Ronald Porter Interview: The Best You'll Ever Read

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Raptalk.Net has an epic interview for you all today. We sat down with the Bay area born and bred, Ronald Porter. Since moving to Atlanta, Georgia, Ronald Porter has stayed true to his roots and is the epitome of an underground artist.

Refusing to sell out to the mainstream, Ronald paints lyrical pictures which ties together the streets and politics. Blending together stories of pain and celebration, Ronald Porter is prepping to release his debut album, "Underground Network" shortly.

Be sure to visit Ronald at his MySpace, www.myspace.com/ronaldporter

Continue reading below to find out anything and everything about the life story of Ronald Porter.

 

Justin: We're right here with Ronald Porter, coming straight up out of Atlanta, Georgia. Let us know how you're doing at this time bro.

Ronald Porter: Man, everything is good. I'm just chilling and enjoying life - trying to make something happen.

Justin: Isn't that the beauty of it all?

Ronald Porter: Yeah, that's real talk.

Justin: Start us off by telling us about growing up in the bay area.

Ronald Porter: I'm originally from the bay area. I was born in Oakland, California but raised in Richmond and Vallejo. I was heavily influenced by bay area culture. The bay area is like a real diverse place. You see a lot of different people and a lot of different things going on. There are a lot of different opinions on different ways of life and things like that. That's a big part of the way I was raised. I saw a lot of diverse things going on. I spent most of time in Richmond. Richmond is a small city like 15 minutes away from Oakland.

It was a situation where there were a lot of our parents and grandparents moved out here after World War 2 to get work. It had a southern feel to it to a certain degree because our grandparents came from the south so you had a heavy southern influence there. Over time from just being in California, everybody just developed their own niche of who they are. It was like a real strong family influence growing up here when I was young.

Just like anywhere else, when the drugs came, it brought the morale down. It created a real hectic situation with a lot of crime, drug activity, homicide and things like that. There were a lot of good times and a lot of bad times. I played sports when I was young; Basketball, Football, Baseball. I had a lot of friends and a lot of good experiences here. It was the first place I fell in love with Hip-Hop, in the bay area.  I'm always gonna' be a west coast dude, a bay area dude. It's where I was raised and spent all my life until I moved out here. Both of my parents are from the bay area. So really until I moved out here, the bay was all I knew. I never really left California at all. That's who I am. As I said, I was in Richmond for the majority of my life.

My mother and father were married, I was there first child. We lived in Richmond until we moved to Vallejo. I was like six years old when my father was killed in an industrial accident eight months after we moved to Vallejo. I was always back and forth between Richmond and Vallejo, but spent of my time in Richmond. I went to school in Richmond. All of my sporting activities were in Richmond. I attended all of my schools in Richmond. All my activities and everything were being based in Richmond.

I saw a lot of criminal activity and I tried to keep my nose clean and do the right thing. Hip-Hop was a real strong influence on me. I fell in love with it. In Central Richmond, we used to go to the market and purchase bootlegs, these little tapes. It would be the original copy of stuff from Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Eric B & Rakim and all of them; that's really when I fell in love with the rap game. That kind of allowed me the ability to avoid the streets. It had me avoid going to the penitentiary and all of the shit, that kind of stuff that was going on due to a lot of crime in my city.

After I was able to get into rapping myself...I wasn't like a lot of rappers I guess as far as how I got into the game. I started off writing poems and short stories. It kind of grew into rap. Being that's what I did while playing basketball through High School, I wasn't a star or anything like that, but that was really my love at that time, until I got into rap at about seven-teen years old. That's when I really took it serious, going to the studio and things like that.

I owe a lot of that to the bay. That's when I fell in love with the game. At that time, when I started rapping, that's when the bay area was really starting to pop with E-40, RBL, Too $hort - all of those dudes were coming out; all of the old school rappers like Digital Underground and I wanna' say Ant Banks. You know all the dudes that laid the groundwork.

When [E-40] and them came out, that really just made me feel like a dude from the bay had a chance to do it. That was my life growing up in the bay area. It's a beautiful place if you get to see it. You see everything from the Cal Berkeley University, to all of the hippies. You can go to East or West Oakland, Richmond, Vallejo - there is a lot of influence of black people in the struggle, Hispanics in the struggle.

