#soul sample type beat

[sampledose]

sampledosemusic.com

[klairvoyantones]

MY UNCLE / GODFATHER iS DEALiNG WiTH HEART FAiLURE AND LiVER PROBLEMS. ONViOUSLY, i'M QUiTE DiSTRAUGHT. ESPECiALLY, BECAUSE HE'S iN COLORADO 7 iM HERE iN LA. MY PARENTS WENT TO ViSiT SO i MADE THiS SONG iN HOPES OF HELPiNG HiM FiGHT

[jacobthewilliam]

Use this beat for your next song - Jacobthewilliam.BEATS [I CANT CHANGE ...

[bellshazes]

dreaming up a syllabus for an imaginary course on metanarratives about gameplay, which i think would go something like:

unit 1: who do you think you are i am - auto-documentary & games

Vlogs and the Hyperreal, Folding Ideas

The Slow Death of Let's Play Videos, Meraki (to ~10:00)

World Record Progression: Mike Tyson, Summoning Salt

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3, hbomberguy

Life as a Bokoblin: A Zelda Nature Documentary, Monster Maze

optional: Braindump on the History of Let's Plays, slowbeef

unit 2: what like it's hard? - intro to challenge narratives

Chapter 26: Games as Narrative Play: Two Structures for Narrative Play, Rules of Play

A different kind of challenge run: Minimalist 100% (BOTW), Wolf Link

Surviving 100 Days on Just Dirt, Mogswamp

Can You Beat DARK SOULS III with Only Firebombs, the Backlogs

Is it Possible to Beat Super Mario 3D World while permanently crouching?, Ceave Gaming

The Pacifist Challenge - Beating Hollow Knight Without Collecting Soul [CHALLENGE] - Sample

optional: How to 100% Snowpeak Ruins in under 15 minutes, bewildebeest

unit 3: nelly you don't understand, i AM the narrative - form and function

The Future of Writing about Games, Jacob Geller

Can You Beat GRIME Without Weapons?, the Backlogs

Mushroom Kingdom Championships, Ceave Gaming

My Life as a Barber in Hitman 2, MinMax (Leo Vader)

MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod, PowerPak

optional: Mega Microvideos, Matthewmatosis

the theme and structure is mostly intended to introduce at least one critical or historically contextual work followed by examples of the type of narrative in question.

in unit 1, this is the idea of "How do people talk about their own experiences in the context of YouTube and playing video games?" across three rather different kinds of documentaries. unit 2 is intended to take that lens of who is telling what tale and dial in on challenge running, where i first noticed the way some videos turn the story of overcoming a challenge into its own narrative that is distinct from but related to the narrative events of the game itself. unit 3 circles back to the bigger picture with a variety of examples that, to me, are maximally metanarrative, the emergent story of the player-narrator now functionally replacing the game's embedded narrative.

bonus unit: broken narratives

Glitch & the Grotesque at the MLA, Sylvia Korman

Watching time loop movies to escape my time loop, Leo Vader

The Stanley Parable, Dark Souls, and Intended Play, Folding Ideas

Breaking Madden, Jon Bois

The TRUTH about the Pizzaplex in FNAF: Security Breach, AstralSpiff

this one is highly underdeveloped, but i'd love to work out something more robust building on randomizer challenges that produce intentionally bizarre, semi-ironic "lore," and bois-esque endeavors to break games so hard the story itself crumbles. but that's really out of scope so i'm just including the links to things i couldn't bear to get rid of. more rambling abt the challenge runs I chose under the cut.

Challenge runs represent one of the most obvious places to start, due to being extremely plentiful and having a hook that makes a "here's how I did X thing in Y video game" format almost unavoidable. Minimalist 100% is an underrated and sweet straightforward example that I mostly include as a baseline for reporting-out style narrative; here are the facts, here's what happened, this is the thing that it is. Mogswamp's 100 Days on Just Dirt is similar in style, but the physical measuring of days is a delightful and, more importantly, external narrative device.

Now oriented, we get a taste of Ceave Gaming's narrative approach to Mario challenges with the no-crouching run, and while we still aren't at the degree of player-characters being constructed for the narrative's sake, the spirited belief in crouching sets the stage for other rhetoric in more extreme cases we'll see later.

The Backlogs' entire body of work qualifies here, but GRIME is the strongest inspiration for putting this list together. I include the DS3 firebombs run because what was initially a factual description of how his wife's use of firebombs inspired him to play differently in the original DS1 firebombs run has developed into full-blown multi-game narrative arc with the Firebomb Goddess (his wife, who also voices the character) compelling his in-game character to achieve his destined quest. Grime takes that even further,

In-Game Documentaries

I include Life as a Bokoblin mostly as a contrast to My Life as a Barber - there is a level of fictionalization and roleplay involved in the Zelda in-game documentary that highlights exactly what I want to single out when I am talking about metanarrative, the story about a story.

[the-monkey-ruler]

The Monkey King (2023) 美猴王

Director: Anthony Starkey Screenwriter: Steve Bencic / Lon J. Friedman Starring: Ouyang Wancheng / Yang Bowen / Julie Huang Rappaport / Joe Koy / Yuan Wenzhong / Li Nan / Xu Weilun / Sophie Wu / Li Xun / Andrew Kishino / Jodi Long / Huang Rongliang / Dee Bradley Baker / Robert Wu / David Chen / James Xie / Kieran Regan / Artemis Snow / Kaiji Tang / Andrew Pang Genre: Comedy / Action / Animation / Fantasy / Adventure Production country/region: Mainland China/Hong Kong, China/United States Language: English / Mandarin Chinese Date: 2023-07-30 (New York Asian Film Festival) / 2023-08-18 (US Network) Duration: 92 minutes IMDb: tt8637498 Type: Reimanging

Summary:

One night, a monkey is born from a stone atop a tall mountain and disturbs the Jade Emperor. He gives the order to eliminate the cub, but Buddha appears before him and tells him to let him find his purpose. Monkey finds a troop of other monkeys, but his unruly nature keeps him from fitting in. One of his escapades causes a feared demon to pounce from his mountain lair and grab one of the troop's cubs for food; as a result, Monkey is banished.

To prove his worth, he trains to fight the demon. After many years, when he deems himself ready, he confronts the demon, but his training proves ineffective, and another cub is snatched. To fetch a more suitable weapon, Monkey dives into the sea realm of the Dragon King, who is about to use a glowing column to eradicate all life on the world's surface. Communicating with the column, Monkey turns it into a staff and escapes. Monkey returns to the demon's lair, defeats him, and rescues the cub. Prompted by the grateful troop, he crowns himself King of the Monkeys, but the troop's elder cautions that his staff should only be used by the gods, so the new Monkey King decides to kill 100 demons, thus gaining the right to become a god.

Eventually, he comes to a village terrorized by the Red Girl. With the endorsement of a girl named Lin, Monkey King defeats Red Girl, but the Dragon King arrives during the victory celebration to reclaim his prized weapon. After fighting him, Monkey King leaves the village; Lin, pledging herself as his assistant, tags along, even though he treats her condescendingly. Unknown to him, Lin is helping the Dragon King reclaim the staff in return for saving her drought-stricken village.

In a graveyard, Monkey King opens a portal to Hell to get to the Archive of Souls and strike his name off his Scroll of Life and Death, thus gaining immortality. King Yama, the ruler and chief judge of Hell, recognizes them as outsiders and fights them. Monkey King succeeds in erasing his name, but is only made ageless. He steals Yama's Book of Everlasting Life and learns he must eat a peach from the Orchard of Everlasting Life to gain full immortality. The Dragon King subtly guides Monkey King and Lin to a peach tree laced with an intoxicating poison, but ends up getting fed one himself, foiling the plan.

After realizing the peaches are fake, Monkey King learns from the book that Wangmu, the divine Queen Mother, brews an immortality elixir for the gods. He and Lin infiltrate the Jade Palace's pharmacy to create a sample of the elixir. Wangmu catches them in the act, but Monkey King consumes the potion, thus becoming fully immortal. Although Lin has several chances to steal the staff, she repeatedly returns to help Monkey King, who also demonstrates that despite his rude behavior, he cares about her too. Monkey King and Lin flee the Heavens, and in a following heart-to-heart, Lin admits that she longs to make a difference in the world and tries encouraging Monkey King to do the same.

When Monkey King remains aloof and boisterous, Lin outwits him and delivers the staff to the Dragon King. The Dragon King reneges on his deal and prepares to drown the world in a mega-storm, but Monkey King challenges and attacks him. Realizing her mistake, Lin enables Monkey King to beat the Dragon King, but Monkey King becomes power-drunk, and Buddha prepares to intervene. Wanting to give Monkey King another chance, Lin is allowed to act as Buddha's voice and challenges Monkey King to leap off Buddha's hand to win rulership over Heaven, or else suffer a period of penance. Monkey King fails and is imprisoned in a mountain. Before the mountain is fully closed off, Lin is allowed to say goodbye to Monkey King, who finally admits how important Lin has become to him. She leaves him his staff for company.

Five hundred years later, Monkey King is freed from his prison by a monk, a pig, and a river spirit at Buddha's behest. They invite him to join them on a journey to the West, to which he over-happily agrees.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_King_(2023_film)

Link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8xysrq

[xerith-42]

What if we would actually include some minecraft mobs in mcd rewrites?

We talked about Endermen being called void creatures, or maybe voidlings

And then we have zombies, and skeletons.

Although creepers would prove to be difficult, and there's also the question of why are zombies a thing?

Shadowknights are undead beings, and we see ghosts. But what about zombies? Why would they exist? Maybe because of magic in the ground? Causing some area's to be infected with zombies and skeletons and the sort. With this magic possessing dead biodies. Maybe they're shadow souls attempting to possess a dead body?

Shadow souls are such an unused and overlooked part in mcd to be honest.

Either I leave out creepers, or they could be smaller creatures. Like a big bug. That explodes when it dies due to some kind of chemical reaction. (And sometimes leaves ice cream behind/J)

YES YES YES YES IM SO GLAD WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THIS

I've wanted to figure out how to adapt mobs into my writing for so long and you just hit the nail on the head!! Zombies could come from like a graveyard or burial sight that gets hit with magic or even fully reanimated by a necromancer type beat. Nana uses her magic to control dolls. Who's to say maybe Ivan or Zachary couldn't have the control magic to rise an army of the dead?

