Pistol Pete has been active in the hiphop/rap genre since 1996 when he first picked up a microphone at his high schools talent show. Since then he became very close friends with an individual named Mike Purcell aka DEFINIT aka Mike Dollar. In 1999 we purchased over 15k dollars in recording equipment and linked up with DJ DUBS, the alleged ex DJ for 3-6 Mafia. After 15 months of working closely together, DJ DUBS decided to steal all of our lyrics, beats, equipment and trust. This event put both artists into a standstill for a 6 month period and back to square one. This event though tragic, posed as a blessing, because it promoted both artists to grind even harder pumping out more material than ever, and show the world that nothing could stop them. Pistol Pete began working in conjunction with Frontline Entertainment out of Chicago, IL as a backup recording engineer, photographer and radio promoter while still recording tracks at any available studio in the area. Working with Frontline Ent. introduced Pistol Pete into the Chicago underground scene and allowed him to work with well know artists such as MC JUICE, QWAZZAR, ZOSER, SEEL FRESH, O-TYPE STAR, and meet other artists such as Common, Dialated Peoples, and NO-ID. At the same time (Definit and Pistol Pete) began working with a Puerto Rican rapper named I.V. from Aurora, IL and defined a very positive working relationship between the 3. The underground rap scene showed Pistol Pete much love but it still wasn’t where these 3 were trying to take their music. Underground hiphop categorizes and limits your market to promote, so they (3 artists) decided to take a more mainstream approach to our lyrics, in hopes to increase future sales margin. Pistol Pete began purchasing more recording equipment to fill the void of studio availability and the 3 mc’s (Pistol Pete, DEFINIT, I.V.) put together their first mixtape entitled I.V. the UNEXPECTED MIXTAPE. This mixtape was more geared to a urban/street gangsta feel and received a good buzz in our immediate Chicago-land area for only releasing about 1000 copies. However, this still wasn’t the angle that we were trying to hit, because it still limited our market and overall our expression. So we experimented more and Pistol Pete began fine tuning his recording and mixing capabilities. As a mixing engineer in the western suburbs of Chicago, self taught, Pistol Pete’s name was really flying around out of peoples’ mouths as the go-to-guy for vocals. In 2005 we released a second mixtape entitled 15 MINUTES LATE in which we got about 1500 copies (self pressed and mixed) out in the streets, on a promotional basis to create a larger buzz. The elements of this mixtape were more of a hiphop style lyric to a commercial sound which received a lot of hype from local fans and listeners. Still it wasn’t getting the hype that we expected so back to the drawing board we went and recorded over 25 songs in a 5 month period and released a third mixtape entitled 7 ILL MIXTAPE. This mixtape featured other local artists Fleetwood (rapper) and Chavito (rapper, reggetone, singer) and contained a fun, party, commercial feel and generated the best buzz out of the three mixtapes, also self mixed, designed and pressed).
With the 7 ILL Mixtape, we experimented with mixing different genre’s of music from R&B to reggetone to rock and rap, and from reaction and review it posed very successful.
Along with releasing, designing, programming, recording, mixing and pressing of the 3 mixtapes, Pistol Pete also began working with a well known (soon to be famous) rapper Maintain out of Elgin, IL. Maintain really liked the vibe and quality that Pistol Pete delivered him as a recording artist, and offered Pistol Pete a position in Southern California working as a recording engineer for newly founded Waste Management Records. So in April of 2006 Pistol Pete packed his car and drove from Chicago to Los Angeles to further his network and resume with WMR. In the meantime Pistol Pete has recorded and worked alongside artists Maintain (over 20 songs), K-Solo, Cannibus, Killa Kane, Charles Hayes, and others to continually expand experience and his resume length. Pistol Pete continues today in offering artist development, recording and mixing, songwriting and his own recordings as well.
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