Artist description All The Best Rappers In Miami

Music Style hip hop/commercial

Artist History Nathaniel Brooks and Oteman Sampson With loads of fame already on their side the MEGABALLS #56 is one of the most marketable and talented unsigned groups in the entertainment industry. The group consists of ALL-STAR football player Nathaniel Brooks (who played for the University of Miami, The San Francisco 49ers, The New England Patriots, NFL Europe, The Tampa Bay Storm, and New Jersey Galdiators), and First-Team All-American Oteman Sampson who was named the number one quarterback in the nation in division 1-AA during the 1997 football season by USA TODAY and ESPN Network. He is currently in the CFL and in the off season an constructional engineer. The Megaballs perform every Thursday night at Little Hoolies, in The Falls, with selected members of Miami’s Finest.(www.mp3.com/miamisfinest) Featured on this website is the song , Thats Us, that Nate the Great just finished doing a video for the Hurricans National Championship football team featuring MO THUGS and ICONZ.In February of 2002 Nate the Great opened up for Nelly and The ST. Lunatics in Missouri. During 2002 The Megaballs have done shows at Club Deep.Nate The Great performed for Lukes Christmas Party at Billboard Live in December where he opened up for Mr. Cheeks.The Megaballs performed at The Lyric Theater in Overtown, FL for the Def Comedy Jam Explosion 2000. They have opened up for Mystical at a ‘99 No Limit Bash at Studio 183 and J.T. Money’s album release party at South Beach’s Club Crystal for the popular song Who Dat. Other performances also include Michael Barrow’s Gospel concert in Homestead, FL and former Miami Dolphin Luis Oliver’s birthday party at the renown All-Star Cafe on South Beach. Growing up together since the age of five in the Liberty City (Miami) projects their first song together was made when they were ten. The groups progress has been plagued with struggles ranging from having songs stolen from them when they were young to battles with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who controls all of college sports and decides whether or not they can pursue a music career while playing college football. Currently the group is working on their new album Platinum Bound and has already released a CD entitled GAMES OVER dedicated to their childhood friend, the late Marlin Barnes, who was a former university of Miami Hurricane linebacker (#56). The CD also contains a poem entitled I Hope I Can (Barnes favorite saying) followed by the groups most popular song My Homie Red. This song was dedicated to Marlin Barnes and his family. Barnes death on April 13, 1996 received national attention by ESPNs Sports Center and ESPN magazine along with other newspaper and magazines including Sports Illustrated. This publicity came from undoubtful predictions that Barnes would have been selected first round in the 1998 NFL draft. The Megaballs have lyrically written over thirty songs that have potential of being smash hits. Nathaniel received a theater degree at the University of Miami and completed a two-year video documentary highlighting the groups struggles and challenges of surviving the ghetto. This video received an award in a California student film festival. It was voted 3rd out of 500. With these types of accomplishments, backed by enormous energy being brought to the table ready for negotiation, there is no doubt by the grace of Gods blessings, The Megaballs are on the way to the top.