Obviously it isn't easy, takes a lot of training, and a lot of physical strength, but it would be so cool to see! And maybe one of the skeletons they raise gains a level of autonomy to start acting and thinking and existing on their own. And they start talking. Just saying.

As for creepers, I always like taking the og Game Theory route and saying that they're a spore. A mushroom that once only grew in maybe the Ygadrisil forest, with the unique ability to sap away at the life force of the creatures it's bonded with in order to strengthen its own hive. Infected plants or people can be severed from the connection, but they still have that life force in their body. Maybe that's why Malachi experimenting with the sampling gave him life again.

And when that along with Aphmau planting one happens, the spore starts to spread but takes on a different form. A form of a wandering creature faintly reminiscent of humans, but distinctly not. And when aggravated, they explode to damage the thing aggravating them, and to respread a reduced number of the spores. So they can either lie in wait, or reform.

And maybe one part of the hive gets really into ice cream or somethin idk

[monstrouslyobsessed]

at this rate ima beat this jack frost all black and blue with how much trouble it is to write something im happy with. sighs. anyway, i got some asks to answer! some of them got a tad too long so its all under the cut!

tw / tags: heavy heavy beastfolk lore/worldbuilding talk, momster talks too fucking much, breeding mentions, implied noncon, multiple pregnancy mentions, long post, beastfolk / beastfolks characters mentioned: revius, zedrik, cerelos (brief), sea witch, adoxi, and velarius

Beast folk idea I have! How about a male kangaroo that is of course some type of famous professional athlete (aside from boxing, he could be a martial artist, sprinter, etc.) that has been a play boy all his life (based off of how male kangaroos flex their muscles in real life to females). He never I guess had any “moment” in his life with any females, where he felt right actually wanting to be with them and love them whole heartedly (whether beastfolk of his own species or those not). So then one day someone he knows (close friend or maybe a work professional) takes him to an exclusive private party where the beastfolk have “rented” some humans to do it with. (I don’t know lore wise how legal this is, if at all, but it happened some how). I guess it’s so private because some of the guests there are secret human efers, those in denial, or just haven’t found the “right human” yet and would like some hands on sampling before purchasing them. And so, that’s how the kangaroo meets us his adorable darling. And I’d really like this to be very sweet and fluffy (before becoming mouth watering smutty of course), with kangaroo just having a “zing!” moment with us. We were the female he needed to feel complete in regards to love, and he plans to take GREAT care of us. (It’d also be funny to show how overprotective he is of reader from the start, by him unhesitatingly outbidding some of the other party guests who’ve also taken interest in reader). Of course it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, as reader has trust/abandonment/attachment issues. So finding out that her new kangaroo owner is (was) a MASSIVE play boy isn’t helping her fears. Now it’s up to kangaroo to do damage control, learn how to be a much better beast man, and show his sole love/devotion to reader. Making sure she’ll never question his love/loyalty to her ever again! He wants to make her the envy of his past flings, other beastmen, and just everybody really, since she’s the center of his universe. (Kangaroo also wants to really make her his permanently by getting her knocked up/wifey too). I don’t know if you’d like this idea/concept, but I thought it’d be very cute. I just love the trope of a Casanova finding their soul mate, and having to fix all the damage they’ve caused themselves by their own consequences. Cause it really is a self conflict, and great for character growth arcs. (I also just wanna be spoiled/doted on endlessly by a man who’s capable to throw hands literally and figuratively 24/7 to protect me). Thanks 🪭 —anonymous

hmmm, a bit -too- overdetailed for me to write this one since i like some breathing room to apply my own spins. tbf, it sounds like you already got it started! all you needed to do is to write it~if you write this one, link me! i wouldn't mind reading it and supporting fellow writers <3

while it is -my- au, i especially love seeing what it inspired in others and see their interpretations of it! while the worldbuilding remains mine (STILL chewing on starting a book/series on it someday, but the thought of publishing anything is scary af), it's literally just (semi-realistic) furries mingling with humans with extra history/political dramas included.

so, as long as you keep your worldbuilding somewhat different and source the inspiration to me, have at it. write your own beastfolk world!

anyway, on the finer details (for my AU anyway), as long as those humans are 'beastfolk-owned' and not green card/independent humans, they're essentially viewed as property to do whatever with albeit with responsibilities to ensure their well-being. as long as they're fed and have open access to water, have sufficient shelters, are clean, and their health is regularly checked, their owners can do whatever they want, really. the court won't interfere as long as the humans are safe and healthy—and mind you, the beastfolks are very slow on the uptake about the mental health, less so with their humans'.

that said, this can also depend greatly on what region they're in. some areas have far more human rights than others, being more liberal, while others may be more conservative and views humans as, well, livestock, essentially. humans in these places sometimes have the same rights as actual animals (if they're lucky). that said, the more rural it is, the fewer rights the human pets have.

of course, money DOES talk too.

so, you can just easily say that your characters are either in one of those conservative regions—or have shady connections and/or have an insane amount of money where the laws would just look the other way. just don't make it public and you're good to go, pretty much.

auctions would probably be a common sight in certain black markets, depending on where you are and when you are on the timeline. the zoo breakout to the early post zoo eras sees many of those events. on the most parts in the later era, those auctions are then transformed into whole new events entirely (aka, sports), which is the logical next step since they used to be the aftermath for when the bidding was ending in an outright war between several bidders and was used to solve the issue. instead of bidding, you'd complete for the human you wanted (i'm not clear at how the human would end up there yet since i don't feel any reputable shelter would align with those events for the 'adoption war' or that the adoption is the only way. still debating on this--in any case, the darling ends up there when there are more than two beastfolks fighting over them) and prove your worth while treating the unfortunate human like a rat bait (see: the maze headcanon i wrote a while ago—and am planning to write a whole piece of it to properly thank a very kind supporter when i'm able. some details had been changed since then, but it mostly still hold up).

in a lot of ways, the auctions were rather kinder to the humans as they wouldn't be put in outright danger right then. :/ the (new) spectator sports, such as the maze race, exploits multiple legal loopholes, since they involve no money (not outright anyway) as the auctions were (publicly) banned for "unregulated monetary transactions and the unpredictability of bid outcomes".

if anything, a good amount of these sports are...purely for "adult entertainment", if you get what i'm implying. ahem. the laws are actually pretty behind regarding the 'adult content/sports', especially with the open access of internet around then on that timeline. the large part of that had to do with encouraging the beastfolks to procreate with the humans though, so any form of sex between both races are simply not regulated outside the acceptable age range and limitations on physical violence/abuse and this includes the "entertainment" aspect.

it's fucked, but that's how they gets away with such things.. i'm rambling, but this can be a good alternative for you to think about too, to add on that extra drama flare and to further traumatize the human.

this is a super cute idea though and i sincerely hope you'll expand it yourself if you can! this is a very nice starting point too, if you're not used to writing. as for me, i'm not sure i can write all of this for you unfortunately, since i tend to go TOO long on just one scene and i have multiple ideas i wanna work on as well, aha. but you did give me room to talk the worldbuilding to help expand similar events like your idea so thank you for that. i can most definitely tell you that your poor fella is definitely not an isolated example.

Apparently penguins kidnap other penguins’ children to try and raise as their own. Was watching nature utube vids on this and it’s so sad! The desire to be a parent is so intense for some couples that they’ll take away another couple’s baby! How’d this play into your beast verse? What measures would government and organizations take to help combat this extreme phenomenon? And think about being a human parent and having your Penguin spouse come back with a random baby 💀💀💀 Even worse is if you’re in a Penguin community and have to fight off other penguins casually when you have your baby. On the streets, home break ins, etc. —anonymous

ngl featheredfolk (penguins are flightless but they're still birds and have feathers still so they count as one) is a bunch of odd birds with cultures other beastfolks often struggle to understand, especially with the dramas that often follow. children theft in general with the featheredfolks is complicated and tends to only involves the similar peers to sort it out, because outsiders (humans included, if not one of 'theirs' via being the spouse or the child/ren) would just get frustrated with their fucked logic to the point of being angry about it.

so, no, penguins wouldn't be the only birds that deal with this mannerism, but is the most common one to do so.

that said, they tend to have big enough noggins not to involve anyone who isn't a featheredfolk (and to an extent, wingedfolk), because they're still mostly prey in nature. skittishness towards the predator kind is basically ingrained in their dna.

but that's not to say such incidents never happened though! usually, it only happens when the community is actually quite small, that they have to 'outsource' to another beastfolk. it's a very dangerous thing to do though, since beastfolks are naturally very overprotective of their youngs. in cases where they do succeed with the kidnapping and escapes unscathed, it normally doesn't take long before the one they took the child from to track them down due to using their superior senses.

it's 50/50 on how it may end though and the laws would still side with the victims regardless of the outcome. hopefully, someone else would call the laws first to deal with such matters though and to calm the angry parent/guardian.

that said, i do imagine that the government would get around this annoying instinct by advertising adoptions as another option from the featheredfolk's early age in their school. they'd push it so much that the featheredfolk tends to feel like they were being singled out for it too.

...honestly, i'm not even sure how to answer this one fully. i should treat this as a serious question with a serious answer, but i can't.

the featheredfolks are legit viewed as the clowns of the beastfolk world already because of how...simpleminded most of them can be (not a bad thing!) 😭and now this. the birdbrains....still, i hope this somewhat answers your question(s)...?

