PSYCSTER

Christmas Day 2003. Far away from the serene lakes, plastic Santas, sparkling Christmas lights, and peaceful nativity scenes of suburbia, I’m huddled in an oversized denim jacket in the cold lobby of a rundown hotel near downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Roughly a thousand locals are streaming in and out of the ballroom amidst amateur security guards with metal detectors. An unfortunate Christmas tree with some half-assed decorations lies on its side in the middle of the room, but no one notices. A forty-something man missing a tooth eyes me hungrily, until his gaze is distracted by two ghetto-fabulous women with neon pink silk flower arrangements stuck in their weave, matching their see-through neon pink dresses. The Ghetto Grammys truly lives up to its name.

Inside the ballroom, the semi-sober attendees watch the overhyped crowd and place bets on how long it will be until the mass on the grinding dancefloor turns into an all-out melee. In the midst of dirty South/reggae blends, the DJ occasionally cuts the music low to announce Ghetto Grammy winners. The drunk dancing crowd pays little attention until the award for Record Label of the Year. Psycster, of Jacksonville’s Longterm Records South, an intimidating man with long dreads, easily cuts through the thick crowd and rises onto the makeshift stage to accept his award. The crowd grows uncharacteristically quiet as he takes the mic. “It’s about time Jacksonville had a real gangsta in charge,” he declares with an air of authority, daring anyone to voice a challenge. No one speaks, and in this quick moment it’s clear that he quite literally runs the city.

Three weeks later, Psycster sinks into a leather chair behind a large glass desk at the offices of CTP/Longterm Records South, carefully setting down a large paper sack from a nearby bookstore. He methodically removes each of the dozen or so books inside, laying them in rows across his desk with a look of satisfaction. Thumbing through titles like “Guerilla Publicity,” “Execution: the Art of Getting Things Done,” and “VIBE’s History of Hip-Hop,” he explains that this is his plan to educate the 7+ staff members of Longterm Records. Psycster is corporate America’s worst nightmare: an ex-con who learned from his mistakes, an educated thug who’s motivated, efficient, and organized.

After a tour of Longterm’s extensive facilities, it’s clear that this isn’t the typical fly-by-night local record label. There are no matching iced-out chains to be found – instead, they’ve invested their funds in two full-size state-of-the-art recording studios, computers, CD duplicators, and shrink-wrapping equipment. The front of the building is in the process of being developed into a storefront, carrying CDs, jerseys, and other miscellaneous items. In addition to the label and studio, they’ve also teamed up with Orlando-based Clientell radio and brought Jacksonville’s first pirate radio station to life.

Over dinner, Psycster asks everyone their birthdate, and using his knowledge of the Zodiac signs and the Chinese horoscopes, predicts everyone’s personalities and future. As much as we hate to admit it, his analysis isn’t too far from the truth. His partner Kash, obviously accustomed to this ritual, sits back calmly and observes. Next, it was my turn to interrogate Psycster.

How long has Longtern Records been around?
Four years. It’s always been planned, but it’s just starting to take effect.

Did you study other record labels, the indies like Cash Money, Master P?
Yeah, I studied most of ‘em, the indies and the majors. Most of my ideas actually came from the majors. I’d go into their establishment and see how they operated, and how dependent they were on other things. I eliminated all the outside elements that they were dependent on. They need someone for CD duplication, distribution, but we can do those things ourselves.

How do you distribute your own product?
We called all the stores and built up relationships with them. If you persuade them enough, they’ll put it in their store. Right now we’ve got 188 stores, all throughout the Southeast, that carry our records.

What’s the first release that you’ve put out through Longterm Records?
“Psycster, Freestyle Fanatic of the South.” We sold 2,000 copies the first week. Our underground radio station helps, because everybody knows our songs now. Of course we play everybody’s music, because there’s a real need for a radio station here in Jacksonville.

What was your background before you got in to the music business?
Well, I was a hustler, a street hustler. I went to prison, and I got this little idea while I was in prison to start a record label. I came up with the whole idea, the concept, and created the clown, which is our logo.

