Familiarize Yourself

Over the past six months we have introduced you to many of Chicago and Columbia’s finest rock bands. After scouring the campus one more time, we found a whole other genre at Columbia featuring Chicago’s finest performers. The hip-hop scene in Chicago has always been huge, and for a young producer who moved to the city from St. Louis, it opened a new door to endless opportunities. In our latest installment of artist of the week, meet Orie.

You’ve been producing for about 8 years now, how did you first get into producing? What did your first songs sound like?
I actually started with rapping back in middle school. My mom used to always tell me that I should get into producing, cause that’s where the real money was at. I ignored her for a couple years, and after seeing my friends producing some of the tracks I originally wrote in my middle school rap/r&b group “Rising Image,” I became fascinated and started from there. My songs were always very lyrically driven, often called “conscious” rap, but from the perspective and vocabulary of a 13-year old.

Was the transition from the St. Louis music scene to the Chicago scene difficult? What are the major differences between artists you’ve met here and artists you worked with in St. Louis?
Very different. I love my city, but I’ve gained access to so much new music being in Chicago. I’ve never been exposed to House music before I came to Columbia for school. If you’re not making a dance/club record back home, it’s hard to get any attention from the radio. Chicago is similar in a lot of ways, but there are so many other outlets and ways to get exposure, such as clubs, events, and major Chicago blogs.

Can you explain more about lifestyle marketing company, D.E.M.O.? What you do to brand yourself and your future clients?
D.E.M.O.’s (Defining Everything Musically Oriented) goal is to establish itself as the premier music production & lifestyle marketing company by providing an array of services for Generation Y who are interested in music, art, film, and fashion. Right now, I’m focusing on promoting and planning events,music production, and very recently I just got into photography. I’ve already partnered with brands such as Jugrnaut, I-Amaze-Eyez, Made Monarchs, & Iamme Collective on collaborative projects. In the future, I’d like to partner with more brands and help them creatively expand themselves and take their brand to the next level through marketing plans, special collaborative projects, etc. 5 years from now, I’d like to think I’d be working on marketing campaigns. The Nike SB “Today Was A Good Day” commercial and the current Ryan Leslie & Lexus campaign, are great examples of something I’d like to do later down the line.

As far as myself, I’ve always had a lot of ideas. I take these ideas, and I use them to create a lifestyle around myself as an individual, or as an artist. I’m very particular about my brand, and I won’t do something or become involved in something if I wouldn’t attend it myself, outside of business. I’ve constructed concepts for photshoots, promotional videos, and graphic design concepts such as my mix-tape cover for “What A Black Man Wants.”

I saw ads for “What A Black Man Wants” on your facebook page, is this a free mixtape? How many songs is it and how long did it take you to create?
Yes, “What a Black Man Wants” is completely free, and available for download on my website. The project was influenced by a piece that Frederick Douglass wrote called What the Black Man Wants. I wanted to touch on subjects that either 1) aren’t talked about often in my race, or 2) or misrepresented by the media. This included religion, love, and even appreciation for African-American women. There are a total of 17 tracks on the mixtape. A lot of the tracks I had already produced, but hadn’t finished writing to yet, but a few tracks got added along the way, such as “L.O.V.E.” the song I wrote about my aunt who passed last October from breast cancer. Overall the project took about 5 months.

How has the atmosphere and community in and around Columbia College helped you as an artist? Have you found a talent pool on campus and do you collaborate with your fellow students very often?
I think sometimes the community at Columbia has spoiled me. I’ve really used a lot of my resources here, and met a lot of people that I definitely plan to stay in contact with after graduation. However, when I step outside of this Columbia atmosphere, I often forget that the rest of the world isn’t like Columbia, but it just makes me want to work even harder. I’ve been blessed to say the least. Not sure if you remember, but it was because of you (Ashley Brown) that I found my first internship at ASCAP. The most important thing that I’ve learned is that just because people say “I Do This” or “I Do That” doesn’t mean that they will, or that they are serious. But despite the challenge to always find consistent people to work with, I’ve been able to find a few to collaborate with on a consistent basis.

Be sure to download Orie’s “What A Black Man Wants” for free at http://demostl.com & follow me on Twitter @orietheproducer