You get to see a lot of diversity. It's a real diverse place. You can see a lot there, and I did growing up. It had a heavy influence on the man I am today.

Justin: You were born and bred out there, with it having quite the influence and impact on you. So my question to you is what made you make the move to Atlanta, Georgia?

Ronald Porter: As I was coming up, I had always heard Atlanta was a real prominent place for African-Americans. I had always wanted to see it. They said a lot of black people were down here handling business, being entrepreneurs and making business moves. Being from the bay area, I never really saw black business or a black middle class or upper class; nothing like that. There is not a situation in the bay area where you can go and really see a whole community of black people together where it's like doctors and lawyers, and there black and living together.

It's like that here in Atlanta. I'm not racist or anything like that but I'm black and I do like to see black people on the good side of things, being able to make positive moves because I've seen enough negative stuff growing up.

Maybe this was around the late 90s; I and my wife had talked about going to visit Atlanta. We found out her brother was out there and he talked about how cool it was. This was around the time of the Olympics and there was a lot of money in the city. The way he was describing it to us, it sounded beautiful and like it was all love.

Like I was telling you earlier, my grandparents are from the south. My mother's side is from Arkansas and my father's side is from Louisiana so I've been exposed to the southern hospitality because that's what my roots are. I always wanted to see it. Maybe around 1999, me and my wife came to Atlanta for a vacation to see my brother in-law and when I came down here, I fell in love with it. I loved the hospitality, the food, and the people. It was like a beautiful thing to be able to see.

I saw a lot of progressive black people, doctors, and lawyers and so on. My kids focused on going to school and getting an education. Around the early to mid 90s, the Atlanta Hip-Hop scene had captured my attention because I was listening to a lot of Outkast and Goodie Mob; a lot of that old Dungeon Family. I knew the Hip-Hop scene was popping off.

After the visit when I came back home to the bay, me and my wife basically decided we wanted to make that move. Not even to take in the equation of the cost of living in the bay was crazy. The situation where at that time, in 1999, you might be paying $300,000 for a new house. Somebody down here in Atlanta may have been paying $100,000. It was a total life decision. It was a change of scenery, trying to give my kids a better opportunity to grow as people and have a different aspect of life and being able to see something different. They were able to see some role models.

I'm not a racist as I said, but it's a situation where black kids are able to see black adults and black families moving in a positive direction and doing positive things, it gives them more hope and direction as they grow up. Like I said, I saw that when I got down here. This was around 2003 when we made the decision to make the move. We packed up, got a U-Haul, got the kids ready, packed up the house and hit the road.

We drove through about six or seven states. It took us like six or seven days with the kids and my wife. We got down here and set up. We stayed with my wife's nephew for about eight months to get ourselves on our feet, because we had no jobs ready when we came down here. We had faith in God that we were gonna' be able to make it when we got here. It's been a beautiful thing ever since we've been here. It's beautiful.

My kids have done better in school. It's opened up a lot of opportunity for them. As I said, the southern hospitality is wonderful and it's a great thing. I love it down here in the south. My heart will always be in the bay because that's were all family and the majority of my friends are. For the most part right now being here, this is home to me. It's a great thing to see.

Justin: No doubt. That's a beautiful story of your transition from the bay to Atlanta. Tell us about your strategy of blending the streets and politics through your music.

Ronald Porter: I was born in the 70s.The Hip-Hop I was raised on was a mix of the streets and the politics. That's really what I was raised on as far as the Hip-Hop went. All of the artists that I was into when I really started listening to Hip-Hop... I would say I really started listening to Hip-Hop around the time of Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Rakim and artists like that. That's when I really first started listening to it.

What I was listening to at that time, it had a street vibe because Hip-Hop came from the streets. The environment that I was in, not that I'm a thugged out dude because I never claimed to be a street dude or a drug kingpin or none of that, but the environment I was raised in was a street environment. Therefore, the music I was listening to was street music. Hip-Hop or rap or whatever you wanna' call it, its street music for the people in the streets.

The music I was listening to had that influence in it. As time went on, we started listening to the Geto Boyz and NWA, a lot of other...they may call it "gangster rap." Ice-T, all of that heavy street influence. But at the same time, there was a certain political aspect to it also coming from the street artists. You also had a straight up political aspect that I was raised on as well. We used to listen to a lot of Public Enemy, X-Clan, BDP, people that really had the social-political reality aspect to it.

