Percieve – reclining the grind
What I’m up to
Shooting the video for Take it All
Feb 23rd
Got back into Welly yesterday, my last minute time off to roll to Aucks for my man PNCs Take It All vid meant I had to head straight from the airport to the office and back into the corporate side of my work + life (un)balance.
Aside from forgetting 5 different items of clothing, a much smaller ‘after’ bank balance, enough humidity to make a Hungry Hippo explode, and the scariest plane ride of my life, it was a mean few days in the 09.
Tuesday:
I came out of SkyCity $5 better off than I went in and more than made up for that on Wednesday nights bar spending.
Wednesday:
Spent the day shooting the video for Take it all, the playback I saw was dope so I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product in the next week or two, Anthony Plant from Fish N Clips is directing it – he’s the man behind the camera here:
Spent the shoot downtime at Dirty/Dawnraid with the big homie David Dallas dropping gems on how to best manage this EP I’m getting ready to put out there. Sometimes even the most obvious shit still needs to be said by someone who knows what they’re talking about for you to make yourself put it into action.
Checked out Flo bar in New Market with the world’s least hip hop looking DJ, D-rail, PNC and Pieter T on wednesday night and man, that was one of the coolest spots I’ve been to in a bit. I was expecting a regular ol’ club a la coyotes on R&B night, but this place was more like a jazz bar for R&B singers. They had 4 open Mics and a 5 piece band ready to jam out whatever you’re keen to sing to.
Vince Harder, Pieter T, and Mz J were there smashing out tracks solo and as a gang, There were also other dudes from the crowd jumping up to sing their favourite R&B joints. Welly heads: think Valve MC open mic nights in 2003, swap the drunk rappers with mean singers, the 5 strong patron base of rappers not quite ready to get up in front of anyone with 60 odd well dressed heads there to watch on the spot musicality, switch the Jack Daniels from Red Label to Black Label, and we’re there. Definitely something I’ll try and check out again next time I’m in Aucks.
Shout outs to D-rail, Klipz, and Tricq for the couch space, D-rail’s pug for the play fights, and Pat’s puppy for the sexually violated sneakers.
Delegate it up
Jan 27th
Earlier this week I managed to pull the-now international-homie D Dot Dallas away from the tennis for an advice filled convo about how I’m gonna go about releasing my new stuff, and how I should be going about gettin my thing done in general. Dave is one of my favourite rap mates (not that I have heaps) to go to for advice…firstly cause he obviously knows his shit, and secondly cause he’ll mix the advice in with enough insults for you to not really feel like you’re abusing your friendship for free career advice.
I think I’ve had this same conversation More >
Outta my Hands video – the drawing board
Jan 20th
Park Road - the sky doesn't always look like that
I had my first sit down with Darwin Go this week about a video we’re doing for a new track you might have heard me do live if you’ve been to a gig in the last little bit, it’s called Outta my Hands. Darwin did a lot of the post production for the Whoa video, and also did the homie TK’s Liar Liar ft. Deach video recently.
I met Darwin at his work, Park Road productions…and man, that place is unreal – from the outside it looks like a 5 star japanese hotel, and from the inside… a gentlemans-by invite only-country club. It was opulent as fuck. I don’t really use that word often, but its justified as here.
The bro has a mean concept for the vid which we’re gonna get started on soon before we lose Welly’s something-like-summer weather, so we’re brainstorming up a couple of locations now. Its gonna be a smaller budget than Whoa, relying entirely on the cd/royalty money I’ve had stashed away fattening up slowly in shares (shout outs to Australia’s mining sector lol). So we also need to start planning any product placement/sponsorship we can pull to stretch that money out like the rubberband I keep it tucked in. If you’ve got any ideas lemme know! I’ll keep you updated with mine.
Balance
Jan 17th
I wrote this post a long time ago, a really long time ago © 2pac/Dave Chappelle
In an interview for the bro Ben Walker a while back we were talking about motives behind music, or something along those lines, and I thought it was worth writing up – I would have done so then…cept I hadn’t got off my ass to snatch the site back from it’s online kidnappers yet.
This might make it a little easier to understand why it was so easy for me to disappear out of anything resembling the public eye last year (if that’s something you care about, read on – otherwise…you’re probably at the wrong spot anyway).
It’s not something I’d ever really thought about before (probably since I’m seldom introspective unless theres a nice beat with some soul samples playing), but we were talking about the difference between rapping-for-your-damn-self, and rapping for ears/speakers/IP-addresses. Because every young rapper probably builds themselves up with the goal of getting their shit out there, and being known on the block as the baddest MC etc, you’re sorta biased as to how mean that actually is when/if you get there, but over More >
Diggin for beats
Jan 15th
Was round at the homie Flowz’ (not really sure if I’m meant to put an S on the end of Flowz) pad yesterday having a listen through what he’s been working on lately and dropping off a track of mine he’s doing up a verse for.
#ShitIdidn’tKnow – Flowz has a diploma in audio engineering so has been mixing all his (draft) tracks himself and they’re sounding dope!
After the obligatory convo with an incarcerated scarface through the Rimataka phone system we got to going through some ridiculous beats he’s had on stash from Alphabethead …that dude is crazy with the sampling. Being the insane/genius turntablist that he is, you already know he’s gonna be equally as mental with the sampling and arrangements. I’m really looking forward to working with Flowz on one of those suckers I took home. Not sure what it will be turning up on, but it’ll be on something, and it’ll be mean (nothings been written for it yet so that’s based entirely on the beat alone!)
We sussed a couple other joints to work on too, stay tuned.
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Reclining the grind
Jan 12th
Yup I’m back with the blogging.
You may have noticed the change in title – just thought I’d clear that up first, I wouldn’t actually say I’ve been reclining, quite the opposite really – I’ve been on my grind hard… just not the rap grind.
A promotion at work I couldn’t turn down, and a jump up from part time to full time, has meant my pockets got fatter…but my hours in the day got thinner (see below illustrated apology if you were waiting for some shit).
After a few (dozen) half awake days at the work desk, and then the mixing desk, I think I’ve pretty much sussed a balance with work and music that I’m More >