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Recording Sensation Inas X, AKA The Trap Princess Jasmine, Infuses Middle Eastern Sounds with R&B and Pop Music

By
Billboard Staff
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Every so often an artist comes along who possesses unique qualities and skills that puts her in a league of her own. It’s no secret that Inas X, AKA The Trap Princess Jasmine, is one of the most talented independent recording artists on the music scene today. Charisma is defined as a special magnetic charm or appeal. If you spend just five minutes in a room with Inas X, you will see that it’s evident that this entertainment phenom possesses the certain je ne sais quoi needed to become a world class star. She is best known for her singles “Love Is,” which reached No. 12 on the Billboard dance charts, and “Stupid” featuring the late Rap star PnB Rock.

There’s always something refreshing about artists who feel comfortable in their own skin. At a time when there is a blur between creativity and mediocrity, Inas X is on a mission to redefine R&B/Pop music with authenticity. Her bombastic style and unique brand of Pop music ranks her alongside contemporary Pop stars like Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj, SZA, and Ariana Grande. Inas X has music running through her veins. Equally important, she has honed a refreshing style that combines party vibes with life issues and food for thought. Her intense energy and undeniable flair capture her listeners. Her most recent single “Playing With Fire” hit #9 on the Itunes R&B Charts.

The Brooklyn born “Middle Eastern Goddess” takes great pride in her Palestinian heritage and she incorporates various Middle Eastern sonic vibes into her compositions. Her catalog of songs feels like a tapestry of sounds interweaving colors of Arabic music with R&B, Hip Hop and Pop. “I am so inspired by the beauty and strength within Middle Eastern culture. As an artist, that strength and resilience has kept me on my path and trajectory to success,” states the songstress. Inas X works her magic in the studio and creates musical anthems that feature strong choruses that will stay stuck in your head for days. Writing intimate and semi-autobiographical portraits of love, power, lust, and energy comes easy to her.

Inas X’s new business venture is called “Billionaire Boss Babe.” She is on a mission to empower women globally and to be a dynamic role model especially for young Middle Eastern girls.  Respect her grind and follow the movement. Log on to 

http://www.inasx.com

Benjamin Hey! Embraces His Music Career One Song At A Time

By
Billboard Staff
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On April 15th, 2017, Benjamin Hey! took on a daily songwriting challenge. The NYC-based artist and producer, who was then working as an actor and model, has written a song every day since.

“It’s like one of those situations where I thought I was done with music, but it wasn’t done with me. So I decided to just try it again. But this time around, I said to myself, I have to have fun, so I can’t take myself too seriously. Whatever songs come through, I’m going to write it—if they are good songs, bad songs, if they’re serious, if they’re silly, I’m just gonna create it and not judge it. It led to me just doubling down on my commitment,” explains Hey! “I didn’t plan on writing a song every single day for over five years. It just happened.”

Hey! started writing music in 2008 as an independent artist. Feeling that music had been following his various paths serendipitously—taking acting courses that always ended up having singing involved—he decided to return to music-making after a 30-day challenge that was brought to his attention by a friend who was a contestant on The Voice. The friend ended up with 4 songs, while Hey! wrote 22 songs. He soon reached out to a producer friend in L.A. (Jonny On The Rocks) and started production on those 22 songs.

That soon led to writing and producing “Beat For The Gods” by actress Laverne Cox, which reached no. 41 on the Billboard Dance Club charts. That pushed Hey!’s energy threshold to songwriter even more, but this time having fun with that drive and creating music with an organic heart.

“It’s a journey where I’m learning to just be open, be flexible, and especially with writing a song every day, I never know what the subject matter is going to be, but I do show up to write it when it does drop in,” says Hey!

In another cosmic shift for the artist, after traveling to Puerto Rico to visit friends, Hey! ended up filming a music video. Word of mouth led to connecting with musician John Beyer, leading up to a writing and collaborating partnership that produced tracks such as “Powerless” and Hey!’s latest tracks “No Samples” and “RA-TA-TAT-TAT.” While Beyer’s musical influences ranged from balladeers, crooners, and classic rock, the pair managed to meet in the middle symbiotically and have maintained their musical partnership for 3 years.