For me, the rap is reality, from all different aspects. That's what I pull from it because that's what I was raised on. That's what drew me to the music. I was able to hear more-so the street side of it first because that's what I was seeing growing up in the bay. If somebody was talking about drugs and shootings and stuff like that, that's something that I saw. I know somebody that got shot, or my cousin sells drugs or something like that. I've seen that. That's the first thing that I got into it. At the same time, the dudes that were rapping cool like Big Daddy Kane or something, one of my big cousins may be like cool like Kane - just the way they carry themselves and their whole style. That drew me to it.

When political rap came along, that was something in my early teens when I really started to understand it and what they were putting into it. I'm talking about the added parts that I didn't really understand when I was young because I didn't have the exposure to political things that were going on. Going to school and stuff, they teach you about Martin Luther King and a little bit about the civil rights aspect from when you're young. When there teaching you that, you're not really paying attention to what's really going on. You're just going to school and listening to what the teacher said. You're not really digesting what was going on.

I feel like when I was four-teen; I was a basketball player as I told you earlier. We began to be mentored by two guys: Calvin Andrews and Marco Marello. They were former students at the High School I went to. They had started a program called scholar athletes and Marco Marello was really into the Islam religion at that time; not the nation of Islam, but more like Orthodox Islam. He was really into black culture and politics. He really took a lot of time sharing his beliefs with us and exposing us to a lot of political things that really opened our eyes. He was the first person to give me the autobiography of Malcolm X to read. He exposed me to something different than what I had known.

Growing up, I really only knew about what they taught me in school like Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver. Black History month at the school, they'd put these pictures up and show you what these black people had done, this and that. That's really all I knew. He [Marco Marello] exposed me to the other sides of it like Malcolm X and more details about the Black Panthers. My uncle was a Black Panther back in the day but I didn't really have a full understanding of what was going on with them and what they were doing. But when I got hooked up with this guy [Marello] and he was like a mentor to me, it really opened my eyes to that aspect of it.

He would take me to different Hip-Hop shows. He took me to see KRS-One. We would go hear different scholars speak and professors. It just really tightened up my game as far as politics and what goes on in the government. It really opened up my eyes to a lot of things.

At that point, that's around the same time that Public Enemy was making a serious splash in Hip-Hop. It then broke out from NWA and was really into politics. Almost every rapper that was coming out had some sort of political song on their album at that time. You couldn't really listen to a tape without getting some kind of political game. That's what was going on.

I'm from the bay area so it's a political place. Even now, the people in Oakland rally together and stand up for what they believe is right. That's a big thing in the bay. Go to Berkeley, whether it's a Hippie, they may feel like George W. Bush got down with this business with the war or whatever. You may get out there on these streets and be in University. You may protest what's going on. It was brought up here tat way. That's the way that I was raised.

I think that the streets and politics are such a far separation right now that they gotta' be brought together because people in the streets don't understand politics. That's part of the reason why you don't see a lot of progression in getting out of the streets. A lot of people don't understand that the position that there in is in a direct relation to the choices they made. They don't understand there's something bigger than them. They don't really have a full view of it, and they don't understand it.

What I try to do is take whatever knowledge or understanding, and I'm not the smartest dude in the world or the highest authority on politics or anything like that, but I'm a man. I live in this world and I have kids. I look at the politics to try and get an understanding of what's going on right now, how to fix me and my family. I see what's out there for my children's future and things like that. I try to blend it together because I wanna' be able to share my view. I don't wanna' force my view on anybody, not to push it down their throats or anything like that, but just to put it out there. It may give somebody something to think about.

That's a big part that the music is missing. The music used to be the news. It was the underground news. Rap was like CNN for everybody, and it was uncut though. It wasn't a sugar-coated or watered down thing - it was pure. It was coming from every direction. I was in Richmond growing up and listening to Hip-Hop, I was getting the politics and the streets mixed together. I would listen to the Geto Boyz and know what's going on in Houston, Texas. If I was listening to Public Enemy, I knew what was going on in New York. When I listened to Outkast or Goodie Mob, they were telling me what was going on in Atlanta. That's the way that it was. We were all sharing information. We had a distinct flow, distinct perspective and a distinct experience. It was sharing through the music. It showed us what was going on.

At the same time, I'd be in the bay listening to it and it's funny, my situation was not exactly the same but it was really similar, what was going on here. That's what the political and the street mixture is for me. I wanted to keep it as a form of communication to where we're all able to communicate and gain an understanding.

I think for me, honestly, Hip-Hop was a teacher for me. I learned a lot of things that I was ignorant to that I gained out of the music. My father died when I was six. A lot of my influences as far as male influences came from members of my family, but a lot of that was coming from the music. It was teaching me. It's like I was in a classroom and at some point, KRS-One was my teacher. At another point, Chuck D was my teacher. At another stage, Ice Cube was my teacher, or Scarface was my teacher. That's what it was for me.

It was like that for a lot of dudes my age because, as soon as a tape would come, somebody would run down to the record store and get that tape. You would cut school to go get that tape, come back to school with the tape and we were working with a walkman at that time. Everyone was going to take a listen to see what was going on. We would all share the headphones trying to listen to what the news update was. Let's see what Scarface says. When that first [Scar] Face came out, somebody would go get that tape and come back the school, we'd listen to it and try to see what was going on in Houston, the 5th ward. That's the way it was for us.

When 2Pac came out or somebody like that, everybody was trying to really see what was going on. The game was being really broken down and shared at that time. They talk about the golden age of Hip-Hop, that's what was. It was a lot of information being shared and communication going on. A lot of that was going on. I'm a product of that era.

Just because what the mainstream says what's popping right now, that doesn't stop me from being me. I'm one of those people that will change as far as growing, but I'm not gonna' change because I'm trying to keep up with the Jones'. This dude may be talking this and what's hot has this swagger or something like that, but no, that's not the way I am. I'm Ronald Porter from when I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night.

That phase of my life helped shape the man that I am now. I'm carrying on that. I felt that was my responsibility because those dudes gave that to me and for me to be in the spot that I'm in right now, and I'm not talking from a Hip-Hop perspective, being an artist or nothing like that - I'm talking about being a man who stands up and is respectable and trying to be a positive influence to my community and to my family. A lot of that comes from that music. People talk about it being all negative what Hip-Hop does and the effects it has on people, the community and all of that.

I'm a living testament to being able to say that the music is good. I learned a lot. Those dudes were my teachers. They laced me up on a whole new level. They had me thinking on a higher level, being able to see things for real. That's the streets and politics together, opened my eyes to a lot of things that was going on. That was the voice of the people. You have to let the people be heard. I speak for the people.

I don't really see any other way to do it but to bring the streets and the politics together. That's who I am. Like I told you earlier, I'm no thug, no gangsta, no goon - none of that. I'm just a average, everyday man trying to make it through this struggle. I make reality music. I'm just sharing with you my reality. In reality being a black man in America, there's a very thin line between the streets and the politics.  I'm just trying to share my opinion of it. I don't know any other way to do it.

Justin: You received quite the pat on the back from a highly regarded source, Leila Steinberg, the manager of the late great, 2Pac. To put it in exact words, she said that you are "industry ready." What do you think she meant by that and how did it feel to receive that co-sign?

Ronald Porter: I think what she meant was, she told me the music I had at the time...and this was around ten years ago. It was just a situation that, I think she said that, a lot of times when I was younger and making music, it was a situation where you might take your music to somebody that was in the industry and they'd give you feedback. They would make logic of what the people were looking for, and what the industry was looking for. At that time, I had already been doing this for at least seven years.

Early on when I first started, I was in a group called Society's Creation. This was back around the time when I was 19. We had been through a bumpy road as far as; I guess everybody goes through it with a couple of people.  They were trying to give us an industry tutorial or whatever it is. We had already been through that and I think it was just because I had been through that so early on, I already knew what to do.

The other thing was, I wasn't trying to make music I felt the music industry was doing. I was more-so making music, and I still do, I don't make my music to what I think the radio is gonna' like or what I think is quote on quote, "hot" in the industry at this time. I make it from what I feel in my heart or if there's a certain topic I wanna' touch on, I touch on it.

