Back again with UK production machine Stealf and it seems to be the time of year when everything is happening !
Since our first diary entry we have been tracking the progress of “The Artful Dodgers EP”, an offering from Solomon produced by Stealf. We figured that by now this must be wrapping up, and us being us we wanted to be in the know about what was happening,
“The Artful Dodgers EP is pretty much ready to go now. We dropped the first track, “Not Your Fault” last week and unveiled the artwork. I was really impressed with the reception the track got, so hopefully that’s got peoples appetite worked up. The other tracks on the EP are just as good too, It’s got a lot of diversity. I think we have to just OK the last track for mastering and then we can get a release date set.”
This has so far proved to be a busy year for Stealf and we wanted to take a look at how the business end of things were going and in particular what was happening with his label De Facto Entertainment,
“De Facto is coming together really nicely. Currently we have 4 artists on the roster with possibly one more to add. I’m aiming to get a release out from each artist in the form of 5-8 track EPs, which will give people an idea of each artists styles. The artists are all doing their own mixtapes on the side, so people can already hear them, but the EPs will be their first proper release from De Facto. Parv and I were going to start work on his album, because he’s put out a lot of mixtapes, but we’ve decided to get to work on an EP for him too. Clas-Sick and myself have an 8 track EP in the works too, all the beats are in place, so recording can start now. It’s working title at the moment is “The Return Of The Real” and just from the beats it’s looking like something for the real hip hop heads already. Suus dropped “The Prototype” EP recently which you can get from his bandcamp website, http://suus.bandcamp.com/album/the-prototype-ep, for £2. JR Delorean is the newest signing to the label, and I’m going to be working with him to get some material out there too, but that’s going to be well worth the wait.”
Since our exclusive review of ” I am Stealf” we figured there was probably alot of action backstage as the drop date approaches, we wanted to see how things were going,
“I Am Stealf” is VERY nearly ready, finally. I’m mastering the project myself, and at the moment 12 out of 25 tracks are ready to go. Unfortunately, due to all the other previous mastering issues and delays, it’s not going to be ready in time for the May 23rd release date, but a new one will be announced very soon. It’s taken 4 years to get this far, and there have been masters that I could have released in order for it to be released on schedule, but I wasn’t completely happy with them, so unfortunately that means I gotta get it right and release a bit later than planned. I can’t apologize enough for the constant delays, but I can promise you, it’s something that can be justified, and hopefully you’ll agree when it’s eventually released”.
With one EP almost done aand an album waiting to drop, we figured we would find out what Stealf has been up to recently, to check he hadn’t become a reclusive hobbit now that the hard work for such projects is coming to a close, and in particular wanted to find out about ideas we were hearing about, in the form of Battle Ep’s,
“I’ve recently started working with other indie artists and doing some special deals on a Stealf produced 5 track EP. While I was getting word out about them, I was approached by Kid Pest about doing a collabo EP with himself and Parv. This got me thinking, cos previously Pest and Parv have had beef, and it’s since been squashed. But I came up with the concept of a Battle EP. Each artist has an intro track, which does as it suggests, gives the artists a track to introduce themselves, then there’s 2 battle tracks, where both rappers exchange bars over specially constructed beats, finishing with a collabo track aimed at any rapper thats wants to take them on. The idea was promote a bit of healthy competition, squash beefs and push artists creativity. So we’ve started work on the first one and we’ll see how it comes out.”
Ne thing else ?
“Other stuff I have going on are a number of EP’s, including all the ones mentioned previously, as well as the untitled EP with Jackitdown Brown, who showed me a lotta love in a recent interview he did “Check out interveiw with Jackitdown Brown here ), and the Mr Flix EP “Conceptualized Deceit” which is coming along really nicely. I have a lot of releases planned for this year and the one’s I’m working on right now have genuinly got me inspired. This is the kind of hip hop I’ve always wanted to be making.”
So no reclusive Hobbit status to report this week, but there is plenty to be watching out for from Stealf and you will hear all about it here on Finebeats ……….. stay tuned .
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