Haze of Main Aim: Making moves in the Hip Hop industry- M.A. and beyond

I came up with the name Haze at some point in the late 90s before I really began recording or taking the writing process seriously. I tried coming up with some acronyms for it later on, things like Hitting All Zones Effortlessly but in the end I just added Of Main Aim because Main Aim was the name of my first group with my childhood friend APeriod. It made it easier to distinguish from I’d assume the million other rappers named Haze. Now the goal is to be the only rapper named Haze that matters, it’s been great just having my name as Haze on flyers in the city, on radio station playlists out here and on Insomniac Magazine. Makes me feel like I’m closer to my ultimate goal.

A lot of it comes from being tagged repeatedly with other artists on charts and by fans on Twitter and Instagram. Much of it also comes from speaking with fellow emcees and producers out here. We all put each other up on artists that we’re feeling at the moment. There is also the brother Nick Gauder who shares a lot of new artists and while I can’t peep everything if I see him repeatedly share an artist I try and take some time to hit play.

A lot of us in MA will build at one of two studios in the flesh whether its Grubby Pawz spot or the Mini Mansion which is run by Estee Nack. All the Tragic Allies/Spnda/Junelyfe/AL.Divino/Magno Garcia tracks happened from building together at these studios, no emailing tracks and sessions, all in the studio physically together. Some of the out of state collabs happen from either someone reaching out to me or vice versa, I have not reached out to too many people but if I feel an artist and I make sense together on a song I’ll initiate contact. These were all created by emailing sessions which is my least favorite way to work but it’s the norm now a days.

The projects with DJ Manipulator and Evilldewer were recorded at around the same time with me basically laying the vocals and Manipulator and Evilldewer doing the mixing/sequencing on their own. The Evilldewer project was partially recorded at his house (about half the project) while the rest was recorded at my best friend’s house. I let Evilldewer take complete control of how that one sounded and it’s an album I’m very proud of to this day. The final product is something that still sounds like nothing I would’ve ever suggested for myself so in a way it’s like I’m listening to someone else’s project and not my own.

“Colored People Time” with Manipulator is a fan favorite and one that I get hit up about all the time. It’s a project that I took some serious time with the rhymes. I rewrote a lot of the verses on that album and I went back to the studio [to] fix many parts because I really wanted to make a flawless project because at the time I was really trying to impress Manipulator who I really looked up to musically.

With Grubby it’s a different world, we build together, I used to have no direction, I’d lay the rap and have to figure out on my own, “is it dope?” Now I have one of the best set of ears in the world right there saying, “nah, you rushed that line…do this over,” and I take direction well, so our projects together have me getting better and better at a quicker pace due to his input. He’s been a real blessing for me.

Can you talk about the City Yard Music movement? I noticed on Bandcamp there are releases from various artists. Is this a record label that you started?

It was Grubby‘s brainchild and his idea from the jump, but he asked me if I believed in his vision and I did so I became a partner in that sense initially. We pooled some money together to get our first album properly done on cassette and CD and to launch the label. At first, I was supposed to be the second project after SPNDA but things changed and I was first out of the gate, which was nerve wracking for me cause we thought the momentum from SPNDA going first would’ve helped me. We’ll never know now how things would’ve gone if that was the case but the reception to the first project was bigger than we expected anyway. And, although we overshot with how many copies we made of the first project, word got around and we’ve sold almost all physical product of “Failures and the Glory” that we pressed. As far as the label currently, it’s strictly going to be kept a MA thing, meaning either the producer or MC is from out here. We’ve been lucky to release cassettes for some of our personal favorite artists out here, with some special one’s that will be coming out in the near future.

Observe had posted that he was looking for things to release on a label that he was already running. Although, if I remember correctly, he’d only released his own beat tapes. I submitted him my first three projects and he really took to “Colored People Time,” so we came to an agreement and it was one of the first releases he did with the initial run selling out in a less than a day which was a big morale boost for me personally. He recently reissued it and those sold out in about 10 minutes or so. The tapes that Grubby and I have been doing are constructed in house with Grubby’s brother Mike who helps in doing the layouts and our OBI strips. It’s a tight knit crew and our quality is top notch as anyone whos purchased from us will tell you

As far as shows are concerned, I’m pretty responsive to my direct messages on social media, so that’s the quickest way to reach me. Most of my shows are in the general area although we have toyed with ideas to do smaller tours with all the homies out here. But anyone looking to book Grubby and I can hit either of us up on our Twitter or IG accounts, or email at haze.mainaim@gmail.com.

Describing my shows is hard. I know once I start my performance I kind of get lost in the music and the passion I’m putting out, I like to deliver the words clearly and powerfully. I’m not jumping around the stage, but I’m not the type to stand in one spot. I get animated if that’s how I’m feeling that particular night.

I personally struggled with marketing for a long time, back in 2012, I was putting out videos getting a lot of views, close to 20,000 on a few but I couldn’t find a way to monetize these views and blog posts. I pressed CDs and did shows all over, but didn’t get far. I was giving my music away, literally. I didn’t value what I was doing, I made my debut album on Bandcamp free, gave most of my CDs away for free. It wasn’t till I met Grubby and we decided we were going to make great looking physical product and we were not going to give it away no matter who it was- friends or otherwise. I think we hit at the right time with the resurgence in physical product, some people think doing cassettes is stupid or pointless but they never fully went away. The industry stopped in 2003, but small labels kept putting them out. Just two years ago, no one in MA was really doing tapes but now in the last year it’s been an explosion of product being released and were at the center of it. So no one artist or label has really been who we seek inspiration from as far as the marketing, we just happened to start at a very fruitful time in the underground scene and we compete with some of the more established labels with bigger budgets. But that’s not to say that we don’t see what’s going on all over, it’s only natural, we see what friends and our peers are doing in the field, but we try and not follow suit; we want to be a step ahead.

A lot of our fan base comes from fans who spread the word to other Hip Hop fans who look to them for suggestions. They come from blogs posting our music and even bootleg sites and rips on YouTube. We still catch digital sales every day on all of our projects. Every day someone else gets hip and buys something, follows us on social media, tags us or messages us to let us know how much they love our music. We’re still learning how to generate interest ourselves but with so many ways for people to hear us now a days its hard to know how the new fans are being created. We just focus on making the best music we can, making it sound as good possible and spreading the word as much as we can and then the hope is fans respond well to it and spread the word as far as they can and so forth. We tried boosting posts on Facebook for our first project but that generated no sales for us, so we’ve not really participated in any marketing since then. We want to be better about sending writers our projects early for write ups, but with the last two releases being EPs we decided against [that], for the next full length the roll out will be bigger.

The next things I’m looking to drop are a small project with SPNDA with beats all done by a super dope producer from the west coast and also a full solo project that producer extraordinaire Billy Loman and I cooked up. Grubby and I record non stop, so there’s no telling when him and I may decide to just drop something for our fans. I have a handful of other things that are in the infant stages so I won’t get in to those, but just know I’m super inspired and always working, so more music more often.

Make sure you go to https://cityyardmusic.bandcamp.com/ and follow Grubby Pawz, City Yard Music and Haze of Main Aim on Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date on all that’s going on with us and the label.

Interview by IZ-REAL