Representing an area that is often overlooked in discussions of hip hop hotbeds, Hard Life Records was started in 2003 to give a voice to Virginia's rawest emcees. We're always on the lookout for new talent and producers, and preparing to make '09 Virginia's year. Get familiar, the Hard Life Era has begun! He was gripped by the raw energy of the black kid with a fresh gold chain, red Kangol hat and well-defined biceps bulging out of a white tank top. As the beat thumped through the television, LL Cool J delivered intense rhymes bragging about himself. As Shaun Waters sat idolizing the soon-to-be rap legend in his classic 1987 video "I'm Bad," the impressionable youngster made up his mind. He, too, would be a rapper. Rap has changed a lot since then, but Waters, known as Shaun Jeas, has maintained his passion for hip-hop. The Staunton rapper just released his 23-track debut project, It's a Man's World, after two years of preparation. "I'm real comfortable with it," Waters said. "It's well-rounded. Its 77 minutes. Well-known rappers aren't even giving you that. The reactions have been mostly positive. People are showing me love out here." Home of the Statler Brothers the most-awarded country group of all time the Queen City of the Shenandoah Valley is not a hotbed for hip-hop culture. But Waters was determined not to let his surroundings stop him from living his dream, even though it meant he had to work that much harder. "Blood, sweat and tears, man," said Waters. "I put my own cheese into this. I put my own bread into it." According to Jim Ellis the rapper Jim Cat, who has several appearances on the project that type of dedication to the music is rare. "As far as I'm concerned, he's the only one doing it," Ellis said. "He worked really hard at putting all of his music together and getting references on how to put his stuff out there and all that." Ellis is on the title track, It's a Man's World. In that particular song, Waters talks about the necessity of street life, and Ellis combats Waters' arguments for promoting the hustling lifestyle. Carlton Melton, who produced some of Waters' album at Studio C Recording & Productions, can also vouch for Waters' dedication. "He's the most dedicated artist I know," Melton said. "He was calling me more than I was calling him." Waters covers the subject material you'd expect to hear from an emcee on Hard Life Records, in turn earning the project's parental advisory warning. One of his lines from "Hard Life Anthem" reads: "I had to tell my son, 'No, daddy ain't got that dough.' "So d*** broke, I had to heat the house with the stove." Local guest artists such as C Low, Dab, Kaomie, Lil Dame and Buck Whiskey help Waters illustrate the "Hard Life." Waters addresses personal beefs on songs like "Want it With Me," while he tells stories in songs like "Hold Up," "Lil Mama" and "I Used to Love Her." However, Waters cleans up his rap in a song dedicated to his father called "Pop's Song." Over an emotional, medium-paced beat, Waters raps about what his father, Terry Waters, means to him. "... those times you reached in the pocket to give me your last dollar. Those things meant a lot to me when coming from my father/ especially when my friends' fathers didn't bother/those cats could care less if their sons had a father. You was never like that though, you always put us first/ that's why I'm sitting here writing this verse." Ellis, who has rapped with Waters for years, said it's his favorite song on the disc. "It touches home," Ellis said. "It's a lot more personal as opposed to the lyrics most people put into hip-hop." Waters has been rapping for years. Over the past two years, however, his biggest growth has come in learning the business side of the music industry. When choosing songs for his project, he had to think broader than his own personal tastes. Sometimes mastering a song would mean listening to the same track 40 times in a row and fiddling with equalizer buttons until his fingers went numb. "It's a bunch of fun, but it's time-consuming," Waters said. "But there's nothing I like to do better. I'm already working on the second album."

Straight out of Virginia, the industry's next big thing has arrived. Mr. Sin has come to take control of the rap game, and the King Cobra spits venom like no other. One-half of a group called the Symphony (with B.E.Z.), and the newest member of VA's own Hard Life Records camp, Mr. Sin has come to wage unholy war on all wack rappers. THE GAME IS ABOUT TO CHANGE! The Mission Statement: Hip Hop music is in a state of decay, and true lyricists have become a dying breed. In today's industry, if you aren't talking about how many women you've got, how many people you've killed, or how much ice is in your watch, nobody wants to hear it. The time has come for a change, and Mr. Sin and the Symphony are dedicated to taking the rap game to the next level with music that actually talks about something. That time is finally here.

