Rostrum Records' Caleb Brown Talks Business, Rebirth and Atlanta Arti

Source: Salim Garcia / Rostrum Records

A little more than a year ago, Caleb Brown paced the carpeted floor of Atlanta’s Uptown Studios, directly next door to the city’s historic Stankonia compound. He was 18 years old then, just in from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, fresh out of high school and hosting a room full of journalists he’d never met.

Outside it had been raining off and on for hours. He paced, back and forth, but he didn’t seem nervous. Maybe a little anxious to get this chapter of his life started. In his pre-pubescence, Brown decided that rap would be his career choice, cynics be damned. But here’s the thing: the youth have always been paying attention. The kids will be alright. Hip-Hop is effectively growing up.

Four projects in, Brown decided that he wanted to go in a different direction and with Lil’ Wayne as a longtime creative influence and Nipsey Hustle’s business acumen serving as the ultimate, all encompassing chin check, the now 19-year-old has a solid contract with Wiz Khalifa’s Rostrum Records and his new Brown EP with producer Sonny Digital is the rebirth. He’s learning the necessary lessons and applying the theories to his burgeoning career.

After all, Atlanta rap isn’t as communal as outsiders think. It’s not as simple as a willingness to work together because you stay down the street. Knowledge is power and power is sovereign, and Caleb Brown is a young man with the worldly interests of a young man, trying to know it all.  

HipHopWired: Who was your greatest influence in rap?

Caleb Brown: [Lil’] Wayne. There’s only one really. “Me and My Drink,” it was kinda like a rendition of the “Barre Baby” record by Big Moe but he ripped it and it’s been one of my favorite songs since I was young.

It was all around that same time, I was in fourth grade and my homie was rapping. I thought it sounded good and it looked fun, it looked cool. I always liked Wayne but this was the time period where the seed was planted.

“I’d rather do all this with the people I need to do this with, rather than the rap n*ggas.”—Caleb Brown

HHW: When you’re young, you romanticize your passion and it’s not until you get into it all when you realize, like…

Caleb Brown: It’s been heartbreaking man. It’s been heartbreaking being like… When I was younger I had this expectation of what I thought rap would be like and what it would be to actually be in the industry. Then you get into it and it’s way, way… Just a total different ballgame. You f*cking with different demons over here. But I’ve been adapting to it, I was born for this.

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Photos: Courtesy of Rostrum

Source: Salim Garcia / Rostrum Records

HHW: So you and Sonny Digital linked up on this project. How’d that come about?

Caleb Brown: Business associates. Business friends. Him actually f*cking with my music. And with me having been a fan, it just made sense. We actually worked on a project in Baton Rouge before I even moved to Atlanta. I moved to Atlanta in the early part of this year and we came back and pieced everything together.

It was just time. There was nothing left for me back home. I wasn’t going to school nowhere. I ain’t have a job so this was the situation I was chasing and it presented itself so why not? People don’t always get the chance to do this where I’m from so why not attack?

HHW: People always herald Atlanta artists and producers for being above the fray and working together. Like, everyone’s playing in the same pool…

Caleb Brown: Yeah. But then they start pissing in the pool and I can’t get with that. There’s the politics, the brown-nosing and ass kissing. And it’s like honestly? I’d rather do all this with the people I need to do this with, rather than the rap n*ggas.

HHW: Things have been moving quickly for you, though.

Caleb Brown: The Internet is a beautiful place. I put a mixtape [All Dawgs Go to Heaven 2] out. I spent a year working on that one and got a couple calls from Atlantic off of it.  It did some numbers. I put a single out that summer of 2016 [“Westside Get the Money [W$GT$]”], it did some numbers. Rostrum reached out. We had a conversation they flew me out and the rest is history.

I was home when I got the call and the funny thing is that we were like homeless for a sec because we’d just had a flood and everything we had was wiped out. Everybody was displaced at the moment so while we were trying to figure out this situation, we were still going back and forth back home.

HHW: What is it that you’re hoping to do here? At the end of it all?

Caleb Brown: I eventually wanna touch souls man. That’s why I originally got into it. Of course, I wanna be rich too and make a lot of f*cking money — buying houses and shit but I just wanna tell my story and the stories of those who couldn’t tell stories and make a difference.

HHW: Are you closest to Wayne or Wiz? Or Curren$y, for that matter?

Caleb Brown: Wayne. Yeah. I love Spitta and Wiz but it’s just that I studied him. And I know I’m closer to Wayne because that’s exactly what I mimic. From the work ethic to how I put songs together. That’s just how it was from back then so I just carry all that with me to current day.

HHW: You follow Wayne but I’m should some of his career you looked at like, ‘Yeah… Let me not do that…’

Caleb Brown: Yeah. But I was always cognizant of [the business side] since Nipsey. That’s the person who really put the business side of this shit into perspective for me so I was already on ten about all the other shit before Wayne’s situation went south.

HHW: Do you second guess yourself? Why did it take you a year to finish All Dawgs?

Caleb Brown: Not often. I’ve been in this mode where I shut the world off and I just go and sometimes you’re like, “Damn, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

I was working on how to say what I needed to say and usually when you hone in and you’re doing that much work, something with pay off and it did. It’s just the formula I’ve been following and it works.

CONTINUED

Source: Salim Garcia / Rostrum Records

HHW: The Brown EP sounds totally different from your previous work although there’s still enough of “you” in it. It’s a grimy, trappy sort of thing where you do a lot of random talking about the type of things that your peers are on. What are you worried about?

Caleb Brown: Um. Nothing. Everything ain’t up but everything that’s down I can’t… Me putting energy towards that would take away from the energy I need to put towards this.

Life is general is crazy like that. Trying to figure it out. Growing up. That was the mindstate. It’s basically 19 year old shit. We smoke weed, we do drugs, we f*ck hoes, whatever… F*cked up in the head to a certain extent. We all flawed and we all tryna work through our shit.

Brown EP is a rebrand for me because the direction that I want to take my music in, wasn’t the direction that it was moving in so to switch that up, I had to switch everything up, go all the way left in order to bring everyone back to the middle.