Posts tagged life

This is just a carry-over story that was on my older site design to let you guys read about how my actual site and company started. Enjoy if you can!

I dont want to make my about page be some totally professional way of how we started yet just a small summarized journal of the begining of the company to now where we stand in our company. Whenever I refer to it as “we” and “our”, im really meaning my computer and I. I started the comapny with the name ‘337 Screw Studios’ because my area code where im from is 337 (Rayne, Louisiana) and upside down it is my middle name which is Lee. Also, screw, is known as the stye of Djing very popular down south where I am from in which you take music and slow its playing speed down.

I quickly produced a first album full of freestyles of me and friends from the neighborhood which I called “337 Screw – Screw Up The World”. And gave that album out to friends and got more friends interested in doing the rap thing and making music with me. We started as a group of friends : Joseph Presley, Chad Presley, Jason Goodwin, Micheal Brousard and a few others guest appearing on our second album in which was called “Dem Boys – Where Da Hoes?”. It was full of tons of comedy placed tracks with most of us just freestyling on the microphone and acting up. We never really released it out anywhere and decided to just give it out to friends and people who seemed to like it. I didn’t really take it very seriously but I did know that one day I would take things to a further level.

I was using my parents computer to produce the first album and after that I just quit for a while. I ended up having to join the service because of problems with life back home and not going anywhere! So I signed up for the Air Force and left my home town. As soon as I got to tech school I started planning my next mission which was to really get the studio going, get my own computers and start writing songs for me and others. I knew that I would be pretty hard to stay with the same group of people from back home because everyone was really going in their own directions and it was getting hard to keep track with everyone.

After Basic Training and Technical School for the Air Force, I came to my first duty station which is in Sumter, South Carolina. My job in the military is a Structural Apprentice which is a Carpenter/Welder, not really my cup of tea but I choose that because it is what I did before the service and I felt it would be easy. It was pretty easy but I was getting tired of it as soon as I started it. I came across another guy named Steven Price which was in the service and wanted to play around in music. The way I met him was actually a friend I grew up with back home was already in the military a year before me and stationed here. His name is Erick Mire. He introduced me to him because they stayed in the same dorm area. I started 337 Screw Studios back up and created a small website on the internet.

I got a few people from around the base to come and get in on a album and came out with the next 337 Screw album which was called “Carolina Pines Boys” and was just like our second album of friends from back home. A bunch of freestyle tracks that was basically just comedy tracks in which some songs I mimiced Eminem to get people laughing. Nothing serious but it still raised enough eyebrows for me to give it more tries at it. I decided to try a solo album once I finally got my first computer setup in my dorm room in the military. I came across a really good rapper from Virginia that went as KDuBB and another guy from New Jersey that goes by Cee. I started working on producing tons of tracks which would later become part of my first try at a solo album which is called “Sketta Lee – Getting What I Want”.

At about the same time I started getting into graphic design and was working on my own flyers and album covers to help to promote the new group of 337 Screw which was now KDuBB, Cee & I. I started handing out my first solo album at Myrtle Beach and in the local area just to see how people would like it as I was still recording tracks to do a solo album for both KDuBB & Cee. At the same time I felt that I wanted to start making money doing music and knowing that my music is so new and not many people know of it yet, I started doing my own DJing on the computer and doing some mixtapes with a mix of our tracks and other already well known musicians in the industry. I cam out with Cap’n'Crunch Chop Mix (Episode 1) then Bike Week 2k2 (Episode 2) and also Bike Week 2k3. All 3 albums made a decent amount of money just as extra cash while still in the serivce. It also got some of our songs out there and let people know who we were more.

I got better at doing graphic design and started getting clients to want covers. I started the business up on the website and started to get more and more cash in. People also was wanting a website and I was already good at doing that so I started charging people for websites. I did quite alot of websites and graphic designs and decided to give up on websites cause it was beginning to take away from the music I wanted to create. Through that time I gained alot of contacts and met tons of rappers from all over the US and got a few features on various tracks. After about a year of that, I had enough songs to have another solo album from me. At the same time, Cee got stationed overseas so I never really heard from him again much. And KDuBB got into a big accident which made him very religious and changed his raps to be all for the lord. As a matter of fact, we are working on a deal to actually produce another album from KDuBB in which he will do all christian rap. (No actual word yet on if that will happen or not).

I put my second solo album (Sketta lee – Made For It) for free download on the internet and sent out copies to people and also at a local barber shop in Sumter called Precission Cuts. It did the best out of all of my albums and got alot of recognition. At about that time I really started getting into video editing and started to work with a guy in the air force that did video editing named Joshua Jasso. I already knew a decent deal about video from playing with it as a kid but learned a whole lot more from Josh. We got together and started to produce small skits, music videos and interviews. Then I got out on my own and started producing videos for others like memorial videos and weddings for friends. I then realized that if im gonna learn this, might as well also do it in the military. So I applied to cross train into Videography in the air force and that was acccepted. As of now Im waiting for January 2005 to start technical school for videography work and start doing that in the service now.

A small distribution group named Bounce Logic Media picked up on my 2nd solo album (Made For It) and really liked how it was made and most of the songs on it. They wanted to try releasing it in their distribution line of mom & pop stores throughout Louisiana & Texas. I allowed them to do it and currently right now there isn’t a status on how it has done yet.

That is pretty much where we stand in 337 Design Studios. I hope to help you out in a graphic design, song or even a music video or movie. We are expanding everything and are planning to begin work on Music Videos, Movies, Commercials and tons of graphic designs. So please be on the look out for everything to come from 337 Studios. Thanks!