CHAD M. KISER: BEYOND THE BYLINE — THE MAN BEHIND THE STORIES
Some people cover hip-hop. Some promote it. Others spend years preserving its history. Chad M. Kiser has done all three — journalist, publicist, author, entrepreneur and, most importantly, someone who understands that behind every record, career and cultural moment is a story worth telling.
For years, Kiser has sat across from some of the most recognizable names in hip-hop and entertainment, asking the questions that go beyond the obvious. His interviews have appeared in major publications, while his conversations with artists, producers and cultural figures have continued to live long after the original interviews ran — eventually becoming source material for books documenting hip-hop history.
That’s the journalist.
Then there’s the publicist — the guy on the other side of the phone, working behind the scenes to connect artists, projects and stories with the right audience. Living on both sides of the microphone gave Kiser a perspective few possess: he understands the story, the storyteller and everything happening behind the curtain.
But after years of documenting everybody else, Kiser eventually turned the questions inward.
Through Conversations With Chad, his digital platform, and Pieces of Me, his personal poetry collection, he began documenting something much closer to home — himself. The journalist who spent years asking others to reveal their truth finally opened the door on his own.
And that’s what makes this chapter different.
Chad Kiser isn’t simply looking back at a career built around hip-hop. He’s looking at the people, relationships, lessons and experiences that shaped the man behind the byline.
For years, he preserved pieces of everybody else’s story.
Now, he’s telling his own.
Q. Chad, you’ve spent years sitting close to some of the most important stories in West Coast hip-hop—sometimes as the journalist asking the questions, sometimes as the publicist helping shape the narrative, and sometimes as the person in the room who simply knew the history. When you look back, when did you realize you weren’t just covering hip-hop—you were becoming part of its historical record?
I don't know if there was one moment where I stopped and thought, “I'm part of the historical record now.” It happened gradually. I started out as a fan who loved the music and wanted to know the stories behind it—the records, the production, the relationships, why certain decisions were made. Then, over time, I realized I wasn't just talking to people about things everybody already knew. I was getting stories that hadn't been told before.
When you sit down with somebody like Sir Jinx, Erotic D, MC Ren, Too $hort, Ant Banks, Xzibit, Ice-T, or some of the producers and musicians behind these records, and twenty years later people are still finding those interviews, referencing them, and using them to understand what happened, you realize those conversations have a life beyond the day you published them.
I never set out thinking I was documenting history. I was just trying to get the story right. Looking back, I think that's probably why some of it became history.
Q. There’s a difference between knowing hip-hop history and actually knowing the people who lived it. You’ve interviewed artists whose stories have ultimately found their way into books and the larger historical conversation. What does it feel like knowing your conversations became part of the source material used to tell somebody else’s story?
It's pretty surreal, honestly. Especially because when I did a lot of those interviews, I wasn't thinking about somebody writing a book ten or fifteen years later and using something from my conversation to help tell that story.
There's also a sense of pride in it because I always approached interviews differently. I didn't want the same five stories somebody had already told everybody else. I wanted to know what happened in the studio. Who was actually there? Where did that sound come from? Why did you make that decision? What was going on behind the scenes that nobody knew?
So when something from one of those conversations becomes source material later, it tells me those details mattered. It means I helped preserve a piece of somebody's history that might otherwise have disappeared.
Q. You’ve worked both sides of the curtain—journalism and public relations. Those worlds can sometimes look like they’re working against each other, but you’ve managed to live in both. What did journalism teach you about publicists, and what did being a publicist teach you about journalists that you wish more people on either side understood?
Journalism taught me that a good publicist shouldn't be trying to control every word that gets written. The best publicists understand the journalist has a job to do, too. Give them access, give them accurate information, help them understand the story, and then let them do their job.
PR taught me the other side of that. Sometimes journalists don't realize how much is happening behind one interview. Scheduling, approvals, timing, management, labels, personalities, things changing at the last minute—there can be ten things happening that the journalist never sees.
