Music is not just a form of entertainment. It is the picture of a society, a frame of our existence. Some artists know the importance of creating quality music, and with this, I don’t mean the perfect beat, incredible production, and so on. Quality music is that kind of Art made to last, to change things, to right the wrong, and spread positive vibes, preparing and promoting a wind of change. Today, at Planet Singer, we are very happy to have the chance to interview the Goodieboyz team that with their track “Rise With Me” are part of this change, and we are ready to support them!
Hi guys, first of all, thanks a lot for being here today at Planet Singer. It is several years now that you are in the business, can you tell us how your adventure started?
I started off as a young music producer/ artist back in the late 90s and created the name Goodieboyz for my group. I must admit, we weren’t very good at music production or rapping back then. We used to write 3 – 4 track songs with cheap sounding beats and rap skills that made Dr Seuss sound like Eminem by comparison. Haha But over the years while others left the group or the production team I kept honing my craft and got better through hard work, never giving up and embracing the outside the box mentality in music. Right when I thought I was going to REALLY get noticed in 2000 I had a rough stretch of both mother and grandmother dying back to back years which I ultimately gave up on music and dealt with depression for close to a decade as things in my personal life just spiraled.
That set me back and all of a sudden I thought music was just a passing fad. Fast forward to 2015 and I took out my music equipment and started playing around since I dealt with another personal trial but this time… I couldn’t stop writing. It kept pouring out from my heart and it healed my heart and I believe resurrected my soul. That song became Rise With Me, which I was moved to after seeing another police brutality video on the news. I decided through music I would battle back and sure enough music was my muse. Now, I was able to join other artists from around the world who are singers, rappers, musicians virtually that make up the virtual project Goodieboyz that it is today. That’s on top of a couple others that help out with different duties here locally and few others that work as virtual assistants from around the world as well.
“Rise With Me” will be available to download on the 19th of June, however, the track has been already released in the past, can you tell us the difference between the two versions?
We tested the song back in 2018 with music fans, influencers, music blog reviewers and industry personnel and they loved the song and message so we launched the track however several stations including college stations could not play it due to explicit lyrics. So I agreed that the message should not be overwhelmed by explicit lyrics so I challenged the artists involved to dig deeper and while it took a bit longer due to various artist schedules we finally were able over a year later to get the final product you hear and see now. To be honest, it worked out well as it comes at a time that spoke almost exactly to this track.
We are living very difficult times, pandemic, wars, injustice, racism. What do you think would be the first step towards a more peaceful world?
You sure you want to ask me this question? Haha Well, here you go… We need to simplify government to prevent gridlock and suffer years to get laws passed or improve failed or outdated policies. AS the song says, now we only get small chump change, not REAL change.
There are EXCELLENT police men and women out there who serve their departments with pride and honor but even they must admit there are many who do not. So it starts from the very beginning… train police officers to be peacekeepers and community helpers and NOT just enforcers. Hold these men and women to HIGHER standards so this means allow citizens to sue officers easier who abuse their powers and give SERIOUS jail time or more serious punishments to those who take lives out of brutality when there was no reason to.
At the same time, our communities CANNOT ALWAYS blame the police. We ALL must be law abiding citizens and must work WITH police if these changes are made or else our demands will ring hollow or seem one sided. There is no either or rather we serve our laws or not just the same as we have rules growing up we had to observe from our parents.
Cut down the pay in half and reduce time off schedules for congress and senate members so only people 100% vested into helping others will take those positions. There’s too many who take these positions for the wrong reasons.
Work with and listen to VARIOUS medical staff, here and abroad, when dealing with pandemics. Work with other nations and not divide us from them.
Come up with a financial program that allows households an extra amount to be able to avoid living in poverty. Those who work over a certain amount of hours each week are given a bonus so it’s an incentive to work longer hours. Many are out of work due to technology but there’s PLENTY of other work that can be done in each city, town and state to keep people busy working. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!
Lastly… encourage honest yet respectful dialog among citizens in every town, city, state or area. This is going to take THICK SKIN but serious change means serious hard questions and answers. I remember watching the music video “I’m not Racist” and it REALLY hit home to me as it showed me how opposites sides can think and my mouth dropped. Bigots and racists are not born, they learn that behavior or develop it so if its a learned then it can be changed. Not everyone who has these traits are bad people deep inside, some are just confused or misguided and taught as a kid so I believe having as MLK said, and has been shown to work recently, that peaceful dialog with such ones can change even the most hardened heart, I’ve done that without a college degree so why can’t everyone else? We’re not a planet of “races”, there’s only ONE race… the human race.
Your Track “Rise With Me” is incredible. I personally really loved the production and arrangement. Can you tell us more about the recording process of this track?
On behalf of all those involved thank you so much for that. As mentioned, it was inspired by previous police brutality footage and I remember asking myself, why is this STILL an issue? I mean year after year, then I saw the Charlottesville protestors and torches burning which reminded me of slavery and lynching days and I could not believe here we are again at this point STILL repeating this countries past mistakes. So I poured everything into the production until I came up with an anthem of sorts to rally behind.
I also wanted the message to be heard not just by black america but ALL Americans PLUS the entire world so the production does have a crossover appeal on purpose, I can’t say enough about the artists involved that were part of this.
The lyrics, today more than ever, are very strong and emotional. They carry a very strong message. Can you tell us more about the songwriting process of the track?
The singing lyrics were my way of showing how fear changed and how fear stems from ignorance so many times. This ignorance causes division which then begets division, hate and ultimately death. I told the artists to REALLY think about these times and matters before putting pen to paper, I wanted honesty and deep lyrics from their own hearts NOT just slick lyrics.
I also wanted the message to be heard not just by black america but ALL Americans PLUS the entire world so the production does have a crossover appeal on purpose, I can’t say enough about the artists involved that were part of this.