Maybe I’m just blind and stupid, but did you touch up on beastfolk courtship rituals for some species? Ex- Birds may decorate, dance, or sing to court another. Hooved/fanged folk may literally fight each other to get rights to begin courtship with x. I’m just so curious to see what animal behaviors transfer to your universe! :) —anonymous

uhhhh, i don't think i really expand on those yet, no! the 'traditional' courtship rituals are more commonplace in the past than the 'modern' era, tbf, if between beastfolk and humans.

if it's just between two (or more) beastfolks, then yeah, 'traditional' courtship rituals are common.

in the present, it's a common understanding that the humans may not always understand their actions, so the beastfolk tends to adapt the best they could for 'the best of both worlds' kind of ritual—sometimes to the extreme mean though (lol).

for example, with the featheredfolks, for being a species with brittle bones, they're rather sturdy so they're often happy just living in a large treehouse and staying steady no matter the weather and season. it's more like an old cabin, with a lot of drafts. but, the thing is, neither (or more, i don't judge those in the poly relationships lol) would care, because the one doing the courting built it just for their love interest—and later built it better together for their upcoming new family members.

but for a featheredfolk genuinely interested in a human, would have to outright learn how to build a modern house—and that is far more complicated than just putting together a log cabin in the tree. they're very adaptive folks though and if they're sincere about the human, they'd go that far to at least attempt to build the foundation single-handedly. thankfully, the bird community is often tight-knit, so others would step in once the basic foundation is done and rally in.

(unlike our irl, everyone in that AU can at least afford some ways to build their own home and not be buried in the debts for the rest of their life. this is mainly because some specific beastfolks having an instinctive needs to build, that the common government would offer to offset some of the costs to abate those instincts from turning destructive.)

in their cases, even if the courting failed, the featheredfolk learned and can actually apply it to their lifeskill/career path/etc. for birdbrains, you'll see a lot of them in the engineering and architecture fields. (funny how that works!)

as you pointed out, yes, hoovedfolk and fangedfolk are more violent with their courting, but that's generally only in the cases where the love interest have more than one (alike) suitor vying for their affection. i'm not really sure how common that is in the more liberal areas tbf, but i do imagine it's a daily thing in the conservative/rural regions since those usually have a lot of, hm, predominant 'single-species' community? sorry, i'm not really sure how to word it.

since strength is what they consider their worth and humans rarely understand the point of physical violence, they'd probably show off what they're capable of instead—from lifting a car to carrying all the groceries at once for the human they're interested in. endurance too, so if the human is into, say, a sport or likes to run, they'd compete to show off just how good they are with either (though, i do like to think they'd carry their human on their back while running five more miles when the human gets tired--just to say, 'look at me! i'm not even tired yet and i'm carrying you!'). unlike the featheredfolks, fangedfolk and hoovedfolks are much milder about their courting.

whiskeredfolks are much more sly, but they like to show off how much they can provide (which is also something fangedfolk likes to do, but the former is often more subtle). usually involving money (and management) and ordering things their human hadn't realized they needed yet. things like that. they really likes to bring home food too, lol. since they can't exactly show off their hunting skills and bring home a bloodied deer carcass, providing is the next best thing with their human love interest.

there's more, but i'll stop here, but their courting rituals for their humans are basically 'modernized', with some species (obviously and hilariously so) trying harder than others.

tbf, parts of the birds' rituals were inspired by that tumblr meme on 'if men were like birds'. can't find that now though.

hope this answered you some?

Question:Revius and Zedrik- What’s family life with them now if you were to have 2 children (1 from each)? Just wondering how dynamics would change, what the children’s personalities would be like, etc. Sea Witch (octo man)- Can we have babies with him? And if we did would it be a multiple pregnancy since female octopuses (I know we are a modified human) technically lay hundreds of eggs. And how would family life be from there out? —anonymous

hm, i can't comment on the childrens personalities (and any other details, really) since that's kinda something i leave to the readers to decide.

honestly, both revius and zedrik would fall deeper in 'love' with their darling for enduring both of those difficult pregnancies, that they're rather clingy to them more so than to each other. though, granted, both knew how capable each other would be so it's more on how 'frail' their darling really is in comparison. zedrik is more openly emotional than revius is though, but revius is certainly more of the nagging type like a strict, doting mom might be. personally, i feel they'd butt heads more often after their children are born, (but never to the point of separating [imo anyway, they'd been together for some times before they decided to...'pursue' the darling]), because of how different their parenting styles were.

let's just say that cerelos' darling has an easier time wrangling with the emperor than their darling did with those two.

otherwise, they're both pretty devoted as fathers. i do imagine their kids would've been confused by their upbringings a bit though due to, again, differing parenting styles. the darling does their best though! but it's kinda hard to raise children double, triple your size lol

as for the sea witch, that's implied! i wanted to let the reader to decide on their own if they're going to have kids with him or not, rather than outright branding 'breeding kink' on the piece. but, yes, there'd be oviposition going on, had you wanted to imagine that storyline.

not sure if i understood you about the multiple pregnancies though, so i'll refrain from answering that one. instead, yes, the darling would probably carry multiple eggs and, well, egg laying. i do imagine the sea witch would've found a way to make that not at all a painful process (probably quite the opposite, tbf).

as for the family life, i'm...not at all sure. i'll leave that for you and other readers to decide. i honestly see the sea witch just enjoying the pregnancy, because to him, his darling is now ruined and marked with his seed (or, eggs). afterward? not sure if he'd enjoy the fatherhood too much, especially with multiple 8-legged kids running about.

he might be an excellent father

or he might genuinely be a shitty one.

his personality is kind of confusing in that regard, so i'll just let yall to make that call and we'll go from there.

I've really gotten into your beastfolk universe but I want to ask: Does adoxi exist within that universe or is he in a separate universe? —anonymous

nope! he's too human-looking to be a beastfolk--and is too healthy, pretty, and (mostly) sane to be a hybrid. thats why hes not in the beastfolk masterlist.

initially, he's from his own universe, where humans are living in ignorance of the existence of inhuman beings like adoxi, but i've been chewing on the possibly of him being a descendant of my other character, the cursed god. it'd explain why he's looking fairly human yet not (the 6 arms isn't genetically inheritable fyi, since the priest ripped them off from unfortunate souls to replace the ones he lost).

but that's only me chewing on it and isn't 'official' yet, since there are couple details that wouldn't make sense (but is workable). still thinking about it.

hope this answered!

God I love how you write snakemen like Adoxi and Valerius. They act like bastards but good lord I would get on my knees for them so fast! —anonymous

hee~snakes are so fun to write, ngl. imagining being wrapped around in his coil is a guilty pleasure. glad you're enjoying my depictions! <3

there's a few more, but they're requests i'm hoarding in my inbox for now lol but man who let me talk??? anyway, sorry that i took a minute to answer your asks hhhh life just keeps on happeningggg. sighs. anyway, hope yall are doing well and as always, my inbox is open for (mostly) anything. <3 love ya~and take care of yourself!

[caltropspress]

Spittin' Wicked Randomness with Small Professor

or, Bizarre Rides II the Pharthest Cyde; 

or, A beginning doesn’t need an ending, only a portal

Make your body a temple. Make your home a shrine. You are a God, live like one!

—Timothy Leary, “You Are A God, Act Like One!” (1967)

Psycholinguistic structural confusion leads to insidious beat wrecking missions and continuous speech recognition, prescription, vocal anecdotal object impressions…. Synergistic sample arrangements.

—Jungle Brothers, “Trials of an Era” (1993)

EXORDIUM

I long for the anonymity the internet once provided. Everyone was faceless. Vacant visages—not even an avatar. I’ll often try to remanufacture this premillennial experience for myself. I deliberately avoid seeking images to accompany the names I see on the screen. Many people nowadays—most people, the writer bemoaned—make this nearly impossible. Vanity of vanities—all is vanity! But I do try, I do. I look away; I increase the scroll speed; I squint to blur and becloud. Like Iris DeMent desired, I try to let the mystery be. On Rakim’s plodding “The Mystery (Who Is God?),” the God MC suggests you can solve the mystery if you realize the answer revolves around your history. But I need the mystery to stay intact. So many years on, and I’m still figuring out da mystery of chessboxin’, looking all the way back to when Wu-Tang was in black hoodies on the man-sized chessboard—cloaked rooks shouting peace to all the crooks with bad looks. “You cannot hook up a 100 million years of sensory-somatic revelation to your puny, trivial personality chess board,” so says Timothy Leary. I’m inclined to agree.

Aside from his music, I’ve known Small Professor—Jamil Marshall, if we split the veil—only through his words, through his text on my chosen screens: pixelated patterns of character images. But late last year, I stumbled across an image of him appearing not unlike a cloaked rook. Draped in a black robe, Small Professor appeared beside his Wrecking Crew brethren as a Sith Lord. The occasion was a Halloween performance at Cratediggaz Records in South Philly. Small Professor’s face was hidden, and so I could fuck with this type of qualified exposure. His shrouded appearance elevated my intrigue rather than diminished it. This was no flashbulb, soul-capturing, photographic evidence of existence; this was no selfie self-absorption; this was simply some spooky shit. 

Of the many messages that Small Professor measures out into the ether[net], the ones that have frequently caught my attention make some mention of hallucinogenic drugs. Here again, we have [e]strange bedfellows—that being technology and drugs. Twinned conceptualizations: drugs as teknology; teknology as drugs [scanned as tricknology, too, two]. Programming in the Silicon [Uncanny] Valley with the capital-I Internet reformatted as a Third [Eye]nternet. You scream as it enters your bloodstream. “Build, elevate to a higher comprehension, / Let your third eye rise above evil interventions,” if we’re properly tuned in to the Jungle Brothers’ “Troopin’ on the Down Low.” Teknology and drukqs might be more familiar than we (Eye) thought.

As we know from Jesse Jarnow, psychedelic saints were known as “heads,” which, underground hip-hop stalwarts of a certain age will wreckonize as an honorific for their own dedication to a way of life and listening. Stewart Brand, author and publisher of the Whole Earth Guide, would later speak of computers and online communities as the most auspicious collective force “since psychedelics.” Hua Hsu brings this to my total attention, but with my full cooperation (word to Def Squad), so there’s a few more things I’d like to mention. Computer science research centers saw networking and information sharing as devout acts “borrowed directly from Deadhead communalism.” Again, not dissimilar from the tape trading so crucial to the spread of this thing of ours called hip-hop. John Morrison writes of how “hip-hop owes much of its early development and propagation to an underground economy,” to the “recording and circulation of cassette tapes of park jams, live battles, DJ sets, and radio broadcasts” that brought a burgeoning and insurgent art form to the masses. The backchannels and clandestine conduits that made this dissemination possible suggest a secret organization with figures like Geechie Dan and Elvis “The Tapemaster” Moreno as its stewards. These cross-cultural, cross-generational connections exist despite Jerry Garcia’s abhorrence of rap as a legitimate musical form [see below: “Deadhead” diss-poem]. Small Professor centers himself within the radial lines of this complex mandala. His production isn’t strictly for the psych heads, or the hip-hop heads—his musick is For the Headz at Company Z. 

