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Government Approved Artist: Harlem’s Cash Interviewer: ENIG MUE

Government Approved

Harlem’s Cash Interview with ENIG MUE 04-02-09

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  What’s the science behind your moniker? Is it as simple as it sounds or is there a story behind it?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  The name came from a meeting I had with Tina Davis who was at Def Jam, who is now Chris Brown’s manager. As soon as we walked in the office she said “I know where you from.” At that time my name as just Cash, she said “I can tell where you’re from.” I was like “tell me where I’m from?” She said “you from Harlem”; I was like “how can you tell?” She said “I can tell by the way you wear your fitted, by the way you wear your jeans, and everything about you, you just look like you from Harlem”. I was like I guess so, I am from Harlem.  She was like “see I can tell!”

Ever since then it just stuck with me and everything about me is just Harlem, from my attitude, the way I walk, how I carry myself, the confidence. Even the way I come across in the music, in trying to be innovative, not trying to be the norm always trying to set trends. The name came from there it s a name I hold proudly and to represent where I’m from.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  When did you decide to make hip-hop your career? How did you start off?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  Hip-hop has always been something I’ve been into heavy, being that I lived in Harlem and used to go to school in Queens, I had to be on the train for two hours, every morning to get to Queens. So the only way to keep myself busy was to listen to hip-hop. I used to listen to the Lost Boyz, I was heavy into Mr. Cheeks when I was younger. Biggie, Jay-Z, I grew up on that, I even remember the first XXL with him with the cigar. When he was in the cigar shop, that actually was one of the first magazines I copped myself. It was like, “boom, I got a magazine”, I was mad hype because I was young.

