All I can say about this past year is… WOW. That was fun.

2006 was our best year yet at QN5 Music! Looking back, it’s crazy to see how far we’ve come. From our first merch booth at Rocksteady years ago to our first full national tour this past spring. From Will Rap For Food to APOS. From Featured Material Vol.2 to whutduzFMstand4?. From Asterisk:One to the upcoming Asterisk:Four. So much has changed…the music, the world and ourselves.

All in all, it’s been a bumpy roller coaster ride thus far, fraught with constant growing pains and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But regardless of all the adversity we’ve faced as a label, our stable of artists & producers have managed to stick through it and continually generate some of the best Hip-Hop music around. In 2006, we began to see the faint glimmer of the light at the end of the tunnel, after years in the dark. So, just to recap, I made a Top 10 Highlights list of our achievements in 2006.

10. PackFM On VMA-Winning Ecko Videogame Soundtrack

At the QthousaN5 Anniversary party, Pack was approached by a representative from Bad Boy who mentioned they were on the hunt for music for a graffiti game Marc Ecko was developing. Funny enough, a couple weeks prior, Pack had told me he wanted to do a graffiti track for his album. Within a week we had “Clik, Clak & Spray” submitted along with a couple other joints.

Funny enough, we were told Diddy loved Pack’s “Stomp” song, but couldn’t use it due to sampling issues. Deacon The Villain came through with the original banger AND the sample-free remix and the song made the game’s soundtrack. It was subsequently released as a B-Side to the Rakim & Kweli Promotional 12” Single. Mind you, it was chosen over tracks by Pharoahe Monch & Fort Minor. Go Pack & Deacon!

Just to put the icing on the cake. The soundtrack for Getting Up scored a VMA at the MTV Video Music Awards as the best In-Game Soundtrack of 2006. As Borat would say, “Veddy Nice!”

9. Akomplice Clothing Sponsors QN5 Artists

This year, we were contacted by a clothing start-up called Akomplice Clothing, which is run by two brothers from Colorado. They told me they loved Archetype and they wanted to work out a sponsorship with QN5.

After checking out their site, I was VERY impressed with their design aesthetic and clothing. So, they sent over some gear which we started rocking damn near everywhere we went. To top it off, they showed love and featured CunninLynguists & PackFM in full-page ads in several magazines.

They just released their line for season five and they’re growing rapidly (just check the latest issue of SPIN and see what THE GAME is wearing in his photoshoot). We’re very proud to have had a hand in their budding success and look forward to rockin their latest designs in 2007.

8. CunninLynguists Dominate Scandinavia

Europe has always been of interest to us because we have many forum members and fans that hail from there, yet we’ve technically never had any official European distribution until recently. So, playing shows there seemed like a lofty goal until this past year.

CunninLynguists paved the way after APOS dropped, and with the help of Bad Taste Events, played several of the largest festivals in Scandinavia during the summer – sharing stages with Pharrel, Kanye, The Cardigans, Devin The Dude and more – even getting coverage on MTVe.com

CunninLynguists Rocking @ Openair Frauenfeld Festival
Switzerland | June 23rd 2006

This opened up the door for a secondary tour with Tonedeff in tow, expanding the reach as far up as Norway and leaving the QN5 stamp at multiple sold out venues across Sweden, Denmark and Finland. This will only open more doors, as we look into infiltrating other parts of Europe for our first fully-fledged European tour in 2007. Stay tuned for news on that later this year.

7. Two QN5 Producers Featured In Scratch Magazine

Not one, but TWO QN5 Producers managed to find their way into Scratch Magazine’s “BOILING POINT” section. This is the section where all the hottest up & coming producers get their mugs photographed and a full-page article written about them. In other words, it’s hella official.

To see Elite get shine for his work with Jadakiss & Styles P (“Shoot Outs”) was one of those proud “fatherly” moments for me, simply because I remember when he was just getting started and we’d always be building on some production shit. And there he was, full-page article and all in the biggest hip-hop production magazine there is. Congrats to him on that!

