We recently connected with Craig Bryant and have shared our conversation below.

Craig, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

When i was younger i would see all the successful artists in my neighborhood thats what really influenced me to want in the hiphop business.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started off as a hophop dancer in 89 then moved into being an artist once the artist i danced for moved to California her name was (lady of rage). I had to reinvent myself so After she left
I help a friend get his career started by getting him his 1st set of turntables and he turn out to be 1 of the most sought after djs in the game his name is (dj mistasinista) of the Xecutioners. We would practice rapping while he would practice djing in the front of his grandmother’s house in east Elmhurst queens. Me and another friend name pliz formed a group call ruff&rugged and later changed the name to illdistracxion (world and pliz) in 94 we flew to Florida to press up our 1st single called (no mcs) released in 95 which made a little buzz on the hiphop scene in the mid 90s doing shows and battling in nyc. We had a falling out over creative differences.

Not realizing my younger brother was heavily influenced by what i was doing that in 96 he wanted to release a single so mista sinista produced his 1st single for my brother kukoo dabagabonez titled real kukoo/big queens. By that time i was already wearing my executive hat and with the financial help of kukoo dabagabonez Highschool friend wally w bucks we was able to press up his 1st single through disc makers and i marketed and promoted the hell out of it for 6 to 7 months and out of no where the single started selling like crazy. We was able to sell 11 thousand copies of that 1 single independently with no social media presence cause there was not Facebook or Instagram or anything at that time.
Then in 97 i was able to secure a independent deal with liquid soul records for 10 thousand dollars for a single title ( i heard you dont know/light up da els) and we leased the real kukoo single to them as well. Kukoo dabagabonez was incarcerated and i then had to figure out what was my next move, i was in my early 20s.

Fast forward to the year 2000 i met a guy named marc damelio that was starting his clothing brand called Madsoul and he saw how i was so good at marketing he hired me in 2001 to promote market and merchandise his clothing brand and i did that up until 2004 and then he fired me.
The visual dvd era started really getting big so That same year me and an up and coming videographer (infman) formed a company called grindhard productions. And that year on Christmas day was the 1st time grindhardtv aired in new york city, a few years later infman wanted to start his own brand so i was forced to continue running grindhardtv.com on my own now going into 2024 im 20 yrs on tv in nyc.

Grindhardtv is a hiphop culture variety show that showcase independent artist mixed in with celebrities. Im kinda artist development for up and comers trying to get some exposure for the beginning of their careers. 2017 -2020 i was marketing and promoting my biological sons as a rap group by the name of thehoths this means (head of the household) but by the pandemic they didnt want to rap anymore they were only 8 and 12 years old. Theres a 32 episode series out about the rise of their rap careers called thehoth series

Just recently a women from Maryland Googled the top 10 hiphop organizations and grindhardtv.com popped up and she now has me artist developing her son who happens to be the 1st special needs artist I’ve ever help develop, im very proud to see where i can take his career. So with his success im proud to show other special needs/ developmentally challenged or autistic people that they can make it in the hiphop game by seeing what i can do for my artist.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding thing being an artist /creative is seeing the people really appreciate what i bring to the table for their careers and them being happy about the contributions i contributed to the culture

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

Im not to familiar with nfts but i really want to get more involved in this aspect of the culture cause i came from selling wax to tapes to cds to dvds then digital downloads so im interested in getting involved with the nft market.

Contact Info:

• Website: Grindhardtv.com
• Instagram: @grindhardtvpodcast
• Facebook: Worldarama
• Linkedin: Craig bryant Worldarama thehoth
• Twitter: @Worldarama1
• Youtube: Grindhard television
• Other: @Worldarama instagram @Worldaramathehoth youtube channel Worldarama SoundCloud Worldarama Spotify Worldarama and grindhardtvpodcast on tictok Google Worldarama im on almost everything you can think of

Image Credits
Some of These photos were taken by @natefitialthetraveler