“No Samples” is about not compromising when one knows what they want, written during the COVID-19 quarantine when Hey! was feeling isolated.

“I got through most of the pandemic by myself, then I said, okay, if I’m gonna want those things, and I do want love in my life, I’m not trying to settle for it. I want the steak. I want a 5-course meal. I don’t want no Happy Meal.” he explains, then quoting the song’s lyrics with a beat reminiscent of old-school R&B, “I’m holding out for something special and amazing.”

“RA-TA-TAT-TAT” is an anti-gun violence track co-written with Beyer. Since Hey! had grown up in the projects in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, he’d initially been resistant to releasing the track that’s lyrics run dark. But just like his openness as a songwriter on his other tracks, he wanted to embrace “RA-TA-TAT-TAT” and realized its significance. Hey! soon had the hook for the song and its structure.

“As much as I did not want to touch it, it’s important because it’s a problem. We need to hear more songs that are anti-guns that have the recognition of the problem in all the major cities it’s happening in,” says Hey! “When we wrote the song, it was definitely geared towards inner city violence, black-on-black crime. But as we know now, bullets don’t discriminate, and this song is for everyone that’s been affected by gun violence.”

Since its release, Hey! and Beyer have performed the track at Spotify headquarters, and it has reached over 100,000 streams on the platform. Hey!’s daily songs are also leading him to a future EP release and continuing his songwriting partnership with Beyer—including what they describe as a potential hit track, titled “Money Girl,” a female-empowerment song about financial independence.

Benjamin Hey!’s journey over the past 5 years has led him to a lush music career–embracing opportunity one song at a time.

With “Welcome to the World, ” Trudytheproducer moves from the background to the front of the stage

By
Billboard Staff
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With his latest single, “Welcome to the World,” Trudytheproducer is doing two things. He is delivering a message of mental health and help and launching a career as an artist.

He has come to it through some dark times and survived, and the song’s message is yes, it’s a hard world, and you have to take care of your mental health. That means not only seeking help when you need it, but providing help, too.

“The ultimate message, I would just say, is to let people know those silent battles that they’re fighting, they’re not alone.,” he said. “This is pretty much a common thing, but for a lot of people it’s just not  talked about, so I’m just shedding light.”

“This world is not a game / It’s survival of the fittest.” The message is delivered in a hip hop beat with a modern R&B background.

The video has some fun with the message. Tru, in one part, is in a therapist’s office and portrays both the patient and the doctor. That’s part of the message, too, that everybody needs help, including those whose job is providing help.

“I was gonna make sure that the song shines the light on the ones who are usually there for people who have issues and speaking on them because sometimes they don’t have an outlet. They’re on the receiving end of everybody else’s issues you know. It’s like who do they turn to? I want to shed some light for those people who may not have anybody to turn to.”

His music is a fusion of hip hop, R&B and soul that presents “his take on old-school themes and up-tempo rhythms,” he says in his bio. It is, he says, “infused with a distinct Southern flair.”

Describing southern flair, the native Alabaman said, “Well, I’d definitely have to say when you hear my accent.” He goes on to say that it also means the beats are more forward and straight to the point, but a little slower.

He still lives in Alabama but is in New York for the time being to launch his career, which up to now has been about making music for other people. He made the move last year when he released “Ricky,” a more straight-up rap with a heavy bass beat and rapid-fire lyrics.

He was ready to branch out and do more, he said, even though he didn’t have a lot of time. He was busy engineering for other artists, and making beats, and with “Ricky” he was “trying to get back to the artist side of things.”

He has a lot of music ready to go. His next single, coming out now for Halloween, is “Nightmare,” described as “the hood version of Halloween, the hood-slash-Harlem-hood version of Halloween.”

“We got Halloween coming up, so I’m thinking what could I do just to have some fun, what’s something cool I could do?”

Now, he wants his music to be his career.

“I want music to take me to a point to where I can take care of me and my family for the rest of my life,” he said. “I put in a lot of hard work, didn’t ask for much, was very underpaid for a lot of stuff. But it was because of the love I have for music and the love I have for people, but I feel like it comes to a point where my work should pay off.”

