Our friend, Ahad Kamran, recently got a chance to chat with Elliot Montanez, one of Chicago music scene’s hardest working individuals that you may not know by name but I assure you have definitely seen his work in action. From working a full-time job, to running the entire writing department of Lyrical Lemonade, to managing rising Hip-Hop artists such as Femdot and IsaiahG, Elliot really does it all. You can read more about his introduction to music, the journey to get to where he is today, and more by checking out the Q&A below!
AK: Tell me some background info about yourself. Who are you? Where are you from? How long have you been in Chicago? What do you do?
EM: First I just wanted to thank you for reaching out, I appreciate it. I’m Elliot Montanez, twenty-year-old music blogger/head of the writing department for Lyrical Lemonade. I was born in Chicago but then I moved to a suburb outside the city as a kid, before I moved back to Chicago as a teenager. My family moved back to Chicago in 2013, but I’ve been living on my own in the Wicker Park/Bucktown area for about a year now. I work full time at a merchandise fulfillment & website design company called Haight Brand during the week. Then, in my spare time, I run the music blog Lyrical Lemonade day-to-day, as well as manage a couple of extremely talented Chicago artists.
AK: What were your interests as a kid?
EM:When I was really young Pokemon & WWE were huge interests of mine, but as I got older sports took over. But music was always my main interest.
AK: What kind of music were you listening to?
EM: I listened to tons of music, so I’m just going to throw out names: 2pac, Mase, Blink 182, Nelly, Kanye, Nas, Ja Rule, Gangstarr, Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, DMX, Kid Cudi, Common, Big Pun, TI, 50 Cent, Twista, Lupe Fiasco, Eminem, Biggie, Sublime, MGMT, De La Soul, Shwayze, MC Juice, The Game, Empire Of The Sun, Jay Electronica, Ghostface Killah, Scarface, Akon, T-Pain
AK: What did you want to do before you started blogging? Were you going to school for anything?
EM: I’ve always wanted to be an artist manager, even before I started writing. Yeah, I went to Robert Morris University in Chicago for a couple years studying business management.
AK: Were you writing before LL?
EM: Yes, I wrote for a couple different publications before Lyrical Lemonade. My older brother used to run a music blog called See Beyond Genre (SBG), and one day he damn near forced me to sit down and write my thoughts on one of Hurt Everybody’s first songs (Inertia I believe). I’m glad he did that because that was my first post. So, I started writing every now and then for SBG, and then I also wrote for this blog called Daily Dose for like two months.
AK: How did you meet Cole, and become a part of LL?
EM: So, when I was 18/19 I would always be trying to work the merch stands at concerts to make a little extra cash, and one night I got asked to work a Vic Mensa concert at The Chop Shop in Wicker Park. This was in March of 2015, right around the time Vic dropped “U Mad.” I was at the venue about an hour before the doors opened setting up the merch booth. This kid my age walked into the room with the stage in Chop Shop, and I could tell he wasn’t supposed to be in there by the way he was nervously looking around. Soon after he walked in he noticed and approached me and we began talking, I just assumed it was because he was just trying not to look like a fan who snuck in early haha. After speaking to him for a little while we discovered that we both went to high schools in the I-8 conference and from there we hit it off.
I talked to this guy for almost an hour until doors opened up, but during that conversation, the guy (Luis) asked me if I was familiar with Cole Bennett/Lyrical Lemonade. I was somewhat familiar at that point, but not too much. He went on to tell me about how great of a guy Cole was, he spoke so highly about Cole and once he found out I was a writer, he convinced me that I should reach out to Cole immediately to see about joining Lyrical Lemonade. A week or so after that concert, I reached out to Cole about becoming a writer and soon after I joined Lyrical Lemonade. Unfortunately, about a month or two after I joined Lyrical Lemonade, Luis passed away in a car accident. I’ve always felt that God made us cross paths for a reason, RIP Luis Rodriguez.
AK: How did you become the main person in charge of the writing/writers for LL?
EM: I just worked harder than everyone else. I saw a huge void that needed to be filled, and I felt like I was the one that needed to step up and fill it. Cole was getting to a point where he was so busy with his music videos that he didn’t have the time to run the website day to day anymore, and he felt like I was the guy who needed to take it over.
AK: How is it managing the writers as well?
EM: For the most part it’s really fun. Cole & I have built an excellent team of writers. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys to be around.
AK: How long did it take you to realize LL spreading outside of Chicago?
EM: The one thing that made me realize that Lyrical Lemonade was spreading outside of Chicago was when we started selling out every time we dropped new merchandise. This past run of LL merch we had I sent out a majority of the orders, and it was crazy seeing people from all over the United States and even overseas supporting us.
AK: What’s the craziest/weirdest submission you’ve gotten?
EM: I couldn’t tell you, man. I get weird submissions every day. One thing that keeps happening though is that a lot of the time rappers/managers/PR will spell my name wrong when they reach out haha.
AK: Do you enjoy going through submissions?
EM: Yes and no. No, because a majority of the time they are trash, but yes because it’s such an awesome feeling whenever you discover a talented rapper/singer in the submissions.
AK: Who do you manage? How did you meet them and what made you want to manage them?
EM: I manage two rappers from Chicago, Femdot & IsaiahG
The first time I met Isaiah it was at Lyrical Lemonade pop up shop at Jugrnaut. Isaiah started talking to Cole about getting on the website and then Cole brought him over to me. He played me a few of his unreleased songs and I was extremely impressed. We kept in touch and became friends soon after, and then about six months later we decided to start working together.
I had a conversation with Cole about six months before I started working with Fem. We were talking about how talented he was and what not, and then Cole told me “You should manage him.” I was definitely interested but before anything, I wanted to see what kind of person he was. I started to see him more & more around the city and every time we spoke it was all love. I found out how good of a person he was & I wanted to help him. A couple months later I was speaking to my friend about co-managing him together, so we set up a meeting with Fem at Goddess and Grocer in Wicker Park. After that, we had a few meetings with him, before we ultimately decided to start working together. I am really good friends with both of them, so I want to help them succeed. They are both really good people, and I want nothing more than to see them win.
AK: What do you think of Chicago’s hip-hop scene at the moment?
EM: Chicago’s music scene is booming at the moment. For the past five years, so much talent has come out of Chicago. There are so many artists that are popping in Chicago, but there’s even more undiscovered talented rappers waiting for their turn.
AK: Do you have any upcoming projects you want to talk about?
EM: Lyrical Lemonade will continue to be my biggest project. Along with managing Fem & Isaiah.
AK: If anyone reading this is trying to get their music on LL, how should they go about it?
EM: You can submit music to either elliot@lyricallemonade.com or lyricallemonade@gmail.com.