But for me, an even prouder moment was to see my homie DOMINGO get his due the very same mag. Mind you, Domingo’s track record is fuckin’ incredible and he’s one of the most consistent producers in the history of the game – PERIOD. We’re talking over 12+ Years of fire and a discography that makes younger producers want to retire early. YET, shallow hip-hop hipsters seem to sleep on dude for whatever reason.

Ironically, the feature pointed to Big Pun’s “Dream Shatterer”, which was poignant because it really put light on the issue and reminded heads who they were sleeping on. I was real proud to see dude get some of the shine he deserves in the press – especially when he rocked a QN5 t-shirt AND baseball cap in the photo. hahah

6. CunninLynguists’ & PackFM’s Album Press Frenzy

The New Hip-Hop began to make it’s mark in the genre as CunninLynguists’ A Piece of Strange and PackFM’s whutduzFMstand4? released in 2006 to a flurry of press coverage.

XXL Chairman’s Choice, Scratch, URB, VIBE, The Source “Independent’s Day”, Rolling Stone, full Feature’s in XLR8R & Elemental etc… All with raving write-ups which have made both albums the best reviewed Hip-Hop releases of 2006. We’re talking near-perfect 4.5/5’s and 9/10’s. Hell, even a couple 10’s. Why the hipsters haven’t cited them on their annual “Best of Year” polls, I’ll never know – but the reviews and scores speak for themselves.

[Click Here To See More QN5 Press Coverage]

The reason why this is important, is simply because we’ve never received full-paged features before. That’s a definite step in the proper direction. All we can do is build on this and hope for more coverage next year for our forthcoming releases.

5. QN5 Megashow 2006 @ CBGBs

The Megashow has become an annual pilgrimage of sorts. Blue Schoolers fly out from other cities and drive over 20+ hours to see us perform. We go out of our way to ensure the show is the most memorable experience possible. The result? The wildest QN5 Megashow yet.

If you thought B.B. King’s was poppin’ last year…CBGB’s played host to a farewell tribute/symbolic birthplace of The New Hip-Hop that set the bar 5 notches higher. From Tonedeff & Substantial practically creating a new genre live on stage with “Punk” to PackFM diving off of a 20 ft. staircase into the crowd while rhyming – CBGBs brought the Punk Rock out of all in attendance during the marathon double-header.

The distribution of the limited edition QN5 ZINE further payed homage to the venue’s history and gave all show goers a special memento for the evening. We’ve got our sights set on a venue for 2007 and if we can lock it down, I can certainly say it will trump all prior Megashows. So, Start saving your money… you WON’T want to miss it.

PackFM’s “Stomp” @ The QN5 Megashow 2006

4. ESPN Licenses QN5 Music For NBA Finals & NCAA

If you watched the NBA Finals earlier this year or watched March Madness on ESPN and thought you were hallucinating when you heard “Let’s Go” or an Elite beat playing in the background – it turns out you’re not crazy after all.

At the beginning of 2006, ESPN reached out to QN5 to musically score some of their biggest events and we gladly hooked them up with some heat from all 5 producers. Included was an exclusive intro I did for March Madness, called “The 3Ds of March”. This was the first time any major media outlet had reached out to us for production. When we got the call, I figured something was different this year. The way I see it – if we were on THEIR radar, then we were obviously doing something right.

3. QN5 Releases whutduzFMstand4? 100% Independently

This one’s hella important. Why? Well, basically, it’s the first full-length/professionally pressed album we’ve released ON OUR OWN to date.

See…every other official album release from CL or myself has been via what I like to call a middleman label (ie. the now-defunct Freshchest or the bumblesome LA Underground), and each of them held the keys to the distributor we needed to go through. After both of those situations dissolved, we got tired of waiting around for a magical P&D deal and decided to finally take matters into our own hands and go entirely 100% independent with PackFM’s debut release, whutduzFMstand4?.