And that right there is the straightforwardness of Southern hip hop.

Musically, he wants to take all his experience with hip hop, R&B, rock and pop and take an active and creative as well as lucrative part in a career in music. He wants to sing and produce and mix music. He wants to collaborate with other musicians, put out more records and provide features, beats and engineering for developing artists as well as legends.  

“I want,” he said, “to keep the world on their toes and hungry to hear the next song.”

Stay connected to Trudytheproducer and follow his career on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

Website: https://www.newkingmmg.com

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-306350383/welcome-to-the-world?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3x2oP1MPYL4y2LW4oNPxvu

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@trudytheproducer 

YouTube: https://youtu.be/WdYz8Ug9PLA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Trudytheproducer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trudytheproducer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newkingmultimediagroup

Lynn Davis honors her talent, her R&B, and her soul with “Can I Come Over”

By
Billboard Staff
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Lynn Davis grew up listening to the greats of R&B and soul. Beginning as a teenager she became one of them, and for four decades she toured the world and performed with them.

With “Can I Come Over,” the debut single off her upcoming album Lynn Davis: From the Vault, she is back, coming out of what she calls semi-retirement to sing the music she loves.

“Can I Come Over” is the story of two lovers whose travels keep them frequently apart, but one night the singer decides to call her lover up and ask, “Can I Come Over,” and the classic R&B ballad unfolds in Lynn’s rich, warm voice.

She loves the modern performers of R&B and soul, she says, but, still, a recent release had her asking herself, “Where is R&B?”

“I mean, it was a great record. You know? But I miss Luther, and I miss Stevie,” she said. Lynn was talking about Luther Vandross, and Stevie Wonder directly, but the conversation made it clear she was also thinking about George Duke, with whom her career started when she was a teenager.

She was thinking about Marvin Gaye, Chaka Khan and many, many more of the greats she toured the world with during the time when she was one of most accomplished and successful session singers ever.

“I miss real R&B, soul, love music,” she said, and thinking about that recently sent her to the studio in her house, where she has thousands of cassettes from her career.

“I went through them and I said, ‘Listen to the songs that I have.’ And I thought, ‘I’ve got to continue to honor my gift even though I’m in semi retirement.’ I still sound good, I still sound young, I’m still kind of sexy at this age, you know?”

Having made the decision to get back into music, she decided to do it through her own record company, Bella Records, which she formed at the beginning of this year. She began the work of learning how to run her own company in the digital music world – organizing, putting together the pieces of a video, marketing, PR.

“And so, as a team of one, I ventured into this new climate of everything digital, online, technological. It’s not like it was back in the day that you need a record company. You can do it yourself,” she said. “And I love that. I could have control over my music and nobody wanted me to sit on their lap.”

Her previous career was not only as a highly sought-after session singer. She wrote songs for artists such as LaToya Jackson, Patrice Rushen, Tracie Spencer, Thomas Anders and others. 

As she talks, it becomes clear, too, that another motivation for her is to honor the people with whom she sang, wrote music and performed. Stevie Wonder, for instance, paid for her vocal training with the legendary teacher Seth Riggs.

“Stevie didn’t have to send me to Seth Riggs,” she said. “He didn’t have to sit down and listen to my songs and give me pointers. He didn’t have to do that. But that’s who he is, you know?”

George Dukes asked the 17-year-old Lynn Davis to tour with his group and mentored and nurtured her career right up to his death in 2013.

And in starting her new career, she said, in the process of learning, she was struck by the realization that she needed to get on the phone and “thank some people.”

“And Stevie was one of them,” she said. “So I texted him the other day, and I said George is gone, you’re still here, you guys are my mentors and the people through which God used and funneled a lot of blessings for me, and I just want to say thank you.”

And then there is, for the preacher’s grandaughter who didn’t date until she was 21, the spiritual side.

“I thought that it was really not cool for me to have all these great songs, and still be able to sing, and not do it,” she said. “It was a blessing to be where I am at this age right now. I needed to do this, I really needed to do this, and wanted to do this, and felt like this was part of my reason for being here and an honor to God as well.”