Small Professor understands the possibility and catalytic practices of rappers, much like William S. Burroughs did: “With computerized tape recorders & sensitive throat microphones we could attain insight into the nature of human speech & turn the word into a useful tool instead of an instrument of control in hands of a misinformed and misinforming press.” Somewhere you can hear the echoing call of Newwwspaaaaperrrr from the  Jungle Brothers’ “Book of Rhyme Pages,” a song with a prophetic register, a song that reads. 

In Burroughs’ essay “Academy 23: A Deconditioning,” which appeared in the San Francisco Oracle (c. 1966-1968), the beatific junky proposes that “academies be established where young people will learn to get really high…high as the Zen master is high when his arrow hits a target in the dark…high as the Karate master when he smashes a brick with his fist…high…weightless…in space.” As high as Wu-Tang get, I might add, Allah allow us pop this shit. Burroughs believes it’s “[t]ime to look beyond this cop rotten planet.” The students in Academy 23 “would receive a basic course consisting of training in the non-chemical disciplines of Yoga, Karate, prolonged sense withdrawal, stroboscopic lights, the constant use of tape recorders to break down verbal association lines. Techniques now being used for control of thought could instead be used for liberation.”

Small Professor is already present in such an academy, his “lab”—be it Albert Hofmann’s Sandoz Laboratory or RZA’s antediluvian lab. Like Bobby Digital, Small Professor experiences the “Lab Drunk,” the studio stupor: Stumbled into the lab half-drunk—honey-dipped, stinking blunts. The neural activity of Madlib’s psilocybin; the mind expansion of MKUltramagnetic; outlaw practices: tripping on LSD or sampling on an MPC—same diff, really. “The experience,” Leary wrote in the East Village Other, “must be communicated, harmonized with the greater flow.”

PART I

[December 23, 2023 | 9:10 PM] 

Small Professor:  Ah, fuck. I was supposed to plan this out. Just took 2 tabs to the dome officially at 9:00 PM. At some point tonight I will be looking around at my room like I just got here from outer space.

[10:14 PM]

Caltrops Press:  Where’s your head at right now?

SP:  Difficult to see. Always in motion is the right now (to paraphrase Yoda). Right now I am listening to “Right Now” (HAIM, live).

CP:  Are you alone?

SP:  I believe that to be true, but we can never be 100% sure, can we? I don’t presume to speak for you of course, but I’d wager that you may have, at least once, considered that The Truman Show could be real life, after all. According to this, though, yes:

CP:  Somebody once said, “Every day is Truman Show. True men show their face and expose flesh…” Do you think acid allows you to see beyond this reality?

SP:  No. It allows me to see this one more clearly. Time, or whatever it is that we collectively agree is this forward feeling momentum, seems to slow. So you (me) see the same things that you see everyday, but that your brain kinda knocks aside after a while. Things look new.

CP:  Are you typically playing music when you trip? Does the music slow down? Not literally. But do you process it differently? And, of course, I’m curious if you ever try to make music in this state?

SP:  I like making music that barely makes sense in whatever state I’m in at that time, so when I come back to it I’m even more confused. Like leaving yourself a drunk voicemail, but on purpose. I’m generally high—it’s just a matter of how. And to the last question: Do or do not, there is no try. 

PremRock:  I think [Small Professor's] work has benefited from discovering [hallucinogens]. He’s pretty passionate about ’em! I think it’s made him more expansive and he’s more eager to try far out ideas. He was always psychedelic in nature, but this just provided more of a conduit.

Zilla Rocca:  Even without shroomz he always had a bugged-out sense of melody, rhythm, and layered samples. Smalls has always been a seeker. We connect like that. We love unearthing old rap to learn from it while appreciating all the new styles.

When brothers start buggin’, I bug the most.

—Jungle Brothers, “Simple As That”

CP:  I’ve never fucked with psychedelics, so I generally have either a romantic or sensational notion of what it must be like. Have you ever had any experiences where things went really weird, or have you ritualized it enough so that you know what to expect? Like it’s become yoga or meditation for you by this point. 

SP:  Yeah, it’s pretty meditative. The first time I had acid was so surreal that nothing else could dream to compare.

CP:  When was that? Do you still remember the details?

SP:  Well, first of all, I couldn’t have started such a journey without such caring guides, for they did not have to take time from their lives to explain how much to take, how much not to, to be mindful of the kind of media you’re ingesting while in that space—like nothing too scary and shit like that. They specifically said, “Maybe watch a comedy tonight. Something on the lighter side of things.”

CP:  I’ve heard that’s important, having a guide.

SP:  So I believe I initially started off with the smallest amount I could take, cuz I didn’t know any better. But the effect was immediate. I remember going outside and just standing in an empty parking spot in front of my crib and watching it rain. It was night already. I was like, Wow, this is the best rain I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of rain. And then I went out to get more tree. On my way home though, so…okay. How do I explain this? So, my Lyft driver on my way back to my house, he and I strike up a conversation. At the end of our talk, which included a phone call to someone of high stature in the 5% community who spoke to me directly, I embarked on the path to knowledge of self.

CP:  Like, sincerely? Or only until you stopped being high?

SP:  Well, I know now it started there. But I’ve always known that I am god, in some way. It’s just that, after you find out, what do you do with that knowledge of your own god-dom? That’s one thing I can appreciate about psychedelics. It’s like, Alright, well, if I know my brain is capable of such a thought or a piece of music in this one state, then I should be able to get back to it.

CP:  I get that. Like, “I’ve done this before, so I can surely do it again.” But, for so many artists, they struggle to capture whatever it is. I know a lot of times I’ll look back on something I’ve written and then ask myself, How did that even happen? Because the process—the making of something—is often so unconscious. 

Curly Castro:  Smalls calls me after the fact (bka “a trip”) and regales me with a cornucopia of odd and odder occurrences. I will say that one time [redacted] and that’s when [redacted] and what could say after [redacted]. I just told him, Say Less.

CP:  How long will this trip last? You took two tabs at 9 PM, and it’s been 4.5 hours.

SP:  Oh, I’ll be up for a while. Night hasn’t even begun.

CP:  I need to crash because I’ve got to be up early. But keep dropping whatever random thoughts you have here. We’ll call this Part 1.

SP:  Fantastic, Pt. 1

SP:  “God is never small.” Those are the words that man said, and my reply was, “...I am? I am. Ohhhh. I am.”

[Small Professor links me to a video showing Donald Lawrence & The Tri-City Singers performing “I Am God.”]

SP:  Also, I’m quite proud of the fact that my government name [Jamil], oddly Arabic considering how Christian my dear mother is, quite literally translates to “Beautiful Ruler,” with my first name actually meaning “god” in certain places (“Jamil” is one of Allah’s 99 aliases—I found that out earlier this year). My mom HATES THIS BOYEEEEE. She thought it just meant “handsome.”

SP:  Words mean things but don’t have to.

SP:  [Denmark Vessey & Scud One’s Cult Classic] (This is my official trip soundtrack.) “Throw bricks at him if you can’t build wit ’em, / Whoever marquee, top bill, I’ll Kill Bill ’em.”

SP:  It’s 8:23 AM. Still trippin’.

PART II

[December 24, 2023 | 9:15 AM] 

CP:  You awake? If so, talk to me about “Dettol.”

SP:  I feel like that beat was made along with a few others in that same span of time with Roc Marci in mind. Not only in terms of the drum un-emphasis but also being intentional about giving an MC room to operate, to breathe. On Midnight Marauders, both “Electric Relaxation” and “Lyrics To Go” are special beats because they operate within the parameters of 4/4 time but the bar lengths aren’t the typical 8. On “Dettol,” you have mostly 8-bar loops until it shifts to 12 for one measure, and then it starts over. (Not sure about my beat math there.) So the Armand Hammer guys had to each approach that in their own way. Couldn’t have drawn it up any better. “Numbers look crooked like King Kong shook it.”

CP:  (That’s your second Slum Village reference in this convo.) Paraffin was the first album I heard by them, so that beat would’ve been the third Armand Hammer song I heard overall. And that “giving them space” idea definitely benefited me—a guy who hadn’t been paying attention for years, specifically because lyrics weren’t grabbing me like they used to. 

The psychedelic experience is not just an internal, private affair. The “turned on” person realizes that he is not an isolated entity, a separate social ego, but rather one transient energy process hooked up with the energy dance around him.

—Timothy Leary, “You Are A God, Act Like One!”

CP:  How did you originally connect with woods and ELUCID? 

SP:  I may have been aware of ELUCID as early as 2005 by way of his Tanya Morgan/Lessondary/Okayplayer fam associations, but 2007 when he dropped Smash & Grab is when I instantly knew, Ah, this guy’s one of the best rappers ever. By 2009, that became, The best ever. That was the Myspace era, so we connected on there musically but also on some homie shit. We were working on a song of his in like 2011 or ’12 for the BIRD EAT SNAKE mixtape, “Dumb Out.” 

ELUCID:  BIRD EAT SNAKE is a whole lifetime ago. I had just met woods. I was also just beginning to develop the Cult Favorite record with AM Breakups. I was super charged creatively and was fortunate enough to have a lot of space to develop that. “Dumb Out” was such a strange beat that made my pen move immediately. Nothing overthought or drawn out. Just really chunky, vibed out, and punchy energy. I just began to acquire these attributes during the making of that tape. 

CP:  “Don’t eat the brown acid…”

SP:  Originally woods was supposed to be on there. I distinctly remember this being one of the first times I heard him because…okay. He recorded a verse on this beat and ELUCID sent his acapella but no reference to guide from. And I’m very good at matching up acapellas, so the fact that I could make no sense of his flow—where to place it in the mix—always stuck out to me. 

