Monday, August 21, 2006

King of Chicago

By Blair Lovern

Congrats to Dallas rapper Dura Hale, who won the Midwest leg of the Independent Music World Series this past Thursday. He beat out more than 1,100 submitted groups in that division.

This year, the IMWS scheduled showcases in the West (Los Angeles, won by Rose's Pawn Shop), Midwest (Chicago, won by Dura Hale), Southeast (Atlanta - finals September 21) and Northeast (Philadelphia - finals October 26). And that's the end of the line for the competition - no finals among regional winners.

Matt Aslanian, who does PR and marketing for Hale's current label, Wreck Tha Mic Records, said an A&R representative from Epic flew from New York to see Hale in Chicago.

"He's been pulling for Dura for a while now," Aslanian said. "He was pretty impressed and said he felt pretty strongly that something will happen soon for us."

Hale sang a medley of several songs backed by a full band.

"We were up against a lot of different types of music, and especially these jazz fusion guys who were just amazing," Aslanian said. "I think what Dura had to offer musically was the most appealing to the widest range of audiences. He had the full band up there, and we were joking around that we just took the stage like a wild group of wild Texans. We had keyboards, background vocals, guitars, bass and everyone looked like they were having a good time and whole performance just went off so well."

A list of semi-finalists from each region was sent to the offices of Billboard Magazine in New York City. About 120 semifinalists made it to Chicago, including singer/songwriter Becky Middleton. From that list, editors chose six acts to play each showcase. Entries were judges on songwriting, overall vibe, musical performance, vocal/Lead instrument performance and originality. "Genre and production quality are not a factor," states the IMWS rules.

The Independent Music World Series is, according to the IMWS site, "the only independent music event that exposes musicians from every genre to music industry participants using impartial judging criteria and a live showcase finale. This isn't a popularity contest. Our goal is to discover and reward the best independent artists in the country.

"The IMWS began in 1995 with a showcase featuring six artists at The Lion's Den in New York City. Since then we've hosted over 200 independent acts in 10 cities around the U.S. and we've awarded over $1,500,000 in prizes."

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