Hiphop with a capital H

I've decided for this post to keep my own discussion to a minimum, to post the track for you to listen, and to include the lyrics written so that you can read along. All I will say is that I am proud of this song because I think it's the first I've written, from start to finish within one day, that I think has a strong purpose and concept. I finished the 3rd verse at about 11.45pm that day. Hope you enjoy it all, would love for any sort of feedback. Remember it's a work in progress. Much love.

"Just Another Song" by Mad Scholar, using DJ Cam's "Raise Up"

Original "Raise Up" by DJ Cam feat Channel Live my inspiration for writing the song

Lyrcis: "Just Another Song"

CHORUS

This is just another song about Hiphop mate

Hiphop with a capital H and no date from

Crate diggers to figures of literary significance

Giving us the shivers with the images they make Hey (Great!)

Just another song about Hiphop make

Hiphop with a capital H and no place es-

Scape in classical 8s lacquer to the paint

Just another song but nothing wrong with what we make

VERSE 1

Let me

take you back to about 98

First of uni music Adelaide

Runnin up inside the fete fun in the sun in the day

Summon the rum and the cake thumbin’ the bud that we taste

Someone gave me a tape with Hiphop breaks and

Shit-hot rap goin back to the place A-

Mazed at the feelings that it raised it my inner state

Checkin out the intertates Hilltops then a mate

Put me onto Ganstarr GURU and the K

R S who knew how to spark a blaze

Learnin ever phrase, burnin every page with the

Fervour of my age, hurting with the rage but

Excertin it with grace, neck jerkin with the bass

Never made an album but the music was housing My

Soul… though I was clouded from many outings

Cold from the shouting older now crowds sing

With that proud thing

Lounging count it in

(CHORUS)

VERSE 2

.. So in and out various groups I rapped

Alterane LIDO the V High P cats though

Never really ready to put it all together I jetted

Regretted never forget it but never really said it in

Fact, I put it away didn’t give it credit and spo-

Radically I free-styled and I said it with a

Passion instead of rehashin I let it just

Happen and when it was time I climbed back in

…I put my back in to it like fluid it would

Crash in doin everything I could attackin the

Gaps in my thought and talks on walks waxing the

Words comin out as I purge the verse practice

Sing, things seemed to work like vaxine

James with the sax in the back of his pack teams

Up with the cut shut the fuck we that team to

Rupture the rap scene the function of PattEEE

…and that’s me, see if you can catch me, this is just

(CHORUS)

VERSE 3

Hip

hop is a way of bein, a way of seein

A way of freein, a way of keyin in to the world

Lay-a theme, and make it gleam like the even’nin as we

Say the meanin, of Hiphop a way to greet em or a

Way to feed em, you can’t join ‘em ya beat em as we

Make a readin, the statements that we believe in and you

Take a seat in, the place with the bass breathin as ya

Face the reason that we make such a case for the

Faith that we sing, Hiphop preaching

Nothin in my life has meanin but my wife and the

Fate that I seek, a Hiphop licence

Big tough writers with tiny devices and the

Rhymin preciseness, is just the price of the

Time that I’ve spent a while since the crisis of

Youth, something to sooth like ice on the

Roof of your eyes bruised from the new guise of Hiphop

And that’s Hiphop

A new year, new levels of song writing

2013 has begun with anther smashing Deep Crossing gig in Adelaide at Cuckoo, thanks to everyone who came, it went really well. And thanks also to those who gave feedback, always very useful. Lou and I took a bit of a detour on the way home visiting with friends and family, and upon returning, after about a week on the road, I was itching to get back to my writing.

So I managed to get into it really quickly, I had some ideas for song concepts jotted down in my phone. I put myself in a position where I could come up with ideas, distanced from the T.V., Spotify playing on DJ Krush, I was thrown this divine track, titled "Blank", from Krush's 1995 album Meiso.

"Blank" by Krush from the album Meiso

Gentle, jazz tinged hip hop, unassuming, almost naive in it's freshness, a world away from the compacted mountains of cliche, tradition and convention that infuses so much modern day rap. The pen started to dance, the keyboard developed a rhythm, I cut the track in ACID to start rapping, barely having to change any of it, so logical is the track's form. (and here's more of the gentle master, "Far and Away", sublime in it's simplicity of form)

The ideas on my note pad looked something like this

The strength of the will
How strong is your will?
Gotta be all in or all out
What is it that you really want out of life?
What is it that you want
                       What is it that you need?
I'm obsessed] Catch 22] Damned if I 
write       damned if I don't

These jottings would be the reference point for my concept and theme.

This is the chorus I wrote:

What is the op that you really hunger for? Or

For what reason does your heart really sore? Can’t

Ignore the difference between bein bored and bein enthralled seein it

All through the door but not sure

 And here are the first 8 bars of the first verse, there are three verses in the song, 16 bars, 16 bars, and then 12 bars because I use another four bars for trumpet improvisation.

What is the opportunity you really hunger for

That you wonder for at one-to-four ya slumber is

Pore, your one to endure many-a-set-back but

When the opportunity comes ya want ya zest back

…I’m tryin to be the best Pat efff that

Get-that rhythm and rhyme in time next track

Lets rap for a minute about the things that you’re spinnin

Brimmin with the ideas that define years inject that

A link to the track recording is below to hear the full effect.
 
