The Wrap Up

December 31 2006

Revelers,

New Years' Eve and the first guests are beginning to arrive for our end-of-year bash here in East Vancouver. I got home from my US tour a few
weeks ago and have since been sorting through the chaos accumulated after a year on the go. In the past twelve months I have spent approximately 27 weeks on tour with "The Rap Canterbury Tales", including visits to Australia, Scotland, Northern Ireland, England, Canada (including central Canada and Quebec), and the USA (including the deep south). During this time I also recorded and released a new album, Lit-Hop, re-recorded the whole "Rap Canterbury Tales" CD, and had my first book published. Now I'm just taking stock of it all and making plans for the next phase.

I have learned from experience that this lifestyle is only possible as long as I have momentum; it's like pushing a cart across a level (sometimes not
so level) plain. Sometimes I can hop on board and coast, but mostly it only rolls if I keep pushing. Therefore, I am determined to continue to tour as much as possible in 2007, and to release as much new music as I can. I am founding a record label "Lit Fuse Records", and I will use this to release projects I am involved in, as well as music from talented new artists I have encountered along the way. All of my music will be available for download from the iTunes store and other websites as of January (Swordplay is already online).

In other good news, my publisher sold out the first print run of a thousand copies of "The Rap Canterbury Tales" within the first few months of its release, and it is now in second printing. If you haven't got a copy, you can get them from my website, or from online stores like Amazon.com.
Although I appreciate the sales, it is actually more helpful for me to sell them through other retailers, so that demand stays high, and it is
especially helpful when the people who buy them online leave positive reviews of the book (nudge, nudge).

Another factor that has spiced things up recently is an Associated Press article about my visit to Wellesley College that syndicated to dozens of
newspapers and news websites across the USA. It was feature on Yahoo.com as a front-page entertainment story, and was rated the sixth most emailed link of the day, ahead of Britney Spears' divorce even. This appropriately caused dozens of yahoos from around the states to email me and pronounce their sage opinions, and hundreds more to do so in blogs and online forums. Most of the response has been positive, but not all, and the blogs especially tend to get under my skin, when I cave and allow myself to read them. If you are curious about what I mean, try googling "baba brinkman" (in quotation marks) and see for yourself. You can also read the yahoo article at this link online.

Other positive press recently came in the form of this article from Virginia about a high school performance I did in Roanoke. Click here to read it.

I am open to any and all proposals or suggestions about places to bring my show in the new year, and new ways to spread the word, as well as
collaborations, connections, or anything that might give me a leg up. For now, I wish you all a happy and fulfilling new year, and thank you for
following my bizarre saga. I am only staying on course thanks to the people who take an interest and choose to support me through their actions and good wishes. Okay, back to the party.

baba