CP:  Is that why he didn’t end up on the song?

SP:  I don’t believe so. That would be funny if true, though. Because it feels like I have more music with those two than what tangibly exists. 

CP:  Also funny because, as their audience has grown—exponentially of late—the “discourse” returns to whether woods raps “on beat” or not.

SP:  Once I understood that the question of if he’s rapping on- or off-beat is the wrong one—when it should be, Why do I hear this as off-beat? How do I hear what he heard to deliver it that way?—that’s when it clicked for me.

CP:  Was “My Blank Verse” your first beat for them officially?

SP:  That was the very first song me and ELUCID made together. Don’t think it was for anything in particular, initially.

CP:  Got it. So it wasn’t approached as an Armand Hammer track, per se. Just ended up on an AH project. When did you connect with ELUCID in person?

SP:  I wanna say I met him in person at a show in Philly, at the Khyber. But the time I remember the most is when I was in Brooklyn with him (this actually might have been when we met up to record “My Blank Verse”), and he showed me the block where B.I.G. grew up. I like to imagine my power levels increasing on that day due to the residual holy hip-hop energy on the premises.

CP:  That’s dope. I’m surprised to hear you recorded the track in person. Both because so much is done remotely now—the producer and the MC separate—and also because ELUCID, I’ve read, is pretty private when it comes to recording. Maybe that came later, though.

SP:  Yes, that did come later to my knowledge. But also, I’m special. 

ELUCID:  This was the era when Willie Green’s studio was still in his apartment. I had just started recording with Backwoodz, and “My Blank Verse” was indeed recorded that afternoon. I usually don’t have people hanging in the studio while I record, but I think my comfort level with Jamil speaks to the ease I feel in our dealings.

SP:  I also remember going to meet ELUCID in New York specifically to get a flash drive that had he and woods’s verses for the Sean Price “Midnight Rounds” song they all should have been on together. His internet was down.

CP:  Why didn’t that track come to fruition?

SP:  woods’s hook was an interpolation of Apache’s “A Fight” (because, midnight rounds). The label was like, “Oh nah!” Word for word! Bar for bar! Sean P would have appreciated it.

CP:  Jersey’s own.

billy woods:  At that point in my “career,” I was kinda disappointed to get cut but not surprised. I guess I had a long history being snubbed regularly by peers and institutions in the indie music scene, so it just seemed like, Yeah, more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised to be invited, and unpleasantly unsurprised to be disinvited.

SP:  So, kept ELUCID’s verse and subbed in my man Castle, making this song the spiritual successor to a track I did on me and Guilty Simpson’s Highway Robbery, also featuring those two. Things fall apart, but they also come together. How they’re supposed to.

CP:  What’s the story behind “No Grand Agenda”? Also, where are we at in terms of the trip?

SP:  It’s slowing but at a light jog now. The beat for “No Grand Agenda” was originally part of an album I did made up entirely of exactly 1-minute long songs called You’re Killin’ Me Smalls. There were 60 songs. ELUCID was one of the only rappers I sent it to, specifically because it wasn’t “supposed” to be for raps. I had an ex who stomped out my computer and hard drives one day, including the original files for this project. All except for that one.

SP:  “Are we sure there’s no grand agenda?” And ELUCID took my stems and arranged it how he heard it. It was meant to loop in on itself, like the other songs on that project. It was originally named “Kelvin Spacey,” and I’m sure I’m misremembering but I wanna say “Dettol” was originally named “Kelvin Duckworth,” if only to verify Zilla Rocca’s guess that I was the producer in question that had sent woods a beat named after his favorite Portland Trailblazer.

CP:  So you’re saying, like any good friend, ELUCID jacked that beat?

SP:  Oh, I remember him asking to rap on it, perhaps for nothing in particular at the time. But who am I to deny the goat? And it’s obvious to me that this is how it was supposed to go; ain’t nothing coincidental or accidental, dunn.

ELUCID:  The making of “No Grand Agenda” was a cornerstone for a foundational era of style for me. I felt like I made a song that seamlessly weaved both verse and chorus in a way that felt absolutely hypnotic. It was a new belt for me, this sense of control. Small Pro was one of the first producers to trust me enough to send his beat stems. During this period is where I began producing more of my own music, so I also wanted to arrange the song how I heard it. Thankfully, Jamil dug it. 

CP:  What do you like about ELUCID’s rapping?

SP:  Some of it is the voice. Some of it is the things that he’s saying. But mostly, my favorite rappers all share this in common: they can get busy on any style of beat, any tempo, any sound, any Small Pro time puzzle. I was listening back to his older stuff a little while ago and heard him doing whole specific styles on one song, and never doing it again. The versace, versace flow, in particular. It felt like he was bored at the time and peered ahead three years to see how everyone was rapping, came back, did it, and that was that.

ELUCID:  [Working with Small Pro] is a special thing. Something that I’m still exploring. I think a Small Pro x ELUCID tape would be ill. Knowing his attention and care in the translation of my bars and flows is the type of partnership real MCs aspire to. It just hasn’t happened yet!

SP:  He and woods both have had a way of inspiring me through specific lines. “Go where the drummer commanded me,” for example. It’s me. I’m the drummer. And woods, a few songs before “Dettol” says, “Beg producers to take out the drums,” which he said was meant to be a joke, but I took it literally and started making beats that could exist with or without drums equally. 

All of my Backwoodz-related songs are credited as “Small Pro,” not “Small Professor.” I was on shrooms the week after my birthday earlier this year when I realized those are now different entities. Especially because woods was once like, “Wait, you did ‘No Grand Agenda’?” And I was like, “I did….I think? No, that was Small Pro.”

The last full project I—or I—did before moving back to Philly was a reimagining of A Jawn Supreme 1-3 from the Small Pro remix perspective. It was my—or my—first time remixing my own music, hearing things without the drums I put on them originally. It was an enlightening time. I hear voices at the fortress.

CP:  I think it’s rare for a producer to be so attentive to what the MCs are saying, let alone to look at what they’re saying as guideposts. The idea of a differentiation between “Small Pro” and “Small Professor” is interesting. Where does the Small Pro path ultimately lead? Into this larger Armand Hammer universe?

SP:  I feel like when I started out making beats my natural inclination has been to make things as busy as possible. Small Pro is like, What if I take away instead of adding? Or, How can I still have a million things going on in the track but it sounds bare or like, not done? “My girl say this beat sound unfinished, / I said, ‘Yeah, that’s where my voice go.’”

SP:  (Not sure when I passed out. I knew the crash was inevitable.)

[December 24, 2023 | 6:47 PM]

SP:  To your point about it leading to the AH-verse, that may be part of it too. They’ve both inspired me as rappers but also their production decisions and choices—ELUCID quite literally, as his production has always confounded me, but woods too. Two producers who have had just as much an influence on me as anybody I worshiped when first starting out are August Fanon and Messiah Musik—modern legends. Fanon can make beats for literally anyone. But Messiah’s natural style is one that both Hammers can sound great on from the get-go, whereas I have to consciously get myself into that mode. They also both sometimes do odd and potentially challenging things regarding time in their beats, as I do, but in their own way.

CP:  Do I remember seeing you mention somewhere that you still use Fruity Loops and Cool Edit?

SP:  Yup. I wanna say since 2008. Well, technically since 2003. But I’ve been using the same versions of those two programs for a minute now. Still using Windows XP, too. It’s comforting to me. And ridiculous. Like Rasheed Wallace faithfully wearing Air Force 1s his whole playing career.

CP:  I love that. Some real “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” ethos. Any rules for yourself when it comes to sampling? Strictly vinyl or are you irreligious when it comes to source format?

SP:  98% of my beats are made from mp3s. The remaining fraction is YouTube or some other source. Haven’t used vinyl for sampling purposes in many years but ironically try to make my beats sound like vinyl. As far as rules, everything I thought was law were things I later learned the musicians I look(ed) up to sneered at. 

CP:  Ain’t that the truth. Very little is sacred when it comes to process, I find. That’s a lot of ego. What efforts do you make to have the beats “sound” like vinyl?

SP:  On “Dettol” is my go-to record crackle sample. That’s also in 98% of my beats, and something I specifically remember was like, corny or something, but—ah, here it is: Slum Village reference #3 to fulfill the rule—on “Hold Tight” Dilla uses a needle pop as a snare bolster as well as the accompanying static. It’s there for added depth and texture but also can act as a counter-rhythm to your percussion. Reality features an inherent level of static in the form of cosmic microwave background radiation around us at all times. Art imitates life.

[December 25th, 2023 | 11:41 AM]

CP:  “No Christmas this Christmas…”

CP:  I always like to think of the story—apocryphal or not—of Evil Dee using bacon grease hissing on the stove for extra crackle.

SP:  The turntable hum is freakable too. Makes for a great bass sound but also something you can feel.

CP:  Do you ever have acid trips accidentally interfere with other obligations? I imagine you’re always planning for a blocked out number of hours. But best laid plans…

SP:  There’s a recovery period the next day, so that can be interesting to navigate. But yeah, I usually am in my room avoiding external interactions on whatever kind of trip it is. In my experience with acid, you gain more control over your “self,” and shrooms is the opposite, where your sense of self and awareness is reduced. Go home, brain—you’re drunk.

CP:  The loss of control is something I just can’t handle. Have you ever found yourself in a situation on shrooms where you emerge later, like, “Damn, that was a bad look”?

SP:  Yeah. My first time taking an 8th to the face (I ate it on a burger) after getting to and past the point of looking in a mirror and not recognizing my face for a sec. I later came upstairs and my BM had made some, like, lasagna? And it was so good that I’m just there demolishing it over the stove—like I was Garfield. Her friend walked in the kitchen at that moment and I should have been mortified, but in that moment there was only delicious lasagna.

CP:  Real Gs move in silence like lasagna…

CP:  Listening to Terror Management on Xmas morning. Is “Marlow” your beat/song with the most synchronicity between you and the rapper?