Inequality, police brutality, and racial profiling are problems not only that affect the US, but there is also a lot to do all around the world. It is thanks to initiatives like yours that we can move in the right direction. What do you think is necessary to move in the right direction? Is the role of respect in education enough for the younger generation?
I think education needs to start by changing the history books to the most HONEST TRUE VERSIONS of American history. If you want to talk about Columbus fine, but don’t leave out the evil stuff as well. Want to talk about the Civil War, generals and the Confederate flag, ok but talk about how it is a painful reminder to MILLIONS and why the South was fighting for HONESTLY. Talk about Native Americans killing early Americans, ok but also talk about WHY some did as well as Americans who massacred them and other atrocities AMERICANS did to them.
Many just focus on slavery but talk about how the Irish were treated coming to the USA, the Asians, Mexicans, etc. Let the person form their own opinion rather than lead them into this American fantasy that many times is built on lies or sugar coated stories.
This nation was built on death, blood, sweat and tears of MILLIONS of innocent lives but you know what… EVERY NATION also was built the same way from Africa, Asia, European areas and South America. This may SEEM like a United States problem but IMHO it’s more because some Americans, and even more its governments, spend so much time telling the world how to solve their problems they don’t look to fix their own house first so it comes off as hypocrisy. When you have a say North Korea or Middle East being blasted for mistreatment of its citizens YET America on a LARGER SCALE does worse since it positions itself as a world power. FIX YOUR HOUSE FIRST.
Solve your government issues that fail ALL its citizens every election year. Solve your medical issues where you have the best medical treatment in the world YET the worst medical system, even beat out by some 3rd world countries! Solve your homeless and drug problem besides just jail time.
I at this time have no confidence in the government BUT I am HIGHLY impressed by the younger generations, millennials especially, who rise up (no pun intended lol) to hold people accountable. As much as millennials get called out for their issues they deserve my utmost respect when it comes to changing broken systems that don’t even affect many of them. There were people of ALL ethnic groups protesting and many of these also were suffered hand in hand by police brutality clearing protestors just like in my videos early days so they should be applauded and it’s THAT I have confidence… there will always be fighters of what’s right even when the powers that be may not want to listen. But for the first time in my life, I believe people in government and law enforcement are listening.
“Rise With Me” is a very intense track, there are a lot of clips that have been included that are very painful to listen to, but this is necessary to understand the gravity of the situation. I imagine the material you had was a lot, was it hard to chose what to include and what to cut out?
Lyrics wise I kept everything and then some because I wanted all they had and more. But video wise… yes it was VERY HARD to try to cram so many years of injustice into a 5 minute video. Some because I didn’t think it was right showing. I didn’t want to show the George Flloyd footage or footage or actual death moments I had A LOT of footage of but I did want to show enough to show the similarities of how America has always dealt with its history of racial equality and some police who think they are above the law.
Looking at past videos to today the USA always involved the military, brutal police force and a tone deaf stance, even allowing its own citizens to share in HURTING or trying to intimidate people protesting peaceably. The difference I showed though in the video was look how many white americans were marching with MLK or being hurt and it fast forward to today and you had EVERY ETHNICITY of Americans there, some together being shot at with rubber bullets, hit with sticks. You had a lasting image of two middle-eastern women driving a car with their fists up.
There were people around the world that supported this basic human right that I can’t even mention them all that I actually cried. I sat there and after so many years seeing the opposite I cried because it feels so good to be heard and not have people tone deaf. To have the world stand for something UNITED I’ve NEVER been more proud to be an American or a HUMAN at its very basic core. We ALL need to LISTEN MORE, BE BETTER… DO BETTER.
SumBoyRay, Switch, The Collective, everyone did an amazing job. What was It like working all together on this important project?
Majority of my artists are artists from around the world, I would say only 5% actually come in to work with me in CA. This creates a bit of emotional disconnect sometimes relying on technology such as email, text, chats, phone, etc BUT on this project there was NONE of that here. Everyone was on the same page and actually had to turn down a lot of artists due to time constraint. The world didn’t need another “We Are the World” project with 20 rappers and singers, we just wanted to put out a powerful yet simple project to say this is our message. We had another song we could have launched instead but I was proud that everyone involved said we’re with you, let THIS be the first official release… never been more proud.
what are your plans for the future?
We plan on promoting this song and message for the next several months and donate half the sales to the Equal Justice Initiative. Outside of that, Goodieboyz has morphed into an online startup entertainment venture as many of us love the arts in general. So we released our first documentary “Show & Tell” about a month ago and we’re happy with the YouTube response on that documentary. My good friends and I all have a twisted sense of humor and love of films so on our main Goodieboyz channel we have several animated and comedy skits and plan on releasing more each month through our Straight out the Burbs comedy team which I am also part of that rat pack group.
We also just completed our first animated horror short story and no it won’t be political. Haha We’re pitching that short story to a production company and depending on how that goes hopefully you’ll see it online either through a streaming service or definitely on our Goodieboyz YouTube channel. We plan on releasing several other short stories that deal with drama, comedy and horror and scheduling our next music release sometime later this year so keep an eye out for all that!
It was a big pleasure having you with us today! We really wish you all the best with your project and hopefully, we will assist in a big change soon.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. Promoting indie projects is an awesome service. I get passionate (i.e wordy) when dealing with certain topics and hope fans like the song and video. Definitely subscribe to our YouTube channel and become lifetime fans so you can tell your friends you were quicker on the uptake with Goodieboyz before they even knew about us. Haha Take care everyone and stay safe!
Check the links below and discover more about GOODIEBOYZ, and don’t forget to share “RISE WITH ME”, and add this important track to your favorite playlists!
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