GOOD 2-B FREE RECORDZ

GOOD 2-B FREE RECORDZ

LABEL HISTORY

The vision behind GOOD 2-B FREE RECORDZ began in Youngstown, Ohio, in the mid-1990s, during a period when street violence and gang culture were a major part of everyday life in many neighborhoods.

Long before becoming a recording artist, Dwayne “Soljahkoon Skoop” Berger was paying attention to the way music moved people.

He remembers spending time in Lincoln Knolls, visiting family and sitting around neighborhood blocks where young men would gather, drink 40s, smoke Philly blunts, talk about life, and play music. Because he did not grow up listening to much rap music at home, those moments exposed him to a different world of sound, conversation, and street culture.

What stood out to him was not only the music—it was the people listening to it.

Some of the same men who were deeply involved in street life would also talk about God, faith, right and wrong, struggle, and survival. That surprised him and changed the way he thought about music.

He began to recognize something important: if the beat was hard enough, people would listen.

That realization became the foundation of a larger idea. If powerful street music could hold someone's attention, then a message placed inside that music might be able to reach people who otherwise would not stop to hear it.

The original vision was never simply to become a rapper. It was to create music with substance and eventually build a platform capable of carrying that music—and the work of other artists—into places where messages of growth, truth, reflection, and freedom could be heard.

Years later, while serving a federal prison sentence and preparing to return home, that vision began to take a more concrete form.

During the final months of a 129-month sentence, Skoop began thinking seriously about what vehicle could carry his music and his larger creative purpose after release. With ideas and encouragement coming from family members who stayed connected to him during incarceration, he chose to develop the name GOOD 2-B FREE.

At first, the meaning was immediate and personal. Coming home from federal prison, saying “Good 2 B Free” simply fit.

Over time, however, the meaning grew.

GOOD 2-B FREE came to represent more than physical freedom. It came to represent freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, creative freedom, ownership, and the ability to build something on your own terms.

That larger meaning now sits at the center of GOOD 2-B FREE RECORDZ.

Although Soljahkoon Skoop became the first artist to carry the vision publicly, the label was never imagined as a vehicle for one artist alone. From the beginning, the goal was to create opportunities for others.

The long-term vision is to provide young, developing, and independent artists with another stage to showcase their talent, publish their work, develop their sound, and build ownership around their creativity.

GOOD 2-B FREE RECORDZ is being built as an independent Midwest label with ambition to become a recognizable force in its region—drawing inspiration from the kind of identity, independence, artist development, and cultural impact once associated with labels such as Bad Boy, Death Row, and No Limit, while developing its own voice, principles, and direction.

At the HEART OF IT ALL remains a simple idea:

Freedom of speech.

Freedom of expression.

Freedom to create.

It’s GOOD 2-B FREE.