After building a career for himself as an artist and as a businessman through his Paid Dues festival, Murs says that he was regularly being solicited for advice and guest appearances from aspiring rappers. Thus, the rapper decided to launch Murs 316, a label where he could work with artists and help jumpstart their careers. The imprint is scheduled to release albums from Kosha Dillz, Jabee, Marley B, Cash Lansky, MC Optimal and Reverie by March.
“I wanted to create a platform for hard-working musicians with good hearts,” Murs says during an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “All the artists I have lined up are good people who want to see their dream manifest and I’m trying to help them do that. I feel like I do have a lot of knowledge and wisdom to impart to other emcees. It’s a platform where I can do all of those things, do features for artists, help them out, give them advice, put them on some shows with me and help out people I felt had a similar work ethic.”
Murs is not operating his label, which is named after Murs’ first collaborative album with 9th Wonder and is also the same company that puts on Paid Dues and will be releasing Murs’ debut feature film, in typical record company fashion. Murs 316 is a one-off label that does not give advances and that will not be signing artists to long-term deals. The company partners with an artist on one project and will share ownership of the masters in perpetuity with each artist on its respective project.
Murs 316 has released Kosha Dillz’s Awkward In A Good Way album. Its next release is Jabee’s Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt, which is due in stores December 17. DJ Fresh presents Marley B & Cash Lansky’s The GLDN TCKT is slated for a January 7 release and Foudation presents MC Optimal is scheduled for a February 4 drop date. Reverie and Louden have the final release of Murs 316’s first wave of releases. Their project is due March 4.
Murs set up a SoundCloud page for his imprint. It features a Murs 316 Mix Tape sampler with two songs from each act on the imprint, as well as the posse cut “S.O.S.,” an acronym for “Scrap On Sight.” The song’s video was filmed at the Beach Hut Deli in Reno, Nevada and is premiering on HipHopDX.
The release of Reverie and Louden’s album will mark the end of what Murs is calling Season #1 of Murs 316. Season #2 is slated to begin in April with another handful of artists who will be featured on a sampler on the Murs 316 SoundCloud page and who will record a posse cut a la “S.O.S.” Murs 316 also plans to release an album per month from its second batch of artists.
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Murs says that he’s being upfront with the artists he’s working with on Murs 316 about his company’s relationship with them.
“I always promote the label as, ‘This is not a crew. This is a business,’ because so many people get so involved in, ‘This is my crew. This is my family,’” Murs says. “I just think that is so much bullshit. I have a family and I have a set of friends. We’re all together because we want to make a career out of music, so as long as we stay focused on that, it’ll keep a lot of the feelings, a lot of the bullshit, out.”
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