On the 29th of December I met up with 4040Wallace, a Montreal based Hip-Hop artist. Wallace has turned his passion for music into a career by starting his own record label and signing artists, all while treating them with an integrity not often found in the music industry. We discussed his roots, being a father, and the pimps of the music biz over a glass of Hennessy.
N.810 – How did you first start making music?
4040Wallace – It started with my dad, he was a Reggae artist who opened up for Bounty Killer and Beenie Man when they came to Montreal for Jamaica Day. As a kid I would hear him making music, sometimes he would even bring me to the studio. When I was 12 me and my brothers got a computer in a little small corner of the house. In the hood we called it the small room; no windows, nothing, just a small room, a computer and a few speakers. We would make parodies of songs for fun, we’d play a G-Unit instrumental and create our own vocals, but it was mostly comedy. Now that I look back on it, those moments make me realize music’s been in me for a long time, but I only started looking at it seriously when I turned 18. That’s when I went to the studio for the first time and thought, ‘I could do this.’ I’ll be honest with you, a lot of people are born for this shit, they’re naturals, but I was not great at all when I started. I was fucking horrible, but I had the right people around me to say that I was fucking bad. So, I thought, ‘Oh yeah? Bet, I’m gonna get really good.’ you need that around you. I was a hard worker, I kept working at it and that’s definitely what you need in this game. You can be talented but if you ain’t hustling and trying to get better that talent is only going to take you so far. If 2020 didn’t bring out your inner hustler, I don’t know what to tell you, maybe it’s just not there.
N.810 – How did 4040 get started?
4040W. – 4040 started when I went to Toronto and linked up with my cousin out there. He had his own thing going on and he came up with the name, 4040 the Vision. When I came back to Montreal I really took that vision and doubled it, doubled down, I focused on marketing and building catalogues of music. Now in 2021 we’re really coming together as a record label, we sign artists and sell out shows, we’re trying to pave the way for the independent artists of the city. It’s crazy to feel like you can’t make it in your own city being an English artist. I want to be treated the same way as French artists. Just because I make English music that shouldn’t be holding us back and it’s really important to make it in your own city. We’ve been told our entire career that you can’t make it in Montreal, that takes a toll. It’s time to bring that shit now, we just want to be treated like equals.
N.810 – Do you guys have plans to leave Montreal?
4040W. – We definitely have plans to branch out and we already have ties in Toronto. We just want to take over Canada, then the States and then go International. The real answer is we want to take over the globe, Pinky and the Brain shit. The thing is, you have to start one brick at a time. It all starts with the hometown cause we’ve been making noise, we’re coming off of sold out shows. The fan base is there, it’s just a matter of the online blogs and gatekeepers of the city acknowledging the talent that is 4040. I’m not looking for a handout, I’m going to show you exactly what it is and that 4040, we are now. We’re not next, we’re not later, not right before. We’re right now.
N.810 – You’re talking about signing people and selling out venues, so what is 4040 exactly?
4040W. – 4040 started off as a crew, but it’s become a movement since we turned into a record label. We’re signing artists and once this pandemic is over we’ll be back to doing shows. We want our artists to perform and get paid for it, there’s a lot of promoters out here who don’t pay their artists. They’ll get artists to sell tickets for them and pocket the profit, they don’t give anything back. At all of our shows we put money in the pockets of our artists. We have that real-life sauce so people in real life know who 4040 is. They may know it as certain individuals or the people that represent it, but at the end of the day on a business tip 4040’s a record label.
N.810 – So this is a question you kind of segued me into, but I always see you talking shit about promoters. I was wondering what’s that all about? Where’d that come from?
4040W. – My homie was my manager when I first started and the first show he got me was in someone’s basement, it was a great time. After that I just wanted to do more shows, so I ran into some promoters that already had their thing going on. They had a venue, this and that and I was hungry to perform. This is the thing I’m trying to tell artists that are new to the game or very hungry, it’s normal to want to perform and not really care about the money, but you have to care. These promoters will pimp you out. I saw what they were doing to me. They’d say, ‘I’ll give you some tickets, you sell this amount and maybe you’ll get $5 back.’ If the ticket’s 20 bucks a pop the distribution shouldn’t be that way, it’s insane. It’s not just like one person did that, the majority of promoters were doing it. They’re making artists sell tickets for them, give back majority of the profit and say, ‘Okay, you get 15 minutes on stage fuck off.’ That’s some hoe shit, pimp you out and on to the next. That’s why I started doing my own shit because I ran into these promoters and this isn’t the way it’s supposed to go down. I went to school for Music Business Administration, I learned a few things about event planning and started creating my own events. I’m talking shit because they know it’s true, all these promoters deep in their hearts know what they’re doing is wrong. They’re sucking the talent out of artists for their profit, that’s not cool. So artists know that y’all can do it yourselves, take me as an example. But, if you don’t feel like you can do it, you can come down to a 4040 show. We’ll ensure you get paid for your performance, straight up.
N.810 – You put it so well they’re just pimping out musicians. Sell 20 tickets and we’ll let you be one of the eight people on stage. You won’t actually get to open but you can jump around, here’s a toonie, get yourself a coffee, you look tired.
4040W. – Exactly, you get it. When I’m saying these things I know how I may come off, people might think I’m talking shit or, ‘Who does that guy think he is?’ At the end of the day I’m talking from experience, but people don’t like to listen until you make noise. Now you’re listening, hopefully you’ll pay attention to what I’m saying but sometimes you have to do some drastic shit for people to tune in. Unfortunately, people love controversy, that’s the world we live in, that’s what sells. I understand the game were living in, I’m just trying to manipulate it to my benefit because the city deserves more than what it’s been getting.
N.810 – So what’s this meteoric rise from playing in homie’s basement to having a record label and selling out shows been like? Has it changed the way you look at or make music?
4040W. – Absolutely… Nowadays it’s not even about the music. It saddens me to say but, people care more about you, they need to connect with you. Once they do that they’ll listen to your music. I realized people need to connect with you as a person that’s why my latest project Boy to Man had a whole build-up of me revealing that I’m a father. I took people on a journey, connected them with how I used to feel or what I grew up on as a 90’s kid. I realized doing that people connected with me. This project has the most views I’ve ever had in my entire career. That let me know I’m doing something right. The music is always going to be amazing, we’re not sacrificing quality, but you have to realize, you can make the hottest shit but if no one’s listening is it really hot shit?
N.810 – It’s wild how now more than ever you are your own brand. People show up for the content almost secondary to the creator. You mentioned your Boy to Man project and I wanted to ask, how has becoming a father and that whole new set of responsibilities changed the way you view the music industry?
4040W. – I have a whole different perspective on life, it forces you to grow up. Having a kid made me realize I have to be on my shit. I can’t be out here on my old shit, I got to be on that new shit, grown man shit. It’s time to get it right now, there’s no more time to wait around, you have to do everything you can to be better every day. Just realizing this whole ass human being is depending on me, this small innocent child… I have to do everything I can to make sure that she’s okay, that she doesn’t struggle and everything’s taken care of. It even made me realize… My whole life I always put music over everything but I’ll never put music over my daughter.
You can follow 4040Wallace @
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/57m6k9K9ZRJnaKlJn1XQ1u?si=N3qvCCu7RdiWZovp2oHN_w&nd=1
Numero810 