Anniversary: ‘The Blog’

UBG 5th Year Anniversary Blog!
(The Good, Bad & Pathetic About This Biz)
AriesUBG

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When I first started to write this blog I had so many different things and emotions running through my mind. I felt I needed to discuss the crazy nature of the music business and other things associated with it. First off, I am not a blogger and the idea of the blog came from Jason (President of UBG) who thought it was needed for me to do for our anniversary. So with that said, I almost finished it and I decided to take it in another direction. I want to focus more on the positive, being that we’ve been around 5 years and still growing strong!

We started this site in 2005 after running two previous successful e-zines, T M H Entertainment and later TMHxone, which first started in 1999. With Urban Bridgez Group, our mission was to set ourselves apart from the previous brand by offering more services with our business, which we’ve successfully done. From multi-media marketing & promotions, artist management (Poison IVY debuting Spring of 2011), new media and of course web design. Running a successful entertainment e-zine may seem to some as an easy and at times very lucky thing to do. However, I can tell you the work is very demanding. The difference between us and most other urban sites & blogs, is we’ve prided ourselves in staying away from sensationalizing the negative aspect of urban entertainment.

I was often told by industry associates focusing on the negative would garner more attention (because people love drama). True enough these sites that support that may be bigger name-wise but they offer nothing better from where I’m sitting than UrbanBridgez.com. Many of the sites rehash content from many of the popular news outlets but dumb it down to fit the quick read nature of many website viewers. It’s funny because the same sites participating in this practice would tear the same artists they “support” down but receive exclusive content from labels because of a single positive comment they post. This goes to show you how distorted the music industry truly is!

One thing moving forward with UrbanBridgez.com we will no longer take the route of being an always positive entertainment urban blog! With so many celebrities, labels, and executives being true to form, we’re going to showcase it all as well. Everything will still be fresh as well as informative. (edited to add: No we won’t compromise who we are to fit the ‘standard’ but it did feel good to type:)

In this day in age you deal with two types of people – the real and the fake ones. Some of the most rewarding work I’ve done in my career is for UBG clients and artists who are or have been clients of UBG and especially the ones who APPRECIATE the work I and my team have done for them. Most think checks show that appreciation, but remember it’s payment for services rendered.

Whenever someone goes beyond the call of duty without extra incentive to ensure you’re receiving quality client service, appreciation or common courtesy should be shown. You have the facade of thinking a true friendship has evolved from a great working relationship (or from being called family and or a close friend) but it’s often limited to just a business relationship or lack thereof. Something Jason taught me last year, by telling me to stop letting my emotions get caught up in business!

In this industry I have come to the realization that everyone has a circle no matter the size. Dealing with various circles has been a constant pain but I’ve managed to handle them as professional as possible. And being excepted by others who don’t KNOW YOU who are brought into that circle, is always the biggest pain! Then there are those who have the negative aura who love to tear apart everything you do. These individuals have never bothered me but they stimulate my motivation to move to higher ground!

Our celebrity clients mean the world to us and they are often our biggest inspiration that keeps our blood pumping for a variety of news and entertainment stories for our e-zine site as well. It feels good to promote our favorite artists and put extensive time into promoting them effectively as well as ensure accuracy for our clients as well as our featured artists on UB. Since most labels are only concerned with supporting flagship artists, we manage to provide an outlet for those artists who yearn for a bit of the spotlight. By doing this, it’s made us one of the premiere players online. I feel we have to show these labels there’s much more than chart positioning when showcasing talented artists.

Support as a whole is very important to me. Music has always been a staple in my life and it’s my greatest joy to support those who want to aspire to be their best. I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years and no one will be able to discredit my brand or myself for our cause. As famous writer and director Tyler Perry said “If someone shows you who they are, believe them!” That’s why I live by the motto of, only going forward and never going backwards!!!

The biggest blessing with running this wonderful site these last 5 years has been the support, love and appreciation from the artists who we feature and more importantly the support from our site viewers as well as our forum members. We strive to have interviews with artists that are much more candid and not your basic “industry” questions. The majority of the time I compile the questions for almost all of our interviews while our journalists may ask something not seen in interviews done on lots of other sites (my opinion). We are all about being the best we can and we have some of the best representing us at UrbanBridgez.com. Though it may not be easy to interview artists we strive to find ways to connect with our artists to make the interviews much more enjoyable for them than the standard.

Lastly, I wanted to point out that 100 percent of our information we post on our site comes directly from the labels, management or the various PR firms representing these artists. As Ciara stated recently on Wendy Williams (when speaking about her changes in release dates that we kept updating), sometimes the info comes too soon before it’s ready to be announced and is later changed. We NEVER post anything from the rumor mill and emails sent to us from “sources”. It’s so funny how we have info regarding major releases such as official tracklistings & album covers and some try to discredit our information. Needless to say when things are confirmed through official sources (PR, artist official sites, etc) the same ones who called our info false are picking their faces up from the floor! I would be lying if I didn’t say…I absolutely love that! : )

In closing, I want to extend my deepest gratitude for those who’ve held us down for the years we’ve been up and running. There have been times when I wanted to throw in the towel but the love and support has kept me going. I’ve always said (before this Jazmine Sullivan situation, lol) when running this e-zine stops being fun for me, I’ll stop! Until then, I have so much to look forward to.

A friend recently made me realize there are a number of urban music blogs on the web but NONE like UrbanBridgez.com. As he said, if it’s not fun being original as well as successful then what is? There are so many others who have followed our lead (without giving us credit or even a link) but we all know who helped paved the way (since 1999, baby)! Much love & mad respect to the blogs & sites who also set a standard for what they’re doing & representing, you can check our Blogroll for those sites & the ones not there, you know who they are!

Here’s to the past, the present and the future of UrbanBridgez.com

Much Love,
Aries