Born in Montreal Kofi “Friday” Carmichael has had aspirations of being a music mogul since the late eighties. His musical ambition has always been tied in with his attraction to the allure of the street life which led Friday to start selling drugs at age seventeen. In his teenage years while trying to be a young Hustler in training, Friday started a group called Southside with childhood friends Douglas “Lord Raz” Sangster and Russel “Rebel Lion” Adams. The group name was originated from the South Shore region where the three grew up. As part of the Eye Spy Crew conglomerate along with DJ Majess, Tara Chase and Mister Phayze, Southside shared the stage with their comrades to open up for Redman, Mobb Deep, The Roots and many other Hip Hop superstars.

In 1997 Friday moved to the west end neighborhood in Toronto called Parkdale. His mission was to attend school at Harris Institute of the Arts in the music marketing and management program. While going to school Friday’s street ties became even deeper as he got more familiar with the downtown Toronto scene. This proved for a rocky road and in 1999 Friday left school in his last semester and started working for the Warner Music Canada Street Team for a woman named Kim McKenzie. By the year 2000 Friday and Lord Raz (Now called The Souljah Prophets) incorporated the company AWOL (A Way Of Life) Record Inc. Things were looking up and with Friday’s work ethic and perseverance he was promoted to Toronto team leader while Mrs. McKenzie was expanding forming KMSP (Kim McKenzie Street Promotion) and being hired by Warner music, Sony Music and various independent companies to promote upcoming albums across Canada. Eventually Mrs. McKenzie moved on to work as a marketing manager for Sony Music Canada and Friday was graced with the whole cross Canada street team to take over the workload and soon after renamed KMSP to the AWOL Street Team.

As the years past Friday’s industry experience and knowledge transitioned into managing new artist. His first stables of artist were Peter Bonez and femcee Black Pearl. The changing landscape of the music industry started taking its toll and by 2003 the AWOL Street Team rapidly lost steam. Friday had moved on from his two previous artist management situation and began focussing on recording his first solo mixtape “The Connect”. By 2004 “The Connect” was born followed quickly by “The Connect Vol.2”. Even though rapping was a dream, artist management was always still an option and that year Friday met and started managing Bunz an aspiring Rapper who also played college Basketball in the US. In early 2005 Friday started managing a budding artist name Scandalis who was known for winning various high profile battles in Toronto and being a part of the notorious super group Empire. Empire was known for being a fun loving but rambunctious and hard to handle which made Friday apprehensive of taking on the whole group, on the flipside Empire member T.R.A.(The Rhyme Animal ) was responsible for starting the famed mixtape series S.A.R.S (Sick Artist Runnin’ Sh%T). Never afraid of a challenge, Friday began managing Empire and took on the role of A&R and executive producer for their highly anticipated LP “Get It” AWOL was defiantly becoming a well known label across Canada and Friday executive produced Bunz’s “Welcome 2 Deuces and Trays”, “Above The Rim” and “He Got Game” as well as the Friday/Bunz combo Mixtape “The Ghetto Newz/Deuces n Trays”, Scandalis’ “After the Battle” and co-executive produced S.A.R.S. volume 4,5 and 6 all while releasing “The Connect volume 3 and 4”. He acquired another young artist named Keele, started co-managing and hosting parties with the popular DJ Law and eventually scored a distribution deal with Hip Hop Canada Digital/E1 Entertainment.

Before the Empire “Get It” LP was complete he released Empire’s “B4UGETIT” mixtape as well as Empire’s Tribute series which spawned 3 classic mixtapes over instrumentals from Nas, Mobb Deep and Wu Tang Clan. In October of 2009 the “Get It” LP was finally released promoted by the lead singles /videos “Impossible/Run up in Tha Spot”, “Boom n Pound” and “1 Thing Wrong”. The LP was a certified classic with production from Tone Masons, Rich Kidd, Noah “40” Shebbib and many more.

Unfortunately with heavy street affiliations, Friday was arrested in December 2009 for Drug and Firearm possession and sentenced in July 2010 to three years and nine months in the Federal Penitentiary. During his time away his distribution deal expired but was still able to release “The Connect volume 5” with previously recorded material. In February 2011 he was released on APR (Accelerated Parole Review) and after a few bumps in the road he has continued to consistently release material.

Friday has released “Home But Not Free” and the combo effort with Bunz “Instant Classic” full of new material and dropped formerly unreleased material on “The Connect Volume 6, 6.1 and 7”. Things are defiantly looking up again, Friday has tackled his past struggles with alcohol and detail it in his inspirational blog “The Sober Emcee” he is on the verge of releasing his first novel “15 Minutes” and always still being enthusiastic about music has recently released Bunz’s solo mixtape “Fountain of Youth” as well as “Home But Not Free part 2 and 3” In July 2013 he released “The Rick Resurrection” which was a free promotion LP. On November 22, 2013 Friday will be releasing his first official LP “Born 2 Win” through AWOL Records Inc and Urbnet Records. After overcoming adversity AWOL Records Inc. is still very much alive and no matter the obstacle AWOL is STILL the Team! Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.