, Vice said he isn’t bowing down. This thing may pop for him.
“True artists,” he said, “are the ones who get people on what they’re on – they aren’t substituting their real music for what certain people want to hear.”