Lynn Davis: From the Vault will be out early next year.

“I’m gonna put this music out,” she said, “and I’m gonna let the people decide.”

Stay connected to Lynn Davis on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

Website: http://www.lynndavismusic.com/

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/lynn-davis/1648540886

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCHZK6U50xhzpvXfhBF2TFSA

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/lynndavismusic

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lynndavismusic

Gorgeous George Creates Sonic Distribution to Empower Artists

By
Billboard Staff
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Gorgeous George The Pimp God is no stranger to “hustling”. Coming straight out of H-Town or in his words, “Hustle-Town”, George got his first car at the age of 13 and his first record deal at the age of 14. In 1996, George was offered a contract after sneaking into a club, hungry for an opportunity and got just that after bumping into Scarface in the bathroom of the club that night. 

In his interview with Off Da Porch, George details why he wanted to start his distribution company, “Well if you could flip a bird or flip a pack, you could do the same thing on the stock exchange” GGMP says, “Financial Literacy is very important”. Sonic Distribution was created to “buy back the block”, offering artists the opportunity to completely own their work.

George and Sonic Distro offer services including marketing, management and PR. Sonic also has many partners and collaborators including Spotify, BET, Pandora, Tidal and many more. The distro platform offers itself to both artists and labels. 

Artist Resse P Single ‘F.T.O.S.’ Hits #1 on iTunes!!

By
Billboard Staff
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The hit single ‘F.T.O.S.’ by Resse P debuts on the charts going #1 in Canada!

Born and raised in Chicago is the groundwork for her as an artist. Her elders and ancestors all stem from a soulful background and jazz perspective of life. She likes to sit back read, learn and grow from every life experience and it’s shared in her lyrical mastery. Before becoming a Hip-Hop artist she wrote poetry that started in 7th grade. By her second year of college she was performing live spoken word in New York City. In Fall 2006 her mother and younger brother were in a car accident prompting her to return to Chicago immediately. When Resse P got there a CD with some instrumentals were on her brother’s nightstand. He said, “take em.” So, she did. Seven months later she sat in the office of Larry Campbell, Staff Producer for Jive Records at the time. He told Resse P she had a unique voice, but needed better production and better producers. After their chat he gave her 5 CD’s and some inspiration. This happened in August 2007 she hasn’t looked backed since believe it! “


Check Resse P hottest single ‘F.T.O.S’ on all digital platforms!

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ressepworldwide/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/IAMRESSEP

45Redline Brings Eclectic Tastes To The Table With Alternative Rap/Rock Fusion

By
Billboard Staff
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The five artists behind the West Coast group 45redline, each grew up listening to different music – everything from classic rock and grunge, to early 2000’s nu metal and rap. 

Coming into their artistry, they’ve made the unique decision to fuse styles into something innovative; if I could paint a picture, it would look like the Red Hot Chili Peppers had a baby with the Migos and birthed the sound of 45redline. A sound best described as a blend between alternative, rap, and rock music. 

The group released its first single in February of 2022, “NIGHTMARE,” a mashup of guitar and electronic beats with some vibey vocals. Followed by two EP’s and nearly a dozen tracks in all. 

“Those were teasers,” says Blake Evan, an artist and videographer for 45redline. “They’re really a test to see what it would look like when we put all our music together for the first time. We were really proud of those projects, and I think they resemble what we’ve got going on.”

Other releases include, emo-inspired, “UPSET!”, thus far reaching 14,000 plays on Spotify alone. The Red Sun EP featured, “So Close” and “Death Letter,” featuring mypoorneighbor.  The latest EP, Dark Moon! includes four tracks and another feature from mypoorneighbor and up and coming artist, bats. 

“bloodyred6,” from the Dark Moon EP, is a colorful introduction to 45redline. It’s a rage driven track that alternates between screamo and rap.

“It’s a song where we’re laying it all on the line,” says Flam Pkmn, an artist and one of the founding fathers of the group. “The song definitely brings intense vibes; The beat goes crazy. It’s more of a rager, I’d say.”

