Citizen Cope taking on the world

Clarence Greenwood already had developed his musical alter ego, Citizen Cope, when he went out on tour as a DJ with the Washington D.C. hip-hop artist Basehead in the late '90s.

Basehead -- aka Michael Ivey -- blended rap, reggae, funk and folkinto an innovative form of socially conscious hip-hop. The most important thing Greenwood gleaned from his time touring with the rapper is that there were "no barometers on what kind of music I had to make. I had to find my own sound."

Since then, he's stuck to that sound, a mix of blues, folk, funk, rap and rock. He's released three albums under the name Citizen Cope. But though he has yet to win any Grammys and has yet to score much

mainstream radio play, the underdog status empowers him.

"I'm selling out more places than people who've wona Grammy or who are on the radio all day," said Greenwood, who performs at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center today. "I know this is a real thing."

Like Citizen Cope, Greenwood has a sense of taking on the world. And that world is a hypocritical establishment.

Take the track "Brother Lee" off his most recent release, 2006's "Every Waking Moment," in which he describes "a brother named Lee/look just like me/he got a lot of enemies ... both sides of the Mississippi."

" 'Brother Lee' is about your own demons, the alter ego we all have that can sabotage us," he said. "At the same time, you can kind of say 'Brother Lee' is about the white man, although not so much color-wise. My meaning was just about the Man -- the kind of people who came and stole. The system that's stolen from people."

Greenwood's personal roots are in the South. He was born in Memphis, Tenn., and grew up listening to a blend of musical styles -- John Lennon, Bob Marley, Randy Newman, Tupac and A Tribe Called Quest. After a few years, he moved to Washington, D.C., with his mother, where he saw the opulence of the capital of the most powerful nation in the world mixed with the violence and poverty in the streets. "I saw the suffering of D.C., the hypocrisy of city," he said. "Yet I saw the good people living there."

His thoughts put to music, Greenwood signed with Capitol Records in 1997 and completed an album that was never released. So he moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., signed with Dreamworks Records and released his well-received self-titled debut in 2002. Around the same time, a demo of his song "Sideways" caught the ear of Carlos Santana, who asked Greenwood to produce and sing it for his "Shaman" album. "Shaman" sold 5 million copies, and Greenwood released his second album, "The Clarence Greenwood Recordings" in 2004; it's track "Son's Gonna Rise" was featured on a Pontiac commercial, and "Bullet and a Target" found its way onto radio and soundtracks.

But despite critical acclaim, Greenwood never caught onto mainstream success, something he attributes to a genre-bending sound that isn't easily classified in radio format.

"It's been huge word of mouth on my behalf and the band's behalf," he said. "I've never charted on college radio, never charted on (adult album alternative) radio, never had a feature in the New York Times. Yet I sell multiple nights out in theaters."

Such an approach has led Greenwood to developing some innovative business plans. When he was promoting "The Clarence Greenwood Recordings," for instance, he convinced his label to give out 15,000 copies of his record to fans for free, the idea being that success would grow via online word of mouth.

"It was the best thing we could have done," he said. "You go so many places so see so many people you got to turn them on to the music. You give some away and they play it and give it to other people and they buy it. What runs the risk is when people just download and don't pass it on to anyone else. They just download it and never listen to it. "

Tactics like these are what he says contributes to a loyal fan base.

"There's not a city I can't sell out," he said. "I've got 1,300 tickets pre-sold in Charleston. I'm good everywhere in America."