Mixtapes : Hoodie Allen : Crew Cuts

Mixtapes : Hoodie Allen : Crew Cuts

Listen To Hoodie Allen : Crew Cuts

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Who Is Hoodie Allen?
Steven Markowitz (born August 19, 1988), better known by his stage name Hoodie Allen, is an independent American hip-hop artist and rapper.

Steven Markowitz was born in New York City and raised in a Jewish household in Plainview, Long Island. He started writing lyrics as a child, and would perform raps for his friends at house parties. Markowitz attended Plainview – Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School where he was introduced to Matthew "The Beat Freak" Doan in his senior year who produced some of his first beats. Growing up, his nickname was "Hoodie." He wanted a rapper name that "would stick in peoples' minds and be a little bit funny and representative of who I am," so he settled on "Hoodie Allen." He went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied finance and marketing at The Wharton School, and was a brother in the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. After his graduating in 2010, he worked at Google as an AdWords associate in their START (Standardized AdWords Reseller Training) program. He would leave at 7 AM for a bus ride to the Google offices in Mountain View, work a full day at Google, return at 6 PM, and then write songs, answer fan emails, and schedule concerts until 2 or 3 AM. Reflecting on this, Hoodie said, "I was moving so fast, and even while I was at Google there was so much going on that I felt like I was doing two full-time jobs." His dream and passion was music, so when he got opportunities to do live shows, he decided to leave Google

Hoodie Allen originally was the duo of Steve Witz and Obey City on vocals and production, respectively. Their first two album releases were "Bagels & Beats" and "Making Waves" which garnered an MTVU Best Music on Campus Award in 2009. The single "UPENN Girls" also received notable campus attention. After Obey left in 2010, Steve continued with the name Hoodie Allen and made more music with RJ Ferguson (aka RJF). In June 2010, he released "You Are Not a Robot," which sampled 'I Am Not A Robot' by Marina & the Diamonds and which hit #1 on Hype Machine, an aggregator that collects the most-blogged about music in the world. After seeing the response, he spent the summer working, and finished his mixtape Pep Rally by September. The album was largely produced by RJF, and sampled songs from Death Cab for Cutie, Flight Facilities, Marina & the Diamonds and Two Door Cinema Club. He picked the name “Pep Rally” because he said that it “captured the energy of the record. Something new and exciting.” When asked about the writing process, Hoodie said: “Throughout Pep Rally, the ideas for samples were very collaborative. We would camp out in RJF’s basement for a weekend and not leave till we had 3 songs done—that was the mentality.” The mixtape was downloaded over 200,000 times. He self-financed a video for “You Are Not A Robot”.

In July 2011, Hoodie released his third mixtape, Leap Year. It reached 250,000 SoundCloud plays in its first week of release. On the title for his mixtape, Hoodie explains: "It basically just talks to the leap of faith I took this year leaving everything else behind to be an artist." In support of the album, Hoodie headlined a 15 city tour across North America, including stops in San Francisco, New York City, and Montreal, with supporting act Fortune Family opening on a handful of stops. Previously, he had toured with The Cataracs, Das Racist, Chiddy Bang, Mike Posner, and RJD2.

Hoodie collaborated with the cartoon band Your Favorite Martian to write the song "8-Bit World", which he raps in. He was also featured in CollegeHumor's "Jake and Amir" sketch series on multiple occasions and in Zak Downtown's "Rock The Show."

On March 4, 2012, Hoodie announced via Twitter that his upcoming EP would be titled All American. He decided on this title because he credits his success to the United States, because he felt the songs showcased his best music to date, and because of a hometown restaurant with the same title. Hoodie spent five months developing the album, building tracks from scratch with his producer, RJF, instead of using sampled beats. Regarding the writing process, Hoodie states that "I would describe it as liberating... It was like, 'Okay, I hear this idea in my head, I hear these original ideas, and I'm putting them and piecing them together.'" On March 29, 2012, Hoodie released the first single from All American entitled "No Interruption." The music video was released on March 29.

The music video for his second single, "No Faith In Brooklyn (feat. Jhameel)," was released on April 9. All American was released on April 10, 2012 and debuted as the #1 album on iTunes. Over the months of April and May, Hoodie made a 22-stop tour across the US in support of All American, featuring Wax, Jared Evan, and others (varied from show to show). On March 23, 2012, Hoodie hinted at an upcoming announcement of a "UK tour for June," and officially announced the four dates on April 19 via Facebook. The "I Work Better In The UK Tour" was his first time performing overseas.

The Excellent Adventure Tour, which featured G-Eazy, was announced on July 25, 2012. Hoodie performed in cities such as Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Lawrence(Kansas), New Orleans, Atlanta, Charlottesville, and Philadelphia.

On July 30, 2012, Hoodie released a new single "Hey Now" on YouTube which he made available for free download. Following the success of "Hey Now," he released "Feel the Love" on YouTube. It was also made available for free download.

More show dates were announced after the tour including Santa Barbara, Santa Ana, Sacramento, two in New York City, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, and Silver Spring which all sold out.

Hoodie's new mixtape Crew Cuts will be released online for free on February 20, 2013. He has mentioned that it will have approximately 12 tracks produced by several people including Illmind and has six collaborations with artists like Jared Evan, G-Eazy, Shwayze, Chiddy Bang, and Skizzy Mars. The Cruisin' USA Tour with Aer and Jared Evan will begin on March 5 in support of the new music. Announced on social networking sites, Hoodie filmed two music videos in L.A. for the songs "Cake Boy" and "Fame Is For Assholes."

On February 11, 2013, XXL premiered the video for "Cake Boy" which was met with mixed criticism. The single was later released on iTunes for purchase and quickly jumped to #19 on the Hip Hop/Rap top charts.

Hoodie has also stated that he hopes to have finished three projects by the end of 2013 which would be the Crew Cuts mixtape, a full-length album, and then another mixtape or an EP. (Read More)

Crew Cuts Review 
Hoodie has been working on the mixtape since around last October. This mixtape was officially finished on Valentine's Day with features from G-Eazy, Shwayze, Chiddy (of Chiddy Bang) and many more producers and artists. Hoodie has been putting in mad work since leaving his steady job at Google to follow his passion to become a rapper. 200,000 plus fans later, I'd say it was the right choice. This is a piece of art and is a MUST DOWNLOAD for not just the Hoodie Mob but all music fans.


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