I think that's what she [Leila Steinberg] was saying. The music was well-rounded. It was like a full 360 from a musical standpoint as far as the beats. The beats were on a professional level. Not to toot my own horn or anything like that, but the lyrics, flow, subject matter and all that was on a professional level. Just my experience as far as what I had been through in the industry, it was ready to go. What I was offering to the public was already made.

 It wasn't a situation where I was baking a cake. I didn't have an instant cake mix. I had a product that had been hand made. I put all of the ingredients together to bake that cake. I had been putting ingredients in for years. Finally, we had the right mix and the right recipe; the flavor is good and the time it took to bake was right. The icing was on the cake, everything is ready to go.

That's what I take from what she was saying at the time. The way I felt at the time was, I mean, she had worked with Pac. Depending on who you're talking to, Pac may rank anywhere between 1-5. I felt like if this lady, who was this up close and personal with Pac, feels that I'm industry ready, and then it means a lot to me. Whether it's coming from somebody else or even me, Pac ranks in my top 5. She [Leila Steinberg] can recognize what's ready and what's not with her experience.

For me, it was like that was it. Somebody gave me the OK to say I'm ready to go. I accepted it like a stamp of approval saying I was there. It gave me the frame of mind and the way I felt at that time, all I really needed was for somebody to look at it; somebody to recognize what I was doing. It just put me in a position where the rest of the world knew that I was industry ready (laughs).

I think that was the biggest thing and still now, that's the biggest issue which is that I feel I'm the best kept secret. I'm the top secret information. It's not I'm not here and not prepared to do what I gotta' do, it's more of a situation where nobody knows that I'm here. That's the biggest issue I'm working on right now. I gotta' make sure everybody knows that I'm here. That's where I am right now.

That's really what I got from Leila. You really are ready; it's just that nobody knows that you're here. That's the way I feel.

Justin: That's a great answer right there and plays well into my next question. You're talking about being ready and whether people realize that or not. Tell us about your upcoming album, "The Underground Network."

Ronald Porter: "The Underground Network", I'm trying to describe it.  The title has two meanings to it. The first meaning being like a TV network or something like that. Everybody gets into media propaganda and how the news is watered down and stuff like that. The topic of this right here is, me giving you something that is completely pure. There's no sugar coating. Nothing is watered down. You get what you see. Nothing or nobody told me how I should make it, or the way they feel it should be portrayed to a demographic. It has none of that.

I feel like I'm an artist. When I get on that mic or come up with these rhymes, that is my artistry. I'm trying to put it on the canvas. This record is my vehicle; it was my canvas to do it. It's just a pure version of Hip-Hop.

The other meaning of it is, it was a way to communicate with the people. That is how I originally viewed Hip-Hop, as I told you earlier. It was a means of communication from area to area, and person to person. It was also "The Underground Network", I was networking and I've never had a major label contract or anything like that. What I do, I've always viewed it as being purely underground. I wasn't projected on the big screen.

I had to bring you to people myself. I don't have a problem with that at all. It's kind of like where I feel fit; in that underground where I'm not asked to fit into this box. I feel like with a lot of artists who get to a mainstream level, they have this box where they put you in for the major players and label expectations. The majors want a certain kind of song. They give you a certain format. Each song has to be a certain length. They want to hear you with certain guest appearances, this producer has to come in and make a track. This R&B singer has to be on the hook. It was nothing like that. This is my own recipe.

This is totally unorthodox to what the status quo is right now. I felt like I'm underground but at the same time, I don't think that me being underground doesn't mean that I can't reach a mainstream audience. It's just that the formula that I use, it's a pure underground formula. I think it's universal. It's a universal language. I communicate with people in other cultures and different countries. Thank God for the internet for being a vehicle to out myself in a position to do that.

When people are able to hear the music that I'm doing, the feedback that I get allows me to understand even in an underground setting, it's global. It's accepted and I'm a nobody. I am underground; nobody knows who I am. At the same time, when it's... and I don't say a Hip-Hop lover, a pure music lover can listen to my music and feel it.

That's the most important thing. Music in a lot of ways when done right, it's like the voice of God. It touches people's souls on that level where somebody could be down and going through something, I don't if this has ever happened to you, but there could be a period in your life where you have hardships or things aren't going the way that you want them to go, and there's a song that fixes that time.

