Last week, a variety of movers and shakers in Nashville’s hip-hop and R&B community appeared on This Is Nashville. The topic was ways they’re helping to grow the business infrastructure around the city’s grassroots scene, which I explored in a recent series of three stories:
A songwriting camp aims to build Nashville hip-hop’s industry connections
Even total newbies are welcome at this grassroots hip-hop songwriting camp in Nashville
Through that reporting, I learned that one of the show’s guests, local rapper SeddyMac, turned a case of mistaken identity into a professional opportunity. And I was eager to hear him tell his side of the story.
SeddyMac was making his own music and releasing it independently long before he moved to Nashville in 2019.
“I’m a rapper that has a lot of melody,” he says of his style. “So I rap and sing for the most part.”
He’d never even thought of writing songs for anything but his own projects — until he got an unexpected text message last November from Anay Richarson of Prescription Songs. The message was intended for Seddy Hendrinx, an established Florida rapper with a similar-sounding name. It contained an invite to a session at a songwriting camp the very next day.
Nashville’s own Seddy played it cool: “I was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’m just going to go just do this now. Like, I’m just supposed to know what’s going on.’ “
At the appointed time, he showed up to collaborate with three other writers and producers who’d already racked up professional credits, session host Tony Esterly and the duo BaeRose.
Courtesy SeddyMac
SeddyMac
“So I’m sitting here with people that have, you know, syncs with commercials and stuff like that,” Seddy recalls, noting that they’ve since picked up a Grammy for their work with Chris Brown.
It wasn’t like he was a total newbie to studio recording, Seddy notes, “but this is my first time ever being in a studio experience where I’m actually writing for somebody else. So I’m just kind of just taking in the process as it goes. BaeRose is writing all the lyrics, stuff like that. I’m doing most of the melodies. And it was pretty natural, to be honest.”
His more experienced collaborators thought so, too, as he delivered hook after hook. But they had recognized right away that he wasn’t the Seddy they were expecting.
They’re still waiting to hear whether any of the tracks they created that day will be picked up by the big-name rappers they were writing for. In the meantime, Seddy’s begun getting interest from other publishing companies: “I was like, ‘How do you even know who I am?’ “
They’d noticed his contributions from the camp in a database of songs pitched for commercial use.
“I didn’t know that this is actually a normal occurrence,” says Seddy. “Now that’s something else I can add into my repertoire of like things I can actually do.
And for an artist building an independent hip-hop career in Nashville, adding publishing as a source of musical income is no small thing.
