Ready for a close up
Signed by Eminem, Bobby Creekwater waits for his turn
Some say the rap game is like the crack game: Serve your product on the streets, launder the proceeds into something legitimate (like a mainstream career), and then get out of the game before you get killed (or you lose popularity).
But the rap game is more like the craps game: boom and bust. For every major-label signee who blossoms into a star, there are dozens of others who patiently wait on label rosters, sometimes for years, and never release anything beyond a 12-inch single or two.
That is the situation Antoine “Bobby Creekwater” Rogers may face. Growing up in Mableton, he formed Jatis with Charlie Jangles while attending Pebblebrook High School. He enrolled in Clark Atlanta, but dropped out of school a year later when Jatis snagged two consecutive recording contracts with Sony imprints Columbia Records and Loud Records. Neither deal resulted in a full-length album. “That’s neither here nor there. I can’t even quite remember. I just know that, overall, it didn’t work out,” he says when asked to recount the details. “I can look back and say that I honestly wasn’t ready.”
For the next few years, Creekwater taught himself to produce tracks and issued mixtapes like Closet Monsters. “I tried to stay relevant in the industry,” he says. He finally landed with Shady Records via producer Sean Cane (a former Loud executive best known for ’90s albums like Fat Joe’s Jealous One’s Envy). Cane played Creekwater’s tracks for Shady talent executive Riggs Morales. “Riggs reached out to me, and introduced me to [Eminem’s manager] Paul Rosenberg. It was pretty much a wrap from there,” says Creekwater.
With Shady Records, a division of Aftermath and Interscope Records, Creekwater joins an imprint that boasts two of hip-hop’s biggest stars, Eminem and 50 Cent. There’s also Eminem’s group D-12, Obie Trice, fellow Atlantan Stat Quo, and Orange County, Calif., rapper Ca$his. “Shady Records is a boutique label,” says Creekwater. “It’s basically Eminem giving people a chance. It’s a very hip-hop-oriented label, and everyone’s very much into the music. On a creative level, they give you the space to do you.”
But Shady’s proven track record also creates sky-high expectations for the next new artist it formally introduces with a solo debut. Though he won’t admit it, Creekwater is competing with Stat Quo and Ca$his for that spot.
Stat Quo serves as something of a cautionary tale. He signed with Shady Records in 2003, becoming an understudy in one of hip-hop’s most powerful empires. In 2004, he appeared on Eminem’s Encore and Young Buck’s Straight Outta Ca$hville, adding to his buzz. Inexplicably, however, his debut Statlanta didn’t materialize, despite the release of an early single in “Get Low.” Once scheduled for late 2005, and then pushed back to early 2006, Statlanta currently has no release date.
On Dec. 5, Shady finally gathered its roster for a compilation, Eminem presents the Re-Up. Creekwater’s solo spotlight is “There He Is,” where the Alchemist’s soulfully fierce beat fits his sly, unassuming voice snugly. “A dream team, Bobby Creek, Em, Fiddy and them/We run the city like Diddy and them/The opposition we just pityin’ them/There’s no chance/Put you niggas in the Special Olympics there’s no dance,” rhymes Creekwater in a long freestyle rap.
“In my CD collection I’ve got everything from Pink Floyd to John Mayer, Jay-Z and the Game,” says Creekwater. “I’m all over the place with the music. I just try to grab whatever inspires me, and incorporate it into my music.”
It’s unknown when we’ll get a chance to hear Creekwater’s complete musical vision. Eminem presents the Re-Up is his biggest platform to date. There’s no release date for his solo debut, A Brilliant Mistake, although he says, “We’re pushing for the first quarter sometime.” He claims that the waiting game doesn’t frustrate him.
“Within the game, I understand the nature of the beast I’m dealing with,” he says. “And I know it’s a due process. Everybody gets their time. It’s all timing, and there are different variables that go into being a successful artist. One of the variables is patience.”