My car ride with Lou had brought to my attention a few things that I wanted to address in my song writing. Listening to a bit of GURU on the ipod I came to a sudden realisation. For all my attention to getting the raps sounding tighter and more technically daring, I'd forgotten an all more important thing that GURU demonstrates almost every time he raps. That is, make the people understand what you're trying to say, have a simple concept, a simple message, and explain it simply. His rhymes are spaced like this, technical flights of fancy aren't his priority, making us listen and understand what he is saying, is (much more).

Transit Ride from his Jazzmatazz 1 album demonstrates this. The track is simply about, being on a train. His three verses are simply exploring that scenario, that situation, no other implications. Branford Marsalis's sax riff in the chorus adds jazz, smoothness, and fills the need for a rapped chorus. Less is more.

Which brings me to the other thing I thought of about song writing whilst cruising the baking outback with Lou; to try and work some melody into the songs. Lou is like my test candidate for people who don't listen to hip hop, the plain fact is, she doesn't listen to what is being said by the rapper.. she (seems to) need something else to hold onto. Even the hip hop Lou says she likes, she doesn't know any of the rap lyrics, but she remembers the tune's melodic themes, and likes them. So, conveying meaning, and some melody for those who don't listen to the words, those were my goals, sort of. Here's what I recorded, it's a bit rough, it's more of a first draft. Enjoy.

What Is The Op (To Krush's "Blank" from Meiso)

How we rocked Adelaide

Obligatory cockiness aside, we killed it! It was about two months in the planning, cold emails to countless Adelaide venues, co-starring bands juggled and locked in. Then the long weekend of Ballarat show, to James's in Coburg, final rehearsals and laughs. We're happy to be at the stage of getting a little bored with running the same songs.

Flight from Melbs to Ads Saturday morning, Christmas Pageant not withstanding. 5pm. Show up at the club. Will it be one of those ones where crucial people are completely disorganised? Thank Gosh no it won't. Sound tech Lisa is already there sussing out the situation, what gear have we got to play with? She's showing a genuine interest in our sound rather than the base line apathy we've found in many a sound tech before. Awesome! Dudes are sound checking, hand shakes and back slapping. I leave at about 7 with Matchless Gift and his V High P clique in Lisa's sound, safe hands. Off to James's Mum's for some chops.

9.20 arrive back. The place is empty. Hmmmmm. What can you do? We contemplate not making enough on the door to cover the sound tech as per venue agreement. Whatevs though right?

Matt and crew drift in. Other randoms in the shadows. Something's happening. The prodigious DJ Snair casually starts massaging records upon the altar. Phenomenal cuts. Heads are nodding, more people are drifting in like one of those medieval court performances for an illusive monarch.

Matt and co are on. New shit I haven't heard before. Rhymes are blazing, Snare in his element. Heads nodding harder, a few cheers begin to erupt. It's looking like a good crowd now, earlier concerns no longer exist.

Now it's us. That awkward moment when you have to take control of a room. Will they respond? Ah who gives a shit. YYYEEEAAAAHHHHHSSSS ADELAIDE IN THE HOOOOUUSSE!!!! I boom, and hear some distant but distinct woos of encouragement. We start slamming. I start to realise that we're killing it.

The rhymes are crisp. The beats seem to be making the sound system have a perpetual messy orgasm... As if crying in equal parts pleasure and pain.

I can hear my words clear and honest, riding within the beats like a surfer on continual waves of sound. Then despite the roaring system, and my booming voice, and the harsh acoustics of the small room, I can hear people listening. Intently. My mind is talking like a TV control room director, "okay now cut to second verrrsse aaaaannnd GO!" I try to get those tingles happening in my body, there's emotion in my voice. Innermost stories and thoughts at some points I could almost break down in cathartic tears through the subject matter. But I don't. Just a slight tremor in my voice. Heads nodding, smiles, inquisitive silhouettes at the door of the room as if to say, "hello what's happening in here?"

One of my goals in this performance was to make like a proper emcee, and in doing so, get people to loose or even just loosen their inhibitions. I see this happening as people yell out at the conclusion of certain verses, as if having followed my train of thought
from start to end.

It's over. It's happened. I feel galvanised. I want to do it again, to write tighter verses. It will happen. This is just the start. Word life.

Thoughts on upcoming Adelaide gig

How do I remember all these words? I don't know. I'm like an actor in a stage musical reciting 40 mins of densely packed, physically demanding monologue. Maybe I should have been in stage musicals? Instead I'm in hiphop. That's okay. That's good..

We have a little gig coming up James and I as the mysterious, ambiguous Deep Crossing. But this isn't your usual down the road type affair, for this gig the both of us are travelling back to the place where it all began, our home city of Adelaide.

This has taken considerably more cost (principally in air fare) and preparation than gigs closer to (our current) homes. And there's a real drive in the both of us to make this shit fucking happen for real. We have about 3 untried tunes, about 13 total for this gig (we have more in the bag). Really hot ones. The song writing has gone from more loosely connected poem verses (e.g. Streets Move Gently), to more chorus centred, concept driven tunes (Motivate - a new one, come to the gig and see).

