Nothing’s impossible

You may have seen Benjamin José Rosales around Chico. The tall, smartly dressed singer and rapper now goes simply by Legacy. He’s moved from the gang-infested streets of San Jose to being a one-time Olympic hopeful before eventually settling in Chico where he received a business degree from Chico State University. Legacy recently released his album The Impossible on his own record label 3D Records and hopes to take his success to the next level in a tough business.

How’s the CD doing?

I just got a national distribution deal and it will be in every media retail store in the nation. And Trans World, they just pick it up, too, so it’s going to hit hard once it hits all the stores. We just had a radio campaign just launched. It’s doing real good on the East Coast and all over the southern states. It’s funny, too, the song we did was [a remix] with The Dramatics and they were on Snoop Dogg’s first album and they did really well with that.

What brought you to Chico?

I started out in the Bay Area, that’s where I’m from. I was running track and field for one of the junior colleges there and I got recruited [by Chico State] on a scholarship so I decided to keep on running and continue my education and keep my goals up and running. I’ve been trying out for the Olympics my whole life and missed it by about two-and-a-half seconds, but I went for it.

Tell me more about that.

I ran all the way through college, finished up my eligibility and then, afterwards, I ran professionally, got sponsored by Adidas for about two years and that was pretty much it. Gotta start making money sometime.

What did you major in?

I majored in business administration with an emphasis in marketing and a minor in management information systems. Computer stuff.

And you’ve used that obviously to self-promote your music …

It’s helped out a lot on the business side of it and then also on the computer side of it. They work hand-in-hand. I started up a business on eBay during my senior year in college, and have been running that for about four years now. I’ve been able to put a lot of money toward the music and starting up my own record label. There’s a lot of money that goes into starting your own business and really getting the label out there. Promoting a CD period, it’s like, wow, I’ve learned so much in the last year about what it takes to make it in the music business. Not a lot of people make it.