SP:  It’s up there. That album is interesting to me because of the repeating motif of having two beats from different producers for one song—always thought that was cool. The intro on that beat had the spoken part added after the fact, so it did really feel like some good ole fashioned teamwork. 

CP:  And specifically the serendipity of you naming the beat for your late father, correct? I imagine an artist won’t typically name their song after the name of the beat. Was there a reason you named that beat, out of so many, after your father?

SP:  Originally it was a play off of the artist’s name I sampled (a lot of my song titles are born this way), but I can also say it makes me think of my father’s dark side. He was one of the happiest, generally cheerful people I’ve ever known, but I’ve seen him go into green belt mode when pushed too far—only a few times, but it was like, Oh snap. 

woods closed his set with “Marlow” at a Philly show last year shortly after my pops passed, and it’s one of the nicest gestures anyone has done for me. I was at the bar crying like a newborn fucking baby, god.

billy woods:  That was a special moment for me, too. I really love that song. Pro and I have not worked that much together, but a lot of what we have done is really dope. He has produced a handful of Armand Hammer songs but they all hit, in my opinion. But [“Marlow”] is a song I really love and has come in and out of my setlist, but always makes it back in. The fact that it happened at that moment, and that it had that extra meaning for him was an honor for me.

SP:  That album [Terror Management] as a whole has always intrigued me because of the repeating motif of two producers each having a beat on one track (this happens on some Armand Hammer albums too, now that I think about it, but it’s a different effect when it’s two MCs on each beat instead of one). 

CP:  Lots of doubles—the name, the sides of your father, “Small Pro” versus “Small Professor,” two beats, etc. Double-consciousness, perhaps. Not necessarily in a Du Bois sense; more so in the sense of realities. 

SP:  I’m all about man’s rugged duality.

CP:  Did you and your father connect over music?

SP:  Oh, absolutely. Our music rooms were down the hall from one another when I got started in college, and over the years he would start wandering in to hear what I was working on. Eventually, as he started transitioning into working in DAWs, he would ask for advice with things he knew I would be able to help with. He loved showing me whatever he was working on, and I knew he valued my opinion as one of the people responsible for a lot of my music edumacation in the first place. 

[December 26, 2023 | 12:26 AM]

CP:  Would you reciprocate and show him what you were working on? Did he look upon hip-hop favorably?

SP:  He was from probably the last generation that didn’t grow up with hip-hop, and by and large it was probably offensive to him on two fronts: as a pretty religious dude the language and subject matter was too much, and musically all he heard were the loops, repetition, and sounds he loved and recognized being used all over again in an inferior, simple way. (I found a lot of the samples from Mobb Deep’s second album amongst his tape collection.) But over the years, as he saw how seriously I took it—as well as being impressed as a person who played 7-8 instruments by what I was able to do with two computer programs and mp3s—he was able to appreciate it as an artform (at least, the production side) even if it wasn’t quite his thing. 

He’s also half the reason I’ve always been enamored with non-common time signatures, a key feature in a lot of the music he dug—that Weather Report, Yellowjackets, Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock, Steely Dan, late ’70s, early ’80s chamber. My mother was more into “traditional” jazz and classical. They shared gospel personally—and professionally—as working church musicians. On my first album, there’s a 5/4 beat that I remember excitedly showing him because it took me forever to get the chops lined up in an un-choppy fashion, and there’s a switch on there between drum pattern grooves much like what you would find on a jazz fusion-type song. I felt like if I could impress him, I must be doing something right. The last time we hung out before the cancer did him in, he was showing me how far he had gotten learning how to play drums, and I got on the sticks and tried to replay the patterns on some of my beats (emphasis on tried). The “trouble don’t last” jawn, in particular, to which he responded by telling me I was already a drummer. Memories live. 

The times I saw his email pop up in my Bandcamp purchase notifications, I figured it was just a proud dad supporting his firstborn…nah, he was actually listening. His favorite project was the album I did along with my group Them That Do, which was my version of Madlib’s Shades of Blue on the beat tip. Besides digging the actual sound (updated jazz rap), I think he was most taken by the fact that he couldn’t quite tell what was sampled from where and that I had made all these sound from sometimes vastly different records seem like they were supposed to be together, and the beats made sense from the perspective of a person who understood music theory.

CP:  “I said, Well Daddy, don’t you know that things go in cycles.” Beautiful that you guys got to share those moments.

SP:  (I even said the part about two beats on Terror Management twice.)

SP:  My brother (the actual drummer of the family) just sent me “Spain” by Chick Corea, one of our dad’s favorites. Speaking of my brother—who I credit with teaching me how to program drums and how to count bars and all that—one time we were on our way to church with my dad, and Steely Dan’s “Black Cow” was on. Pops started to try to explain the lyrics, what a “black cow” was, why they were very high…all that. 

So a few years back I was proud to send [my father] “Gas Drawls” from Operation Doomsday because this story has always cracked me up, but also that’s a great-ass sample chop (and one that he appreciated, as opposed to the time my broski and I were buggin’ out over the beat for Jay-Z’s “Kingdom Come” and he was like, Is nobody doing anything original anymore?). 

[December 28, 2023 | 12:56 AM]

CP:  You should’ve sent him Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz after “Gas Drawls” and been like, “See.” As a drummer, does your brother fall more in line with your musical tastes or your father’s? 

SP:  I’d definitely say my brother has a much more diverse and varied musical vocabulary/understanding/tastes than I. We both grew up hearing, and then eventually listening, to rap. Twenty-three to twenty-four years ago when the neo-soul era was beginning, we were smack-dab in the middle of it, in the literal eye of the storm. Things Fall Apart, Like Water For Chocolate, Black on Both Sides, Reflection Eternal were just coming out. Musiq Soulchild was on the radio. Voodoo (which I didn’t get into until much later when I listened to it riding through Zanesville, Ohio countryside in 2007 [it’s still “Brown Sugar” over everything, though]) was everywhere. But there was also his actual school music education from primary to college, as well as listening to people from all instinctive travels and paths of rhythm, so he knows it all—or because he’d be like, “Shiiii, no I don’t!—a bit about a bit.”

I keep saying “my brother” when I have two. My younger bro is the drummer but my older brother’s tape collection was everything in high school (actually, even before that I was stealing his It Was Written tape when I was in seventh grade to play on the way to school). Being eleven years older, he was in high school when the great 90s east coast revolution was happening, and his Nike shoebox archives reflected the sounds of the time. As far as his tastes go, if DMX was still with us and dropped an album today, he’d get it without a second thought.

[December 28, 2023 | 11:10 PM]

CP:  Sorry to trail off. Got a bit busy on my side. Would you be down to hit me with a handful of your most interesting beat names at the moment?

CP:  This is art.

SP:  The “Will Smith as…” series is new. They all slap.

[Small Professor posts a since-deleted message on X quoting Werner Herzog talking about stealing a 35mm camera from a Munich film school. The quote: “I don’t consider it theft. It was just a necessity. I had some sort of natural right to this tool. If you need air to breathe, and you are locked in a room, you have to take a chisel and hammer and break down a wall. It is your absolute right.”]

CP:  I love this. “A natural right” to make something. Like a compulsion within. (I also love Herzog, so I appreciate the anecdote.) Do you remember where you first acquired that cracked Fruity Loops (and maybe Cool Edit, too)? If I think back, I probably had a friend hand me a disk, a CD-RW, back in like 1999 or something. God knows what sketchy site he downloaded them from.

SP:  In college when I first started doing beats, I torrented everything—movies, programs, especially music—with nary a second thought. It’s a good way to give your computer a bad cold, which I did on several occasions. And I too appreciate Herzog because I love no myth more than my own as well.

CP:  Have you got any myths on par with rescuing celebrities from wrecked cars or nonchalantly brushing off bullets to your abdomen?

SP:  No, but I can say I did albums with both Sean Price and MC Paul Barman.

CP:  Indisputable. I think this is an appropriate spot to (un)officially close this. Anything else you want to talk about?

SP:  Gotta give a shout-out to the Jungle Brothers for making Crazy Wisdom Masters in 1991. PremRock told me legend was that they made it on shrooms and when I listened to it on acid I was like, Oh, yeah, y’all were high as fuck when this was made. I could tell not only because the music itself is bugged out but even the pace of the record is accelerated. They had some songs on there that were a minute-and-thirty-seconds but so much was going on , sometimes different things in either stereo channel that it gives off the effect of being on a trip and you’re noticing—for what feels like the first time again—that everything is happening everywhere at once.

Listen to Crazy Wisdom Masters when you get a chance. It’s a personal classic that I’ve listened to at least fourteen times this month. Warner Brothers did them dirty (this was their M.O. apparently—this was the same time period they were beefing with Prince) by delaying the entire record two years and having them clean up the tracks, and disrupting the carefully curated listening experience by taking tracks away and rearranging the entire thing. J Beez wit the Remedy, the resulting hodgepodge, would drop on my birthday in 1993, and when I first heard it, I was like, Hmm, something’s awry here, and that’s how I found out about Crazy Wisdom Masters. 

CP:  I think I downloaded it or thought about downloading it recently when people started talking about it again. Is there a “definitive” version to look for? I know Bill Laswell had uploaded a version to his Bandcamp page a while back. 

SP:  That’s a good question. The version I found that concludes with “For the Headz At Company Z” is the album as the god(s) intended.

Just as Small Pro is distinguished from “Small Professor”, “Crazy Wisdom Masters” is a distinct personality from “Jungle Brothers.” Small Pro is a definitive, lost Laswell version—a ra ra kid who catches wreck with randomness. He doesn’t channel, but grooves, as the most psychoactive Afrika Baby Bam and Mike G doppelgänger. We end up doubled-over; “dope-sick,” if you will. You sleep on it, then you wake up in the morning and dwells on it, as Small Pro casts his spells on it. (It’s as Simple As That.) SP’s Comin’ Through, and when he does, multiple realities accelerate as he explores radical possibilities. He’s chewing on the chemicals and raising up the levels on the decibels. We—his audience of lab assistants, his dilated pupils [and peoples]—“experience the ultimate, the infinite.”

