In the music business who you know helps but it isn't enough to get you ahead. You have to have substance to back it up. 20 year old Pensacola, Florida rapper Cozzy found this out when, first starting out recording hip-hop a few years ago, the burgeoning young rapper hit up his successful uncle in the rap biz - Tobin "TC" Coston who was Master P’s manager and VP & GM of his No Limit Records label - thinking his well connected relative would get him a record deal right away. But that was not the case initially.

"I have had many relatives hit me up for record deals," said TC who has turned them all down including Cozzy, at first. But he liked how consistent the young rapper was in both his work ethic and his "promising" vocal flow even though it still had a ways to go. "I told him to keep working because it was really raw. He continued to send me music and I heard something from him I liked." Then after several goes around TC heard his nephew freestyle over some popular tracks that Cozzy totally made his own. So impressed was his uncle he that he signed him to Me & Mine Entertainment; the label known for releasing (among many others) Lil’ Troy’s platinum Sitting Fat Down South. He also signed his rap crew F.B.N. (Fresh By Nature) to the label and is committed to sticking by both and developing them as artists over a long term - something you don't hear of much these days in the financially stressed & ever fickle music biz.

Reading yesterday's great Eric Brighwell Amoeblog about New Orleans rapper Lil Slim reminded me of another great and oft slept-on New Orleans rap artist -- Fiend, whom I first met back in the nineties when he initially hooked up with Master P's No Limit label, and with whom I last talked around this time last year when he released his recommended career retrospective CD on Priority Mr. Whomp Whomp: The Best of Fiend (look for it and other Fiend releases at Amoeba Music).

That best-of collection, which features collaborations from the likes of Master P, MIa X, Snoop Dogg, Mac, and Kane & Abel, ably displays Fiend's trademark gruff, growling, gravelly Nawleans rap drawl and the rapper's edgy lyrical style, coupled with his skill for creating killer hooks (often behind-the-scenes, fueling others' success including Silkk the Shocker, Snoop Dogg, and Master P for whom he heavily contributed to the runaway MTV/crossover hit "Make Em Say Uh").

Fiend initially earned his Rakim inspired name (as in "Microphone Fiend") coming up as a distinctive young hip-hop voice in both New Orleans' 3rd Ward and 17th Ward Districts.  Born Richard Jones, he grew up in what is known as the Hollygrove area, where, from his early teens onwards he spent any free time, "Making music whenever and wherever I could. I would record all over...at people's houses," he told me, citing as among his early influences: Rakim, Con Funk Shun, Earth Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Big Daddy Kane, and Public Enemy. However even more profound an influence on his craft and his life was the sudden death of his younger brother Kevin, who was killed when Fiend was only sixteen years of age.

Fillmore San Francisco hip-hop crew Bored Stiff, who came on the Bay Area scene in the early nineties but who had been out of action for some years, return with this new video with lots of shots of SF and a song that addresses the issue of media. What has always made this Frisco crew unique is that they always blurred the line between so-called "rap" and "hip-hop" -- meaning that they are street/gangsta but simultaneously distinctly hip-hop in that they love all the elements, such as graffiti -- just the way it should be. Look for Bored Stiff's releases, including their new one From The Ground Up, as well albums by individual members (inc. Equipto) at Amoeba Music. 

Meantime, below check out Fillmore, SF rappers -- JT the Bigga Figga and Rappin 4-Tay along with Master P, Dangerous Dame, Ray Luv, Lil Ric, King George and the rest of the West Coast Bad Boyz mob, in a video shot in Richmond, CA for the posse single "Peace 2 Da Streets" from the compilation album West Coast Bad Boyz: Anotha Level of the Game (No Limit 1994).

New Orleans emcee Mia X is from the old school and has been making hip-hop for twenty plus years. She is probably best known by most rap fans for the period she was signed to and associated with Master P's No Limit label, but her rich rap history goes back long before that. However, searching under the artist's early rap years online will inevitably yield inaccurate results -- whether searching on the AOL.music, All Music Guide, Yahoo, VH1 websites, or on "her" Wikipedia bio which erroneously states: "Although born in New Orleans, Mia began her rapping career in Queens, New York as part of New York Incorporated, which disbanded after only four years. She then returned to New Orleans and met with Master P, an aspiring rapper and producer who signed her to his record label, No Limit."

"That's not correct and I am tired of people telling me that I used to live in New York and started my career there," Mia X said by phone recently, noting that she never lived in New York -- always in New Orleans. So how did this misinformation get out there in the first place? "I think it was someone at VH1 who first got it wrong in a story about me," Mia X said. It turns out it was John Bush -- a writer for All Music Guide -- who got it wrong, but then all the other websites listed above (Yahoo, AOL, VH1), plus many others, including whoever entered the artist's Wikipedia information, copied the erroneous bio. The original mistake came about apparently based on the fact that one of the members (Denny D) of New York Inc. was from New York, but he lived in New Orleans before returning to New York, according to Mia X. So, for the record, here is the updated, accurate bio on Mia X c/o the AMOEBLOG: