Aight, so it's about time I got off my ass to update the damn Cee & Bekah bio.
Nuff said. Here 'tis.
There is no precedent to this. Soul. Hip Hop. Rhythm and Blues. One vocalist. One MC. Welcome to Cee & Bekah.
After their debut mixtape, The Soul Movement Volume 1, smashed the scene in 2007, Cee & Bekah have barely stopped to breathe. And it could never be said that these captivating artists don’t move with the times; their grasp of the internet and digital marketing has assisted them in spreading the word about their music in ways which most artists don’t invest the time to create. Capitalising on a strong online buzz from their MySpace page and downloads of the mixtape, the duo never paused on making music, banging out close to 50 songs to select from for their latest release, The Soul Movement Volume 2. With a gang of shows under their belt in 2007 and 2008, the musical and life partners have been concurrently working on their debut EP, The Precedent, and the as yet untitled album. Their buzz and constant networking has attracted solid production from some well-known beatsmiths, and features from a gang of artists on all corners of the globe.
Alongside the newly formed The Movement Fam crew (Cee & Bekah, Notion, Tommy Gunnz and DJ Grain), Cee & Bekah have concreted their strong identity and etched their mark in the minds of the people with their unique blend of Hip Hop and Soul. Volume 2 is more mature, political and romantic than its predecessor, and it signifies the musical direction in which they will continue. Even Australia’s only platinum DJ, DJ Nino Brown, stepped in to blend The Soul Movement Volume 2 as he could see the power of the Movement.
Cee & Bekah have a worldwide mentality; working with artists from all around the planet, from Greece to Colombia, Brazil to the UK, Canada to the USA, New Zealand to Germany, both for Volume 2, and the forthcoming projects Volume 3, EP and album. The duo, along with Notion, recently took themselves on a self-funded networking and radio tour of the USA, Canada and New Zealand to promote The Soul Movement Volume 2 and Notion’s World Domi-NoTiOn mixtapes, appearing on seven radio shows in three countries, while recording, collaborating and building with artists, producers, DJ’s, promoters, business-folk, labels and the locals.
And while Australia will always be home, it seems the rest of the world is catching on – quickly. Kanye West’s first cousin, Tony Williams, even personally invited them to create a remix of his debut single ‘Dreaming Of Your Love’, a major sign that big things are on the way. Some major blogs have shown unprecedented support for The Movement Fam, with Kevin Nottingham’s blog even arranging a full remix competition for The Soul Movement Volume 2 and World Domi-NoTiOn, with the sheer number of submissions blowing these artists away. Even though Cee & Bekah’s brand of ‘Soul Hop’, their very own niche genre, is still in its infancy, folks from all corners of the globe want in. It’s official. The Movement is here.
Happy Hump day, folks...although I only went back to work today, tomorrow would technically be my 'hump' day but whatever.
So I was checking over the blog and noticed a shitload of text. I clearly neglected to include visuals with the many posts over the duration of the trip, so I pulled out some of the more interesting flicks from the trip for y'all to peep. Get your eyeball on.
Cee and Bekah stamp the Space Needle
The Movement Fam @ Space Needle, Seattle
With DJ Hyphen and J. Moore @ Sunday Night Sound Sessions on KUBE 93 FM, Seattle, Washington
The Understudies Crew and The Movement Fam, Oakland, California
Cee & Bekah in the ATL
The Movement Fam with DJ Grain and Jermiside, Atlanta, Georgia
The Movement Fam with DJ Grain and Tim Williams, Atlanta, Georgia
Cee & Bekah on the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC
The Movement Fam with Eternia @ Libation, New York
Cee & Notion with DJ Tony Touch, NYC
The Movement Fam and J. Master in Harlem, NYC
Cee & Bekah at Niagara Falls, Canada
With Great Scott and DJ O-Nonymous @ Sound Junction, 105.5 FM CHRY, Toronto, Canada
With KrisblaiR aka Professor Digital, Toronto, Canada
Theo 3, DJ Serious and The Movement Fam @ Styalistik Endeavours, 89.1 CIUT FM, Toronto, Canada
With Tunji from Inverse in Venice Beach, LA
Cee & Bekah at the Skytower, Auckland, New Zealand
With DJ Penfold on 95bFM, Auckland, NZ
There ya go! Hope that helps brighten up the blog...
I neglected to mention this in the previous posts, but we now have mixtapes available in selected cities in both Canada and the USA! The prices range from like $5 to $10, depending on the store, but check the list below for your nearest spot:
ATLANTA Soul of Sisa - 504 Flat Shoals Ave SE, Atlanta, Georgia
BERKELEY B-Side Records - 2128 Dwight Way, Berkeley, California
TORONTO Da Corner - 256A Queen St W, Toronto (in the Black Market complex)
So if you're in any of these cities and wanna get your hands on a rare hard copy of the new projects (we only pressed a small amount for the international trip), roll through and cop 'em now!
For the folks Down Under (and everywhere else), we'll be pressing up a gang of copies of both mixtapes asap so we'll keep y'all posted.
Yes yes...it's update time again. Weekly updates were damn near impossible as we were moving around, so fortnightly it is.
Aight so after the last update, we left y'all in Toronto. Things went real well in the T-Dot, with another radio spot, studio sessions with Miss Jessica Kaya (what up, Jessie?) and a lot of sightseeing (Niagara Falls, CN Tower, etc). The photo shoot unfortunately didn't come through due to time constraints, but now that we have the contacts, we'll most def hit it up next time.
The last night in TO was amazing. My man Craig and Ally decided to get all stupid and cop some wigs and ridiculous outfits for our last night on the town, so all of us were looking amazingingly stupid and had a wicked night. Shout outs to the dancing man at Mod Club. You're a genius, bro.
So our last stop in North America was LA. Last time Bekah and I hit the town up, we didn't really enjoy ourselves. This time was a different story. We hired ourselves a lil Chevy Impala to take us around town, and being such a huge place, we would have been fucked without it. We had some meetings with Wayne Fernandez, the man who ran the WKD radio spot in Melbourne that I grew up listening to, so to dine with Wayne and his mate Rod was a blessing, thanks guys! We also linked with my man Tunji from Inverse, who hooked us up plenty at the Interscope promo room, and cooked a mean BBQ out at his girl's crib in Venice. Shouts to the Sour Diesel, which left us fully operational the next day lol.
It was hella sad leaving North America, but New Zealand was calling. After a long ass flight, we soldiered on and stayed up all day for our radio spot that night with DJ Penfold, which went really well. We also linked with my man Kebrasca from Mai FM, which should be a great relationship for both of us. We got some time to take in the sights of Auckland, it's a beautiful city, and we wish we could have been able to stay a bit longer. Much love to Mat and Debz for taking us everywhere, and shouts to Lish, Bronson, Cilla and Donna!
So a couple days back we arrived back home in Melbourne to 30 degree weather! Fuckin' booooooom!! Of course, that didn't last but we're happy to be home and have a shitload of work to do.
Just a reminder, producers, keep submitting remixes for our competition on www.kevinnottingham.com, there's still just under 2 months left to go. We'll have a couple projects good to go in the next few months, as well a Movement Fam blog on a well known Hip Hop site, which we'll be releasing in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that.
The Movement Fam and Notion blog pages are almost good to go, so we'll be launching those very shortly, and the Cee & Bekah blog will become more specific to us and more personal, as with Notion's blog, while the Movement Fam blog (ran by DJ Grain) will contain all the news and goings on for the crew.
Much love to everyone, and keep checking our YouTube channel for the video blogs from the trip, coming soon!!
I'm writing to you at like 4am from Toronto, hella tired but it's time to handle business, regardless of what the clock says.
Just wanted to let y'all know that the G.O.D.cast edition that we featured on with our good mates Citizen and Cobb (and the greater Understudies crew) out in Oakland, California is finally online and good to go!
You can download The G.O.D.cast Vol. 2 right now for free (just click on the words, man!).
Huge shouts to Citizen and Fly Cobb for having us on the show and being most gracious hosts out in Oaktown. Of course, shouts to Vlad for his hospitality and my mans Jeremy for the recording time.
Please check this out and support real music, real people, real shit.
My apologies for the late update from the past couple weeks, we've had intermittent net access, and to be honest, we've just been too busy and having too good of a time. But I'm actually sitting in the room in Toronto on a Saturday night, a cold ass Saturday mind you, with the Nuit Blanche festival going on outside and instead of joining the festivities, I'm blogging. That either makes me an extremely dedicated young man or a right goose.
