The Many Faces of Manny Faces…
A lot of people have heard his music.
“I could tell you how many downloads my remixes have gotten,” he says, adding, “but I don’t know if I want to. They shut DJ Danger Mouse down for doing the same thing.”
He pauses. “It’s a lot though. Probably more than you would think.”
The statement itself hints to the strategic knack the underground hip-hop and R&B producer known as Manny Faces has for creating interest in his work. He exudes a quiet confidence, never straying far from a humble attitude. Yet his one-man-marketing methods have found an undeniable foothold in the nearly impossible task of standing out among the throngs of up-and-coming producers in the urban music genre.
“The idea is,” he explains, “to always come across as being a little bit bigger than you really are. If you do that just the right way, and back it up with quality stuff, you’ll quickly catch up to where you said you were. Then, you just do it again.” In this manner, Manny has accumulated a following of dedicated listeners, fans, if you will, of his works-to-date; remixed versions of commercially popular songs. With the ultimate goal of producing tracks for major label artists, Manny has, largely from within his home office and studio, essentially shopped his production demo to hundreds of thousands of people, in the form of free, downloadable “for-promotional-use-only” remixes.
“This whole thing has to be done with minimal expense, and minimal physical effort,” the Long Island, NY based beatmaker points out. “Being a single father, with a full-time day job, I can’t be out in the streets like I was able to in the past. The internet is part of an amazing revolution in word-of-mouth marketing, but it’s sloppy and oversaturated. My goal has been to wade through the muck, and get myself where I need to be by using the internet to promote, but doing so in a way that is calculated and efficient.” He adds sternly, “I’m trying to become ‘somebody’ in a way that maybe has never been quite done before.”
A challenging undertaking, when in the music business, and indeed, specifically within the hip-hop world, it’s in the streets that your name and reputation is sown. So to compensate, Manny takes advantage of the many promotional resources the internet provides, in order to reach listeners as effectively as if he was able to do so in person. An easy to use website, smart in its simplicity, is the foundation, but it’s drawing the public to it where his ingenuity excels. Message boards, community portal sites like MySpace.com, and BumSquadDJz.com, and an effective email campaign are the main tools of his trade. “You have to do more than just post blatant advertisements for yourself, you have to take the time to become a member of the online community where you want to promote,” Manny emphasizes. “Taking the time includes involving yourself with the discussions, becoming friendly with the board’s participants, not be just another guy with another post about another song that will get ignored.”
And so far, it’s working. Manny’s remixed songs have trickled throughout the internet into the hands of everyday listeners as well as many DJs, and as a result, are appearing on radio programs and mixtapes across the country and throughout the world. DJ-only vinyl pressings have cropped up which include his works, and though Manny himself receives no monetary return on these products, neither does it require any major financial investment. “I simply make the remixes, and offer them to the people. People push them to other people, and if I’m lucky, they get to the DJs. If they like them, they’ll play them on their radio shows, or include them on their mixtapes. As long as I’m current, and provide a quality alternative version of a hot song, people listen and share, and it gets around.” He continues, “Radio and mixtape DJs are the foundations of the urban music business. Lately, I’ve concentrated on finding ways to get the product to them, even without being a so-called-major player in the music business. They enjoy the exclusiveness, and push the product to their audiences. That, in turn, exposes me to more people. The cycle,” Manny theorizes, “feeds itself.”
So much so that in one case, his remixed version of R&B singer Akon’s hit song Locked Up, in which Manny utilized the bittersweet piano loop from Billy Joel’s The Stranger punctuated by a simplistic, yet intoxicatingly rhythmic drum pattern and added rap vocals from Nas’ classic One Love, actually found its way to Akon himself. “I get a call one day,” recalls Manny, “From Akon’s personal assistant. He tells me Akon loves the version I did, and then calls him on three-way. Truthfully, I was shocked. Here’s a guy who could be saying ‘Hey man, why are you messing with my music?’ but because he dug what I had done, he took the time to track me down and tell me so. Who does that? That was incredible. We spoke about possibly working on some things in the future, so to me, that was a huge breakthrough, especially that he came to me.” Manny then breaks from his professional demeanor, adding with a smile, “Very cool.”
Essentially the same thing happened in early 2006 with a remix of Mary J. Blige’s Be Without You, as it caught the ear of Ms. Blige herself while she was visiting a Washington D.C. radio station that was airing it. Blige, declaring the remix “hot”, immediately asked the radio personnel who produced it, who in turn contacted Manny. “Long story short,” Manny laments, “Nothing came of it. But it’s a seed that was planted. Only time will tell if these seeds will grow.”
In theory, approaching the cusp of notoriety is steps along the path of Manny’s game plan. “I can’t justify spending thousands of dollars on music equipment, or CD duplication to peddle mixtapes around. I can’t visit the stores that support mixtapes and drop off stacks for sale. Not with kids to feed… A job to go to every day… Bad credit to pay off,” he adds, chuckling. “I do the best I can with what I have, and try to be good people to those DJs I approach, or the person who tells two friends, who tells two friends, who tells two friends… I want them to not just know my music, but to know me. Be able to find me if they come across something I did.”
Admitting that his goals are not unlike others trying to “make it” in the music business, he clarifies, “I spend a lot of time online. Yes, I’m trying to build a buzz. Yes, I want big-time industry production work, but to do so, I’m interested in building relationships. But I don’t want you to just know my ‘brand’, I want you to know me. This way, as the established labels and artists come calling for production work, they know they have more than a producer who can just craft hot music. They have a producer who can craft hot music that people already know about. That people already like.”
Based on the download stats, the responses from both industry folk, and potential future consumers, it’s a lot of people. Probably more than you think.