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The Interview

33:  What made you decide to make music?
Shaun Jeas: Probably like street influences you know what I'm saying. A lot of musical artists from the 80's like LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Ghetto Boys; you know them types of dudes. I started free styling around the hood and that's where I'm at now.
Mr. Sin: Street influences. Many musical artists from the 80's including Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J. Writing since I was younger also, it always came easy to me. It was something natural to do from the time I was little to start doing it.

33: How long have you been doing music?
Shaun Jeas: All my life basically you know what I'm saying. Basically I've been real hard at it for 8 years or so. I've been trying to take it real serious professionally.
Mr. Sin: I started music when I was about 12 or 13 or so.

33:  What made you choose your genre?
Shaun Jeas: Basically from being from the hood because you know all the little happy music and stuff like that, that kind of stuff wasn't going on in my hood. You know what I'm saying. I'm from Sears Hill the jungle in Staunton. Stafford Street area where you see a lot of violence, you see a lot of dope slinging. You see cats pimping women, you know things of that nature and it's like what caught my eye you know like, I remember every kid was a Michael Jackson fan. I can honestly remember the day I went from being a Michael Jackson fan to the hip hopping which is where I'm at now. You know it was just from my surroundings.
Mr. Sin: It was the easiest way to express myself.

33: What were some of your biggest influences and why?
Shaun Jeas: Big Daddy Kane and I would say because he was real smooth about his delivery and all his videos he had out, his jewelry, and all the fly women he had. LL Cool J because at that time you weren't really seeing a lot of hip hop videos. When "I'm bad" came out and "I Need Love" came out like back to back and they were on the top of the charts at the time you know what I'm saying, I just ran with it. I thought that's what hip hop was at the time so that kind of formed me a little bit. Groups like NWA and the Ghetto Boys from down south and the west coast and when I started hearing that stuff when it made its way around here and they were talking about that hard core street thing it's kind of like I took the Big Daddy Kane and LL Cool J thing with their smoothness you know and their delivery and the stuff NWA and Ghetto Boys and those cats were talking about was the stuff I was singing. So I kind of mashed them together and that's kind of how I came up with the style that I have.
Mr. Sin: For me it was Scarface, Ice Cube, and NWA you know groups like that.

33:  What other musicians have you worked with?
Shaun Jeas: Oh man, let me see. The first cat that put me on was my cousin. He had a big record in Pennsylvania in the early 90's. His name was MC Clayskee. He put me on in the studio and started getting me a little buzz when I was 14 in Pennsylvania. I've worked with Age, Mr. Blackston, Benevolent, Dj Select, Carlton Melton, Dab, and Dakota. I worked with Jim Cat and C-Lo. They got a group out in Staunton called Virginia Certified Hustlers. I've also worked with Frank Nitty who used to be a part of Hard Life Records. Realizm who is a local artist is another cat I worked with. I have basically worked with anyone who is around here. Also DJ Joe Pro, that's my man who is out of Norfolk and he does the adult entertainment kind of thing.
Mr. Sin: Not many people around here. I'm from Virginia but I was up in Maryland before I came down and hooked up with Shaun Jeas and I've been working with him since.

33:  What label are you with?
Shaun Jeas:  We are an independent label, Hard Life Records. It's just us for now.

