The Music Journey Of Citi Under Siege And How Hits Are Made

The CEO of independence label Run it up Record, Citi Under Siege spoke to HipHopDX about his career in music, which has been incredibly successful.

 Over the years, Run It Up has generated hundreds of millions streams and more than seven billion streams over all. Run It Up is the source of numerous viral hits. They currently have a number of viral hits, including “Lizzo” by Moon Walker. 

Citi’s musical journey began much more impulsively than the deliberate choices he makes today. The music entrepreneur and A&R told DX, “I always encourage people to carry out kind deeds. ” There was this young lady that was pregnant in my math class in college and she would miss a lot of days, so I would always grab her work.”

“Her baby’s father actually end up in a record executive. He owned a studio in town on the Plaza and he was very thankful of me doing what I did. So he was like, ‘Hey man I got a video shoot for my group, for every person that you get to come, bring out to the video I give you X amount dollars,’ right? It might have been like $5 a head because I was a cool kid on campus.”

Citi pulled up to the video shoot with 1,000 people. He may not have actually made $5,000 that day, but it was the spark he needed to pursue event planning in Atlanta.

He went to a friend of his who had just received his liquor license at a local strip club, and asked if he could throw shows there on Mondays, it’s least busiest night. However, while most clubs rarely pop off on a Monday night. ALT is also known for its Magic City Mondays. “I’m the only crazy person to go up against the biggest night in the city,” Citi said.

He began to up against the popular Magic City night with his own open mic nights called “Celebrity Mondays.” Eventually, he was able to secure top tier talent to pull up to his parties and helped break new artists through the club.

“When the girls would change or in between sets, I would let an artist get up and perform,” Citi recalled. “And that became my passion at that moment, I realized I wanted to be in the new artist development game. Because I just got that passion from seeing that spark of the artist when they see one person in the crowd rocking out to their shit, so that is to let me know that there is power in promotion. There is power in finding things that are talented and exposing the world to it.”

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