The origins of the group – which consists of Cole Henry (artist, producer, videographer), Hersadhero (artist), Flam (artist), Duxe Lee (artist), and Blake (artist, videographer, photographer) – dates to late 2019 when Cole and Flam (Founding Fathers) started writing, producing, and recording in some of Sacramento’s hidden gem in-home studios. 

As a hobby turned into an undeniable passion, the two began reeling in other friends who shared the same love and ability to make music – including guitarist Miguel Ramirez – and by the middle of 2020, the group took shape and began to focus on developing its sound. 

Interest from industry insiders and artists generated some notoriety for the group, and 45redline built on the momentum by working with Grammy nominated and award-winning producers and engineers like MILLION DOLLAR SNARE, Q MADE THE BEAT, J3M Sound, JORGE MARROQUIN and Tatum Martin. 

In February of 2022, they signed with independent label PAKKMAN RECORDS. 

“We all have our own sense of influence with music and so we each bring something unique to the table with our skillset and influences,” says Flam. “I’m not exactly a lyricist but I can definitely come up with clean bars, hooks, punch lines and definitely direct a beat.”

Blake says, ‘it’s all a huge team effort”. In addition to being one of the artists, he handles some songwriting duties as well as videography, photography, along with managing 45redline’s social media accounts. 

“We have many jobs assigned to everyone so we can keep the ship rolling,” he says. 

Cole is one of the main producers in addition to being an artist and writer. He plays a big part in constructing the structure of their songs and handles the engineering and mixing. 

The group’s name was also a collaborative effort: Flam, liked the sound of “45” and another friend liked “redline,” so they put the two together. 

45redline is set to drop a full project come this November 2022, featuring new songs with sounds nobody’s heard before. 

“We’ve had some snippets on social media but this project doesn’t have any songs people have heard before except one or two,” Blake says. “Most of the new fans won’t recognize it. It’s going to be exciting.”

The group says the sound will be more polished, distinct and unified. 

“It’s going to be a real display of what we’ve been working with,” Cole says. 

45redline will return to the stage in October for a performance at Kushstock Festival. 

Make sure to stay connected to 45redline on all platforms for new music, videos and social posts. 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0o1vKOhY268e6gbFFHfndE?si=5FRiVI8CQ3m78k6wqs8VDg&nd=1 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Q6I7XlFa2dYc1h9Rv6Qfg/about 

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/45redline 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/45redline/?igshid=1d1lm45vass1z&hl=en 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@45redline 

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/45redline?eav=Afb9fuq0F8PVMKRdBNMUuHYvtiv-2OmjXUkLNbswi1hFpJ7MFGehN5PSg1U11kkirzs&paipv=0&_rdr 

Maurice Carroll Teams Up With Grammy-nominated Carolyn Malachi For New Dance Track

By
Billboard Staff
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When it comes to his music, Maurice Carroll has a simple goal. 

The Baltimore-based composer and producer has worked with artists who’ve been nominated for – and won – Grammy awards and others who’ve delivered chart-topping hits. He’s toured across parts of the U.S. as well as eastern Europe and in Africa. He coaches other artists to help elevate the independent music scene. 

But at the root of it all, Carroll wants to expose more people to house music by combining it with other genres like R&B and hip hop. 

“The intent is for people to not pigeonhole dance music for a certain type of person,” he says. “It’s not just for one type of person. I want to make people more aware of it so they can enjoy it more and understand it more.”

For Carroll, it’s as simple as this: house music is easy to move and dance to. With a background in multiple genres, he says this genre is the party genre for him.

“It makes it easy for people to dance and be free of what they might look like when they’re dancing,” he says. “Be free with it. You don’t have to know specific steps and dance moves, you can move freely in it. I’ve also found it’s a controlled musical genre for me. It’s simple to the average listener but it has intricacies that I enjoy and it’s about the placement of those intricacies.”

Beyond just introducing fans of other genres to dance music, Carroll enjoys the difficulty of combining house with those other styles. When he’s mixing with something like R&B, for instance, his music isn’t written and arranged the way a traditional R&B song would be. 

