Meeting With Asian Delegates + Music Across Borders

I recently attended a couple of meeting between myself and Sean from SPM and two delegates from the Asian music industry, Nori Tsuzuki from Japan and Jake Lee from Korea. The meeting was made possible by Music BC so thanks to them for the opportunity.

The first meeting was with Jake Lee and I was extremely nervous. This guy operates two record labels in Korea and is also responsible for putting foreign music in television commercials. Me and Sean sat down with him and I noticed right away that he was a really easy-going guy, very nice. Mind you, I tend to have favorable opinions of all Koreans anyways. Nonetheless, the meeting was very productive and he gave some excellent advice on breaking into the Korean music industry. I hope to place my music in TV commercials, dramas and film in Korea as this is an excellent way for an outsider to be introduced to the Korean peoeple.

The second meeting with Nori was equally nerve-wracking for me as his company, Kyodo, is responsible for booking acts such as Madonna and Christina Aguillera in Japan. Me and Sean offered an artist booking exchange between acts on the SPM roster and some up-and-coming Japanese acts but Nori was concerned with the monetary cost of bringing Japanese acts over as they have no funding programs such as FACTOR in Japan. There is, however, a possiblity of me going over to Japan in the future and in fact I am planning on it next year. Once I have built my name up in Japan and developed a strong following there, I am sure myself and Nori can work together.

The next day there was a seminar given by both these men as well as Mr. Ding Jiabao from the Xinhui Record & Labels Group in Shanghai China. All three presentations were very informative and I especially enjoyed Jake Lee's as he added a good dose of humor as well as practical advice. I look forward to forging relationships with all three of these men in the near future.

This year it's Canada for me and next year, Asia. I am already planning my marketing campaign for both regions and am expecting to develop a large number of fans. Count on it. More updates coming soon...

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XYL and SPM Music

For the past few months, I've been working with SPM Music to organize and promote my monthly hip hop event, 'Wordz From Tha Underground'. Now, I am taking a more serious role in the company and have joined SPM as Artist Development and Booking Agent. We are offering our services to artists and have a package that will raise their market value and secure them tour dates in Canada.

This new role I've assumed is a big step in the development of my career as Sean McKay, the owner of SPM, has been doing this for a while and has an excellent infrastructure in place. He has a vast network and knows how to approach venues and the media so I am learning all about it. I am also doing lots of independant study on the music business, reading everything I can get my hands on. Through this new role, I will learn a hell of a lot about music marketing and will be able to apply it to myself when I release the forthcoming 'Make Way' EP.


Right now we're working with a band called Schulz, an industrial metal band featuring the former guitarist of KMFDM. They've already made a good impact and toured Canada once so our job is to raise brand awareness, generate more radio play and basically earn them more fans as well as getting another tour booked.

The XYL 'Make Way' EP is coming sometime in the next couple of months, and there are too many things going on with XYL to mention in this blog entry so stay tuned for more info soon.

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Wordz From Tha Underground a huge success!!!

The second edition of 'Wordz From Tha Underground' was amazing and represents my greatest show, both as a performer and a promoter, thus far in these early stages of my career. Above you can see me and my DJ, Tre Funk, performing to the almost sold-out Media Club and a very hype crowd they were!

Around 150 people showed up to support the local hip hop scene and all the acts killed it. Incredible performances from SVS Dance, DJ Mint, Keep 6 and Erthtonez. As far as my set goes, I feel it was my strongest showing yet and crowd response was unbelievable so thanks to all my supporters who came out, you definitely made your voices heard and inspired my performance!




I've hired a Japanese representative to help me in Japan and there's a number of things I'm working on in Asia and Canada. Also, the new EP, 'Make Way', will drop around the end of April. Stay tuned for all the details. Peace!

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The Next Wordz From Tha Underground

Coming up this Thursday March 1 is the second installment in the Vancouver monthly hip hop night, 'Wordz From Tha Underground'! I am extremely stoked about this line-up, we got DJ Mint who does a madcap scratch routine, SVS Style Dance Crew a group of girls who do amazing choreographed dance, Keep 6 who always slay it live, Erthtonez who are pretty much the most entertaining and energetic live rap duo in the city and of course yours truly XYL with my DJ Tre Funk.

To see a map to the venue click here. Hope to see y'all there!

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XYL Live for Chinese New Year!

The above photo is me rockin' the Vansky Chinese New Year Party Feb.16. It was a great turnout, around 500 people. The crowd reaction was great and two girls danced on stage behind me which was obviously rad. Check out the video of my performance.

I was very impressed by all the performers that night. The general style tended to be more Chinese ballads, many of them traditional and a number of amazing voices were on display. There was some great traditional dance and also more hip-hop oriented dancing. I got to mention this girl Ying Ying, she first did a traditional dance which was amazing and later threw down a really exciting hip-hop routine. She's the really hot girl with the small pink tutu in my video. Yeah, now you're watching it.

I have to thank Scottie Cash, John Li and everyone who helped organize and work the event, the performers and also to everyone who attended. I look forward to doing more performances for the Chinese community!

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The Mindset

I truly believe that our thoughts influence the physical reality around us. One's mindset plays a key role in the outcome of one's life. Positivity will manifest as such and vice versa so keeping an optimistic outlook is important for me. My greatest inspirations, the 'heroes' of my life are men who sought to achieve what everyone thought was impossible and despite the incredible difficulty before them, they conquered their goals. Men like Muhammed Ali, Bruce Lee and Arnold Shwarchenegger. These people inspire me because they prove that anything is possible if you put your mind to it and stick to your goals with steadfast determination.

I will never quit and I will never let setbacks stop me from progressing. I realize that there is an incredible mountain of work before me and that each day is a struggle. From venue research, studying, writing and recording music, publicity, radio play and everything else that comes along with trying to be a successful musician, I love the challenge. I look forward to working on my career each day because I know it is one more step towards my ultimate goal.

In closing, I would like to recommend a book to anyone seeking to understand this mindset. The book is 'Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai' written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo in the 1800s. It is essentially an instruction manual for new Samurai and it lays out the proper mindset to become a great Samurai. This information can be applied to everyday life as well and for a long time it was my bible, I read some of the passages every day and still do now and then. It shows the incredible work ethic of the Samurai and how to attain it. 'Each day, become better than you were the day before.' That is words of wisdom to live by.

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The Drinking...

The consumption of alcohol amongst friends, is there really anything better? These days I balance my extreme workload with a bit of good old fashioned social drunkeness. Canadians are known for their iron-clad drinking skills and seeing as I am always drinking with foreigners, I try my best to represent my country. However, the Koreans can definitely hold their own. Did you know that South Korea consumes the second largest amount of alcohol per capita, bested only by those wild and crazy Russians? Also, I have found that Korean women are especially strong drinkers compared to females of any other nationality and can often down entire beers in a single gulp effortlessly. Believe it.

So far, all the rappers I book at my shows and have performed with in general tend to drink pretty heavy. And let's not kid ourselves, this is Vancouver BC. Every rapper I know smokes the herb some to a level of extreme fanatasism. Performing drunk/high is another issue and as for myself I will not do it though I don't mind downing a couple of brews first. Just enough to loosen up but not so much that my speech is impaired.

XYL Official Website
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