Images:

Most images are from the Vol. 1, No. 10 October issue of the San Francisco Oracle or unknown issues of the Chicago Seed | Small Professor “Sith Lord” photo courtesy of Matthew Shaver for WXPN | The Grateful Dead tapers section photo, Unknown | Screenshots by Small Professor | Apache tape photo by Caltrops Press | Gilbert Shelton, “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers,” East Village Other (detail) | “Deadhead” poem by Joseph Rathgeber

[amamfengutv]

Talk to me naace EP Review, Zulo (2022)

By Banzii Mavuso

Track 1. Let’s talk seems like Zulo’s long-awaited announcement of his hero’s journey with delicious vocals sampling a house classic.

A bold announcement of his arrival.

I read a review on Slikour Online by Lesiba that goes: “If you take a look at ZULO cover art you will notice a common character and his name is Tricky, the bunny. In the same way Kanye West used the Dropout Bear, Tricky the bunny is a personification of ZULO and his journey in the South African music industry. Tricky, the bunny is pictured being teleported by a beam of light, a nod to his love of sci-fi. This symbolises ZULO's ascension into the next phase of his career. It's important to note that Tricky isn't resisting the beam of light. In ZULO's words, "the bear is floating because I'm on autopilot."

He is letting everything be. No longer is the old, frustrated figure of Lil Trix. All that is meant for him will come to him. Tricky, the bunny is at the center of a storm, which is purposeful.

Leading up to this EP, ZULO had gone through various tests in his personal life, but he acknowledges that ZULO was born out of the chaos. Tricky being at the center of the storm symbolizes that rebirth.

For me, I discovered Zulo on Instagram about a year ago and gave him a chance. Sonically, Talk to me naace, is one of the best pieces of work I have heard in 2022 and in 2024.

Track 2. Supreme is a deeper dive into his Zuloverse. Supreme, Supreme. Supreme. Sonically it reminds me of a cyborg movie in audio form.

Track 3. Portals is one of my favorite tracks. Why you catching feelings? Colored boy from the burbs. As a producer and vibes bringer, we see him announcing ‘You in the fucking saga.’ We know he doesn’t publicly announce his love for AKA But as SupaMega fans, we are aware of the Saga as his collaboration with Anatii.

As a Virgo, Zulo delights in keeping things in perspective and also vocalizes his love for the Wayans Brothers. The chants in the song make it deeply relevant to South African youth culture. Showcasing the diversity of his country by featuring a variety of artists.

Track 4. JUST VAARBS. Is a flossing, easy chilling, I really do this easy-type song. Okay, Okay, Okay. This is everything you ever wanted. Hocus Potent, the strain is potent. This is my moment. Listing one of his favorite directors Wes Anderston. You talk too much; you tweet too much. I caught my sub. Never meant to cause you any pain. She said, you wanna smell my punani?” Janet Jackson. I should have left you to be happy. Reminiscing of old love and taking accountability as a man. The beat switches a bit to a Kendrick-eque vibe with a Virgo-Michael Jackson salute.

Track 5. Love your life. A potently sweet message wrapped in Eldo, Jozi vibes, chilling with his favorite Jozi artists like Dox. Rsa.

"Relax, take it easy, I know you can’t. Skyf bietjie daarso, Keep feeding my soul. Better part of me that I’ve suppressed. Lost a lotta opportunities in my defense."

"They say your attitude in life defines success."

Name drops Leon Schuster. An Afrikaner older man, a staple in South African comedy industry. Trust the process is the message. Dox RSA comes in with easy vocals reminding us of our favorite musicians Boom Shaka, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah with a Neo Soul Pantsula twist. Sample of a house classic and sultry vocals before the song ends, la la la la la and sax.

Featuring a sample from DJ Ganyani's 'Talk to me' ft. Layla. We see a deeper dive into his interests, true interpretation of sounds. All the elements, samples and interpolations in the album are used in a way that conveys ZULO's vision.

There are moments on the album like "JUST VAARBS" where you can feel the identity of a truly unique South African talent shining through the Kwaito inspired production.

He has moments of pure genius. Every switch in tempo or flow or cadence comes as a surprise. It's the same quality that you experience in a movie that you can't quite tell where it's going. It is more of a listening experience than a song. 

I think that's the one thing I could take away from "Talk to Me Naarce". It's a coming-of-age story.

A journey of ZULO and the experiences that shaped him. In his words, "There is no such thing as slept on. You're just not doing enough. Talk to Me Naarce now!" 

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Best of House Music Volume 2: Gotta Have House 1988 House / Garage House

I mean, where do you even begin with something like this, folks? Yesterday's post about the first installment in New York label Profile Records' Best of House Music series dealt with some of the genre's earliest cornerstones, most of which naturally came from its home city of Chicago, but this comp, which was released in the same exact year, seems to be tracking a sudden evolution of this music, because not only was house expanding far past Chicago into New York and UK club scenes, it was also enmeshing itself within the music industry too. It was becoming part of the fabric of eclectic dance DJ sets, getting mixed among the likes of synthpop, electro, hip hop, dance-pop, freestyle, alternative dance, hi-NRG, etc., and it was also getting real estate on 12-inch records and CD singles, in the form of extended remixes of pop tunes, which helped to maintain its disco-rooted spirit too. And plenty of well-established producers like Arthur Baker and Shep Pettibone were latching on to it themselves as well. House wasn't just this insularly quirky scene anymore; it was adapting, assimilating, growing, and getting its due recognition 👏.

And this is an album that properly reflects and encapsulates all of that massive and relatively quick advancement. In yesterday's post about Volume 1, I made mention of the New York quartet of 2 Puerto Ricans, A Blackman and a Dominican, which had future dance legend David Morales and the two C's that would go on to form C&C Music Factory, Robert Clivillés and David Cole, in it. And those guys are back again in full force on this second volume too, but they're split up: C&C open this album with their own sweet 7-and-a-half-plus-minute piano-and-string garage remix of Natalie Cole's cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac;" and then Morales comes through with an excellent midtempo remix of "Instinctual" by British funk and soul trio Imagination, whose lead vocalist, Leee John, sings in that super high type of male register like Jimmy Sommerville of Bronski Beat and The Communards used to do 🥰. Phenomenal stuff right there!

And you can also sense that along with the music becoming more accepted, that it was also getting crisper and more refined too. The overall production quality on these tracks is significantly higher than those on the first volume. Chicago house legend Marshall Jefferson, who also appeared on Volume 1 with the all-timer, "Move Your Body (House Music Anthem)," is on this comp as well, with his remix of Kechia Jenkins' "I Need Somebody," which is another piano-and-string garage heater. And you can tell how much he'd been honing his craft between the 1986 release of "Move Your Body" and the 1987 release of this song; leagues apart, really, even though both are terrific.

And speaking of "Move Your Body," another New York legend is on here too—Todd Terry—and he gets two tracks: "A Day in the Life" as Black Riot and "Can You Party?" as Royal House. And "Can You Party?" samples a bit of string off of "Move Your Body" that should be instantly recognizable to a whole bunch of you, because Belgian Eurodance act Technotronic went and used it on their signature hit, "Pump Up the Jam," in 1989 too! Unfortunately, the fidelity of both of these Terry tunes on this comp are only a step above that of a landline phone, but that doesn't make the splashy sample-laden approach to either of them any less brilliant 💎💎.

And lastly, I gotta mention Craig Kallman here too. This guy had been a New York DJ since 1981, but in 1987 he launched his own record label from his parents' apartment called Big Beat—which is not to be confused with a UK label by the same name—and debuted with "Join Hands" by Taravhonty, a song that Kallman himself produced. Fast forward to today and he's literally been running Atlantic Records since 2005. A real music lifer who was all about this dancy street music stuff; not some cold and calculating, stuffy and out-of-touch suit like you might imagine would be head of a label that large.

So while Volume 1 of this Profile series is essential listening for any house novice, this second volume is really what 80s dance music was all about. It's a window into how vast this whole world was, and how much of it ended up unjustifiably flying under the radar among most. Going from zero remixes and covers of popular songs on Volume 1 to four on this volume is indicative of the inroads that house music was making into the pop industry writ large at the time, and while Volume 1 succeeded on raw grit and passionate energy, this one shows that the art of house production really was developing its very own exclusive, blade-sharpening skillset. Volume 1 is like your serviceable, surface-scratching, Chicago-centric house music study guide, but this follow-up throws you out into the rest-of-world wilderness and out amongst the wolves instead; and rather than it being overwhelming, it's actually totally exhilarating 😎.

Highlights:

Natalie Cole - "Pink Cadillac (Extended Club Mix)" Kechia Jenkins - "I Need Somebody (Marshall's Chicago Mix)" FFWD - "Baby Don't Go (La Casa Vocal)" LNR - "Work It to the Bone" Imagination - "Instinctual (Def Vocal Mix)" Royal House - "Can You Party" Kraze - "The Party" Black Riot - "A Day in the Life" Taravhonty - "Join Hands" Maxtrack Orchestra - "Love Is the Message" Blaze - "If You Should Need a Friend (The Friendship Mix)"

[vinnylignes]

The Chicago House Scene

How House Music was Born

I recently became a fan of house music and always wondered how it was created. After doing further research I stumbled upon a video called "How House Music Was Born" it was one of the most informational and interesting videos I have watched and talked about how the House music scene in Chicago started.

As disco started to lose its cultural hegemony in the late 1970s and early 1980s, house music's history began. This created a gap that Chicago DJs immediately filled by incorporating funk, soul, and the electronic sounds coming out of Europe. One DJ, Frankie Knuckles, who is frequently referred to as the "Godfather of House," began experimenting with synthesizers and drum machines in the Warehouse, a club located on the west side of the city. He created a new genre that quickly became known as "house" music thanks to his inventive mixing and catchy compositions, which also drew a devoted fan base. It originated as a new version of music for dancing and partying. It emerged during one of the darkest times in the US which was the great depression. The rise in house music was drastic and people would line up outside of clubs just to hear house music for the first time. No one has ever head of this type of music before. Frankie Knuckles a notorious DJ who performed at the warehouse was one of the most popular DJ's for house music at the time.