“You have to leave enough room on the front and back end for the DJs to blend it,” he says. “Placement for the vocals is important, and even if you’re featuring instrumentalists, where that instrument is being showcased within the song is important and has to be calculated because you have to anticipate what the dancers are doing during that song and not abruptly introduce another element where the listener isn’t prepared for it.”

Carroll has worked with artists like Michelle Weeks, a dance music artist who was a singer in Little Shop of Horrors. He’s worked with Michelle Shellers (vocalist for the electronic hit song “Keep on Rising”), The Floacist (formerly of Floetry), Ruff Endz and more. 

He’s been building a buzz with his 2-step mix of “Ooouu Work It” featuring rising hip hop artist Lor Dae. And he recently composed, produced and arranged the dance track “Under My Own Weather” for Carolyn Malachi, a Grammy-nominated artist. 

“KP (Kevin Powe Jr.) insisted that she work with me. Then she asked me to produce a song,” Carroll says. “When I sent it back to her, she was really taken aback by what I did. She said it was exactly what she was looking for.”

Malachi sat with the music for a while, wrote to it and then brought Carroll into the studio to hear where she’d taken the project with Grammy-winning and multi-platinum producer and engineer Andros Rodriguez. 

After listening to the song, the two asked Carroll for his thoughts. He said it sounded good, but they still sat waiting for his real producer’s response. 

“I said okay, can we listen to it again? I have some suggestions,” Carroll recalls. “Let’s move this here, place this here, manipulate it this way. Then we sat back and listened to playback and everybody in the room was like oh, I get it. That’s what we’re hearing as the record has been released, those changes and arrangements are what we hear.”

“Under My Own Weather” appears on Malachi’s new EP, Counter Narratives, which was released Aug. 26 and is available on Apple Music. 

Make sure to stay connected to Maurice Carroll on all platforms for new music, videos and social posts. 

Website: https://mauricecarroll.net/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1DqJMN6SssUG3dz2viDTw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MauriceLCarroll

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mauricelcarroll/

Love Canafuego Finds Inspiration Through Pop Music And Encouragement From Her Family

By
Billboard Staff
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BOSTON, MA—Love Canafuego finds inspiration through pop music and encouragement from her family. 

While Love, and her brother Joyful Canafuego, are still in grade school, both have learned production and various instruments to create “Champ of Wealth,” a track she hopes can help her someday reach the Hot 100 and that speaks blatantly about money. 

“We wrote ‘Champ of Wealth’ two years ago. The whole idea is to bring reality to how people handle money,” says Love. “‘Champ of Wealth” also includes her mother and father as writers, “Our songs are not just about everyday life, but art and feelings that people go through in the music business and in everyday life,” she explains. Her other single “Inflation Comes with Destruction,” features Joyful on vocals and is another take the family has on money and capitalism. Love hopes that if she becomes famous, she can use some of her earnings to help others.

Love tells that she wants to make music to make people dance, knowing she’d wanted to be in entertainment at an even younger age while constantly singing and dancing no matter where the Canafuego family goes. “Champ of Wealth” shows her knowledge of monetization and popular radio hits, but also plays with beats similar to old school disco and ‘80s pop, a la Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” without even recognizing it. 

Some of Love’s favorite artists include Lil’ Nas X, Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, and other hitmakers—the usual pop idols for most modern children, but Love’s focus outside of homeschooling goes into listening and emulating those sounds. Together as a family they write songs and compose lyrics using synthesizers, keyboards, drums, and guitar. Love is also a fan of Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper. 

When in school, she enjoys any courses relevant to the arts and enjoys drawing. 

What other goals does Love have other than getting On-Air with Ryan Seacrest? Getting to the Grammy’s.

“I really want to sing, dance, and perform globally. I love my fans, but I want more fans to support me, and listen to me, and to share it with the world.”

Make sure to stay connected to Love Canafuego on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/love-canafuego/1641587802 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFDOXAEi4DNTyOBPeOpKuHA 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075357813347 

Dale Bushka’s “Casey’s Shadow” Shows Yet Another Side To His Eclectic Mix Of Music

By
Billboard Staff
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Over the years, Dale Bushka has released music as the spirit moved him, every one different from the last, often to a large degree in music and the lyric theme.