Going to school for writing was something I did because I was always deep into poetry and story writing. Doing that, and being in the streets of Harlem, it was crazy because I would see dudes taking things I was learning in school and take it to the corner and rhyme and battle each other with it. That’s when I met Loaded Lux, that’s a dude that was crazy known for battling in New York. He was like, I heard you walking around just rhyming to yourself, i heard a glimpse of it, and it was crazy. He put me under his ring and one day just pulled me into a battle on the streets and I did my thing. The reaction I got from the crowd was a rush, seeing the people go crazy over the words I put together so effortlessly, made me say wow I could do this. It didn’t come to me until years later when I got into the studio and started doing songs and melodies, then that became a challenge because anybody can write a rhyme, but to put a song together with the right melody over the right beat and hook. To make a song that can make somebody move or touch them to where their life is changed, that has always been my motivation behind music, being thirsty to create that new sound for people, to not be the average dude. That’s my whole motivation, to not blend in with everybody.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  How/When did you start working with The Government, and what are they all about?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  The Government, I started working with them a good 4-5 years ago, they caught me when I was young, when I was really starting to find myself. Its two dudes from Queens, they crazy, they play all instruments from piano to bass to double bass, to drums, they play every instrument and don’t do any samples of no kind. We were just in the studio trying different things from the jazz sound, to soul, mad different things. So we found our niche, when we started messing with more of the rock, with heavy synth beats. More pop stuff. We noticed of recent, people been gravitating towards it because they see the drive behind the musicianship of it. Its not cookie cutter music, we trying to do something that can become its own niche, like people can say that’s the governments sound when they hear it, that’s Harlem’s Cash’s sound when they hear it. So far it’s been working, and without them, I don’t think I could be Harlem’s Cash. So every time I speak, I try to speak very highly of them because truthfully, without them there is no me.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  You are about to release On My Way To HARLEMwood 1.5 Government Approved, why did you feel the need to revamp the original? What will be different?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  The original was so well received and put together so quickly…a lot of people don’t know that I did that mixtape in one and a half sessions. I wrote all the music out and went to the studio one time and once more to fix one other song. We put it out really quick because we were putting out a lot of records and they were getting so well received that we felt we have to get more body of work. Me being a rusher though, my management was telling me don’t rush to put it out, but I wanted to put it out because I can always make more music so let me just put this one joint out real quick. We put it out and it was well received, got invited to do BET, MTV had it on Mixtape Mondays, the response we got from it was so crazy and it was so quick I was like damn let me go back to it and revamp it by putting all original productions behind it and put The Governments stamp on it. Get different artists on it like Mickey Factz, Kid Daytona, 6^th Sense, Phil Nash (who is Jazzy Jeff’s artist), get all these artist that I blend with on a personal basis like I see these dudes in the street and we chill, these ain’t dudes I’m calling up to get a 16, these are dudes I actually build with and chill with. I just wanted to give the people a complete body of work that wasn’t so rushed, so we went back and put all original production, added 6 new joints. Putting The Governments sound on it is something that is going to take it to another level. It was cool when it came out I was really proud of it but I know this time around its going to touch so many people and they gonna hear the songs and its going to change their lives.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  The All Area Crew did a great job on your video for The Future, it seemed to also serve as a press release for the 1.5 mixtape, how did you find these guys?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  The dude who directed, he was actually a close friend, with one half of my management team, so they went back years and years from doing VH1 Honors and come to find out the dude is known by a bunch of dudes in my circle. The other day I went to my mans J audio’s video, I was talking to Dan Solomito, who is Kidz In The Hall manager, he was like your videos dope, who did it? I was like Berman Fenelus. He was like “Yo Berman!? Yo that’s my man!” So come to find out the dude is highly respected, I was naïve, I kinda doubted it at first but then he made me a believer and for now I’m just gonna rock with him because his vision came across so clearly on a small budget and he made it look crazy. That was a rush video like “lets just get it out there to promote the mixtape”. We have a couple more joints on the mixtape that we are doing videos to, the treatments so far are crazy. I know Berman is going to put his foot into to it this time around and make it look like a movie, so I’m excited to work with him and the whole AAC again soon.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  Progressive is one of many adjectives used for your music, do you have a name for it and where are you trying to go with it?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  I don’t have a name for it as of yet for now I’ll call it the Harlem’s Cash sound. We basically try to be genre defiant and not fit into what people know as hip-hop, what people know as pop music or whatever. We are just trying to be that new wave, for what’s to come next. You don’t have to go and make a street record, you don’t have to make a girl record to get on the radio or a dance record. If you just go out there and put your all into it, your emotions to your music and have a real story line behind it the people will feel it. From this point on I’m just trying to show the creativity in the music, like before we even put out the mixtape I was just giving ‘em freestyles with the government flips popular beats like Swagger Like Us or Go Hard and different joints like that. I was showing them I can actually spit because a lot of dudes who try to do creative stuff they so caught up in being creative that they lose the fans that just want to hear them spit bars, the true essence of hip-hop. So I gave them that, then I gave them more, so from now on we just gonna show them the creativity, and the progression of the music that’s going to go farther beyond than just the mixtape level to the point where its big arena music. Where its music like “Yo I’m depressed to day let me turn on this Harlem’s Cash joint, I can feel what he’s talking about” and it going to help you through your day. My whole objective is to really touch people, like when I did the Modern Day Malcolm joint, even last night on twitter, some dude hit me like “Yo that joints crazy. That same thing you talking about in there I seen in my town. They coming to the town and putting money in to it” and its not even the same town, its not like the same heartfelt place it was before. I’m glad I can do music like that, that’s what I’m going to continue to try to do.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  Since you standout with your sharp fashion sense, you will most likely get the hipster rapper label, how will that make you feel?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  I never came across that one so far, but as long as you listening I don’t care what you call me, you can call me a hipster rapper, but I’m far from that, I don’t even know what a hipster rapper is, like I see a lot of dudes get hit with that label and they be tight like “I’m not a hipster! I’m not a hipster!”

