Today we’d like to introduce you to Corinthian Walker.
Corinthian, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
What’s up! My name is Corinthian Walker and I’m from Birmingham, Alabama! I’m the founder of the Artistic Incubation Company ThirdCore LLC which is a company dedicated to helping today’s leaders and creatives start their artistic/creative businesses! Our company’s mission is to encourage genuine principles and restore interpersonal connection!
I am also the founder of a company under the umbrella of ThirdCore LLC, ThirdCoreNetwork! ThirdCoreNetwork is an on growing network of individuals and companies that collectively does the actual incubation of your business! ThirdCoreNetwork consists of three branches, ThirdCoreEntertainment (A Production Company), ThirdCoreRecords (An Independent Record Label), and [ B-Side. Bhm ] ( A Community Outreach Platform)! We are providing the infrastructure and resources for Hip-Hop in Birmingham and taking proper care of creative and artistic visions.
As for me personally, I do a lot of things. I’m a CEO/Business Owner, Music Producer, Audio Engineer, DJ, Photographer, Instrumentalist, Lyricist, Live Sound Engineer, and a Writer! I have many other skills and skill sets, but those are the ones I indulge in the most. My story is quite a lengthy one, but I’ll aim to express it as fluidly as possible in terms of how it led me to where I am today.
I grew up in a Christian household and was, to a significant degree, sheltered. It had its pros and cons. It left me with no choice, but to excel in my spiritual growth and journey. It’s the greatest aspect in my life, but it left me unaware and out of place once I stepped out into the world. I seemed to be always drawn to music as a child and it developed early at the age of five playing piano, but more primarily being the drummer for my church! After developing a love for music through the church, my Father decided to make a decision that would change my life forever. At the age of eight, my Father bought FL Studio for me. (FL Studio is better than any other DAW on the planet lol, had to put that there, a really common joke amongst producers and musicians) Anyway, I was really only exposed to Christian music and some R&B at that time, but other than that, I made what I heard in my head so I had a strong sense of original creation early. I eventually got to public school in Alabama after moving around a bit. One of my parents served in the Army so we were on the go a lot. When I got to Elementary school, in terms of music, I joined the band in third grade! I really wanted to play percussion, but all of the positions were taken because I entered late. My band instructor led me to the saxophone in which I became really skilled! I progressed in Saxophone throughout elementary school while still playing the drums for my church.
After time passed, I got to middle school! I tried to join the band and play percussion again, but my band instructor saw my talent in saxophone and convinced me to keep playing. So I kept progressing with the band, but shockingly, things changed a bit. I got exposed to a minor portion of the world without sheltering for the first time and honestly, you can’t avoid it. During that time, I got exposed to Hip-Hop, which ironically, for me was a good and a bad thing. I won’t really go into my spiritual outlooks on certain aspects of Hip-Hop, but nevertheless, this still was a very pivotal point in my life.
The first Hip-Hop song I ever heard was “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” by Kanye West! Regardless of what’s going on today, Kanye West is my greatest inspiration and I just so happened to have truly paid attention to his artistry to “know what’s going on”. Some don’t understand and it’s not meant for everyone too, but in any case Kanye West introduced me to Hip-Hop. Now imagine you’ve been hearing that rap music is bad and has all of this negative spiritual energy from your parents, and then stumbling across that song. I wanted to know if what they were saying was true out of the sheer mystery. The first words of Hip-Hop I heard were, “I had a dream I could buy my way to Heaven, when I awoke, I spent that on a necklace. I told God I’d be back in a second. It’s so hard not to act reckless”. I was completely freaked out lol. It was like, “Oh wait, they weren’t lying,” so I turned it off to think for a second, but something told me to finish listening. When I finished hearing the whole song, I recognized a familiar energy. That familiar energy was the aura of a struggling Christian in which all Christians are struggling Christians in terms of the battle between the flesh and the spirit. That didn’t sound evil to me. It sounded like a cry for help! That to me meant everything that someone’s message and outreach to God could be shown publicly, let alone worldwide. So I instantly went to go listen to his whole discography at the time and got even more assurance of that! That was a message I could relate to more than most of the other subject matter that seems forced upon us.
