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Red Café - A Shakedown’s Upon Us
Interview By: Michael Ivey
 Red Café is proof that patience, even in the got-to-get-it world of music biz, still pays dividends. The Brooklyn native kept busy ghostwriting and blessing various mixtapes in the underground-unwilling or unable to take his chances at a debut via Capitol Records-and when your pen work is in high demand the right people notice. Akon and his Universal distributed Konvict Music imprint lifted Red out of an unchecked frying pan and into a kitchen broiling with radio and street heat.
 Now Red is betting that his own grind work combined with the label’s high visibility will create the window he needs to be his own mouthpiece. Case and point: ‘Hennessy & Haze’ the mixtape, co-hosted by heavily favored DJs Clinton Sparks, DJ Whoo Kid and Konkrete Kaos is circulating through Internet and street avenues across the globe. NBS caught up with Red to fill in some blanks about the man behind the music.
Nobodysmiling.com : Aight bro, so what have you been working on lately?
Red Café : Hey well I been low man. While I been working on the album I kinda got low to make sure that I could get the best quality of stuff for the album. ‘Shakedown’s’ been long awaited; I been through a few deals, so it’s long awaited man. I gotta make sure I give the people the best product out there.
Nobodysmiling.com : Are you independent right now?
Red Café : I’m at Universal now; Universal, they came with that money. Akon stepped up-Konvict-and they came with that money and bought me out of my Capitol deal.
Nobodysmiling.com : So you’re rocking with Konvict?
Red Café : Yeah. For sure.
Nobodysmiling.com : OK. Have you been really heavy with the ghostwriting lately?
Red Café: Yeah, of course-of course. I keep doing that; that get the bills paid and it’s a way for me to express myself-to get good music out there without me putting a album out.
Nobodysmiling.com : How do you feel when a hot song you wrote comes on the radio or comes on in the club and everybody goes crazy?
Red Café : That’s crazy! It’s crazy. I’m ecstatic. It let me know that I’m doing the right thing and I’m taking care of the people, giving em what they want.
Nobodysmiling.com : Would you recommend ghostwriting to up and coming emcees-to take that route before you try to be all in the camera?
Red Café : Absolutely. I mean if you creative like that you should absolutely get that to the people cause the people want it-you making good music-whether you saying it or you giving it to somebody else. Get it out there if that’s what you do; if you got that talent-God give you that talent to use it-you gotta use it.
Nobodysmiling.com : Do you feed into the whole ‘New York fell off and the south has it?’ Is that something that plays in-are you trying to bring New York back in any way?
Red Café : Absolutely not. I’m just tryna make good music. The west coast was popping at one time in New York; east coast was popping at one time; the south had it for the last two years. So I’m good. I feel like if it’s all good music it’s gon rise to the top, it don’t matter where you’re from. And I feel like the east coast-we got it together and we coming with some good music man; for the next few months and the next two years you gon hear us.
Nobodysmiling.com : Word. That’s how I feel. I don’t really care who make it as long as the shit is hot.
Red Café : As long as it’s hot man. As long as we focus our energy on making good music then that’s what’s gon come out. You just can’t hate on the next man; let everybody do they thing. At the end of the day the south-we all from the south-and it’s a lot of urban-it’s a urban community and the urban stations is all in the south and we all from there one way or another. So that music represents all of us; you know what I’m talking bout? They just having fun with it. When we bring it back to having fun then we gon be back where we need to be.
Nobodysmiling.com : Who did the “Bling Bloaw” track? That’s a mean ass track.
Red Café : Yeah that’s my man Reefa-Reefa from Brooklyn. He did “Bling Bloaw” and he did “Diddy Bop” and he did “One Blood” so…
Nobodysmiling.com : Is he heavy on your new project?
Red Café : Yeah he got about three tracks on there. That’s the sound that I’m going for; you know what I’m saying? I pretty much…I can say that I found him in New York. I was the first one to really get him cracking in New York for New York artists, so that’s like my sound I’m running with.
Nobodysmiling.com : Lastly, you have on a lot of ice. A few cats put out songs about “blood diamonds” and Africans who mine the diamonds and die for it and how that affects us wearing it? What are your thoughts on that?
Red Café : For me everything on this earth-everything that we get-it comes from some kind of negativity it came from. Everything. So if I see something and I can afford to buy, I buy it cause I like it. Oil. We can say the same thing-like this country is ran on oil; the whole world is ran on oil; it’s the same similar situation with oil. So what we gon say? We not gon put gas in our car? We not gon cook? What are we gonna say? It’s negativity in everything that goes on in this world, but we just gotta use it to move forward. That’s all I got to say about it.
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