Working both sides made me better at both. As a journalist, I understand what the publicist is dealing with. As a publicist, I know what makes me delete an email as a journalist. 😂
And probably the biggest thing I've learned is that relationships matter. Don't only contact somebody when you need something. I've maintained relationships with people in this business for twenty-plus years because the relationship was always bigger than the next interview or press release.
Q. You’ve been trusted with the stories and campaigns of people like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, MC Ren, The D.O.C. and Warren G. Without giving away anything you shouldn’t, what’s one lesson you learned from working around artists of that caliber that had absolutely nothing to do with music?
Probably that everybody is still human. We can attach these huge names and accomplishments to people and forget there is still a person underneath all of it. They have families. They have good days and bad days. They have people they trust and people they don't. They remember how you treated them when there wasn't anything you needed from them.
Being around people at that level taught me that access doesn't automatically equal trust, either. Trust is earned over time. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is know when something isn't yours to repeat. I've probably learned as much in conversations that never became interviews or articles as I have from the things that did.
Q. West Coast hip-hop has gone through so many different eras, sounds and personalities. You’ve had a front-row seat to a lot of that evolution. What’s something about the West Coast story that you think people who weren’t there still misunderstand—or simply don’t know how to appreciate?
I think people sometimes reduce West Coast hip-hop to a few artists, a few albums and one particular sound. Obviously, N.W.A, Dre, Snoop, Pac and Death Row are enormous pieces of that history, but they're not the entire history.
Oakland doesn't sound like Compton. Long Beach doesn't sound exactly like South Central. The Bay has its own language and lineage. Sacramento has its own history. San Diego has its own history. And even within Los Angeles, there were different movements happening at the same time.
Then you have all these people behind the records—producers, musicians, DJs, engineers, independent labels—whose fingerprints are all over music everybody knows, even though most listeners don't know their names.
That's probably what I've spent so much of my career chasing: the connective tissue. Not just what happened, but how all these people, records and places connect.
Q. Let’s talk about the word “connector.” You’ve built a career connecting artists, journalists, books, media, business and audiences. Were you always naturally wired to bring people together, or did the music business teach you how to become that guy?
I think I was probably wired that way before I knew there was a word for it. If I know somebody who needs something and I know somebody else who can help them, my instinct has always been, “You two need to talk.” I've done that with artists, producers, journalists, publicists, labels and people outside the music business.
The music industry definitely sharpened it, though. I learned pretty quickly that this business runs on relationships. And being a connector only works if people trust the connection. I'm not going to introduce two people just so I can say I made the introduction. There needs to be a reason.
The funny thing is that some of the things I'm most proud of probably don't have my name attached to them at all. I just helped put the right people in the same room.
Q. Your podcast, Conversations With Chad, gives you something journalism sometimes doesn’t: room to actually let people breathe and tell their stories. Has sitting across from people for a longer conversation changed the way you listen to them—or changed the kinds of stories you’re looking for?
Absolutely. Conversations With Chad is probably closer to how I've always wanted to interview people anyway. I've never been particularly interested in firing twenty questions at somebody just because they're on my list. The interesting stuff usually happens when somebody says something you weren't expecting and you abandon the next question and follow them down that road.
The longer format gives me permission to do that. I've also learned that listening isn't the same thing as waiting for your turn to talk. Sometimes there's a pause after somebody answers and, if you don't immediately jump in, they'll keep going. And that second answer is often better than the first one.
At this point, I'm less interested in getting the quote everybody else is going to get. I want the story the person suddenly realizes they haven't told before.
Q. Now comes Pieces of Me. That title feels personal because after spending so much of your career documenting everybody else, you’re finally putting pieces of yourself on the table. Was writing this book more about preserving your own story, correcting the record, leaving something behind—or simply finally saying, “This is my story too”?
Probably some combination of all of those things, but mostly the last one: this is my story, too.
I've spent a huge part of my adult life asking other people to open themselves up to me. I've asked them about their careers, mistakes, relationships, conflicts, successes and things that happened thirty years ago. Then I realized I had boxes and files full of things I'd written about my own life going back to when I was fourteen or fifteen years old.