Anyway, since we were in ATL, a lotta thangs have been happening. Atlanta was amazing, we had such a great time, and straight after the laid back south was the hectic New York city. Aside from the turbulence on the small ass plane, everything with beautiful touching down at JFK. We had been graced with amazing weather the whole time but all that came to an abrupt halt when the east coast turned the waterworks on for us the entire time. Word to rain.
So the first night in NYC was straight to the hostel, then off to Libation for the last night in a series of club evening ran by Danny Castro of Lyricist Lounge fame. Our very good friend Eternia (what up Silky?? Click on her name to check out her site) hooked us up VIP to see DJ Tony Touch do his thang, and other cats such as Ju Ju from the Beatnuts and Sway were in the building. Aside from the tourist attractions, we had a couple important meetings with some label and radio folks out there which will hopefully grow into a very mutually beneficial relationships. Loved it, and would love to live there...even after my ATL rant.
Next up was T-DOT!!! Our second home. It's beautiful to be back here, seriously. No other city thus far has excited me to be in as much as Toronto. We missed this place so damn much, I truly think this is where we need to be. The love that has been extended here (mostly through Eternia's wonderful friends) is mindblowing. We've already done two major radio spots, dished out mixtapes to influential folks, had a couple great meetings, caught up with friends, done semi nudie runs down Queen St at 2am...still got photo shoots and studio sessions to come. Massive shouts to Great Scott and DJ O-Nonymos from Sound Junction, Theo 3 and DJ Serious from Styalistik Endeavours, Big Jacks, Dave, DJ Grouch and please do yourselves a favour and check out Big It Up, a Canadian owned hat company which has the most amazing headgear I have ever seen. Dameion (CEO/President) is one of the most sincere and spiritual people we have had the pleasure of meeting, and The Movement Fam will be continuing strong supporters of Big It Up.
Also, check out Notion's article on WYDU blog, massive shouts to Trav. Producers, keep it moving on the remix competition on www.kevinnottingham.com, we've had a fair few submissions thus far and it's all sounding pretty damn dope. Exciting shit.
That's about it for now. We'll be in Los Angeles by the end of the week, then off to Auckland, New Zealand before returning to MEL.
Scream at ya peoples, thanks again for all your support, we got a lot in store for 2008/2009 so it can't stop, won't stop, fuck stopping.
Well, we've been in the US for around a week now and I gotta say, we're freakin' loving it. So far, we've managed to hit up San Francisco/Oakland, Seattle and Atlanta, and the folks here have been nothing less than hospitable, welcoming and hilarious.
It's been about 4 years since Bekah and I have been in the US and it's not a hell of a lot different to what I remember it to be. The liquor stores are fun as hell, everything's big, not everyone is as ignorant as you would expect and they are most definitely spoiled for choice. After being here only a week, it feels like months. I think that's a good thing. Either way, I have a strong feeling that we may need to relocate to this fine country to really make our music happen. It's just a matter of which city...
I know a lot of y'all have hit us up and tuned into our radio appearances thus far, we appreciate that. We've had so much support from so many people, I really wanna shout out my man DJ Hyphen in Seattle (keep working on them handstand push ups!), my peoples The Understudies Crew out in Oakland/Bay Area (Foss, Cobb, Jeremy, all the crew, and of course Vlad!!), my man Jermiside in ATL (watch out for them raccoons!) and my muthafuckin' homeboy and Movement Fam representative DJ Grain out here in Atlanta, where I'm writing this from. Also, huge shouts to Kevin Nottingham from www.kevinnottingham.com and Travis Glave from www.wydublog.com, both cats have shown unwavering support of our music and I can't thank them enough.
Aight, here's a bunch of links from the last week or so since both The Soul Movement Volume 2 and World Domi-NoTiOn have been released:
Also, in conjunction with www.kevinnottingham.com, we're running a remix competition for ALL producers out there! Check out the link below, download the mixtapes and acapellas, and submit your remixes - the best of which will go on an official combined mixtape release, getting you MAJOR exposure around the world, plus we definitely hope to network and link with many of the folks who submit remixes. We're really excited about this, so let's get it going!
