NEW YORK (AP) — For many musicians, getting a major label contract is the dream of a lifetime.But G. Love, best known for his diverse mix of hip-hop, rock, blues and everything in between, has realised more of his dreams since downsizing from the big-time corporate music machine to a smaller label.

G. Love and his band, Special Sauce, put out their first record on Sony Music more than a decade ago, and had hits like the songs "Cold Beverage" and "Rodeo Clowns". But over the years, the Philadelphia native felt lost in the shuffle — bigger acts seemed to get more of the priority, while his band got sidetracked.

That's no longer the case since he moved to his buddy Jack Johnson's label, Brushfire Records, three years back. Describing the atmosphere like "camp", G. Love (born Garrett Dutton) says it's been the best move of his career. His latest record, "Lemonade," featuring Johnson, Ben Harper, Blackalicious and others, has been a steady seller, and the group is playing for bigger crowds than ever.

What have you learned about surviving in the music industry?

For a while, I was kind of unwilling to play the game, which is the music business, because I felt like spiritually, it would kind of infect me — infect my music, infect my soul, and I was just kind of wary of anything that had to do with the business side of it ... that kind of really hurt me early on in my career. It took me a while to learn how to play the game, to realise that the record label is actually trying to help blow you up, so how can you help them help you blow you up?

On your latest record, you have a lot of collaborations — it's almost like a party vibe>

We were in the studio and the band was kind of struggling a little bit, not on any kind of vibe, just like not a good vibe, and the best way to break that up is to invite some special guests over ... and then we wouldn't be bickering ... we'd be on our best behaviour (laughs). I think it's just a good catalyst for positive energy in the studio.

There's a whole debate on the state of hip-hop and that it's waning. What do you thinB>

don't think hip-hop is dead. I think a lot of people like to say hip-hop is dead, but I think it's still like a pretty exciting time. Hip-hop is always like a street music, and now just because it's commercially taken over the whole music industry ... hip-hop is still like raw and dirty. Jay-Z is a perfect example, he's the most commercial but he's the most street. ... There's just like a lot of room for people like me right now. In a way it's a bit of a dangerous time for me because there's so many bands out there, white boys that have guitars that rap and sing ... Hip-hop is becoming more and more eclectic and it's becoming more and more acceptable for anybody to rap.

Have you always been accepted in r

We've always been accepted by the artists, because I've played with everybody. When we first came out, we would do a lot of hip-hop shows ... definitely some of those gigs were kind of tough. The hip-hop community doesn't necessarily want to see three white dudes up there playing guitar and doing kind of a different rap thing when they are trying to see one of their favourites. It's definitely a critical audience, I don't think it's the most open audience period, honestly, but I always felt that we got a lot of respect from the rappers and the DJs and the producers who make that music, so that was always pretty heartening. At the end of the day, we're not a hip-hop act. I would say we're a rock 'n' roll act.