Featured Artist Of The Week: Mike Brown

Name: Mike Brownyard Stage Name: "Mike Brown" Age: 23 turning 24 on January 5 From: Rochester, NY Lives: Cleveland, OH Background: 1/2 of Hip-Hop Duo BEDROC Twitter and IG: @MikeBrownBR What are your hobbies? I spend a lot of my time working on music, from creating and recording it to marketing and promoting it. I'm also one half of a duo called BEDROC. Me and my homie ML have been working together since we were 12. So, I like to learn all the aspects of the business and it also keeps me busy. Any free time I have I like to spend with my family and friends of mine because people are what matter most to me. You can't really put a price on spending time with your closest people. Who are your music influences? Musically my influences range from Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake to Kanye West and J. Cole. I really fuck with Miguel, Mac Miller and anyone who can produce and rap or sing well. It's not easy to have all of the traits and do them arguably better than everyone else in the game. I appreciate all artists truly grinding, but I'm a fan of versatility and consistency. Like Justin Timberlake is incredibly successful in both acting and music. If you think about it, that's like someone being a star NBA player and a great MLB player, at the same time. That shit is hard to do. Not saying I don't like recording artists better, I am just influenced by those who hold many talents. Who do you want to work with (locally and national)? Well I can only comment on what I know. I do know there is a lot of dope talent and artists that I just have not heard of yet. Talent is everywhere. Locally, we work with some really dope cats though. The homies Fat Chris, Gam, Blok Head and Mellow are real diamonds in the rough in Cleveland in my opinion. But, I would love to work with Freeze Tag, Dope Kulture, and Clockwork. In my opinion, there are way more better artists in the genre of rap that I'm not apart of. So, even though I don't make that style of music, I listen to a lot of local cats like Tezo, Kipp Stone, Boss Lucci, Billard, and some others. Nationally, I would love to work with Cudi and Chip, any of the Bone Thugz, but I do listen to MGK and Ray Jr. as well. What would you like to tell the readers? My first single ever, "ROC BOY" will be available for free download on January 5, which is also my 24th birthday. It will be available HERE on imfromcleveland.com. My EP "Gray Area" will be out April 2014. Go follow @BEDROCMUSIC and be on the look out for our crazy dope projects "Love Stoned" and "Life's Good" coming this year in 2014. Also, check out the new high school football movie UNDERDOGS that I was in with Natalie Imburglia, Joe Namath, and D.B. Sweeney available on DirecTV, Movies onDemand, and iTunes. BEDROC's song "No Sleep" is on the soundtrack and in the movie as well.