{"id":19421,"date":"2019-08-09T01:36:58","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T05:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multi.nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/brooklyn-hip-hop-artist-kota-the-friend-talks-to-billboard-magazine-about-importance-of-being-independent\/"},"modified":"2019-08-09T01:36:58","modified_gmt":"2019-08-09T05:36:58","slug":"brooklyn-hip-hop-artist-kota-the-friend-talks-to-billboard-magazine-about-importance-of-being-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/brooklyn-hip-hop-artist-kota-the-friend-talks-to-billboard-magazine-about-importance-of-being-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Hip Hop Artist &#8216;Kota the Friend&#8217; Talks To Billboard Magazine About Importance of Being Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>photo @GeoffLevy<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kotathefriend.com\/tour\/\"><strong>Kota the Friend<\/strong><\/a>, from Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, is an Independent Hip Hop Artist who, by all accounts,\u00a0 is certainly on the rise and included in most Grammy nomination discussions, for his 2019 album, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/album\/6RBVbvHUbdAnUWm4GjyY7A\"><strong>FOTO<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Billboard Magazine<\/strong> just conducted a great interview with Kota the Friend, in which he gives real insight about what inspired him to create FOTO. He also talks about the reasons he remains Independent, and why he turned down record deals from three major labels. His story sounds very similar to <strong>Chance the Rapper&#8217;s<\/strong> experience as a super successful Independent Artist.<\/p>\n<p>Kota the Friend is currently on his U.S. tour, which will immediately be followed by a European tour that will take him to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Italy and other stops. In November Kota the Friend will be performing at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bandsintown.com\/e\/101319810?affil_code=js_kotathefriend.com&amp;app_id=js_kotathefriend.com&amp;came_from=242&amp;utm_campaign=event&amp;utm_medium=web&amp;utm_source=widget\">Day N Vegas<\/a>, on a lineup that includes <strong>Kendrick Lamar<\/strong> and <strong>Tyler, the Creator<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>He will be making a tour stop in Brooklyn August 10,\u00a0 however,\u00a0 like most of his tour, the venue is sold out. There are some tickets still available in North Carolina, Texas and Kansas City, but there are no other tickets available on the tour, which includes 30 cities.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/G4ybFYTS1uE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Excerpt from the Billboard Interview:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Billboard: <\/strong>In 2019, rappers are vying to secure label deals. Why have you chosen to stay indie?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Kota the Friend:<\/strong> If you look at it from a business point of view, it doesn\u2019t make sense. I make connections myself. On the creative side, I handle everything from the videos to recording. I know what I do. It doesn\u2019t feel necessary to sign to a label. We could start our own label. I\u2019m thinking about starting an artist development [company]. That\u2019s what it really is about. People want good music. It\u2019s not just about what\u2019s hot and what\u2019s on the radio. If it\u2019s a good song, people will stream it a gazillion times. One of my most popular songs,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-1kpc0UN7Pc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cAlkaline,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0has almost 10 million plays on Spotify and it hasn\u2019t been picked up by any playlist. That\u2019s an indicator to me. I know how the game works. It\u2019s always changing but I try to keep up with everything.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/columns\/hip-hop\/8526897\/kota-the-friend-is-foto-interview\"><strong>Read the full interview on Billboard.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>photo @GeoffLevy Kota the Friend, from Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, is an Independent Hip Hop Artist who, by all accounts,\u00a0 is certainly on the rise and included in most Grammy nomination discussions, for his 2019 album, FOTO. Billboard Magazine just conducted a great interview with Kota the Friend, in which he gives real insight about what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5893,"featured_media":19422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.4 (Yoast SEO v26.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Brooklyn Hip Hop Artist &#8216;Kota the Friend&#8217; Talks To Billboard Magazine About Importance of Being Independent - Brooklyn News and Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/brooklyn-hip-hop-artist-kota-the-friend-talks-to-billboard-magazine-about-importance-of-being-independent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Brooklyn Hip Hop Artist &#8216;Kota the Friend&#8217; Talks To Billboard Magazine About Importance of Being Independent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"photo @GeoffLevy Kota the Friend, from Ft. Greene, Brooklyn, is an Independent Hip Hop Artist who, by all accounts,\u00a0 is certainly on the rise and included in most Grammy nomination discussions, for his 2019 album, FOTO. 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