Music Produce Pacal “DJ Pain 1” Bayley
Hip Hop in Cyberspace
Hip Hop in Cyberspace
beings, we have many facets and there is always a duality. I don’t even want to use the term duality because that implies two sides. People
are multi-faceted and entertainers are no different. As a rapper, you might be involved in a lot of different activities that may be viewed as
traditionally in conflict with one another. There is a lot of criticism centered on authenticity and there is a lot of talk about authenticity in hip
hop. The notion that you can’t have a college degree and still write content that may conflict with the traditional view what a college student or
a college educated individual is, is completely ridiculous.”
It was several years ago that Bayley made the decision to devote a lot of his time to developing his music and seeing if he could make it
in the music business. If he didn’t make significant progress, he would again treat his music production as a hobby. Well within a year, he has
earned a gold record for his production of Track 15, “Don’t Do It” on Young Jeezy’s The Recession. While the gold record, which still hangs in
his small studio in his home, didn’t bring him riches because of the contract he signed, it did bring him success.
“After that happened, I figured ‘This is going to be easy street; things are going to start happening a lot faster,’” Bayley said. “To a degree,
they did. I’m able to use that certification as an ‘in’ with talking to people. It as gotten me a lot more opportunities and it’s gotten me the
opportunity to speak with people I normally wouldn’t. In that sense, it has opened a lot of doors. I’ve gotten to work with a lot of artists because
music and musicians and the world of the music industry is a very small circle. In order for you to get in that circle, you really have to have a
good track record and a good reputation. If you come in with nothing, you’re going to have a heck of a time making any gains. People talk to me
more now because of the gold record and because I work for a commercial FM station. I have a couple good ins. I’m in a good position. But
back to what I was saying about thinking everything was all of a sudden going to become this great life with people throwing thousands of
dollars at me, that didn’t happen. So I’ve been working hard. I took the whole gold record thing as a sign that I am able and capable of being a
career musician. But there is a lot of leg work that I still have to do. I’m doing that now.”
Recently, Bayley signed a contract with The Incredibles, a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum production company out of Maryland. And he is
working on an album with a recording artist by the name of I-20, one of the original members of Ludacris’ Disturbing the Peace group. Things
are looking up for Bayley.
What’s beautiful about the whole arrangement is that Bayley doesn’t have to move to LA, Nashville or New York to be a player in the hip
hop music scene. He can do it all from the comfort of his home studio because of the wonders of the Internet and the digitization of music. It’s
all a matter of e-mailing music, MP3s, back and forth.
“With this Internet music revolution, you can set up a tour, you can record an album, you can promote an album, you can design your
album art and you can create a brand for yourself all from your laptop these days,” Bayley said. “From the music to the recording to the
engineering to the design to the promotion, everything can be done with limited technology, technology that we already have. That has opened
up so many doors to so many people. On one level, it saturated the market so everyone is doing it. But on a different level, it has made it a lot
more accessible. Whereas before people were chasing these big record labels and these big contracts and signing their soul away, now it’s
feasible to have a good stable career in music if you can just build up a fan base. You can do it yourself independently. The Internet is the new
arena, in terms of hip hop. I don’t know what it is like with other genres. But in terms of hip hop, the hip hop websites and blogs are the new
A&Rs and the new label execs because they are the ones who have so much control because there is so much music available on the
Internet. So they are the gatekeepers.”
While some feel that the Internet will lead to the demise of the music industry, that may hold true for the large record labels, but it isn’t
necessarily true for hip hop musicians.