Then one day in eight grade something crazy happened. One of my favorite songs ever at that time, and still to this day, was “You Don’t Know My Name” by Alicia Keys. One of my friends at the time mentioned to me that Kanye West made the beat… I looked at him like he was an idiot lol. I said, “No he doesn’t he’s a rapper. And even at that, do you hear this? This sounds like a band and singers came together to make the music of the song. I know for a fact he’s not playing all of those instruments in it or singing.” Ironically that friend of mine wasn’t a producer and didn’t know how he made it either, but all he knew was his name was on the credits as the producer.
Since I was extremely “new” to the world, I felt his word in that situation was a little more valid than mine so I believed it. I didn’t have the answer yet, but I kept studying his discography as well as some others. I got introduced to another artist shortly after that which was one of the most iconic artists of our time, Soulja Boy lol. It was crazy! I heard the beat and said to myself, I have those same instruments on FL Studio at home (I didn’t know Soulja Boi was using FL Studio at the time because I knew nothing about Hip-Hop being freshly introduced to it. So naturally, I went home and I recreated the beat. When I got back to school, I was famous, lol. Instantly! People began to tell me that I should take it seriously and then boom, Hip-Hop it was!
Eventually, I got to High School and things got interesting! I kept things going. At this time, Chief Keef and Young Chop were really blowing up and I remade the beats to the songs “I Don’t Like,” “300”, and a couple of other songs and again, people went crazy. That led to some really important events. First, it got me my first opportunity! An artist asked me to produce some beats for his upcoming album! This brought about a turning point in my career. One day, I was walking through the halls with the artist I just produced for and they were complimenting my beats. One of those guys made a fatal mistake, lol. The question comes up, “Yeah, Logic (my producer name at that time) is fire, but y’all think he’s better than Cam?” I looked up like, “Who?” I immediately was pissed before they even answered because at the time, I was the only producer I knew of at my High School. So that artist I produced for responded, “Ehhhh, nah, I don’t know about that, Cam is fire.” I wanted to shoot up the school, lol. I hope y’all took that as a joke. So not knowing that this would become my destiny, I immediately was thrown in it. I literally skipped every class that day going class to class, asking people if they knew Cam. It was hilarious because I was pissed and nobody knew why.
Then I remembered something that the artist I produced for said, he mentioned a producer name associated with Cam and I recognized the producer name on his album. I went and relistened to the songs he produced and was literally in tears. I thought that the artist got those beats from YouTube or something, but to find out there was someone in my vicinity, ultimately destroying me in Music Production, it was killing me. Anyway, I gave up on my search because I wasn’t finding him. So I go to one of my classes and try it one more time. I approach this guy at a computer and ask him, “Hey, you know someone named Cam who makes beats?” He answers, “Depends, who wants to know?” I yelled, “ME (with a lot of curse words)! Somebody said he was better than me and I’m trying to see what’s really up.” (I’m paraphrasing) He responds, “Oh really, yeah, that’s crazy. You’re looking at him.”
I almost used the bathroom on myself. Then something in me kicked in like, “So what, let’s run it then!” So I just cut to the chase and said, “Yo, I heard your beats on this album and there’s no way you’re doing this. So what’s the secret?” Keep in mind in my earlier paragraph. I said, “I didn’t have the answer yet” to how Kanye made the beats he made. His beats reminded me of what I recognized with Kanye West’s beats. He responded, “Can’t tell ya, man, sorry.” I committed a few crimes against him in my head because I was so angry. So I just charged it to the game and respected it and I told him I would figure it out myself. So I went through the trouble of trying to humanize all of these string sections, brass sections, keys, etc. and I just wasn’t skilled enough. I was thinking, “How are these guys so good at all of these instruments?” The answer came shortly after this next opportunity.
