DIY efforts have fueled the success of rapper
Hoodie Allen has never been one to wait for things to happen.
The Plainview, New York, native born Steven Adam Markowitz left a promising job at Google to pursue his career as a rapper, launching a label to make it happen in 2011.
After two Top 10 albums and a No. 1 rap album — “Happy Camper” (2016) — little has changed.
“I like being proactive,” Allen said by phone from a tour stop in Texas. “I have no label, no manager. ... You have to make things happen
for yourself.”
Allen said he is planning to push “Ain’t Ready,” from the recent album “The Hype,” to radio as a single, even though the playlists of most commercial radio stations are overwhelmingly filled with major-label acts.
“I think it’s a song that could sound great on the musical landscape right now,” he said of the danceleaning track that would fit in well among songs from Justin Bieber and the One Direction guys’ solo singles.
“I can’t sit and wait, letting that moment pass.”
Even Allen acknoweldged that landing a song on commercial radio without help from a major label is an uphill battle.
“Oh, it’s nearly impossible,” he said with a laugh. “But every year, there’s a couple of songs that do it. Why can’t this be one of those songs? If you don’t try, you’ll never know. ‘You have to try’ is what’s gotten me here in the first place.”
That attitude informs pretty much everything Allen does, whether he’s putting out a musically diverse album such as “The Hype” or taking a full band on tour to bring the wide array of his musical ideas to life.
“I made a lot of songs when I was working on this album — more than 40 songs,” he said. “I wanted to find a way to thread it together, but then you run the risk of being repetitive.”
Allen opted to use a variety of musical styles and tie them together with his clever lyrics. One of the biggest departures is the rocking “All My Friends” with indie rockers State Champs helping him out.
“I’d met them at Leeds and Reading festivals (in England), and we really hit it off,” he said, adding that even though the band is from upstate New York, it reminds him of the bands he grew up listening to in the music scene on Long Island.
“I grew up in a time when Long Island was a hotbed for rock — from pop-emo to hardcore. I definitely have a lot of that in my blood. In an alternate universe, I may have been in a rock band, perhaps. But I don’t like the idea of boxing yourself into one sound.”
He reinforces that point early in “The Hype,” when he moves from the popleaning “All for Me” with Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying to the trap-influenced “Fakin” featuring Wale.
Allen’s outside-the-box ideas even extend to his album promotions.
“The majority of my fans buy my music,” he said. “I’m more organically discovered rather than found because I’m getting played on popular playlists. “It comes from hustling.” In this era when an increasing number of fans stream their favorite albums rather than buy them separately, Allen recognizes that it means something more if fans buy his album.
He decided to choose three fans who preordered “The Hype” and spend the day with them.
“I thought, ‘Why can’t I do something fun for them?’" he said. “It was a great way to get to know three different fans, and we now have this forever bond. It’s something I won’t forget. I feel lucky to be in this position.”
In a way, Allen, who is already working on a new mix tape he hopes to release early next year, uses his social-media knowledge to forge a deeper bond with his fans.
“Technology and social media allow for it,” he said. “It helps knowing what the fans think. I sent close to 15,000 text messages to people who bought the album. They provide me with such great information about what kind of experiences they want.”
Allen said he enjoys the personal connection with fans.
“I want to do it," he said. "I want to be a different kind of artist.”