When I put that music out there, I wanna' be able to offer that kind of feeling. I want my music to be timeless. Somebody can listen to something and it may be something you were going through however many years ago, but a certain song was your therapy. At that time, and I'm not saying if it was a positive or negative time. It may be the best period of your life, and you had a song at that time that was your theme music. It may have been a bad time and that song was your therapy or encouragement. That's what I try to give them.

This "Underground Network", I think is a beautiful album. It's been a long time coming. It contains a lot of my thoughts, a lot of my love and a lot of my pain. It's like a full manifestation of the man that I man. If somebody listens to that record, they'll get a pretty good idea of who Ronald Porter is. That's how I wanna' present myself to the public at this time so they can get a full dose of who I am, and the main thing that I try to present in my music overall.

I wanna' be the realest person that anybody knows. It's a situation where if somebody knows Ronald Porter, they may not say that dude is the richest dude I know, or he's the flossiest, or he has the most swagger, or he's the smartest, or he's the most thugged out - it's none of that. That's not what I'm aiming for. I don't want females to say he's the sexiest dude; none of that.

 I wanna' be the realest motherfucker to come out. This is in all different levels of life. I'm talking about for the people that know me, my friends and family. From there experience, to be able to think if you ask them, "man who's the realest motherfucker?" that dude Ronald Porter. Even if it's a complete stranger on a day to day basis, that I may come in contact with. If you were to come back to them later and show them a picture of me, they look at it say, "oh yeah I remember that guy; we had a real good conversation, our interaction was real."

If it's somebody that is listening to my music, I want them to be able to say "man that music I heard was the realest shit I heard in four-teen years." That's the way I wanna' present myself. I hope that's what people see from me fully, from every aspect of my life.

That's what I represent. "The Underground Network" is a reflection of that.

Justin: I definitely feel that and will be kept up to date on the album. To follow up on that, does the album have a tentative release date? How will the fans be able to get a hold of the album?

Ronald Porter: Right now, the release date is open because I have a lot of things in the fire that I'm working on. I wanna' be able to serve this project on the right setting. I want it to be arranged correctly due to the time and work that I put in. The producers that I worked with and everything, I want it to be put in the right setting so that I can reach some of those people.

Right now, I'm working on the exposure. I'm trying to get into the right situation as far as how it'll be distributed, how it's marketed and everything like that. Things are wide open. I'm trying to make sure things line up correctly.

I want it to be big. When I say big, I don't mean I wanna' sell 8 million copies the first day. I don't mean it like that. I mean it on a worldwide tip. I want a view from anybody, anywhere. I want everybody to be able to get a chance to see it. I want them to make a decision to where there at least allowed the chance to listen to some of the songs. It's their choice if they purchase it. I wanna' put it on that level. That's what I'm working towards.

I'm on a global grind. I can't be categorized. I don't fit into a box. I'm bigger than a box. That's the way I want my project to be. I wanna' be able to touch everybody and allow them the opportunity to decide if they heard two songs, if they wanna' purchase Ronald Porter.  That's what I'm trying to get to. I want the correct things, I want everything to be perfect. I'm still working on that right now.

As far as a release date, I'll be providing consistent updates. My EP, "The Campaign" can be checked out now on my MySpace page which is www.myspace.com/ronaldporter. There are some songs on there. Some of the songs may go onto "The Underground Network." They can always keep up with me on www.myspace.com/ronaldporter. When "The Underground Network" is ready to be put out there, all of that information will be on the page. They can always go there to see what's going on, to keep up with me.

You can also check me out on Facebook. I'll be continuing to let everybody know what's going on with it. Like I told you, I make music for the people. I don't look at it like it's a star-fan relationship.

 I'm not a star. I'm Ronald Porter. One of my favorite lines is from a Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew song, "the only stars I know was in the sky." That's the way that I look at myself. There is a mutual respect. I'm just an artist putting out a product. The people that fuck with what I do, there doing me a favor by taking the time to listen to the music that I make. If they choose to make a purchase, then there contributing basically to a starving artist. They'd be helping me to continue my artistry.