33: How long have you been with your label?
Shaun Jeas: 5 years. I came up with it about 5 years ago. And we've been kind of tweaking it and we have a few groups underneath our belt and by the summer it's going to be crazy. By the summer like everywhere you go we're going to have projects constantly dropping. I'm going to work on my solo project, Mr. Sin's solo project, than our group stuff together. My son and my nephew, their 10 and their called Main Man and Lil Swag, they are sick with it and they are going to have a project coming out this summer. We got Dreamz; she's a female from Staunton. Tish Bell, she'll be coming out on our album and a solo project. Benita Anderson, she'll have a single coming out in a month or two as far as the R&B tip. My nephew Kashflow, he's actually in our group and in the actual Hard Life Shotter's group. He's at work right now and that's why he can't be here.
Mr. Sin: The best way to handle everything independently from a label standpoint is get your own control of what you want to do. You don't have someone telling you what to do, you don't have someone telling you we want you to sound like this, do things like this. Doing it on our own is the way to go.

33: How did creating the label come about?
Shaun Jeas: Basically to tell you the truth I was riding around one day and we used to be called Go Hard Entertainment. These cats in northern Virginia, it was like party promoters or something like that and they had already had the named copyrighted and all of that. So I was like all right what can I spin off on what's going to sound like it. And I happened to listen to that Tupac album Thug Life joint where they had that group. And you know I just took that from the Thug Life and I had the little go hard thing and I just switched it up to Hard Life Records.

33: Where did you guys come up with the logo for your record label?
Shaun Jeas: This dude named Bird that does tattoos in Staunton right. That's my man, he was doing a tattoo on me one night and he had me rhyming and so I was rapping. He asked if I had a logo for the record label and I was like nah. So he said he was going to draw me up one and so he drew it up and sent it to me in an e-mail and that's kind of how we got it. We just rolled with it.

33: Have you released any albums?
Shaun Jeas: Yeah I released an album what 3 years ago?
Mr. Sin: Yeah
Shaun Jeas: Yeah my first project, a solo project. It was a solo project called A Man's World. It did decent, you know it's still in stores and you can still get it off the internet.

33: Do you have any upcoming albums?
Shaun Jeas: Yeah. I got one that is due out in January, my solo project which is called Excuse My Back. Than we have the Hard Life Shotters album which will be myself, and Mr. Sin. Dreamz will be on there and Kashflow will be on that album. Than after that project like right back to back we're going to have the whole Hard Life collaboration album. Everybody on the label is going to come out and that's going to be twenty songs mixed up with everybody. Everyone on the whole label is going to do one song together and then picking and choosing, mixing and matching. So we've got those projects already in the mix of being out in January or February.

33: Do you have any performances coming up?
Shaun Jeas: That's just kind of touchy. You got to stay on my Myspace and things like that because I do a lot of in the spare of the moment type thing. I have been trying to stay away from it so I can focus on these projects but now it's about time with Christmas Eve coming and everybody ready to party so we're going to start doing some shows and more upcoming projects.
Mr. Sin: We spend most of the time in the studio.

33: Where can we listen to your music or do you have a website?
Shaun Jeas: Actually how long until the launch of the website?
Mr. Sin: It should hopefully be up by the end of the month. That's the thing I'm working on, Web Design. I handle all the Web Design and things like that. Hopefully by the end of the month it will be up and it will be HardLifeRecords.com.
Shaun Jeas: In between time you can get us at MySpace.com/ShaunJeas and What's Your Junk?
Mr. Sin: Myspace.com/MRSin
Shaun Jeas: And then of course our Hard Life page which is MySpace.com/HardLifeRecords07 which will bring you to our pages as well.
Mr. Sin: It's the place to be.

 

By Author: Angela Bean

Angela was born in Waynesboro, Virginia. She has since lived in Townsend, Tennessee, and Stuarts Draft, Virginia. She can be a very interesting person to get to know. She is much like a book, you have to open the cover to get to her many talents and qualities that are hidden in her pages. Her love for music came when she played drums in a band as a teenager. She always loved every genre of music. She also has a passion for photography, poetry, blogging and writing. She enlisted in the army in 2004 and is a Persian Gulf War veteran. She recently attended Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center and became Student Government Association President. She was editor of the SGA newsletter Old Ragtime News and worked in the Marketing Department at WWRC on the 2008 Annual Report. Recently she achieved a certificate in Web Design and has started her own business, Fine Designs & Creative Works. You can find her online on Facebook, and numerous other sites.

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