The Beginning of the Beginning.

"You want a piece of my heart? You have to start from the start!"
- Loverboy 'Working For the Weekend'



Greetings from Spring Break, 2007.

If you're reading this right now, our public school systems have done their job. My name is Chaz Kangas. I'm an MC (rapper) originally from Minneapolis, MN who currently resides in New York City. I've been rapping for about nine years now, and have contributed countless live performances and have had my hands in over a half-dozen released projects. Chances are that, by finding this site at the first post, you know the basics, otherwise my other info (if you care to know more, and believe me you do) can be studied and interpreted at http://www.myspace.com/chazraps

About three years ago (2004, Year of our Lord) I released an album called "The Brown Bunny." It met with much local success, thanks in no small part to the chronically of the album's creation via an upstart blog known as Xanga. Not too many artists at the time (Except for Thom Yorke and Fred Durst, but what didn't they do together?) had embraced the blogosphere*, so whoever had one wound up inheriting an audience of readers curious as to how/why/what was being made. This allowed, not only consistant 24-hour-a-day promotion for a release that would be months away, BUT a truly unique venue for an artist to communicate directly with their audience.

I had similar success later that year in a joint venture with Patrick "Kid Icarus" Swanson. We promoted our collaborative effort "notes from the underground" through another blog that wound up getting more attention (presumably do to Patrick's often-better writing forcing me to step my game up) and lead to an even higher anticipated release date. Soon, every artist** had some sort of instant portal to their lives through such rising entities as MySpace, livejournal, and YouTube, the latter of which begat the era of the vLogosphere and helped contribute total strangers yelling "CUUUUUURTIS!" into my everyday life.

So here I am, rock you like a hurricane. I dropped my most recent release, 2006's "Lapland," over the summer with an internet presence only through MySpace and Facebook. Truthfully, I wanted to focus on the roots of what this Hip-Hop art is all about - the live performance.

I've never been an "internet MC." I've never entered a chatroom text rap battle. I've never posted a song online that I hadn't already performed before a room full of paying strangers. I'm not looking down on those who do, but I'm just making it abundantly clear that the focus of this online platform is not to bypass the open mic/battle/showcase/performance/interaction grind. It's not a matter of one-of-the-other. The fact is, this is 2007 and for one to make an impact and reach a market in this era where rap records are, to quote XXL, "selling like there's AIDS on them," you have to do both.

Not that I'm bemoaning it. There's nothing I love more than having a mic in my hand**** and rocking a crowd. If it wasn't my favorite thing in the whole worldwide world to do, I wouldn't do it. This lifestyle, both the art and the business, is hard stuff. I'd love to exchange the hours I've spent riding the subway from Open Mic to Open Mic and sitting through subpar opening act after subpar opening act for the equal amount of time playing Mortal Kombat II, but that's not how you pay your dues. I'm well aware how fortunate I am to have such complaints, but if it means that many more people helping me live off of what I wake up each morning to do, than I welcome it.

So that brings us to right now. As of last week, I've officially started work on my new album. The title is still up in the air, but the planets are in allignment and I am writing the best material I've ever written. I've either received or requested beats from the most talented producers I know (including Slim King Koenig, The Audible Doctor of The Grain, JLogic of Killworld, Kid Icarus of Tears of a Clownsilly, and Neil Gong of the Gong Family) and am currently on a writer's retreat in my snowy hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. By this time next week I will be in the salsa community abhorred village known as New York City to begin the long recording process, and continue the writing process that can only be inspired in the home of Hip-Hop.

So to everyone new to me, I'd like to give you the warmest of welcomes. To old friends, it's great to have you look at me again. This is the start of something truly heartfelt and deluded by grandeur, and with GOD AS MY WITNESS I WILL MAKE THE BEST RAP ALBUM I HAVE EVER MADE, EVER!

Thanks again for looking at things I make!

Paz,
Chaz

*Probably because it's such a horrible word.

**KidIckz and I take no credit for this.***

***OK, maybe a little.

****Held properly, might I add.