At least they calling you a rapper and not a bum, at the end of the day you gotta take it for what it is, that people are looking at you. The labels, I don’t really care for them, I’m just me at the end of the day and I’m just happy to be me. Hopefully people can understand that and look at me like ‘aight, this dude is just dope and trying to be different even from the fashion sense.’ I’m not trying to be these dudes, I’m not running around with these skinny jeans, you may see me with a t-shirt or a cardigan and some nice jeans and some good sneakers. I’m not trying got be out here wilding out with some purple jeans that’s like spandex, nothing like that, I’m just trying to be cool with it and hopefully it inspires somebody to go put a tie on and be more fashionable.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  Where do you see yourself in five years, do you plan on diversifying out from emceeing?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  Definitely gonna have my hands in other things, I have my hand in other things now, basically now you just use hip-hop as a platform for other things, but hip-hop is where my heart is, so I wont see myself in 5 years being that dude who’s like “I don’t rap no more I got this going on.” I’m going to always rap, but you definitely gotta use hip-hop as a platform now-a-days to get to a platform and put on other people. That’s my goal right now, hopefully we get L.O.V.E.S. Music to a place in 6 months, I’m not even trying to wait 5 years, in the next 6 months I’m trying to have my company L.O.VE.S. Music, which stands for Letting Our Values Embody Sound, we trying to get that out there to the people. I’m just looking for like minded people who try to do more than the average. Producers who think more than let me do a south beat because the south is popping or more than just let me use auto tune on my voice because that’s what they want to hear. I want to have people that’s around that are creative from the music to the fashion to the way they do the music, everything. We trying to get L.O.V.E.S. Music off the ground and that will branch into L.O.V.ES. Films then clothing lines and so forth but only time will tell and it all stems from the work I put in with this music.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  With unsigned artists getting sponsors and with the internet forcing record companies to adapt to new business models, do you think there will come a time when record labels, as we know them, will become unnecessary?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  I won’t say they will be unnecessary but they will definitely have to change the format on how they get the music to people. Whether they go all the way digital or just sponsoring certain records instead of putting out a full album and just putting out a single and going hard with it. Record sales are suffering because the people aren’t putting their all in to the music. People always asking what do you feel about Wayne selling a million, do you think that it was the hottest album out? I won’t say it was the hottest album out but I will say that people witnessed his progression and liked where he was going with it, like he didn’t just come out with one single that was hot. For three years he’s been building that, to get where he was at with that million in his first week. He put the work in and showed people that he’s worth the money because times are hard right now, nobody want to go spend 15.99 on a CD with one song on that, for all that they minds well go to [AD.COM] and download the one song. That’s why peoples record sales are suffering you gotta put the work in to make people feel like your worth your money. The record labels are going to see that and they are going to adapt, if not then people like me on the smaller level are going to show them how to adapt because we are going to put the work in and create a format for us to sell records without the need of a big machine. Honestly right now a lot of artists on my level are getting more attention than artists on the big level. Some of these dudes haven’t been out in 3-4 years and nobody even cares about them but they will go on sites like Nah Right and see what I put out today, they go on sites like On Smash and see my video. They gonna have to adapt or they are going to be pushed out the way in my opinion.

 

AmalgamDigital.com:  When will the people get a debut album of all new music of all original Government productions?

 

Harlem’s Cash:  Were working on that right now, I’m actually half way done with my album, as is right now, but until the situation is right and the people are looking for me to the point I can sell records when I come out I wouldn’t rush and put it out. So I may be working on this album for the next 3 months, or 6 months but I’m definitely working on the album which is titled HARLEMwood CASHifornia. Which is the ending place of the mixtape series On My Way To HARLEMwood, so we just building the story up from point A to point B, from everywhere I go from On MY Way To HARLEMwood to HARLEMwood CASHifornia. You see the progression from Cash as a little dude, to Cash as a teenager, to Cash as a grown man. You hear the progression in the music, because the sound that I’m at right now isn’t necessarily the place I’m going to be at next week because every time we in the studio we experimenting and trying to give them a new sound, to the point that it’s a brand new person every time you hear it. So On My Way To HARLEMwood is definitely leading up to HARLEMwood CASHifornia which could come at anytime, it depends on when the people want it.

 

Harlem’s Cash – On My Way To HARLEMwood 1.5: Government Approved OUT NOW!!!

http://www.amalgamdigital.com

 

Find more info:

www.myspace.com/HarlemsCash

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Tags: Harlem's Cash, Interviews

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