Black Artists Surpassing Standards
An independent publishing and portfolio management company. We build the catalog, the record, the brand, and the platform it all lives on — in house, end to end.
Who we are
B.A.S.S. — Black Artists Surpassing Standards — operates as the creative and technical arm of Rixx City Studios, LLC, a Nebraska limited liability company founded in 2022. We work out of North Omaha, and that isn't incidental. The neighborhood shapes the work: the narratives we publish, the records we release, and the way we build for the institutions serving the people who live here.
We are deliberately small and deliberately vertical. Most companies in this space do one thing and outsource the rest — a label that hires a design firm, a publisher that licenses a platform. We do all of it under one roof, which means an author's book, the song named after it, the cover art, and the storefront selling it are all built by the same hands.
What we do
01 — Editorial Management
Publishing and global distribution for our author roster. We handle manuscript development, cover design, ISBN registration, print and e-book production, retail distribution, and catalog management. Our titles reach Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Bookshop.org, and library and academic channels worldwide.
The house catalog centers on urban fiction and street literature — work rooted in real neighborhoods and written without apology for its audience. Ellington "RIXX" Bass Sr. anchors the list, and we publish and manage other authors under the same imprint.
02 — Audio Architecture
Blackstarz Insignia is our independent record label: A&R, production, catalog development, and platform distribution for a roster of independent artists. Releases live on Apple Music, Spotify, and every major streaming service, with catalog and metadata managed directly.
Because we publish the books and release the records, our catalogs speak to each other. A novel and its title track ship from the same house.
03 — Digital Creative Labs
Full-stack web and application development plus graphic design. Formerly operating as Rixx City Studios, this arm builds production software — not brochures. Interactive interfaces, design systems, brand identity, and the engineering underneath them.
04 — Ecosystem Platforms
Deployed products we own and operate. BlvckMeta is our cross-platform social network, shipping natively on the iOS App Store and Google Play alongside a full web application. We also build workforce and education platforms for community organizations serving young people.
How we work
Everything is built to be owned, not rented. We register our own ISBNs, hold our own catalog, run our own infrastructure, and ship our own apps. That's slower at the start and considerably more durable after.
We take on outside work selectively — brand and platform projects where the same vertical approach applies.
Contact
Rights, licensing, distribution, submissions, and project inquiries:
- Email — info@thebassco.com
- Mail — Rixx City Studios, LLC, 1617 Farnam Street #62, Omaha, NE 68101, United States