“It hasn’t bankrupted any musicians so far,” Bayley said. “It has actually made musicians quite a lot of money. And it gives a lot more
musicians more independence to not only release their music in ways that they weren’t previously able to, but also they can release more
music and stay more relevant because nowadays that is what the thing is. Years ago, in order to hear new material from your favorite artist,
you had to wait and the labels had all of this red tape and hoops that they had to jump through, so you might not hear from your favorite artist
for years. Now the expectation is that for better or for worse, because of the Internet, the artist can release material on a regular basis and it is
sent directly to your computer. Some of it you can pay for, a lot of it you get for free. Obviously I disagree with the idea that it is bankrupting
music. I think what it is doing is forcing musicians to pursue other means of generating or monetizing their music that doesn’t involve physical
sales. So whether it is Ringtone sales or music videos or online fan clubs and memberships sites where people are given the chance to
interact with the artist on a more personal level or music is sent to them on a regular basis or touring, which is a huge thing. If you can get big
on the Internet, you have the chance to reach markets that were previously untapped. People all over the globe have the Internet. So you could
potentially gain a fan base in a country that 10 years ago, you didn’t even know existed. With the Internet, there is that interaction now. You
know exactly where your fans are and where the hits are coming from. It gives the artist more perspective. And it opens more doors to ways
to generate money off of an artist’s music.”
The digital revolution has allowed artists like Bayley to come to the fore. Through the use of a synthesizer and keyboard, Bayley “has an
orchestra at his fingertips” and through the Internet, the world of hip hop music lies at his fingertips as well. Not bad for a college-educated kid
from Madison, Wisconsin.
are multi-faceted and entertainers are no different. As a rapper, you might be involved in a lot of different activities that may be viewed as
traditionally in conflict with one another. There is a lot of criticism centered on authenticity and there is a lot of talk about authenticity in hip
hop. The notion that you can’t have a college degree and still write content that may conflict with the traditional view what a college student or
a college educated individual is, is completely ridiculous.”
It was several years ago that Bayley made the decision to devote a lot of his time to developing his music and seeing if he could make it
in the music business. If he didn’t make significant progress, he would again treat his music production as a hobby. Well within a year, he has
earned a gold record for his production of Track 15, “Don’t Do It” on Young Jeezy’s The Recession. While the gold record, which still hangs in
his small studio in his home, didn’t bring him riches because of the contract he signed, it did bring him success.
“After that happened, I figured ‘This is going to be easy street; things are going to start happening a lot faster,’” Bayley said. “To a degree,
they did. I’m able to use that certification as an ‘in’ with talking to people. It as gotten me a lot more opportunities and it’s gotten me the
opportunity to speak with people I normally wouldn’t. In that sense, it has opened a lot of doors. I’ve gotten to work with a lot of artists because
music and musicians and the world of the music industry is a very small circle. In order for you to get in that circle, you really have to have a
good track record and a good reputation. If you come in with nothing, you’re going to have a heck of a time making any gains. People talk to me
more now because of the gold record and because I work for a commercial FM station. I have a couple good ins. I’m in a good position. But
back to what I was saying about thinking everything was all of a sudden going to become this great life with people throwing thousands of
dollars at me, that didn’t happen. So I’ve been working hard. I took the whole gold record thing as a sign that I am able and capable of being a
career musician. But there is a lot of leg work that I still have to do. I’m doing that now.”
Recently, Bayley signed a contract with The Incredibles, a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum production company out of Maryland. And he is
working on an album with a recording artist by the name of I-20, one of the original members of Ludacris’ Disturbing the Peace group. Things
are looking up for Bayley.
What’s beautiful about the whole arrangement is that Bayley doesn’t have to move to LA, Nashville or New York to be a player in the hip
hop music scene. He can do it all from the comfort of his home studio because of the wonders of the Internet and the digitization of music. It’s
all a matter of e-mailing music, MP3s, back and forth.
“With this Internet music revolution, you can set up a tour, you can record an album, you can promote an album, you can design your
album art and you can create a brand for yourself all from your laptop these days,” Bayley said. “From the music to the recording to the
engineering to the design to the promotion, everything can be done with limited technology, technology that we already have. That has opened
up so many doors to so many people. On one level, it saturated the market so everyone is doing it. But on a different level, it has made it a lot
more accessible. Whereas before people were chasing these big record labels and these big contracts and signing their soul away, now it’s
feasible to have a good stable career in music if you can just build up a fan base. You can do it yourself independently. The Internet is the new
arena, in terms of hip hop. I don’t know what it is like with other genres. But in terms of hip hop, the hip hop websites and blogs are the new
A&Rs and the new label execs because they are the ones who have so much control because there is so much music available on the
Internet. So they are the gatekeepers.”