Through that, I met an engineer that mentored me for a little while and boom. He told me the answer. But, before I got that answer, I got a huge opportunity! I got a call from that engineer saying that the star of the Disney show “Kickin It” and his parents were coming down from Los Angeles to meet with me! We both were really confused but excited. It turns out he heard some of my music on YouTube and wanted to work with me! I was making a lot of Pop and EDM at the time so that led to that market. This was a turning point in my career because even though I was good, I knew nothing about the business. I made some money from some tracks, but I didn’t have my publishers or writers’ rights and they informed me that I would get cut out a lot of deals without the proper backing. They advised me to basically start over, but assured me that since I’m learning this lesson early at the age of fifteen, I was in a good place! So I did! Me and the engineer had developed a relationship at this point and he said to me, “Yo, you’re a pretty good man and getting some big opportunities! I think it’s time you stepped up your game!” I responded, “Thanks, how,” basically and he asked me, “Have you ever tried sampling?” I was confused, but I’m smart enough to know what “sampling” means as a verb, but not how it relates to music. I said no and asked him what it was and he basically told me that it was taking parts of a song that’s already made and making something new out of it! Before I could even say anything, I had an epiphany, the answer to my question from Middle School was finally answered! I immediately saw everything in my head and was like, “I knew Kanye wasn’t playing all of that! All he did was sampled!” I also found out Cam’s secret, lol. He would probably read this and laugh because this is a funny story. It’s not as serious as the word “secret” is, but it was to me at the time lol because I didn’t know anything. Cam sampled a song and made a beat out of it on the artist’s project that I loved! It took me eight years to find the sample he used and it was Debbie Taylor’s “I Don’t Wanna Leave You.” Anyway, thus, my journey with sampling began! After this, the artist I made beats for was in the band at my High School and told me to come to a practice and with that opportunity, I got my first shot at playing percussion which was the most fun experience I’ve ever had! I played every percussion instrument, but I played Quads at the time! I really wanted to play Snare my entire life, but I was never getting the chance. Neither did I know I would get that opportunity in College, which is where the real journey begins.
I eventually went to college for Music Education and Music Technology! I decided to join the band and it was extremely tough coming from a Show Style Band to a Core Style Band. I struggled, but I’m so dedicated to music I eventually caught up to speed and started to do well! After showing some growth and some alterations to the band, my percussion instructor gave me the opportunity to play snare and I was delighted! I played in the Marching Band, Percussion Ensemble, and Symphony Band. I ended up falling in love with Four Mallet Marimba though, but that journey was cut short.
I had been kept in the house all the way until I decided to stay on campus my Sophomore year. This was my true entrance into the world and I ultimately messed up everything lol. I began to struggle in my spiritual life because of a lot of trauma that came with being exposed to the world so late. I basically lost touch with my spirituality for a while and decided to live life on my own discretion. That led me to losing everything. At the bottom of that rock bottom, though, I met some friends that changed my life in Birmingham forever. My friends were dealing with a lot of things that I had not been exposed to yet, like living on their own and being away from their parents. This led me to view my life in a different light and having a lot more appreciation for it. My struggles were still my struggles, but seeing others go through theirs was an eye-opener. I began to repair my spiritual relationship and things started to get better. My interpersonal skills were severely damaged at this time and what would happen next was really uncomfortable for me at first.
My friends did music and were creatives as well and we developed a really close relationship! One of my friends knew about an upcoming Producer Showcase and after hearing my music, he suggested I participate. I was nervous, but I went through with it. It was set up to where the producer was teamed up with an artist and the producer played a beat while the artist freestyled! The rapper I was paired with is still in my life now and is a part of the company, which is crazy. However, it went really well, but I knew in order to really get acquainted with other creatives, it wasn’t just about the art, it was about the people! I wanted to get more active and figure out what was going on.
