HipHopFriends Interview: Independent with Universal Appeal

Kevin Benoit

Parlé: You’ve been in the game for a few years now building the brand, what’s been the key to your success thus far?
HipHopFriends: Our independence is our key. We get to do guerrilla marketing tactics that if we were on a major, we probably couldn’t pull off. You reap the rewards more as far as when you’re independent. You get to see the business behind it and you get to see every one of your projects grow. So we stay consistent, meet and greet the people. We have fans in about 30-40 cities now, so I’d say our independence is our key to success.

Parlé: Where do you hope to see HipHopFriends in the next year?
HipHopFriends: We continue to hope that the movement gets more powerful and steamrolls ahead. It’s a real tricky game, but we hope to show a lot of people who are on the come up that being independent is the way to go. A lot of the majors are folding and a lot of them are not being appreciative of the music anymore because they all about the corporate dollar so we want to show that the independent movement is not dead and you can be more successful as an independent artist cause you benefit the rewards when they do happen.

Parlé: I know you have plans for an album, how is that coming together?
HipHopFriends: We’ve been working on the album, requesting beats from all over the country and around the world. We have 40 tracks recorded but it’s not guaranteed what will be on the album, we’re probably just gonna leak those on mixtapes. The album will come in the second or third quarter next year and it’s called Ground Work for all the work we put in. Before the album comes out we’ll have one or two mixtapes after Built From The Ground Up.

Parlé: What advice do you have for artists on the come-up?
HipHopFriends: First and Foremost stay focused and believe in your own dream before anyone else can believe in them. You also gotta set the right team around you. You gotta separate your regular friends from your business people. You gotta have people that will work towards your dream with you. Also, when you record, make sure your music appeals to people all over the country and all over the world instead of just your city or your area.