On top of the World

Pete Rock & Smif N Wessun Monumental

Pete Rock & Smif-N-Wessun have joined forces for a MONUMENTAL album.  Pete Rock has provided the entire production on the album, as well as vocals on several key tracks including the title track, “MONUMENTAL.” The album features Bun B, Raekwon, Styles P, Sean Price, Pharoahe Monch, Buckshot, Black Rob, Freeway, Memphis Bleek, Rock of Heltah Skeltah, Hurricane G, Top Dog of Boot Camp Clik, and Jahdan of Noble Society.

AVAILABLE AT NOW AT DUCKDOWN RECORDS.COM

click picture to visit website

continue reading for more pics!


R.I.P. Aaliyah

R.I.P. B.I.G. (yankee stadium for the Em/Jay concert)

shouts to the homies at Rock Smith!

Shouts to Philly!

Clear as Black and White…

I got your back P!

Shouts to the homie Stevie WIlliams of DGK!

bodyguards for sale…holla at me!

not getting high enough? lol…

Black Rob explains the LP is a “testimony of what I stand for and how I feel. The people have been asking for true hip hop music, and that’s what I’m giving them. I stayed away from features. I’ve been away for 4 joints, so I feel the people deserve to hear me. When I came home, I went right to work, and didn’t have time to reach out to cats. On my next project you will get that. As for producers, I have some up-and-coming cats on there. I believe in giving cats a chance. As far as named producers you may hear a joint or two from Buckwild, Self Service, Bishop, Scram Jones and Pete Rock.”

On his decision to work with Duck Down Music, Black Rob reveals that he “always respected their movement and also been a fan of their music. If I’m going independent why not go with a team I respect, and they have always had a true family setting & environment.”

During the course of his career, Black Rob has recorded several successful projects. In 2000, he released Life Story, which has sold over 1 million units & featured the well-known single, “WHOA!” Five years later, he returned with The Black Rob Report, which surpassed sales of 100,000 units. Again, five years later, Black Rob is readying a new album entitled Game Tested & Street Approved.

Here are 9 Twitter for business strategies to avoid, as well as how to remedy them.

1. Be Overly Self-Promotional

Would you want to have lunch with someone who only talked about themselves, and didn’t even ask you how your day was going? Of course not. So why should you act that way on your Twitter profile? Instead of having a Twitter profile full of self-promotional news or links to your own website, share other interesting, educational, or even funny industry news from websites other than your own. You’ll build a following more quickly, and you’ll likely be retweeted more often. And it’s not unprofessional to ask your followers how their day is going.

Continue reading to see the rest

2. Only Include Links to Your Own Blog

Business blogging is a great marketing tactic, and so is sharing your blog posts on Twitter. However, these shouldn’t be the only blog posts you share. It only takes 10 minutes a day to contribute valuable content on Twitter. Check your RSS reader daily and share interesting articles you see there. Also, find other relevant bloggers in your industry on Twitter and retweet their articles. Give to get; these bloggers may reciprocate and share your content as well.

3. Follow Anyone and Everyone

Ever see a Twitter profile of someone with 10 followers who’s following 10,000 people and think “oh, they must be interesting!” Me neither. If you follow a ton of just anyone, not only will your Twitter stream be filled with irrelevant content you don’t care about, but you’ll look spammy to people who see your skewed follow numbers. Be picky about who you follow, especially in the beginning. You can use Twitter Search or Twitter directories such as Twellow or WeFollow to find people interested in your industry and what you’re talking about.

4. Don’t Establish a Personality

Your company Twitter page shouldn’t just be a corporate Twitter page; this exudes a stuffy tone that nobody wants to follow. Some of the top brands on Twitter actually put a face to the person behind the tweets, such as Comcast and Zappos. You can even just link to the profiles of people behind the tweets in the bio section, which is what Ford does. These personal touches will attract more followers than hiding behind a corporate logo.

5. Don’t Interact With Other Twitter Users

People on Twitter want to follow people who might actually interact with them. So if you’re only putting content out there, even if it’s interesting content, you might turn away people who want to know you’ll reply. Twitter isn’t only about sharing one-sided content. It’s about sharing other Twitter people’s content and engaging in conversations about that content. Make sure to retweet and reply to at least a few people each day so that you’re making Twitter a two-way conversation.

6. Don’t Share Your Twitter Profile on Your Website

Keeping your Twitter profile hidden from your website visitors, the people most likely to actually follow you, is never a good idea. Add a Twitter badge to your website, and even add a feed of your tweets to your blog. Make it as easy for your visitors to find out how to connect with you in social media.

7. Don’t Monitor Your Own Brand Chatter

If you think that monitoring your brand on Twitter is too time consuming, you’ll be glad to hear that monitoring all of your business’s social chatter takes only ten minutes a day. Use free tools like Twitter Search or TweetDeck to monitor conversations taking place about your company on Twitter in real-time. After you complete a Twitter search, you can even click “Feed for this query” and add it to your RSS reader for monitoring.

8. Don’t Customize Your Twitter Profile

Not customizing your Twitter profile is like blending into an anonymous crowd. Did you know that Twitter accounts with a profile picture have 10 times more followers than accounts without pictures? And that having a Twitter bio gets you 8 times as many followers? If not, there’s your reason for doing so. Also, brand your business on Twitter by having a unique Twitter background.

9. Only Tweet Once Per Week

If you tweet only once per week, it will be hard to get noticed in the Twitter streams of people who follow thousands of even hundreds of users. But if you follow some of the advice above, by taking a few minutes each day to retweet interesting tweets and share relevant content, you shouldn’t have a problem here.