While some feel that the Internet will lead to the demise of the music industry, that may hold true for the large record labels, but it isn’t
necessarily true for hip hop musicians.
“It hasn’t bankrupted any musicians so far,” Bayley said. “It has actually made musicians quite a lot of money. And it gives a lot more
musicians more independence to not only release their music in ways that they weren’t previously able to, but also they can release more
music and stay more relevant because nowadays that is what the thing is. Years ago, in order to hear new material from your favorite artist,
you had to wait and the labels had all of this red tape and hoops that they had to jump through, so you might not hear from your favorite artist
for years. Now the expectation is that for better or for worse, because of the Internet, the artist can release material on a regular basis and it is
sent directly to your computer. Some of it you can pay for, a lot of it you get for free. Obviously I disagree with the idea that it is bankrupting
music. I think what it is doing is forcing musicians to pursue other means of generating or monetizing their music that doesn’t involve physical
sales. So whether it is Ringtone sales or music videos or online fan clubs and memberships sites where people are given the chance to
interact with the artist on a more personal level or music is sent to them on a regular basis or touring, which is a huge thing. If you can get big
on the Internet, you have the chance to reach markets that were previously untapped. People all over the globe have the Internet. So you could
potentially gain a fan base in a country that 10 years ago, you didn’t even know existed. With the Internet, there is that interaction now. You
know exactly where your fans are and where the hits are coming from. It gives the artist more perspective. And it opens more doors to ways
to generate money off of an artist’s music.”
The digital revolution has allowed artists like Bayley to come to the fore. Through the use of a synthesizer and keyboard, Bayley “has an
orchestra at his fingertips” and through the Internet, the world of hip hop music lies at his fingertips as well. Not bad for a college-educated kid
from Madison, Wisconsin.
| After making the decision to focus on his music, Pacal Bayley earned a gold record for the track “Don’t Do It” that he produced for Young Jeezy’s The Recession in 2008. |
By Jonathan Gramling
Just by looking at him, one wouldn’t think that Pacal Bayley is a hip hop artist with
pseudonym of DJ Pain 1, a name he picked up in high school when he was experiencing
his “tortured, dramatic teenage” years. Bayley is a nice person with a calm demeanor
with a degree from the University of Wisconsin who works with the UW’s IT Academy
when he isn’t hosting a show called Planet Jamz on 93.1 JAMZ or working on his music.
While people might have a stereotype for what a hip hop or rap artist should be, Bayley
takes it all in stride, realizing that hip hop and rap are part of an entertainment industry
where everything may not ba as it appears.
“In the same sense of not expecting a movie director to necessarily have experienced
the events that his/her films portray, we can’t hold hip-hop artists to a higher standard,”
Bayley said. “There is a perception out there that hip hop — out of all forms of music — is
by its very nature autobiographical. That is absolutely not true. That would be quite boring
if the only thing that an artist could write about is his/her self, that is an awful job. Hip hop
is the author’s. Some of it is autobiographical — like any artist or writer — and we just
have to understand that every artist is different. Also we have to note that as human
Just by looking at him, one wouldn’t think that Pacal Bayley is a hip hop artist with
pseudonym of DJ Pain 1, a name he picked up in high school when he was experiencing
his “tortured, dramatic teenage” years. Bayley is a nice person with a calm demeanor
with a degree from the University of Wisconsin who works with the UW’s IT Academy
when he isn’t hosting a show called Planet Jamz on 93.1 JAMZ or working on his music.
While people might have a stereotype for what a hip hop or rap artist should be, Bayley
takes it all in stride, realizing that hip hop and rap are part of an entertainment industry
where everything may not ba as it appears.
“In the same sense of not expecting a movie director to necessarily have experienced
the events that his/her films portray, we can’t hold hip-hop artists to a higher standard,”
Bayley said. “There is a perception out there that hip hop — out of all forms of music — is
by its very nature autobiographical. That is absolutely not true. That would be quite boring
if the only thing that an artist could write about is his/her self, that is an awful job. Hip hop
is the author’s. Some of it is autobiographical — like any artist or writer — and we just
have to understand that every artist is different. Also we have to note that as human