Group Members The Megaballs Nate The Great And Bubba Hound

Albums Platinum Bound

Press Reviews Posted on Sun, Jul. 28, 2002 Space invaders BY DAVID CISNEROS dcisneros@herald.com Clockwise from top left: anticon; Buck 65; Nate Brooks; and Ian Bavitz, aka Aesop Rock. Nate Brooks uploads his music on an aqua-plated Compaq computer from the living room of his cluttered Kendall apartment. But he's not doing it just for his own amusement; his business is hip-hop and his office is cyberspace. There, the doors never close, the buzz is 24-7 and he can chat with hip-hop fans worldwide. In the same living room where his two toddler sons play with toy microphones, the former University of Miami football player burns his own CDs and checks how many times people have listened to his music online. Plaques and posters from his playing days line the walls, but now Brooks is hoping to make it in a new field. ''The Internet helps me move very fast, like Star Trek,'' Brooks says. ``I'm all over the globe.'' Brooks joins a growing field of musicians who are bypassing traditional methods of musical delivery -- swift-talking record company apparatchiks, record stores with limited space, radio stations with shrink-wrap-tight playlists -- by getting his music to an audience directly through such Internet sites as MP3.com. This is especially true in hip-hop, which has long relied on technological innovation. Other underground acts, such as anticon, Sage Francis and Aesop Rock, were among the first and many to benefit from Web exposure, creating fan bases for themselves internationally. Nova Scotia's Buck 65 spent 10 years building up a following before he recently signed with Warner Records Canada. He'll spend six months recording in Paris. ''It has positive effects, especially because of the monopolization of labels and because people can get an audience,'' says Elizabeth Mendez Berry, assistant music editor for Vibe magazine. ``It has a democratizing effect.'' All it took for Brooks to jump-start his hip-hop career earlier this year was an e-mail from a concert promoter in Germany who said he was interested in putting together a show. Brooks, playing with the Canadian Football League at the time, could not go, but helped set up concert dates for the Outlawz, another rap group. Now, Brooks has moved from freestyling in the hallways of Liberty City's James E. Scott housing development, where he grew up, to performing at Deep and other South Beach clubs. Brooks says he is slated to tour with R&B singer Adina Howard in Japan and Europe. In an industry where commercial success is sometimes dictated by a carefully crafted image, the Web offers increased visibility for raw, if sometimes unfiltered, talent. Brooks discovered the marketing power of the Web in 1998 after being stuck on the football sidelines because of a separated shoulder. He began experimenting with MP3.com, a popular site that for a monthly fee allows unknown artists to post their music on personal pages. He pays $19.99 a month and gets paid three cents every time someone plays a song by MegaBallz 56, the duo that includes Brooks and friend Oteman Samson. His wife, Jennifer Brooks, a professional graphics designer, is the page designer. He also uploads songs for local artists through his promotional company, Miami's Finest. ''I get these young artists who are only going to be local artists and put them on the website, and they get amazing exposure because of the number of hits,'' says Brooks, whose site averages 3,000 plays per month. MEDIOCRITY RISES? Indeed, the Web has boosted visibility for local hip-hop artists of all types. Talented artists such as Buck 65 and Eydea, from St. Paul, Minn., have avid Internet followings. But there's a down side: There also is a host of clones; dorm-room Eminems who need nothing more than a microphone and software to play rapper. And few mainstream artists have embraced the technology. Public Enemy's Chuck D, one of hip-hop's pioneers, posted an entire album online last year, telling the media that the record companies had better deal with the new technology. But he's the exception. Meanwhile, some record stores refused to stock the CD version of the album. Mainstream and indie hip-hop figures are sometimes openly hostile to so-called ``Internet Rappers.'' ''Everyone has access to you, but there is so much bad material out there,'' Berry says. ``It's kind of daunting. It's a mixed blessing.'' Boston-based Akrobatic's Internet MCs ripped laptop-rappers who take advantage of the anonymity the Web offers to blast anyone and everyone. The lyrics from anticon's Isn't it Sad? also strike a chord with many independent hip-hop artists who are trying to separate themselves from the amateurs: When, when in the living room, we diss you for fun. You've got a pretty nice sound card and Fisher-Price drums. Members of the Oakland, Calif., group admit the Internet propelled their popularity -- packed shows in Japan and Australia were fueled by Web-savvy fans, even though CD sales there