Social Club Misfits Taking Message of Jesus Christ Mainstream (Interview)
Social Club Misfits, known for their Christ-centered hip-hop, are boldly venturing into mainstream music with their radical faith.
Capitol Christian Records based in Nashville, Tennessee, welcomed the hip-hop duo to its roster recently and together, they presented the digital release of The Misfit Generation EP.
The newly released EP made a booming debut as it received nearly 300,000 streams and landed in the top 10 on Christian Soundscan and Billboard Charts. The five-track project ranked No. 2 on the Christian Rap Albums Chart and No.8 on Billboard's overall Rap Albums Chart.
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Made up of Martin ("Marty") and Fernando ("FERN") from South Florida, the Social Club Misfits, formerly known as Social Club, are two unique personalities both from different walks of life whose brokenness and faith brought them together.
In the The Misfit Generation EP fans get a well rounded dose of the fellas, but according to them the best is yet to come.
"This is just the appetizer, me and Marty are going to start working on our debut on Capitol," Fern told The Christian Post. "This is just a teaser, a light salad with the vinegarette, we're getting ready to really get to work."
Marty echoed, "We didn't want people to wait 'til the end of the year to hear new music from us. I'd rather give fans five songs now instead of 12 songs at the end of the year. We're known for giving out more music."
Over the course of their independent career, the duo garnered over 11 million audio/video streams, more than 1.6 million YouTube channel views and over 35,000 albums sold. With no powerhouse backing them up their previous album US peaked at No. 6 on Billboard's Rap Albums Chart, and their debut album, Misfits 2 hit No. 9 of the same chart.
The Misfits describe being on a label as a journey into a whole new world. There impression numbers as independent artists have already quadrupled.
"I feel like we've dominated the independent market. The average artist with a team behind them can push about 10 to 15,000 records. We did 32K and we did good. We had fun doing it, it was great. We toured around the country for four years and dominated being independent," Marty explained. "Now, what's the next level? If we're not going to the next level that's bad, so we had to figure out what was that move and that move was to go with Capitol."
Social Club Misfits had four other label offers when Capitol Christian Records approached them. Capitol was the best fit for them and what stood out to the duo was the level of respect they encountered.
"They stepped correctly, a lot of people want to sign you and put you on their roster but they don't really bring anything to the table. You know me and Martin brought the table to the table," Fern stated. "We had leverage; when we sat down with Capitol there was a point when I called Martin outside, this was a big deal and they respected us like this was a big deal."
Martin agreed, adding, "They respected and honored us."
Explaining the notable difference between being on a label than being independent, the two said normally they would premiere a song on hiphopDX or Djbooth and reach a couple of thousand, but Capitol put the song on the radio so now their reach is 6 million people a day versus 10,000.
"They really utilize Spotify, so our Spotify is going crazy. We went from 30,000 listeners to over a 100,000 listeners in like a week and that's because they're bringing a lot of attention to us," Fern shared. "The platform is so big now, that's one thing about the Capitol partnership — they've allowed us to jump on this huge platform. Everything that they have we are allowed to have. It is like Dad and Mom, we can have all of it. The platform has allowed us to think of things that we could have done independently, but now we can do it with excellence and more power behind it."
