I described how I met Damani Nkosi a while ago in my post My Story To A Thoughtful King. This time Damani took some time to sit down and speak about how he first met me, what it is like working with me and shares a small story of him eating the wrong cookie in the studio. His album Thoughtful King is out now and available on iTunes.

Follow Damani on his social networks: Twitter @damani1 · Instagram @damani_inc

I first shot Dead Prez in 2010 when they were touring in Hamburg, Germany. In early 2013 they came back to Germany and I handed them the old photos (read here). From that moment on we became friends and every time they make it overseas or we happen to be in the same city we meet up. This video was recorded summer 2013 in Brooklyn, New York right before they head to the airport for a week in Senegal.

I met Ray Lynch in 2004 for the first time, we helped each other in numerous occasions and he’s been a supporter since the first day I came to New York. Ray is known to manage and discover artists, songwriters and producers for the last 15 years. One of his discoveries is Grammy-award winning American songwriter, record producer and musician Syience.

After a long time of not seeing each other, we connected again in 2013, and Ray took the time to spend some words about how I got to New York, the start and the future.

He got his gear a couple days ago, so I took some photos for them yesterday.

Mojo usually only do men and women wear but yesterday they hooked me up with a small collection for my son Miles. Thanks a lot, and make sure you check out www.mojo-snowboarding.de. All their clothes are handmade and drawn.

One day my friend Nima from DubCNN.com and Empire Distribution came down to L.A. from S.F., where he stays. He spent a couple of days over in the Valley and one of the days we decided to go to the Smoke Out Festival, that is sponsored by DubCNN.

After a long as drive … I don’t know how long or far away it was, I really can’t remember but with traffic and everything else we spent ages in the car. When we got there everything already started and even though DubCNN was one of the sponsors, we had a hard time with the wrist bands, not getting the right one. So after going in, we still made it to the backstage area, due to the fact that Nima knows every artist in this world (I am sure you can run into Lil Wayne and he somehow heard about Nima in some kind of way and says he knows him, he really knows everybody … and if not they think his name is Nemo) and my skills talking to security. Backstage, we hung out with … I can’t even remember. I know Cypress Hill was there, Wiz just got off stage.

Well after all that we went to the press area, which was way more interesting. Of course we did not know it before and missed half the action. We stumbled into one of the motor homes and the whole TDE crew hung out (no Kendrick). Nima knew them all and he wanted to do an interview with Schoolboy Q real fast. It seemed like Q just got of stage, he was drunk, high, not in the mood, whateverwhatever. It turned out to be the worst interview ever. And that’s not Nima’s fault. After that I shot Q real fast. As you can see in his face, he was not in the mood at all, but then again, he always looks like that!

After Q, I went outside and there was Ab-Soul and Jay Rock, I took a quick photo of them. And here comes Fashawn out of nowhere … of course I shot him again. He was quite happy to see me, due to the fact that we have a background and know each other. There were a couple of other artists, but I forgot who and what happened. The only thing I can remember is that when you want to leave, you have to pass 2 security checkpoints in a real short distance, so after passing the first security checkpoint we gave our passes to some girls so they can walk into the backstage area. Now after that we weren’t able to leave the “cage” in between those checkpoints anymore and basically were stuck. We couldn’t walk out and at the same time we couldn’t walk in again. It took a while until we were able to figure that situation out and security let us go. After that we drove back to the Valley and I left my Adidas jacket in the rental car.

Bla bla bla here is the photo.

frank ocean [lost] from christopher francis ocean on Vimeo.

I first heard the story when I was in Cape Town. Matter of fact I was living right down the road from Mabu Records. The store owner plays a leading role in this story. I think every music lover should watch this documentary about him. This is one of the greatest music stories ever told …

1968 in Detroit, there was this artist named Rodriguez. He recorded an album called “Cold Fact” under Motown Records. Everybody that worked on this record thought it will be the biggest record in its time. The record came out and it sold 6 copies … he worked on a second album, and it did absolutely nothing either. 2 weeks before christmas the label dropped him. Rodriguez started working a regular job. Doing mainly construction work.

10 years later, somehow one of his records made it to South Africa, and became the biggest thing ever. He is bigger then Elvis or The Rolling Stones over there. Everybody knows his music, but nobody knows anything about the artist, and there are only 2 records. No information at all. So there comes up the rumor that he committed suicide. And there are different ways, one is how he shot himself on stage, another one how he lights himself up on fire and the story goes on.

Years later, in the 90s this one guy, a journalist found this story pretty interesting and wanted to find out how he died. They start searching lyrics for a hint where he can be and found a city close to Detroit, where they started searching.

Cut a long story short (you need to see all the details in the documentary, its amazing) they found out that he wasnt dead, he was still alive, still working construction, with no idea that he was one of the biggest stars on the other side of the world. Now the one story ends, the searching for him, but another one, that nobody expected starts …

There is a documentary out, called SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN, which I saw yesterday, and its great. One of the best I have seen in its genre. I will post some YouTube links below with the trailer and a feature CBS did.

Go and listen …