1. We're here chillin with the one and only Sumkid, what's good man?

All is good man, thanks for asking! The world is spinning just like it's supposed to, and I'm still here to live with it and speak on it. That sounds real peaceful. Excuse me while I burn some Nubian Musk and cook something vegan.  

2. So tell us a little bit about where you're from and how did you originally get into the music biz?

I'm from North Carolina, but went back and forth between there and Illinois in my formative years. I'm very familiar with corn and tobacco. I even did a little time in Oakland cus my Pops lived out there. Then I went to ATL for school and hit New York after that. All of these places I call home, NC is what I claim the most, because that's where I started seeing the world as it is and rhyming about it. North Carolina had the biggest influence on my ways and my life, and my closest family is there.

I don't know exactly when I crossed the line between just being an artist and getting into the biznass of music. Probably around 2001 when I decided I was gonna be an artist for the rest of my life and figured I better get started on building a career for myself. It was the only way I could take myself seriously and get proper respect. That started I think with the first VJC EP we released on wax. It was my first taste of dealing with manufacturers, distributors, stores (online and physical) and grinding a product.

3. Tell us how VJC Recordings came together?

The VJC is my family/crew. We started as The Vinyl Junkies in 1995 in LA and spread through the country picking up like-spirited individuals along the way (I was recruited in ATL). It operates more like a nation-wide brotherhood, collective or fraternity than a typical hip-hop crew. We may not see or talk to each other for weeks or months at a time, but we're always on the same page, moving steady, deadly and silently towards the same goal. Whether I'm speaking to AmDex in ATL, Groove in Cincinnati, BadTouch in NYC, or Pudge out here in LA, I'm always 100% at ease with my VJ brethren. We have no ego when it comes to each other, because I think we've known each other longer than any of us have actually been on this planet. It's a weird spiritual thing. A strange arrangement, if you will....

We decided to form a label in 2005 with the release of our first collective project, "Strange Arrangement". Since then, we've put out Clan Destined and my first solo effort, "The Lil Folk".

4. Who are all the members of the label and crew?

- ATL: AmDex & DT (Clan Destined)

- NYC: BadTouch

- CIN: Mista Rare Groove, mr.pillo

- LA: X-Man, SumKid, X-ro, Deejaypudgemcee (Pudge for short)

Nine is the magic number, huh...we shift and shuffle throughout the cities like it's nothing. Clan Destined was stationed out here for about a year. I was stationed in NYC and ATL. Pudge will be going back to NYC within the year. There are also alot of people who went through VJC Academy and either moved on, or renounced their affiliation but we still consider family or affiliates and love dearly.

5. VJC recently released your first group album right?

Yep! "Strange Arrangement". That was a good f*ckin time. Whenever we're all in the same place at once, its nonstop jokes and action. Imagine a family reunion where everybody's on some music shit, and everybody's in the same age bracket.  

6. One thing I notice in the VJC crew, is a lot of the MC's are producers as well....that must be great in knocking out a lot of releases for the label, do you find that helpful for the recording process?

Sometimes. The problem is that we can literally spend MONTHS just combing through beats. The process for getting the beats together for "Strange Arrangement" took about 3 months, because there are so many thumpin beats, and we're spread out across the country. Also, being that the majority of VJs are writers as well as producers, we can be all over the place and our focus can be scattered. So we learned alot with the making of the last album. We're a megaton bomb of creativity, now we're working on being a concentrated laser.

7. So let's get into your new solo album that was recently released, tell us about that?

It's called "The Lil Folk". I started work on that album in the Summer of 2002 and finished it in 2004. The album is my love letter to creativity, New York, ATL and NC, and it features production from all the VJC with the exception of Rare Groove. It dropped this year (2007) through a VJC Records and Domination Records collaboration (whaddup DJ!!!). I was a little self-conscious about releasing material that's three years old, because I'm already light years beyond that album. But then I realized even though the album has aged, it's still better than most shit that's out there today. Sounds terrible, I know. But hey, what's a rapper without an ego and insecurities?

8. Now I know you are also involved in other sides of the business from promotions to publicity....how did you get involved in that?

I'm a writer, and that's how I actually pay my bills, so sometimes that overlaps with the realms of publicity and journalism, even advertising and marketing. I started writing short stories when I was a youngin, and I never stopped writing. It's my natural born inclination, and it helps with the rappin. I suck at passing out flyers.

9. What do you think is going to be the best way to keep the music selling, it seems to be more and more stores closing up and complaints of illegal downloading.  But it seems like digital download is going to be the next big thing if not already....what do you think?

Nobody I know in the music industry who's working really hard is complaining. There's no time to worry about how to keep music selling when you're actually out in the world and on the web hustling your music. It's mostly the people who've been sitting like fat rats already who are kicking and screaming. All these stores closing up and illegal downloading is a necessary evil I think for the time being because it's forcing the people to rethink the value of music and how to get it to the masses without pimping artists or taxing the people for it. In utopia, music would be free and deserving artists would be rich. It can never be that way though, and we're at the divide. Unfortunately, a lot of small business owners, shops and labels are suffering terribly. But the good thing is that the power is shifting back to the artists, which is probably where it should be for now because we're the only ones who can protect ourselves like we can. How do we keep the music selling? We think outside the box and incorporate cross-marketing and multi-media approaches to our music at the creative level. We have to start thinking that albums are more than albums and songs are more than just songs... the shows have to become experiences, and more than just rapping on stage. That time is dead and long gone, and from a hip-hop perspective we gotta take a grown-up approach now to keep the fans excited. If the album and the show are an EXPERIENCE, then fans will show up and buy your shit because they want to be part of the movement. Indie rock has been on that shit for over a decade, why are we late?

10. What do you and the VJC crew have lined up for the rest of the year and 2008?

I'm preparing the world for my new album "The Nobody Hole" which will probably drop Halloween 2008. We're working on turning that into an animated feature. BadTouch is dropping his solo album, Clan Destined is working on new material and there's tale of a Clan Destined and Sum collab album...

11. Where can heads find out more about you and the VJC crew?

- www.myspace.com/sum

- www.myspace.com/thenobododyhole

- www.myspace.com/thevinyljunkieclique (there's a blog there entitled 'VJC Myspace Directory'. you can find all of our individual links there)

- http://www.vjcrecordings.com/

12. Aight homie, thanks for taking some time out to do this.  Anything else you would like the readers at HipHop-Elements.com know?

Thanks for taking the time to gimme a holler! A great philosopher once said you could always tell the downfall of a civilization was near when that civilization's art and music started to suck. Buy good music!