First it was Pimp My Ride, then MySpace, and presently, it's rapidly becoming the gadgets that you keep in your ride to check your MySpace. Everybody is about expressing themselves in a savvy, artistic and exclusive way these days. Sneakers stay in rotation, so do ringtones, but it's the personal devices that are always in our ears, pockets and on the desk at work.

The New York-based company Music Skins recognizes this, and has used state-of-the-art, patented technology, high-end design skills and a vehicle that's friendly to consumer and creator to capitalize on this endless trend. Vince Bartozzi, company president, spoke to HipHopDX from his Midtown Manhattan studio and office, where skins ranging from Kidz In The Hall and The Clipse to Michael Jordan, Jenna Jameson and Exploding Dog are made.

See where this idea stems from, the marketability involved, and how you as artist, label or simply fan can get involved in the next wave of technology, business and streetwear. Not since Brand Nubian have skins been so worthy of discussion.

HipHopDX: Tell me about your experience in the entertainment and technology sectors prior to Music Skins…
Vince Bartozzi: It’s kind of a unique story. I was going to Georgetown. One of my roommates, his godfather was the President of Atlantic Records, Craig Kallman, and basically, he was interning for Craig in the summers here in New York, at Atlantic, and the summer of our Junior year, he called me and said, “Look, they’re starting a label at Warner Music [Group]. It’s called Asylum; they’re looking for people to work there. You should come up and interview.” I came up and interviewed, and basically started that day. That was my Junior year summer. So my Senior year, I was traveling back and forth to [Washington DC], finishing up at school and working full-time at Asylum. I started off the first week, basically as an intern, and HR said, “If [he’s] not getting college credit, we gotta pay this guy, and they started paying me.” I was an A&R coordinator then was A&R research, and basically assistant to Joey I.E. and Todd Moscowitz up there for two-and-a-half years.

DX: Did you have a heavy hand in any of their Hip Hop releases?
VB: I was pretty much the person who found D4L. I had a hand with Webbie [click to read] and Paul Wall [click to read]. We were on the 24th floor of the Warner building when Elektra had just gone out of business, so there were four people up there to start Asylum. Everything from Lil Wyte, which was the first release we did, to Bun B [click to read], was the last album I was involved with – Trill.

DX: When went gold.
VB: I have a gold plaque. I think it is close to platinum. That was my first experience with music, although I had a small indie label in college, and I’d always been into it. That was my introduction into the world of music, especially Hip Hop. We thought we put the south on the map, as far as pop culture is concerned.

DX: As you’re leaving Asylum, this thing called the iPod gets really big. Tell me about how you looked at Music Skins; did it begin with a vehicle before the iPod?
VB: It’s interesting, ‘cause what happened at Asylum, six months into my being there, they brought on this gentleman Ron Spalding, who was VP of Sales for all of WEA. He became the GM of Asylum, and handled all the sales. He actually became my partner; we had a sales company. The whole purpose behind the sales company was to take the artists we were working with and brand them onto different products. We had a spinning room air freshener, we had a hanging air freshener, we were working with two or three clothing lines, and essentially taking Paul Wall, Mike Jones and putting their faces on these products and trying to sell them in the music retail. I started that company. One of the products we came across were these two guys who had just invented these skin products. They were doing them strictly for the new iPod, which was the big, bulky, heavy white iPod, and they were licensing imagery from [Vincent] Van Gogh and [Pablo] Picasso. We just thought that it would be a great idea and put these musicians and put ‘em on these skins. It was a thought for a while before there was any action, but him and I, from the beginning, always thought that these artists have such a brand, and the record company is spending so much money to create this brand, and they’re not capitalizing on it. From there, he left Asylum and went to Fontana. We kind of dissolved the partnership, but I had a good friend of mine who’s now my current partner; I’ve known him since I was four, and he wouldn’t let the idea die – Jed Seifert. We put a business-plan together, raised some capital, and the rest is kind of history. Continued on page 2 »