ALL AMERICAN SHOOTER 2
2020 was a busy year for Chris Lockett, head of Mouthpiece Society Entertainment. He released 2 full length LPs- Freedom Isn’t Free and Covid 19 all while maintaining a successful label and media presence.
How’d those 2 records do for you?
Streaming wise, Freedom Isn’t Free was one of my best streaming albums. 170K streams. Covid 19 did about 90K streams. Really with no promotion, I kind of just put them up and on Instagram, things of that nature. Those projects opened my eyes and made me want to do things a little different. Marketing and promotion is very important. I did have some promotion cause I did go to 1 World. So I can say I seen a lot of that growth in the streams and things of that nature, I believe comes from the Magazine circulating. Most of my projects top out at about 75K. But they did real well and real quick. I see the stretch marks.
What’s your new strategy going forward in 2021?
Utilize all my resources. I’m finally in a position where I don’t have to rush anything. I can throw a bunch of fishing poles in and react to them as they start hitting. So my goal is to have like 7-8 of them lines hitting at one time. And like I said utilize my resources. Do a lot more listening and just reaching out to people who’ve been a little further and even getting opinions from different artists who’d done had hits already or just look like they doing a little better, they streams, things of that nature. If you see something I need to tighten up on, I’m all ears.
You are now about to drop the biggest album of your career, tell us all about it. All American Shooter 2. The first disc is titled The American Way- Rob, Steal & Kill. The second disc is titled The Life & Times Of Lt. Rell.
This disc is one of my best bodies of work. My most personal bodies of work. This body of work I was having fun with it. Cause I really enjoyed making the first All American Shooter and it’s one of my best albums but financially I wasn’t where I needed to be to push that album over the edge. But this time I was and it showed. Like the long list of features. The 6-7 videos I already got in the chamber. It’s a double disc, 20 tracks on each one. I’m showing my ass for the Lt. I’m showing my ass for East Oakland. I’m showing my ass for Sobrante Park. I’m showing my ass for anybody who believed in they self and didn’t get the response that they wanted at that time. But you keep believing in yourself and it’ll come together. It’s just like a puzzle. When I was young, we played with puzzles. The bigger puzzles had like 2000 pieces. You’ll be a fool to think you bout to put that puzzle together in an hour. Some puzzles was faster than others but the best puzzles took a little time. Maybe a couple of weeks. But when you was done, you was proud of yourself. It was a big accomplishment. Some of our careers be like that. Some people may pop off with the first piece they put down. Other people may need to hang around a little bit longer, but as long as you get it right at the end is the only thing that makes sense to me.
Again your wisdom pops out in all situations like you described. Especially in your raps. You coming from Oakland I imagine that’s a lot of the fuel for your fire on the mic?
What else fuels you to be so relentless on the microphone? Knowledge, life experience and my foundation. Sometimes with the Rap it’s like you get a person’s ear. You know I’m hardcore, so I target the people that are like minded, that have thought like me before. Been in some of the complications, situations. I try to let them know I been there already and I figured this puzzle out.
How do you plan to keep it growing?
My goal is to stay consistent. I don’t want to waste no money. This may be the last album. When I say album I mean going to the studio and record. I got tons of music but I want to open up some untapped avenues. I want to do some things that nobody else is thinking about doing.
Anything else you would like to say in this interview?
For the fans. My goal has always been to supply the people that believe in or listen to Chris Lockett with unadulterated good street music. Cause I come from the street. But over a coarse of time you might outgrow the streets. That’s the way I feel now cause things that we took serious back in the day people don’t take serious no more. We got the streets done transitioned over into the internet. Recently I had some internet antics. Meaning I was going back and forth with another individual on the internet. I don’t believe that was a proper or positive display of energy for the people that listen to me. So when I went through what I was going through and I was briefed that my big homies…saying, you can’t move like that. Cause if they getting calls and they got to explain why I’m doing this and they knew nothing about me doing it, it’s not a good look. I could get cut off on certain avenues, things of that nature. So that’s whY I made the apology to East Oakland. I made the apology to my colleagues. And also made the apology to Phil. It wasn’t so much about what I did or didn’t do. It was about the way I went about it. Because I believe that men should conduct theyselves as men. Meaning if I’m tripping on you Cesar. I bang your line, pull up on me. Let’s have a word. Or you call me to your office. The only world I’m really concerned about is the world that I exist in. That was some personal shit that spilled over into the internet world. And when I started getting a backlash, the fans, the people. They calling me names, they saying crazy thangs. They don’t know me, from there I probably do look like a hater. But the people that know me. Like you just said “You a humble person”, I’m chill. I’m the type of person, you could step on my shoe probably 2 or 3 times before you get the reaction you’re looking for. Because I have experienced so much of life, it’s just like I’m blessed to be here. So I’m a be like maybe bro, he clumsy. When it becomes blatant, you got an angle and that’s when shit get exploded, things like what happened with the antics. It wasn’t antics with me because in my mind I was speaking my truth. Maybe I had a set of expectations on Bruh to just say a few things and acknowledge wrong doings. It didn’t work out like that.
“Utilize all my resources. I’m finally in a position where I don’t have to rush anything. I can throw a bunch of fishing poles in and react to them as they start hitting.”
– Chris Lockett
IG @Kevinlocketlilbrother
Story & Photo By Mr Ceza