Three quarters of The Movement Fam (Cee, Bekah and Notion) are off to the good old US of A, Canada and New Zealand this weekend to begin their mini-tour/networking trip/shopping expedition/radio tour/catch up sessions/piss up of North America and NZ. Oh yes. It's been 4 stressful months of preparing, pulling our hair out over mixtapes, spending of too much scrilla and hernia's, but it was all worth it.
We'll be keeping y'all regularly updated here on www.ceeandbekah.com of our movements (pardon the pun), the happenings, the highs, the lows, etc. We also aim to do video blogs on www.youtube.com/movementfam. Hopefully we aren't too caught up in the cheap beer to do so.
Aight, so here's all the info for the radio spots we have locked in thus far. We'll update if there's any changes or additions: Saturday 13th September Show/Station: The G.O.D. Hour, Liberation Radio 104.1FM, Oaklank/Berkeley with Citizen Time: 4pm-8pm Saturdays WST (9am-1pm Sunday 14th Sept Melbourne time) Stream: Yes, at http://www.berkeleyliberationradio.org/whowe or the GODCast at www.WYDUblog.com. Details: Station has gone bankrupt; will now be the GODCast on www.WYDUblog.com. Sunday 14th September Show/Station: Sunday Night Sound Session, KUBE FM 93.9 with DJ Hyphen Time: 10.45pm – 12.15am Sundays WST (3.45pm – 5.15pm Monday 15th Sept Melbourne time) Stream: Yes, www.kube93.com. Details: Major radio station in Seattle (equivalent of Nova FM). Saturday 20th September Show/Station: The Edutainment Hip Hop Show, 90.3 The Rock WUTK FM, Knoxville, Tennessee, with BT and Drop Knowledge Time: 9pm – 12 midnight Saturdays EST (11am-1pm Sunday 21st Sept Melbourne time) Stream: Yes, www.wutkradio.com. Details: Phone interview, most likely. Thursday 2nd October Show/Station: Sound Junction w/Great Scott, CHRY 105.5 FM, Toronto, Ontario Time: 12 midnight to 2am Thursday night/Friday morning (2pm-4pm Friday 3rd Oct Melbourne time) Stream: Yes, www.yorku.ca/chry Monday 6th October Show/Station: Backroad Radio w/Big Jacks, CHRY 105.5 FM, Toronto, Ontario Time: 6pm-8pm Mondays (8am – 10am Tuesday 7th Oct Melbourne time) Stream: Yes, www.yorku.ca/chry
Thursday 16th October Show/Station: True School Hip Hop show on 95bFM, Auckland, NZ Time: 9pm-11pm Thursdays (7pm-9pm Thursday 16th Oct Melbourne time) Stream: Yes, www.95bfm.co.nz
So check us out if you can! They should be a lot of fun.
Aight, now for some promo. My man Kevin Nottingham out at www.kevinnottingham.com has gone and smashed his site with Movement Fam updates this week. He hit the people with a leak of two tracks from each mixtape, as well as a full article on the fam.
Look out as on Monday 15th September 2008, both 'The Soul Movement Volume 2' and 'World Domi-NoTiOn' will be released online officially, via the following sites:
So make sure you cop that! We also will have hard copies for sale once we get back from the trip (in late October/early November), and we now have Cee & Bekah tshirts for sale! $25 each, we have a bunch of colours - tees for guys, singlets for the ladies. You can't get through summer without one. Or three.
One more thing. My man Johnny Karim, who directed/edited/filmed our 'Melbourne City' video, has also finished up his edit of our 'The Soul Movement Vol. 1' launch show at Playground @ Seven back in March. Check it out!
Part 1
Part 2
Thanks fam! Stay with us, there's too much happening with us right now to not pay attention. It'll change your life. Seriously. Well, sorta. Kinda. Maybe. I dunno.
First up, Happy Fathers Day to the dads out thurrr. Hope you're neckin' some brews and lappin' up the pressies while you can. lol.
Secondly, big ups to the homeboy Kevin Nottingham at his This Is Hip Hop blog for shouting out The Movement Fam only a day after releasing the 'Melbourne City' video was released online!
Also, keep checking through Kev's site in the coming months for exclusive leaked tracks from both Cee & Bekah and Notion's upcoming mixtapes, as well as interviews and a remix competition for the beatmakers out there.
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