I thank God for anybody, regardless of who they are. I don't look at people in different respects. Whether it's the CEO of a major company or just a garbage man, everybody is the same, as long as there taking the time to listen to the music and appreciate it for what it's worth. That's the way I look at it. I want all the people who listen to my music, I don't believe in fans. We're all equal. We're all in our lane.

This music is my lane. It doesn't make me any better than somebody that's a janitor, cook, lawyer or doctor. Whatever you love to do, if you're doing it for fulfillment, then you're carrying out your purpose. I feel that's what I'm doing. For anyone who appreciates what I'm doing, keep an eye on me through www.myspace.com/ronaldporter and all of the updates will be there.

Justin: Ok, no doubt. You're taking about that worldwide exposure and marketing yourself, not so much record sales but reaching an appreciative audience. Right now, what's the label situation like?

Ronald Porter: right now, I'm part of a label. It's an indie label. We don't have distribution or anything like that. It's a pure indie situation. We're trying to secure distribution. The label is Legendary Music and it's based out here in Atlanta. My producers are the people over at the label. That's DJ LV and Sim.

They contributed to a lot of the tracks that are on "The Underground Network", and also "The Campaign" EP. There label is trying to find a strong support system to bring to the table. Right now, we're open to all offers. Our eyes and ears are wide open looking for the best scenario for not just this project, but for the long term. I'm looking for a place that I can call home as far as on a musical level, to be able to build on.

I'm not looking for overnight success or 15 minutes of fame. I've been doing this for 17 years. I'm in it for the long run. I'm looking for somewhere I could be with some good people that love and appreciate and music, and can help me max out my potential. I'm a deep thinker. I spend a lot of time in my own mind. The way that I think is on a universal level so I'm looking for a company with a strong global outreach. I'm not aiming to be limited to being an American artist. I'm looking for a musical breakthrough.

I wanna' do things that have never been before, across all boards. I don't wanna' be limited. I wanna' work with people that a have a very broad, wide open range company and is looking to do something on a major level.

As I said, the label situation is Legendary Music right now. It's a wide open stage. Anything is possible. We're fielding all offers, listening to everything and are willing to work with anybody and everybody on everything. That's the situation right now.

Justin: Ok, no doubt. We hope it goes well for the label. I want to thank you for your time Ronald. I really appreciate it, we definitely wish you the best of luck with "The Underground Network" album, and will certainly be kept up to date with the project. Do you have any last words or additional statements for the interview before I let you go?

Ronald Porter: First thing, I would really like to thank you personally for taking the time and putting forth the interest to talk to me. I'd like to thank anyone who reads this interview. I wanna' thank my publicist for connecting me with you. They've always opened doors for me I didn't imagine they could open. I wanna' thank them a lot. I wanna' let everybody know that anything is possible. I've been working on this for years and I had my faith in God. I'm starting to see some things happening.

I wanna' thank anybody and everybody world wide that has ever listened to my music, or the group I was in, Society's Creation for taking the time to listen to their music. I appreciate every listener, everybody who takes time to appreciate real music; especially Hip-Hop. I wanna' thank everybody in Atlanta for welcoming me and showing me love here; everybody in the bay area, especially in the city of Richmond, California - God bless Richmond, California.

Thanks to my family and all of the artists I've worked with. I want everybody to look out for my brother from another mother that's in this music game, D. Ross from Richmond, California. Also look out for T-Spade out in Vegas; Lil Cali that is up in Washington. One of my closest friends from Richmond, California who does a radio broadcast online who always tries to put me onto something new. They broadcast from Richmond, California all the way to Paris, France.

Like I said, I'm really thankful. Thank you to anybody who's ever lent me a helping hand. I'm just trying to push on, keep on stepping and make it happen. The music should be coming to everybody; I want everybody to listen to it whether you like it or agree with it. I'll leave that to your decisions. With God, hopefully I can get the music out there to everybody. That's it.

 

To learn more about Ronald Porter, visit him on MySpace at www.myspace.com/ronaldporter

[MontrealCity's Most]

Props on the interview Luna, Porter got some doooope shit!!! be on the look out real soon!

[Adriano]

props

[D-Nice]

Props on the interview Luna, Porter got some doooope shit!!! be on the look out real soon!

[Lunatic]

Thanks to all 3 of U!