We pressed it, publicized it, pushed it, and handled the postage. The results? Well… see #6 on this list. Our new approach to distribution will directly impact future releases, as we now have control of when our shit drops and how it’s pushed to market and how much we get back on them. Of course, it costs alot more, but our fan support makes it all worth it. Look for Asterisk:Four to drop in the same fashion.

2. Tonedeff Plays Lollapalooza & Wins ‘Last Band Standing’

Why #2? Well, when you beat 2,000 bands of all genres from all over the world to play the biggest music festival known to man – you’d rank that pretty high as well.

From the voting process, to being approved by the judging committee 4 separate times, to performing & winning the finals at The Double Door, to the incredible lifetime experience of rocking Lollapalooza as a technically unsigned indie-rapper – My presence there proved once and for all beyond the shadow of a doubt that the sky is truly the limit for QN5.

Tonedeff’s Lollapalooza Vlog – August 2006. [Read Full Recap Here]

As the only east-coast Hip-Hop representative in attendance at the same event as mega-huge acts such as Kanye West, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Common, Gnarls Barkely, The Shins, etc – Lollapalooza served as a spark that ignited a flurry of opportunities – a gushing set review by infamous music critic Jon Pareles of The New York Times, my first Virgin Megastore In-Store and even a headlining show @ The Knitting Factory in Los Angeles.

This is the kind of shit that really affirms your aspirations – letting you know you’re on the right track – galvanizing you to keep pushing no matter what. And that’s precisely what I intend to do this year, more than ever.

1. QN5 Spring Cleaning Tour 2006 (SCT|06)

23 Cities, 8 People, 1 van and a ton of boxes set out on a quest to meet the world’s most supportive fans (aka Blue Schoolers). Over the past 5 years, we’ve created a real movement and the QN5 Spring Cleaning Tour 2006 was such a wake-up call to us that it absolutely HAD to be #1 in our recap.

See… we don’t have booking agents. Never have. Most acts you hear about have a dedicated booking agency or tour manager whose sole function it is to get gigs, secure spots, work out the details, handle money, plot out the routing and so forth. These agencies normally have connections to all the “official” venues in your area. Paired with the fact that many promoters are either sheisty crooks or lazy bumbling idiots with no business in the field – the process of booking QN5 shows has been a constant headache over the years.

Again, necessity fueled our motivation and we ended up putting the whole tour together ourselves. It was a serious undertaking, but well worth it.

We ended up selling out several key cities (including Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle & Anchorage), and rocked to capacity crowds in nearly every other spot. The SCT|06 proved to promoters that QN5 could headline our own tours and we didn’t HAVE to open for (insert washed up vet or random hipster rap darling name here) for $100 to split between 8 people. Plus, we did it with the whole team in tow.

Still, the most compelling aspect of the SCT|06 were the droves of fans that showed up to see us. There wasn’t one city we hit where I didn’t personally encounter at least one fan who’d driven many hours to be there – or someone who brought uninitiated friends with them who were blown away by the show.

Looking into the audience and seeing guys AND girls rocking QN5 gear and singing along verbatim to our shit ALL OVER THE COUNTRY was such an eye-opening experience for all of us. It was then that I realized that we’d built a true movement and this was a small glimpse of things to come. Thus proving, the hipsters can’t ignore good music, talent and hustle forever.

With that said, I’m looking forward to the next national tour in 2007.

QthousaN5even

2006 would have been an incredible year for anyone. The more I look at that list, the more it becomes evident we had a better year than even most major label artists. If ‘06 is any indication of what 2007 will bring, then I’d venture to say the slow windup has been worth the effort. When the pitch finally does fly, we very well might have a no-hitter on our hands, folks.

We’ll see you in 2007 (aka QthousaN5even)!

Hollerate!
Tone.