What does the clown logo mean?
The clown is a powerful statement. The history of the black clown involves the infiltration that caused black people to fall into submission. The painting of the face was a replica, it demanded that people should laugh and be happy at all times. They left their guard down and that’s when they were infiltrated, pulled into slavery. With a clown’s face painted, you can never see his expression, you never see his true intentions. That’s the reason for the yin and yang symbol, and his collar is actually a map of Africa, Asia, and Europe. There should be green on this map, but the green doesn’t come until the money comes. That symbolizes the incentive that we’ve got for this record label. We’ve been tricked out of a lot of things in the past with the music industry, so I’ve based myself on this. Me personally, I went through some difficulties with an album I put out a while back, and the clown symbolizes a certain point in my life that I went through.

Was that album also distributed independently?
I went through Southern Music Distribution.

Why was it such a bad experience for you?
Mostly it was a manager I had hired and this guy named Gary Wade out of Houston. He fucked me out of $50,000 for radio play. Him and my manager were in cahoots. And the manager, he was just a really arrogant little fellow. but I didn’t know at the moment. Tim Chapman was my manager, Gary Wade was the one that was supposed to handle my radio play throughout the Southeast but he fucked me royally. Tim Chapman was supposed to be managing me, handling everything, but he was so arrogant that he burned a lot of bridges and it got us to a point where we couldn’t go a lot of places. Plus, the distributor who was responsible for putting our product on the shelves was mad at him, but didn’t explain it to me. It was just a whole bunch of garbage.

Why did you hire him in the first place?
Because he knew what he was doing when it came to the music business. But he was a greedy guy, and the arrogance and the problems started to come when he was supposed to be promoting Longterm. He was promoting other artists at the same time, and I was spending my money.

How did you regroup from that experience?
I visited a lot of other companies and went into their establishments to observe. I noticed everything, showed them my capabilities, and came back and set up this studio.

I see you’ve got the studio, CD duplication, CD wrapping, graphic design, what else did I miss that you have here in-house?
Movie editing, we film commercials here and everything’s done in-house.

What is your relationship like with other artists in this area? Is there a jealousy factor there?
There used to be jealousy. There ain’t but one record company in the whole city. It’s easy to say that you’ve got a label, but here we’ve got a real company. Everybody knows their position. So, we don’t really have problems. It’s more of a respect factor now that didn’t used to be there. We’ve done all the things that we’re supposed to do. We also do a lot of community activities, we throw free shows, a carnival, a big show in the coliseum, stuff like that. We’ve got a truck that turns into a stage, so we use that to throw shows.

There really aren’t any major artists that have come out of the Jacksonville area, so do you think breaking out of this region is going to be difficult for you?
At first, yes, I thought that way. But now, the way that the CDs have been selling, we sold over 12,000 copies of “Street Wars” in two months. “Street Wars” was something I started to kill the jealousy among local artists. I call them all into the studio and told ‘em, if you’ve got beef, just let me know. You can rap for free right here in our studio. Whatever you say about the other person, we’re gonna bring ‘em in, let them hear what you said, and let them respond back. But we don’t want no conflict after this. Y’all get to say what you have to say, and move on. Everything ran smoothly after “Street Wars.”

Jacksonville is a pretty rough city.
Probably the roughest one in the market.

Commercially, how do the corporate radio stations react towards local artists? Are they open?
At first they wasn’t, but I think it’s coming to a point where they really don’t have a choice. They can’t hide from it.

So your upcoming project is a collaboration with your partner Kash, correct? Can you break down the rest of the artists on the Longterm roster?
CC Soprano, he’s basically an OG. He’ll give you a story or two. Serious L, he’s got a little love in him but he’s more of a gangsta singer. I’d compare him to Nate Dogg crossed with Jagged Edge. Big Baby, he’s got a big voice. He can sing and rap. TYS: Tortured Young Souls, that’s a group that hits the younger crowds. They express real life from a young guy’s perspective. Then, the first single off the Psycho & Kash album is “Where I Wanna Be,” which is basically me and him expressing what kind of person we can be at all times.

How would you describe yourself as a person?
Very intellectual. I’ve been through a lot of street drama. I just tell it how it is, I came up rough.

Do you regret the upbringing that you had?
No, actually I love it. It was hard, it was rough, but I think it was a necessity. I was an honor student, and I went to college but I didn’t graduate. Basically, I’m kinda smart, so books don’t even matter to me. I run right through books.

Do you think your knowledge came more from the streets or college?
The streets.