Back in April OurStage, Radio One and Sony Music joined forces to bring you the “Roc The Mic So You Can Get it All” competition with Bow Wow. Artists from the Hip Hop Channel submitted their original songs to compete for a chance to see Bow Wow in concert in New York City and to meet with him and Columbia Marketing Executives from Sony Music after the show. One lucky fan voter was also selected at random to receive concert tickets and have a meet and greet with Bow Wow. Unfortunately, Bow Wow parted ways with Sony Music in the middle of the competition and was unable to select and meet with the winners.

CAUSE

Not one to disappoint, Sony Music decided to honor the fans’ top choice in the competition by selecting up-and-coming Bronx MC, CAUSE, as the artist winner. CAUSE will meet with Columbia Marketing executives to get valuable industry feedback. And since he didn’t want to let a fellow artist down, Bow Wow will help CAUSE on the promotional front.

OurStage’s Jay Schneider was able to sit down and have a chat with CAUSE about his work after informing him of his win:

JAY: How do you think meeting with the executives from Columbia is going to help you?

CAUSE: First of all, I appreciate the opportunity from OurStage. I think this could potentially really help; anytime you get a chance to meet executives and people who are really influential in the industry—even if they’re not there to sign you—you can always take away a valuable piece of advice.

JAY: You recently won a Billboard Songwriting award for your track “Banga” on which you gave production credit to a young, British producer named Murray Biggs. How did you go about first collaborating with Murray?

CAUSE: That’s a crazy story. With the album I recently put out called The New Golden Era at least 80% of it was recorded through online collaboration—mostly with producers who I haven’t met. With that song in particular, I reached out to Murray through MySpace—told him I really admired his production. I told him I really liked a beat he had on his page and that I’d like to use it. He sent it to me and we emailed back and forth my vocals and his beat until it was done and the rest is pretty much history. So I’ve never actually spoken to him on the phone and I’ve never actually met him before, but we were able to create that magic through the power of the Internet.

JAY: After winning prizes from OurStage and Billboard, how do you feel about your career so far?

CAUSE: I feel like, until recently, I’ve managed to stay below the radar. Lately, especially with this prize, I feel like I’ve been breaking through. It’s only been about two years for me, so I’m still new in the game. There’s so many artist before me that took about five or six years to develop, but still have great careers. I feel like I’m progressing at a fast pace and that I’m starting to become more well-rounded. Earlier I had a lot of people respecting my music and songwriting, but I had to work on my live show. Since then I’ve been doing more shows and feel that the live performance aspect has gotten better. I feel right now that everything has come together really well.

JAY: Would you say that the evolution of your live show is the biggest change you’ve had since starting out?

CAUSE: I would say it’s a combination of that and building a team. Although I think building a team is more important since no one man can do this on their own. I have a bunch of producers now—I just got back from North Carolina after working with Sean Divine, who I consider my main producer right now. I’ve got my manager and a sneaker [apparel] expert. We all share the same unified vision.

JAY: If you could collaborate with anyone who would it be?

CAUSE: 45 King’s producer—he’s an amazing talent. In terms of hip hop artists I’d like to collaborate with, Nas. 45 King’s producer doing the backing with me and Nas doing the rhymes.
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If you’re interested in hearing CAUSE’s music be sure to check out his OurStage fan page! As for the fan winner of the competition, Sony Music rewarded Jerimiah C. of New Jersey with tickets to Beyoncé’s upcoming performance in Uncasville, CT in addition to giving him a Sony Xplod car audio system.