We Got Next

Boddie's not the kind of person one would expect to head a hip-hop crew. He stands about 5-foot-9 and looks skinnier than he is in baggy jeans and a T-shirt. He wears his long, curly dark brown hair pulled back, and oval glasses frame his eyes. He looks more like a college freshman than a music biz mogul wannabe. But he's motivated. "I wanna be known as the black Jerry Jones," he says, as the rest of the Steady Ballin' crew teases him that he can't possibly be the black Jerry Jones, because Boddie's mother is Thai.

Nonetheless, Boddie's ambition is evident. In an overlapping relationship that epitomizes the convolutions of hip-hop marketing and cross-marketing, Boddie still works for both Clout and Def Jam, both of whom technically are Steady Ballin' competitors. But Boddie sees no problem; in fact, he is learning everything he can about promotional work through his Clout and Def Jam mentors. "That's how Kevin Lyles—he's vice president of Warner Bros.—and a lot of others started doing it," Boddie says. "They all started as a street team and worked themselves up. Really, I think that's one of the best ways to start doing it, because you don't wanna jump into nuthin' where you don't know what you're doing."

The problem when it comes to Steady Ballin' promotions is that the label has no budget for marketing. None. There are no posters to hand out, no street team to hire, certainly no trucks to be wrapped. But Boddie works around it, both by hitting the pavement and by absorbing as much information as he can. "All you need to do to advertise is to get out there," he says.

And get out there he does. He's been known to cross all over Dallas, stapling Def Jam and Clout posters up with one hand and holding his 2-year-old son with the other. He often piggybacks Steady Ballin's mission on top of his responsibilities with the other labels; right now, the mission is to call attention to Solja Grounds and Steady Ballin' in general. Boddie and his crew take any opportunity they can to call attention to the Cordeezy album, including establishing a presence at a recent immigration rights rally in Farmers Branch. "We were out there, 'Si, se puede! And Steady Ballin' Records y'all!'" Boddie laughs. He goes on to note how he snuck into the press area to hand out Cordeezy's CD after putting up Def Jam posters at the Will Smith appearance at Loews Theater. "If I gotta knock on your door and wait until you get off lunch break or whatever, hound you day and night, I'll do it, everything short of illegal."

It's a bright Thursday afternoon, and Boddie is spending it traveling from the deepest parts of Oak Cliff to East Dallas' record stores to the KBFB-97.9 FM "The Beat" radio station offices at Valley View Mall. With him are Steady Ballin' rappers King Cole and Junior High and a burly guy named Robert, who's serving as the day's bodyguard. The object of all this gas guzzling: networking.

This day starts around noon. Usually Boddie and his burly crew cram into a tiny Honda, often with his young son tucked in a car seat in the back, but today they have lucked into borrowing a large Ford Bronco. His son is sick, so he's absent, but even with the car's ample space and toddler-less status, the men are smushed fairly uncomfortably together.

"When we started with the street team, there were a lot of people hatin': 'You ain't gonna do nuthin' with the street team, you gonna be passin' out posters five years from now,'" Boddie says. "Two years later, those same people still working on they first CD, ain't nobody heard it but they friends. From the street team, we got connections; it's not how much money you got, it's who you know."

At this point, O.C. knows a lot of people. At each stop, there's a lot of hanging around, a lot of sit and wait and a lot of what seems to be gratuitous chit-chat, especially at the radio station, where O.C. and crew wait about 45 minutes before anyone will see them. But they use the time well, hobnobbing with local luminaries, DJs and MCs, pushing Solja Grounds, talking up Steady Ballin'. It all seems like a lot of sitting around, but it's all part of the M.O. of promoting hip-hop, the industry's version of corporate fat cats networking on the golf course. The radio people are accustomed to the pitch; a few are politely interested, a few blow Boddie off, but he sticks with it. He's learning.

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Steady Ballin' still doesn't have much money, but the group's doggedness may be starting to pay off. Cordeezy has scored a spot in a Sunday night hip-hop showcase at Tom Cats in Deep Ellum. Almost the entire crew is in attendance, impatiently smoking menthol cigarettes in front of the venue, waiting for the show to start. Cole, Junior Boy and another Steady Ballin' beatmaker named Fury sidle off and form a freestyle cipher, goofing off to kill some time. Freiburger chats with a few bystanders on the sidewalk. Deborah is there, dressed up in a sequined black outfit, a little more formal than the jeans and baggy tops worn by Cord and his crew.