On the Inside

The music business is doomed,” says Eddie Deville — strong words from a man who makes his living as a DJ. But that’s exactly what Deville told producer Michael Menendez during a recent sit-down between the two arranged by the Houston Press. A producer and a DJ, both music industry insiders, talking to each other as peers, seemed a good way for us to get the lowdown on the Houston rap and hip-hop scene. Deville, who is from Houston’s north side, has a Saturday morning show on Sirius Radio, in association with Shadyville and G-Unit. He’s also signed to friend Chingo Bling’s record label Big Chile/Asylum.

The head of Veristic Entertainment, Menendez got in the music game when he was 17 and threw a rave with Bruno B. Now he manages a couple of rap artists, E.O.D. Squad and Felony, as well as promoting Real Talk, an urban party series. Menendez graduated cum laude from the University of St. Thomas with degrees in both International Studies and Business. — Olivia Flores Alvarez

Michael Menendez: How did you get started in the industry?

Eddie Deville: I had always been around music, but I knew that I wasn’t a rapper or nothing like that. I thought, maybe I should go into the studio. So, I went to school in Florida for it and got a degree in sound engineering. One day I ran into somebody [who] was working over at Rap-A-Lot Studios. He took me over there, and I started working there, too.

I met all sorts of big name artists there, like Ludacris, 8Ball, Trae, Scarface. After a while I got up my own money and made my own studio. At first it was at my house, just for my own use, but one day Chingo called up and said that he was putting up his own office and we should go in together.

Menendez: How did you start doing mixtapes?

Deville: I was getting all this music in my inbox and so I thought, “Well, we should do a mixtape.” We did a mixtape in one day, and it sold like crazy. It was just hot. So I thought, “Man, I’m going to keep doing this” (laughs). My second mixtape was hosted by Slim Thug; the one after that was hosted by Paul [Wall], which was the Kingz of Spring Break mixtape.

I had gotten a lot of exposure off of [my] 2Pac/50 Cent Ride on Our Enemies mixtape. I even got noticed by New York [music industry] people on that, the hardest people to please in the business. And then Spring Break took me to a new level.

Menendez: You did local radio, too, right?

Deville: Yeah, I did radio for almost a year, but I had to get out of that because there was just too much politics involved.

Menendez: And now you’re on satellite radio, with a show on Sirus.

Deville: I do a mixtape show, yeah.

Menendez: Do you think satellite radio is going to kill regular radio?

Deville: Naw, terrestrial radio is free, and it’s hard to get rid of something free.

But satellite radio is the only place you’ll find any variety. Terrestrial radio is getting real, real computerized. People aren’t stupid; they are starting to notice, “Hey, these are the same ten songs all day.” I heard the average listening time for a person is less than 15 minutes a day for terrestrial radio.

Menendez: There’s a lot of fighting among rap artists. Have you ever been caught up in any of that?

Deville: I ain’t never done nothing to no one that didn’t deserve it (laughs). If somebody does something to me, I’ll do something in retaliation, but I’ll do it the smart way. I’ll do it in a way that makes me money and that gets my name out there even more. There was a guy beefing on Lucky [Luciano] on MySpace, and so Lucky went to his house and recorded a video in front of the guy’s house. That’s how you get back.

Menendez: What’s the outlook for rap and hip-hop music?

Deville: The music business is doomed. I wouldn’t say it’s dead, but with file sharing being so much easier, labels are downsizing. Every month, people want a new star. Before, a song would get released and it took time to get around. Now everybody hears it on MySpace right away, they see the video right away, it gets old real quick. The next month they want a new star.

There’s no classics anymore; it’s just the next hit, then the next hit and then the next one. There aren’t songs that are classics and that can be here forever, that ten years from now will still be great. Now songs come and go one quarter to the next.

Menendez: So what’s the problem?

Deville: There’s more music out there than what you hear on the radio, but if you don’t buy an album, you won’t hear it. The radio and the media, they’re playing what people are paying them to play. I was in it. I know how it goes. There are songs that are on the radio because the [program director] got a new TV in his house, just to be real about it. Not because it’s a good song, but because somebody paid somebody somehow.

Menendez: So if it’s a doomed business, would you tell young kids not to get in it?

Deville: No, I would tell them to have a backup plan. There’s a million ways to make money in the music business. This is the get-money business. You get in, make what you can and get out. Nobody lasts forever. Be smart. Get your money when you can, invest. Do everything you can in your work, put your all into it. If you blow up and sell millions and get rich, you can go retire somewhere. But if you don’t blow up, if you don’t get rich, if you have a backup plan, you can do something else.

Being a rapper has the highest fail rate of any job in the world. One out of a million gets to where Jay Z is. Do something else.

Michael Menendez’s Real Talk Party & Concert featuring Felony, P-Panic & J. Burna, the E.O.D. Squad and Big Tike, is Friday, February 2, at The Perfect Rack, 2033 Mangum. For more information on Eddie Deville, visit www.eddiedeville.com.