Some of those writings came from a kid trying to understand why he felt the way he did. Adoption. Identity. Love. Anger. Abandonment. Faith. Family. Later it became marriage, heartbreak, fatherhood, loss and trying to understand who I was becoming.
What made Pieces of Me interesting to me wasn't just publishing those old poems. It was being able to look at them now and say, “I understand what that kid was trying to say.”
So, yeah, after spending all these years documenting everybody else's story, this was me finally being willing to document mine.
Q. There’s a strange irony in being a person who has spent years making sure other people’s histories don’t get forgotten, only to eventually realize you have your own history worth preserving. What part of Chad Kiser’s story did you almost leave out because it felt too personal, too uncomfortable, or too close to home?
The adoption pieces were probably the hardest. Adoption has always been part of my story, but there's a difference between saying “I'm adopted” and letting somebody inside everything that came with that. Questions about identity. Belonging. Abandonment. Finding my biological parents. Relationships with fathers. Trying to figure out where I fit.
There were also pieces dealing with relationships and some really dark or lonely periods where my first instinct was, “Do I really want people knowing this?”
Ultimately, those were the pieces that had to stay. If I removed everything that made me uncomfortable, I could've made a much safer book. But it wouldn't have been Pieces of Me. The uncomfortable pieces are part of me, too.
Q. You’ve spent more than a decade collecting conversations, memories and moments that most people will never get access to. If you could sit down with your younger self—the version of Chad who was just beginning to navigate journalism, music and the business—what would you tell him about the things that matter, and what would you tell him not to waste his time worrying about?
I'd probably tell him to stop worrying so much about whether somebody is going to let him in. I spent a lot of time early on wondering whether I belonged in certain rooms or whether people took me seriously enough. Eventually, you realize nobody comes along and hands you permission.
I'd tell him to protect his relationships, keep his word, save everything, record everything, keep the original files, and never assume you'll remember the details twenty years later. 😂
I'd also tell him not to confuse access with friendship, titles with importance, or somebody else's recognition with success. And I'd tell him that some of the things he's going through personally—the things he's writing down when nobody is watching—are eventually going to matter just as much as the interviews he's chasing.
He probably wouldn't believe me.
Q. You’ve gone from documenting other people’s legacies to building your own platforms through journalism, PR, CME Records, your podcast and now your first book. When you strip away the titles, credits and business cards, what is the thread connecting everything you’ve done? What has Chad actually been chasing all these years?
Stories. That's really the thread.
Chad Media & Entertainment or CME Records might look completely different from journalism. PR might look different from Conversations With Chad. And Pieces of Me certainly looks different from interviewing Ice Cube, Doug E. Fresh and Kokane or talking to Fredwreck, DJ Muggs or Bud'da about how a record was made.
But I'm doing essentially the same thing in all of them. I'm trying to preserve something.
I'm fascinated by the story underneath the thing everybody already knows. The person behind the record. The decision behind the moment. The experience behind the poem.
Maybe what I've actually been chasing all these years is understanding—understanding why people become who they become, why they create what they create and why certain moments stay with us.
Apparently, eventually I had to turn that question around on myself.
Q. Let’s bring this one home. Pieces of Me is now out in the world, which means the story is no longer just yours—it belongs to everybody who picks it up and finds something in it. When somebody closes that last page, what do you hope they understand about Chad Kiser that they couldn’t have learned from an interview, a byline, a campaign or a résumé?
I hope they understand that there's a whole person behind all those credits.
A résumé can tell you what I've done. A byline can show you what I've written. An interview can show you what I know about somebody else's story. None of those things really tell you who I am.
Pieces of Me probably comes closer.
There's the adopted kid trying to understand where he belongs. There's the teenager writing things he couldn't say out loud. There's love, heartbreak, anger, faith, family, fatherhood, mistakes, loss—and hopefully some growth.
I don't expect somebody to finish the book and suddenly understand everything about me. Hell, I'm almost 50 and I'm still figuring some of it out myself.
But I hope they close it understanding that the person who's spent all these years asking everybody else to tell him their story finally trusted people enough to tell some of his own.
And maybe they'll recognize a few pieces of themselves in mine.
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