After a while of going to shows and events with my friends, eventually, I finished my first project ever! It was a beat tape titled “From Paul to Lucy.” The tape touched people’s lives in a positive way through the narrative that was portrayed. I combined track titles with custom sample chops that made sentences told to tell the story without lyrics. The samples were often relative to the track titles and I would chop the samples up in phrases to say what emotions I was trying to evoke. There was one particular track I made that changed my life. It was titled “Crash Landing.” The reason this track was so important was that at the lowest point in my rock bottom, the sample seemed to be a prominent light within a dark place. The sample was “Kenny Dorham and the Jazz Prophets at the Cafe Bohemia – Autumn in New York”! Most of my beats prior to this involved a lot of instruments and drums to create a sonic sound, but this was the first song I made that was minimalistic. It only consisted of the sample, a kick, a ride cymbal, and a snare. Minimalism was something I was excruciatingly uncomfortable with, but it was the key to making what I was about to learn. I essentially created a Lofi Hip Hop track before I even knew what the term was. A friend of mine listened to the project and I told him that “Crash Landing” was my favorite. He then began to tell me that the sound of it reminded him of Lofi and encouraged me to check out the genre. He sent me a few songs to start off with and then Soundcloud took care of the rest. It was one of the greatest times and experiences of my life. January 9, 2017, I found the genre that would take me further.
I really liked the genre for listening purposes rather than producing, but naturally, I wanted to still experiment with creating the sound. At that time, I didn’t have a particular movement that would distinctify my creative element to the scene in Birmingham. So I took time to study the genre, which even led me to fully going back and understand the origins of Hip-Hop! After a month, on February 11, 2017, I knew what I had to do and ThirdCore was born! I continued to study the genre and it led me to get out of my reclusive/homebody nature because I wanted to find out if there were others here who shared the same interest. This led to Instagram showing me an ad of the “Controllerise” movement in Atlanta! I barely knew how to get around downtown Birmingham so I have no clue what sparked me to travel to a completely different city. I had never traveled anywhere before, let alone by myself. However, in June 2017, I woke up one morning and said, “Ya know what? I’m going to Atlanta today to see this.” The whole day leading up to it, I was waiting for myself to back out almost in disbelief. The time came for when I needed to leave, I was in the car not moving anywhere, but then I went to the gas station to fill up, turned on the GPS, and left. It felt so surreal to me. I got there and was blown away.
New air, new vibrance, and just out of sheer exploration, the vibe was cool! I didn’t feel out of place because it felt like back home! I realized it’s not that scary. I did get homesick immediately though, lol. However, after that one visit, I continued to go for a year almost every time it happened. Imagine just getting introduced to the culture of Lofi and then immediately seeing Controllerise. Then an extremely wild fact popped up out of nowhere. It was around the same time that next year in 2018 that I went, and I saw a post saying that it was their one year anniversary. My jaw literally dropped. When I went there, it felt like they had been doing this since they were born. The vibe was great. People were having fun, dope music producers and DJ’s, video games, I couldn’t believe they were only a year in. It was one of the most massively scaled things I had seen in a minute. I really was just going to experience the fun because there wasn’t something like that back home per say to that scale.
Eventually, they made a statement to me that they had seen me a lot and wondered who I was. We talked for a second and they were really cool people. They asked me did I produce or do anything creative and I told them about my musical history and the Birmingham music scene. They made a notion that I should’ve said something in terms of an opportunity with the show earlier, but I went there to relax honestly and destroy some people in Tekken lol. This led me to tell them that back home, I had started to gain a little more influence with exposing people to the culture of Lofi and the beat scene, but it hadn’t sprouted to where I visioned it yet. It was an odd conversation just because sometimes in today’s time, there’s a concept of people not being the most genuine or “having an agenda” so to speak, but I let them know that that wasn’t the case which is why I never said anything. I asked for some help and to be kept in the loop about what they had going on and they really helped a lot! They even encouraged me to spread the vibes to other places and that they knew I wasn’t trying to steal an idea or something like that. So with that, I started to tell people about them in other places that may not have known, not to any credit of the influence they have of course, they were already massively known already. Eventually, throughout 2017 and 2018 we managed to find other people in the city who were also interested in the culture and we stayed in contact with each other. And with already being a part of the scene, I decided to add a craft to my skill set!