With my rap writing I seem to continually push the limits of what I can physical do in terms of breath control. My new third verse on Deep Inside finishes on about 7 bars of triplets. It pushes my breathing to the limit. Previously tricky breath control tunes are rendered easy! I try to rap with the ipod while I walk the dog, it increases the demand on my breathing as I rap and walk up hills.. fuckin ay. There goes Mr Emery with his little dog, muttering.. that fine line between eccentric and crazy.

But going back to the difference between musical theatre and hip hop. I recently watched The Art of Rap, at James's encouragement (thanks James), which for me was at once thoroughly inspiring, yet kind of demoralising at the same time. Ice T and the grand masters of rap come back to a familiar theme throughout the movie. "What is the difference between a rapper, and an emcee?", T asks.

To summarise. A rapper is one who rhymes words together, kinda like what I do. An emcee can "move a crowd", s/he commands the attention of the room. So for me, I'm trying to get these rhymes deep in my body so they can just be secondary to my challenge of scaring the fuck out of people.. hiphop is self creation. The audience is my canvass.

Watch out Adelaide.

The gig's fb invite here check it

Gig at Babushka Sept 21 - How it went

Another gig at Babushka last night, with the new support of electro experimentalists Juxtpose and The Primary Colour bookending our set (and the debut of newly formed Electric Universe Collective). The techno made for a really awesome complement to our own hiphop styled tunes, and people were diggin it.

I felt good and in the zone on most tunes, although being the end of term for me I felt probably least prepared of any performance I've done in a while. In the end it's not so much forgetting words that can creep in (there may have been a couple of words dropped), but loosing the rhythmic focus and conviction in the rappin. I need to discover a way to keep raps sounding fresh..

Also feeling slightly under prepared makes me more nervous than usual and trying to play it safe in my performance. James did some interesting things which shows how far we've, or really he has come with the live Ableton format. One tune, Visions Aplenty http://soundcloud.com/deep-crossing/visions-aplenty-live, James dropped the track out almost completely at the start of the second verse, leaving just a bass drum and maybe half a snare, the entry is so rhythmically complex, I kinda had to hang for dear life.. it's stuff like that that makes our set interesting, walking a tightrope, head in the mouth of a lion kinda stuff.. it forces you as a rapper to have conviction cause if you don't, then you stuff it up.

My focus on the performance was just to really try and have my internal time feel and groove going strong, and to focus on that. With the focus on time feel rhymes tend to all sound right, and the magic and imagery and stuff then starts to come to the surface.. really looking forward now to jamming with James over the holidays and hopefully coming up with new stuff, and recording/consolidating our established tunes.

Stay tuned.

Gig Sept 21 in B-Rat

Should be a good one, I think the first presented by the newly formed Electric Universe Collective, featuring electronic musicians Primary Colour and Juxtpose (formelry Wu Kush). Babushka (http://evileye.com.au/babushkalounge.com/) is great for sitting back and soaking up the vibes. Hope to see you there!

Less is, less

Rapping is a funny medium. "Rapping" as we know it, as in hiphop, "emceeing", or as some people openly profess, a sort of talentless pontificating with baggy pants, is really just a certain way of writing song lyrics.

I listen to some song lyrics in everyday rock songs, some which are repetitive, but carefully chosen and carefully placed, and which can be super-effective and evocative, and think jeez you guys have it easy.. because rapping in some ways, as an art form doesn't fit my own personal artistic mantra of, "less is more".

A rapper as a bench mark for songs often has to have three verses (16 bars each) of relatively densely packed lyrics, with ingeniously executed rhyme schemes, rhythmic flow, meaningful content, a concisely adhered to concept plus catchy effective choruses and hooks. And people smile condescendingly as if it's a phase young men have to go through.. better that than drinking and causing a ruckus.. rapping is a super-hard discipline to master..

I think a lot of it has to do with the volume of lyrics that are often expected, particularly if you're a solo rapper. I recently watched a Jay-Z documentary "Fade to Black", and was astonished at his unique and incredibly hard-to-emulate process. The documentary showed how Jay-Z would go into a producer's studio, listen to beats until he could no longer resist the urge, go into the booth, and record basically a whole song (three verses with choruses) without using a single piece of paper or pen. It seams that Jay-Z has some sort of.. photographic type memory, which allows him to recall up to some 30 verses at a time, ready to unleash upon unsuspecting beats.

It's the stereo-typing of rapping in this country, as something that wanna-be Australian males do, thinking that they're actually black and of-the-hood.. my rapping doesn't talk about the hood, or homies, or being black (I'm as white as my Cornish immigrant ancestors). But I like using language, and using it in a musical way, and I take my lead from Afro-American rap artists such as Jay-Z, and countless others, because it seems that they have really mastered the art of writing and performing in this style.

I find it very hard to say to people who aren't necessarily in-the-know, that I spent pretty much my whole Saturday locked in my office writing rhymes. It sounds kinda juvenile. But this is what I do, I can't help it. I don't really want to do anything else..