His latest offering, “Casey’s Shadow,” follows in that tradition and expands it radically, and it comes with two different videos. He wrote the music, the lyrics and the story behind them, and he was the producer for the project.

“It’s a story,” he said. “The story is a lot more involved than the song is. “Obviously the song can only kind of give a little bit of background of what it’s about, but the video really gets into the dramatics and all the actors and everything that’s going on.”

That would be the long video, 10 minutes, featuring two young amateur actors, Tyler Anderson and Kayla Lonsberry. 

The three-and-a-half-minute video is the song, featuring pianist Dorell Salmon and vocalist Gina Murrell.

He has two main hopes for “Casey’s Shadow.” One, of course, is to get play for the song, including air play. The Dorell and Murrell song video is the accompaniment for that purpose. 

The other purpose, or hope, met by the long video, which tells the full story around the song, is to gain some attention for his musicians, the actors and his videographer, Terry Davis.

Dale, a retired insurance executive living in California, has been writing and producing music, “off and on,” for more than 40 years.

“I’ve been doing this for a while,” he said. “I don’t need the money, so it’s not really for me, it’s mainly for them. I’m trying especially for the kids. These kids are in their early 20s, and I’m trying to promote them. Maybe they can get into acting or modeling or something. They’re very good.”

As he talks about his music, and about this song and its two videos, it’s hard not to think that another motivation for this project is that he has never done anything like this, and he had a story he wanted to tell.

Casey’s story, told in a breezy, poppy tune, is about a young fisherman who, unbeknownst to his wife, in desperation, hires out as a killer to support his true love. Tragedy ensues. The long video ends with a mental health public service ad.

What he would like out of his music, ultimately, is simple.

“Honestly,” he said, “if I can hear one song on the radio, I think I’d be happy. That’s all I want to do. Before I die, I just want to hear at least one of my songs on the radio, and I think my songs are as good as anything on the radio.”

He says that if he could sing, or dance, or play the guitar, his musical aspirations might be different.

“But the thing is, I can’t sing. I can’t dance, and I don’t, and I can’t play the guitar. So, I try and do the next best thing, and I try and find people that I can trust that I believe in.”

He found people like that for this project. He had never met Gina before, but he had worked with Dorell, who introduced him to her. Dorell also introduced him to Terry, the videographer. All of them, and the actors, he said, were wonderful to work with.

“It’s just amazing, the talent that I was able to get. So I mean, I truly appreciate everybody that I’ve worked with.”

The music he has produced is a small body, but covers a lot of ground, which can be found on his website, http://www.bhhmusic.com/releases.

“I cross different paths,” he said. “I’ve done ‘Laurel Canyon,’ which is kind of my ode to Crosby, Stills and Nash. It’s about Laurel Canyon as it was before the Manson murders, and ‘Claire,’ which is the story of a boy that’s in love with a plastic doll. I mean, there’s a lot of weird stuff. I run the gamut.”

His songs vary not just in subject matter. “Badass Jesus” is a hard-edged, hard rock church hymn. “Totally Tubed,” another hard-edged but playful spiritual song, is ’60s style soft rock. “Fisherman Song” he wrote as a sing-along song, a sea-shanty style about fishermen saying goodbye before heading out to sea.

Coming up is “Girl You’re God’s Problem Now.”

“It’s about a girl that had just driven everybody nuts in this town. She’s hit on them, she’s asked them for money and never paid it back, she’s just been a real pain. So when she passes away, the song asks at the funeral, ‘Why did the mourners giggle instead of bow?’”

Find “Casey’s Shadow” and Dale Bushka’s music on these platforms:

Website: 

https://www.bhhmusic.com/releases

Amazon Music: 

https://music.amazon.com/artists/B0BG6F48M2/dorrel-murrell

YouTube (short video): 

https://youtu.be/IzLfd4j8kwM

YouTube (long video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_PHRs31Kls

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