were not spectacular. Also, the Web creates fan bases wherever there is a modem, but it can dilute the product. Anticon member sole, whose real name is Tim Holland, used to make road trips to other states for open mic competitions when he lived in Portland, Maine, during the mid-1990s. Now, spurred by its Web exposure, Holland and company receive hundreds of demo tapes a month. Much of it is garbage. ''We get so many demos, and they all have names like Xeno Morph and the Space Biscuits,'' Holland says. ``They're all talking about how sad they are and how bad life is when you're in high school.'' Many indie hip-hop artists, especially ones who did not grow up in rugged urban neighborhoods, are wary of being labeled ''Internet'' rappers. In an industry where the image of being hard-core sells millions, being a hip-hop artist from the middle class is difficult enough without having a Net-nerd stigma. ''It's definitely an issue. The scene is all about how real you can be,'' says anticon producer jel, born Jeff Logan. ``And how can you be real when everything is handed to you?'' And, for many, paying your dues as a lyricist or producer is essential. Many indie veterans grew up competing at shows or digging through dusty crates in record stores looking for rare grooves over which to rap. Now, in a genre that is uniquely conducive to Internet production and distribution, making music -- sometimes awful music -- is only a click away. ''The Internet does good and bad,'' says indie heavyweight rapper Aesop Rock, aka Ian Bavitz. ``I don't like the way cats can do their first little album without paying dues.'' BUYING BEATS Original or well-known beats can be mined from websites or online sharing programs like Kazaa ( kazaa.com) or Morpheus ( morpheus.com). Anyone with a microphone and software like CoolEdit can rap over the instrumental of Wu-Tang Clan's C.R.E.A.M. Or one could download Japanese Freestyle from Lord Baltimore, a popular MP3.com producer who charges nothing for beats but asks for production credit thanks. Miami's Brooks himself minimizes costly studio time by buying beats online. Live instruments are a rarity; samples are plenty. Participation is easy and rivalries can be played out through online message boards -- sole and Company Flow's El-P released songs taking aim at each other in a beef fueled mostly by fans on message boards. ''Kids want to see it going as long as they can,'' Holland says. The Internet also makes distribution a snap: Fans can buy indie albums through popular websites like HipHopInfinity.com. On the flip side, fans can download an entire album without paying a dime. Bavitz, a New York-based rapper, enjoys a wider following thanks to the Web -- his song Commencement at the Obedience Academy was an MP3.com favorite. But to his chagrin, his latest album, Labor Days, was bootlegged through the Internet three months before its September 2001 release. For him, the Internet is better off as a public relations tool. For Jay Seagraves, even the worst demo can make money. Seagraves started HipHopInfinity in 1997 as a fan site from his dorm room at tiny Siena Heights University in Adrian, Mich. When he began selling underground albums via the Web, business boomed. He has one of the few websites that offers demos, no matter how bad. ''I wouldn't want to pay money for a lot of the demo-type stuff,'' Seagraves says. ``But a lot of people will buy stuff because no one has ever heard of it.'' Today, he and his wife run the business full-time from their own office in Adrian. The company employs a part-time webmaster in Finland and pays a host of freelance writers to review albums and profile artists. They say they sell about $30,000 to $40,000 in music each month, mostly in CDs. Like many hip-hop purists, Seagraves grew up listening to acts like Eric B. & Rakim and Run-DMC, but became disillusioned when hip-hop went the way of shiny diamonds, Puffy and MTV. When the Internet exploded in the late '90s, Seagraves found he could research underground acts like Company Flow, J-Live and Shabaam Sahdeeq. Without the Net, ''I might have given up on hip-hop or become a DMX fan or something,'' he says. Then there is MP3.com, which combines sales and a visible outlet for aspiring artists. The company started in 1997 and battled a slew of copyright infringement lawsuits before being purchased by Vivendi Universal for $372 million last year. Most of its acts are not mainstream -- the site recently celebrated its 200,000th artist -- and they range from easy listening to children's music. About 8 percent of the site's music is categorized as hip-hop/rap, officials say. Despite so many artists to wade through, Brooks is confident that Internet success will translate well beyond his cyber office. The politics of playlists, he says, do not apply in the open frontier that is the Web. ''We've got the talent, and we've proven it because we've gotten the hits,'' Brooks says. ``The fans control this.''

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