It was considered as the "coolest underground dance music." They also referred it to a "sound scape". Frankie Knuckles brought in a whole new style of music. Eventually people began to rebel against disco music because they said considered for "Blacks or Gays". On July 12, 1979 There was a night called Disco Demolition Night during an MLB game which resulted in a riot.

Disco sparked a major backlash among the Rock fans at the time. At the climax of the event disco records were being blown up and fans stormed the field in an effort to end disco music. Eventually there was a rise in popularity of house Dj's in Chicago and it all originated from Freddie knuckles. They started learning how to sample music and how to play a smooth DJ set as well as transitioning between songs. Without a question, Chicago has had a lasting impression on the world of music. The city has created an atmosphere that allows house music to flourish, change, and expand its audience, thanks to the contributions of musicians like Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, and DJ Pierre as well as current DJs and producers. Chicago's status as the birthplace of house music is still honored and cherished in light of the genre's worldwide renaissance and the emergence of a new generation of house fans and musicians. This was the underground music before underground music was a thing. After doing all this research I think the history behind how House music was made and the House scene is so interesting because of how popular it is today, that it once used to be considered underground and frowned upon. House music provides a beat and soul unlike any other for anyone seeking to experience the real essence of house music. Every dance floor is a haven for those who share a passion for the groove, every beat tells a tale, and every track is a journey. House music is more than simply a genre in the city where it all started; it's a way of life. Here are some of my favorite house songs at this moment.

[everydayesterday]

I doubt it got any serious traction as a potential Academy Award nomination this year because of the type of film it is, but imo the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is probably their best work, and is as good as anything Reznor's put out since The Fragile (or maybe Ghosts I-IV). [side note: is the beat from NIN's "March of the Pigs" sampled in "Attack on a Titan" ...?]

It's far more interesting than The Killer, Gone Girl, or The Social Network (won Oscar), and especially Soul (also won Oscar). The movie provided a wealth of different scenarios; it wasn't a one-note thematic narrative like The Killer—it's a dystopian action-comedy cartoon with sadness and drama. The song titles themselves are hilarious ("Grand Theft Ice Cream Truck," "Better than Mark Ruffalo," "Puke Girl").

I hate that the Oscars basically shortlist the same 5-10 films over and over across all categories (e.g., Oppenheimer—you honestly think it deserved 13 nominations? It really wasn't that perfect of a film. Poor Things, and Killers of the Flower Moon are also nominated for score.), regardless of whether they're truly deserving, instead of appreciating more variety. You'd think that members of the Academy watched a good number of films, but I have my doubts.

The film itself was pretty decent, too; I watched it with my son at the theatre (one of only 2 films I've seen at a theatre in the last 5 years or so—the other was No Time To Die). It features a vibrant punk style of animation (similar to Across the Spider-Verse in that sense).

Those are my thoughts for this morning.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 6/13/2023

very games-centric week

listening

this opening bit samples bowie's life on mars and sounds like a piano cover of a half-remembered but still beloved childhood anime. like the kind you had a set of two VHS clamshells for but only episodes 4-6 and 10-12. it goes on the "lofi beats to data and entry to" playlist. spotify

-

reading

fallow week

-

watching

the folks at waypoint games, formerly vice's leftist games vertical, BOUGHT THE BRAND FROM VICE and are rebranding as remap. i wish them all the fuckin best and i hope they succeed but i feel like we have maybe six months of this before one of them goes literally bankrupt from a doctor's visit bc healthcare is such a fuckin nightmare in this country. im simply not excited for starfield. i am not interested in corporate nasa

anyway i enjoyed their commentary, excited for compulsion games' southern gothic action/adventure spellcaster South of Midnight

neutrally optimistic about obsidian's Avowed, bc i do love obsidian but i do not love sword and sorcery rpgs

there's airships in microsoft flight simulator so i may genuinely buy one month of gamepass to try that out

capcom's path of the goddess looks fucking gorgeous but i have never played more than half an hour of a capcom game and i expect i never will. is this topdown? is this isometric? what the fuck is the gameplay mode??? who could FUCKING say

also there's a new jersey fallout 76 expansion coming at some point. in real life i hate atlantic city and i don't really how know this will look or play differently from point lookout. i don't know if i want to play a much-reviled cash cow mmorpg just to get postapoc jersey lore. if this leads up to 5 being set in nyc im going to be real pissed off. go somewhere DIFFERENT. there are DIFFERENT PLACES on the east coast!!! blease

-

playing

viddy game can consistently turn my brain off enough that i forget im moving cross country in two weeks and can forcibly relax my body for twenty mintues at a time between packing boxes. so there's been a lot of pomodoro-ing, or my version which is: pack until i get so anxious i physically cannot pack anymore, go have a snack, go play twenty minutes of a video game, and then go pack until i am on the verge of a panic attack again. this is not healthy but all my books are packed. all of these were free on epic at some point btw which is why i own them

the first time i played Airborne Kingdom, i lost track of time and beat it in one sitting in eight hours. the second time i played Airship Kingdom, i replicated that exact experience. i have allied with all the kingdoms and have like two hundred souls on board but am not QUITE selfsufficient enough to take on the northern/artic sea DLC. stay tuned. soundtrack in this thing is great.

bounced VERY hard off Close to the Sun, a bioshock-lite i put about four hours/three levels into. a huge gilded age cruise ship where the science has Gone Wrong would normally be catnip to me, but the game did brutally kill the player character's sister in front of me in an unskippable cutscene so we're done with that game now THANK YOU. it is very slow, which i do like in a game that gives you this much stuff to look at, but there is no gamma control. this game is so fucking dark. i played it in a dark room with no lights and it was still too dark.

pinged off the typing exploration game Epistory despite its charming art, bc fast and accurate typing is something covid has taken from me.

rediscovered Carcassone (online) which is great bc i love Carcassone and own a physical copy of the board game but no one else in my life loves it. tile-building countryside-building game, seconds to learn, etc. thank you board game review even though there are no meeple in their natural habitat (the board) in this picture

-

making

it's gonna be putting things into boxes for the forseeable future (the next week) and then living out of them for a while (the next two weeks after that)

[k8-says-------hi]

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[thelensofyashunews]

THE NEW TITAN OF UK RAP NEMZZZ DROPS DEBUT MIXTAPE DO NOT DISTURB

Manchester rapper Nemzzz today (Friday 15th March) unveils his much-anticipated debut mixtape DO NOT DISTURB. The 11-track tape is Nemzzz’s most expansive drop to date, an exploration of how the young artist is shaped by his upbringing and his fame. DO NOT DISTURB is available in physical format on CD & cassette in a first for the Mancunion.

Marrying bars laced with Nemzzz’s wicked sense of humour, earworm hooks and a raw soulful-drill production - DO NOT DISTURB is set to cement Nemzzz’s status as the new titan of UK Rap. Opening with late night confession ‘REFLECTION’, Nemzzz raps with real bite about the pitfalls of social media activism. New single ‘ETA’ sees Nemzzz unite with German rap heavyweight Luciano, trading bars over a siren-like beat. The new cut arrives with a video shot by DonProd in Frankfurt whilst Nemzzz was in town to appear at Luciano’s stadium show. 

Recent single ‘PTSD’ splices a haunting vocal flip with a laid-back production from frequent collaborator Zel, as Nemzzz turns teacher once more - speaking on how he uses his music as catharsis to process his feelings. The cut landed last month to a co-sign from Central Cee. The shimmering, jazz inflected ‘L’S’ arrived in January to acclaim from the likes of The Observer, Fader, CRACK, NME spins across BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra and more.

Atmospheric, intense cut ‘DOOM’ gives way to the relaxed groove of playful love song ‘STAR SIGN’. On ‘NEED YOU’, Nemzzz rides out the ups and downs of a toxic relationship. ‘REASSURANCE’ melds ghostly vocal samples with a stripped back production as Nemzzz reassures his girl he’d drop her off for her ‘nails, hair, lash appointment too’. Nemzzz picks up the pace on ‘VENICE’ featuring rising rapper JayG. Title track ‘DND’ details how the run-up to the project was filled with hostile haters and the need to cut off day one friends. Rounding out the tape is ‘MONEY AND VIBES’, which sees Nemzzz bring UK flavour to a flip of Justin Timberlake’s ‘Rock Your Body’. The single topped the A list at 1Xtra on release last year and continues to rack up over +1M streams a week. 

Nemzzz is one of the most exciting breakout rap talents of recent years. An old head on young shoulders, Nemzzz is relatable in a different way than a lot of his rap peers; driven less by punchlines about Birkin bags and more by the challenge of helping his young fans navigate their way through growing pains. The rapper is shaped by his tough upbringing in Gorton, using his music to reflect on his experiences including heartbreak, fake friends, financial literacy, finding your own path, and managing mental health amid social media addiction.

The DO NOT DISTURB tape follows a massive 2023 for the young star with a consistent slate of releases including his debut EP Nemzzz Type Beat (which was pulled together in just 17 days in a flex of his innate talents) alongside a string of singles including ‘Therapy’ (Spotify Rap UK Cover) and ‘8AM IN MANNY’ which landed to props from some of the biggest rappers in the world - Drake and Lil Yachty. Last year saw Nemzzz deliver his first sold-out headline tour alongside performances at festivals including Glastonbury, Ibiza Rocks and more. 

Nemzzz will be heading out on his second headline tour this Spring with dates across the UK and Ireland. He will be kicking off in Dublin on 30th April and culminating in a homecoming show on 7th May in Manchester. With three dates already sold out - the tour is set to be another huge smash for the young star. TICKETS/MORE INFO

Since bursting onto the scene at the tender age of 14, Nemzzz has relentlessly chipped away at his craft – building steady buzz amongst the industry, media and fans alike. With over 180M combined streams in 2023, 9 Million TikTok views, tips including BBC Radio 1xtra's Hot For 2023, Amazon Music x Hunger Magazine Ones To Watch, No Signal Class of ’23, Best Newcomer Nominee MOBO Awards 2022, plaudits from Pitchfork, The Face, DAZED, The Guardian, HYPEBEAST, CLASH, Complex UK and NME - Nemzzz is making serious moves.