This led me to stop producing for a while and pursue DJing! My DJing career escalated faster than I expected. A creative and friend of mine from college invited me to a show he was hosting at his home venue space and this was my first time really stepping out on my own. I had just put out “From Paul to Lucy” in which I played some beats from at the show and I played some of the Lofi producers’ music that I had come across. Someone who I didn’t know would be really pivotal to my life at the time jumped up while I was playing the beats and let me know he liked them! His artist name is Paco and he’s ½ of the incredible rap duo of TheMonastery with another great artist Charm! Then their manager, Roc, asked me to DJ their show series called “The Basement” and from there it skyrocketed. I eventually met everyone and even got a huge amount of DJ opportunities over the next couple of years.
However, right before their show, I got another DJ opportunity that was earlier than theirs, which was my acrual first DJ gig. The owner of a soon to be opened venue originally called, TheJaybird and later TheFreedomHouse, asked me to DJ for his grand opening! He had taken some time to see what music I was interested in and he loved Lofi and said it would fit the vibe of it. From there, I kept DJing shows and going out to DJ Lofi in the city and “Lofi.Bhm” was born. I felt the name marginalized us to just Lofi, so I changed it to “B-Side.Bhm” to include the entire range of the culture. I eventually began to be the voice of the beat scene and started to focus our efforts on putting the spotlight on producers and I threw my first event, TheProd.Link, on March 29, 2019. At that point, the seed was officially planted and it has grown to be a prominent factor within the creative scene to this day!
I eventually filled out the complete spectrum of my business ThirdCore LLC and ThirdCoreNetwork to what it is today. And with the efforts of all of the people who gave great mentorship, the team and other creatives who make up our entirety, we’ve managed to stay in contact and continue incubating art where we’re from. I know that was a lot, lol but that’s all! Thanks, y’all!
Has it been a smooth road?
Honestly, the smooth and the rough parts were great! It either was a point of harvest or a point where I was tested to become what I needed to be. OF course, they seemed hard at the time, but looking back, it wasn’t that bad. I just was lazy lol.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with ThirdCore – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My company ThirdCore LLC provides a relatable business model to today’s more advanced generation. There is a more relatable level of communication that has to be developed, a more relatable means of business practices, a more relatable means of honesty and genuine principles, and a more relatable business structure. Aside from the services, we’re solving issues that have been commonly presented to us from whatever the source may be. Everyone strives for leadership and ownership and it’s quite different from the era where roles were heavily practiced. In our own way, we still manage to have a similarity to roles. However, we don’t place you within a system, we help you build your system. We operate on memberships or detailed specific contracts.
From my earlier example, take someone who wants to have an Entertainment Service Company or Production Company, but doesn’t have the resources. We provide opportunities and resources to embark on those opportunities with certain stipulations in order to help you develop your business. And at the end, after you’ve legally created your business, you can either take it as far as you want on your own or become a partner within ThirdCoreNetwork in which we incubate clientele for your services. ThirdCoreEntertainment gives the member an opportunity to be within the setting and gain experience in Entertainment Service/Production Company environments. Roles within shows, marketing, DJing, Photography, Videography, Live Sound opportunities, and other various aspects of Entertainment.
ThirdCoreRecords has a business model that helps incubate artists to get where they want to be housed rather than tying them to the label for a set amount of time. We provide the services to help you and then you have the option to stay or you’ve gotten an opportunity within the camp you strived to be in. The stipulations are more on the licensing and publishing side of the products being made.
[B-Side.Bhm] is the community we’ve created around the B-Side of Hip-Hop. Not just the genre, but the back end of the whole process. For example, the artists could be considered more of the front end of the operation, but the producers, managers, engineers, photographers/video specialists, dancers, visual artists, graphic designers, and many other aspects that add value to the operation. We provide opportunities for this community and one of the ways is through our residencies. We go and establish a relationship with the residence and throw shows and get others involved.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
It’s always active and vibrant regardless of the time of day! There’s a lot of inspiration. I haven’t lived there long enough to experience any negatives though honestly.
Contact Info:
- Address: 4816 Terrace M Birmingham, AL
- Website: ThirdCoreNetwork.com
- Phone: 2055419255
- Email: ThirdCoreNetwork@gmail.com
- Instagram: ThirdCoreLLC
- Facebook: ThirdCoreLLC
- Twitter: ThirdCoreLLC
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