December 7th, 2017 will definitely not come in any History books, but if a niche for suspicious music ever blows, people will know it was the day Madd Rod launched Inner Shah Recordings from his 9 sqm dorm room in Tübingen.
Having moved there to study, he met his first music producer friends, that vouched the idea of launching his label. With zero graphic design skills, no clue of what musical direction to follow and absolutely NO BUDGET, Madd Rod somehow thought it was a good idea to put this DIY project out.
After coming up with the name — due to an old obsession with the Arabic scale and Middle Eastern music —, designing the first logo — a Playmobil-like take on Nader Shah, an emperor of Persia that had been sold as a slave during childhood by his own mother —, Rod organized the first releases by himself, Bernardo Mota and Cedric Scheibel and threw the first label night with the latter at Kuckuck WHO (Tübingen, Germany).
The years went by and more international acts started taking the label seriously and trusted Rod with their productions. A few popularity spikes, countless supports, niche-hits and a Hollywood synchronization solved the budget situation and enabled a step-up for the label.
Over the last years, Rod ditched the roots and repositioned the label that was once a vague project as a trusted source of quality timeless music made for eclectic DJs around the world. Probably a bad business decision, but aren’t we here to learn from our mistakes?