005_"I walk around city"
(here you can cram to understand the whole story behind what this song means, where I walk and why Sam is rapping on the second verse when you (the random) think he should be in a band singing...)
“Whatever the city has to give you, give it back. It’s cool, no one will know the difference if you don’t have the beating heart of the city in your hand. Most people don’t live in a bustling metropolis, not even the people who live there. The individuals who move to “the big city” in North America figure out exactly how many little cities, towns, hamlets, burgs, boroughs, bogs, hills, cul-de-sacs, whatever you want to conceive make up that “city” that is however big. A town becomes a neighborhood and these are the people in it. Or whatever. In order to be amazed, you move to a maze. If you are savvy, you move to a groovy side of town and are entertained until you get bored, then you usually move across town. To be bored. I suppose nightlife is important too, there are things to do somewhere. I’ve lived in a few cities in the western world, some places are just made to walk. None of the cities that make up Los Angeles, County in Southern California are made to walk in. I thought that Berlin, Germany was definitely a perfect walking city. There were places that you went and places that you didn’t. Once you knew the lay of the land, that didn’t change from block to block like in Los Angeles and it’s surrounding areas.
Whether I live in one or not, I’m constantly attracted to city centers. I want to say that most people are, but that isn’t necessarily true. For a while, I was into rural areas since I guess the land resonated with my pseudo-pastoral DNA. When I lived in Europe, all the city planning made sense and was extremely logical. The cities grew with the people and the times, there wasn’t any ulterior motive involved. The city was in the center of town, the outskirts were either semi or super shady, here’s a forest, the end. You knew where to go to do the thing and you knew where to go to get eaten by a wolf or a ghoul or burned up by a witch or some teenagers. Not so much in Los Angeles, there’s something for someone everywhere. There’s mountain range, but that’s LA. There’s beaches (plural), but that’s LA. There’s a river, city sprawl for however many hundred square miles, foothills galore, deep suburbs, a gateway valley and desert, but that’s LA too. Entire class structures from sub-sub poverty, to royalty in another country, more Los Angeles antics. You actually can walk around Los Angeles, but you have to plan and prepare a route because it’s no one way to do it and some streets turn into small highways and then back into streets, so that doesn’t work for the pedestrian. Other cities are easier to walk around, if for no other reason than they are smaller. You are limited by literal lack of land. Some bridges cannot be crossed by foot and like I said before, some roads aren’t meant to roam. People still do it, regardless of the situation. They’ll do it on a bike, with a cart, on a thing that moves. New York City is a good example. There’s people swimming back and forth any big body of water that they won’t get arrested over. Meanwhile, there’s a dude walking around Times Square right now who is soaking wet and looking for a way back to The Bronx. Some masses of land can’t do anything but lock.
My verse from this song was half speed bravado typical type rap. The first line was a homage to Q-Tip and ATCQ, one of two on the record. I feel like city rappers have more time to preen and pose and be snazzy versus their country/working class/smaller town counterparts. The wild styling and flip-flop rap is a thing that Los Angeles (in particular Project Blowed and it’s surrounding crews) really worked out, even though there were lyrically dexterous rappers in almost every region/state in the late 80’s-early 90’s. I figured that rapping in a straight pocket on here is pretty bugged out, just because all the other songs are pretty wild. I strongly reconsidered redoing my verse after Sam dropped his, but I made myself keep the OG verse because Sam’s was a response.
I met Sam through my homie Autry Fulbright back when I working/living in/out of the Scum Dungeon, he’s one of the nicest people that I have had the honor of meeting and so is Autry. An amazing musician, but those who know that are already on the team. Him being a rapper is kind of old news in most circles, but you’d be surprised at what people don’t know. He came through like a straight whirlwind, everyone agreed that he killed the track. Hence, me wanting to go redo my verse so I wouldn’t get “skunked” on my own track. How the hell am I getting skunked on my track by a guest I invited that stepped up their raps for the song? The general idea is that I should be honored, which I was and still am. That’s that ego rap shit that I walked away from back in the day, you can’t even engage in self expression without it being a self-imposed contest. Hemlock Ernst is one of the sickest new dudes you don’t hear enough from, but he’s pretty busy doing all the things that he does over here.
EQUIPMENT LIST
-Akai MPC 3000 (this was crazy, I made the drum kit from recording my phone inside a 500 gallon reservoir on it’s side and sampling the sounds into the 3K. I hit it with a bamboo stick for the snare and my friend Jason hit it with his ham fist for the kick. I pitched up the bamboo stick for the high hat.)
-Dave Smith Evolver (that was a programming blast. no frills here. I love this synth and don’t mind it being all over the record because it and the bass station are my instruments of choice.)
-Ableton Live 9 Suite (what I did the editing/programming/sequencing with. This thang was the brain. I had to do it. Sorry not sorry.)