Meet Clay James

Today we’d like to introduce you to Clay James.

Clay, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born in Atlanta, Georgia at Crawford Long Hospital. My mom and I stayed in East Point briefly then we moved to Savannah, Georgia while I was still a baby. I lived on the westside of Savannah, Georgia where my main focus was basketball. I was always under the impression basketball would be my ticket out of Savannah but unfortunately God had other plans.

One of my best friends got killed, my house was broken into, and my car got shot up so my mom thought it would be best I move back to Atlanta and live with my Uncle. I moved back to Atlanta Metro area my senior year of high school and attended McEachern… After I graduated from there, I attended Georgia State University and that is where I picked up a microphone. While at Georgia state, I was heavily involved on campus in various organizations and I was a party promoter. One of the organizations I was involved in was the Kappa Theta Chapter Of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Incorporated. One of my frat brothers Imari Curtis came up with the idea that I should start rapping. It didn’t make sense to me at first but his logic was based off my image, involvement on campus, and the number of ladies that seem to take a liking to me.

After a couple of weeks of thought, I started going to the studio and recording songs with engineer Keith Dawson who was a member of the Zeta Theta Chapter Of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated at my school. Time went by and my buzz begin to grow through a series of mixtapes I was releasing on DatPiff.com. Then one day Jnicks from hot 107.9 gave me a chance and played one of my songs on the air in a competition called “Battle Grounds”. I won the competition seven consecutive days so they had to retire my song off the air and undefeated battlegrounds champion. After this happened blogs began asking me for interviews and I started booking shows at local colleges GA Tect, GA state, CAU, Morehouse, Spelman, and in Athens at UGA. My buzz continues to grow even more to where I ended up getting booked for the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas. This cycle of constantly releasing and promoting music, doing shows, and attending SXSW every year. Then in 2013 Sha Money XL called Big Boi from OutKast and told him about me because like me Big Boi is also from Savannah Georgia from the same side of town as me. On top of Sha Money calling Big Boi, he also got word about me from his cousin and brother. So big boi sent out a tweet telling me to come see him after I told him happy birthday on twitter. Big Boi became my mentor and taught me a lot the next few years. Everyone was actually surprised he never signed me to an actually record deal.

Either way, I found myself back at the SXSW music festival in 2016 and I caught the eye of some of Snoop Dogg’s associates from Long Beach, California. Yung Zeke, Hunnid, and JuDaTruth gave my music Young Sagg which was the head of A&R at Doggystyle Records. He played the music for Snoop and loved it. Snoop gave me my first record deal. I toured with him and put out music under his umbrella the next couple years until his manager Ron Alvarez and Thomas Brider the CEO of Doggystyle South Records had a dispute over who was going to be in charge of my campaign. The argument was so strong that it caused Snoop to pull back from continuing business with me because he didn’t want to be in the middle of his two associates dispute. So when it was time to sign a new contract with the label, I didn’t get the opportunity. The whole situation was a learning experience for me. So, I was back as an independent artist trying to navigate my way through the music industry. I started my own label, management, consulting, and distribution company called Playas Club Music Group. I have a distribution partnership with Empire which allows me to put out my own music as well as other artists who need help with distribution.

Once I am further along in my career, I plan to use the foundation and platform of PCMG to sign and put out new acts. Until then I’ll be working to make myself one of the biggest acts coming out of the southern region. In October I’m going on tour along the entire east coast. The Mor Dreams Tour is being put on by Dream More Studios in Toronto and Mor Bookings Agency in New York. I’ll be bringing my official dj “DJ LowLyfe” as well as my artist friends Killah Qua, Suni MF, and Pimp Sweet Tooth. We will be performing in Atlanta, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Connecticut, Providence, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Toronto, and Montreal. My fashion sense and influencer abilities have landed me sponsorships from companies like Iceberg Jewelers, First Page Marketing, Smoke Cartel, Lavish Blanc, and the Bold Tie. I am also the Vice President Of my

Own brand called Bliss Clothing with CEO/President Darius “KD” Graham. We’ve been one of the dopest underground luxury street brands in Atlanta for quite some time now. We’ve had placements on American Idol, X-Factor, MTV, BET, VH1, and too many celebrities to name. My music career picked up and so did Darius’s graphic design company, so we took a break from Bliss to handle other business but our official relaunch is this fall. So stay tuned for that as well as my next EP entitled “Neva Too Late”.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It hasn’t been smooth at all. This has been one of the most challenging things I’ve done in my entire life. The biggest thing has always been not having the funding to do certain things. As an independent artist you are responsible for paying for everything like studio time, music videos, marketing, promotions, touring, merch, wardrobe, transportation, etc, etc. And these are all things that signed artists don’t have to worry about it. On top of funding I’ve been let down a lot by people I once looked up to in this business. You can’t never really get your hopes up because someone is more likely to lie to you and lead you on then tell you the truth in this business.

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