grammy family.

captured by: punc.h

community is everything. having people around to see what you’re doing and not only want to see you succeed but also want to help, that’s not something that can be measured. sometimes it takes a reminder from your homies to see how far you’ve come. when you’re on a mission, you rarely take the time to run down some of your accomplishments. blue is one of my favorite people to tap in with. we don’t speak every day, but when we do, it feels like the first day we linked. i met him when i was 18-19 years old. he’s seen me bring my son into this world, i’ve seen him get married and have his daughter, funerals, tv appearances, major shows, movie placements, birthdays together, everything under the sun actually. it means a lot to me to be able to have someone in your life that you’ve watched step by step and vice versa.

you ever meet someone who was locked up before and three words in after you are introduced, they tell you they were locked up? that’s blue. and him being from seattle, homie has been here for 24 years and still says seattle every chance he gets. i didn’t realize he was a dj back in the day, which explains a lot about how he critiques music and what he listens for. starting my career with me early, i never asked him how he knew exactly what to do on certain songs until later, when i found out he went to nyu for it. as much as he’s been a great asset to me as an engineer, when i would work with other engineers, i’d be pissed because they didn’t work as efficiently as blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwd2fnoXwq0

captured by: punc.h

as much as blue has helped me perfect my craft and watched me elevate, i’ve witnessed blue’s career completely take off. knowing how much he loves music and how much he cares about the sound being perfect and adding his own elements to the music has made him a household name. i like bragging about my homies, so it feels great to be able to walk into rooms, mention blue, and have people know him for his work. he also brought home a grammy. even though i’ve seen it at least 20 times before, i still like to remind him how dope it is to have that.

blue brought something to my attention, which was having a trifecta to create some of the great projects we worked on earlier in my career. having someone like him and ibe in my corner made it easier to craft those projects and ideally created a formula that has continuously worked overtime. having a producer to be creative, an engineer with the skill and insight to take a record to the next level, and an artist who is dedicated as well as moldable to work with has always proven to be successful. that goes back to my thoughts on community. it’s super important to have people around you who can see where you’re trying to go, even if you don’t, and contribute to the journey. and it goes both ways. i would like to believe that all the time blue spent perfecting my sound carried over into the projects he later worked on as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOglEu-GWAg

i like being a student of the game. always learning and taking in information that can help me get better as an artist and as a man. blue does the same thing. we played records he mixed and mastered and talked about all the artists he’s worked with. what stood out wasn’t him chasing clout or notoriety. it was the fact that he looked at each artist as separate and tried to bring the best out of each vocal while staying true to who they are. the only way you can really do that is by being a student of the game and paying attention to what they’ve already done and finding ways to enhance it.

i’m just realizing that’s what he does even when he’s not being an engineer. he’s always enhancing the people around him. you can’t have a conversation with him without him wanting to step in and help.

the love of music definitely brought us together. the life we live around it made us family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Ox7B2jkmI

remember why you started.

captured by: punc.h

i started writing rhymes when i was about 10-11 and started recording when i was about 18. my step pops played a major part in me wanting to be a rapper, mainly because i saw him do it. he never really helped me in pursuing it, but he gave me the inspiration and that was good enough for me.

fresh out of high school is when i linked with two producers from my hood. one of my childhood friends at the time made the connection, long story short; they brought me to my first real studio session. i remember being given two beats they cooked up that were completely different and them telling me to create something. i was still trying to figure out how to structure songs, i was trying to find my voice but i made it work. the songs were "cool" cant front lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0N86a8IScg

captured by: punc.h

around this time, the two producers had put together a little squad. they had a younger artist who i went to middle school with who was dumb nice and also another homie who was playing the manager role. as time went, we all got better in creating music and getting known on the upcoming NY music scene. those producers started connecting with some fire ass artist that are well established now and even started gaining traction in the offices. we were developing a brotherhood but as they gained more traction and distractions, we drifted apart. meanwhile, i was still trying to find my footing.

around 20-21, i had a kid on the way, so life got real, fast! during that time, i built a strong relationship with my engineer blue and we actually became family. i would book four-hour sessions every week just to lock in. working on my flow, my delivery and my confidence. i'd normally come through with a verse and a half written and blue would help me piece it all together.

at the time i really didn't have my own production, so i started freestyling over other people's records. not just rap! it would be over anything that just made me feel something. sade, curtis mayfield, donny hathaway...just was a catching a vibe and making it mine.

i released a few of them and the homies were really fucking with them. i even would send a few to blogs sites and they would post them which also started getting me attention from producers, artists and fans.

ibe was one of the producers i connected with at that time and we started building something. i remember using my unemployment checks to pay for beats for my first project and him saying "what are we doing?". he knew what type of production would fit me best, just off of some of the freestyles i did and a couple songs i played him. all that practice paid off, and it helped me shape my first tape, the long way home.

the same process happened again when i was putting together 24k. ibe still did a lot of the production, but i still wanted to add some other elements to the project. anytime im looking for a new sound, i would go on a freestyle run and shortly after, i'd attract the sound i was looking for. it was really my way of thinking freely without overthinking. just having fun with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJOvSXq2GgU

there was a point though, the music stopped feeling fun. it started to feel like a job or something. i added pressure on myself that took me away from being creative and just had me in my head. not sure if it was me trying to prove myself to who knows or what, but it just didn't feel the same. so, i made the decision to get back to the space to just have fun. no pressure, just creating.

i'll probably get into this later, but lately i've just been looking for that feeling. something like when i first started. the spark that made me rap in the first place. i've started talking to people about their crafts as well and i'm starting to realize we are all chasing that feeling. the thing that made us start in the first place. this is for people like you, word.

reasonable doubt.

cpatured by: punc.h

i've been working with sonny at s5 studios for over a decade. what started as an artist - engineer relationship started to develop into a real friendship. we first connected right before i did my always something ep. i can't remember exactly how we connected, but from the beginning the energy was always genuine, professional and easy to build with.

around this time, i was living on park ave in brooklyn across from tompkins projects. the studio was on myrtle ave, which made it easy for me to pull up and lay down ideas whenever i really needed to. sonny had a balcony in the studio that would face marcy projects, we would talk about when he used to play in basketball tournaments in the hood and what the overall feel was musically in brooklyn.

sonny told me about when he heard reasonable doubt when it first dropped and not being able to fully grasp it because he was too young to pick up the witty wordplay. i was actually eight years old at the time, and for sure didn't know anything about jay-z. i became a huge fan later after being introduced to his music because of my steppops, who was also an artist but was also associated with big daddy kane, who played a mentor role for jay-z early in his career.

in a lot of ways, sonny reminds me of my steppops. not literally but how he talks about the music and culture back then. i've had separate conversations with them both and their perspectives on the 90's lines up. there's a consistency in how they describe that era and what it was really like.

i hate comparing back then to now because it can come off as being a hater, depending on the views. i asked sonny what it was like for him musically in the 90's and what the differences he sees in artists. he said the best time in music was the 90's. he talked about how brooklyn had so many unique styles of rappers like boot camp clik, a tribe called quest, leaders of the new school, wu-tang clan and how each played had a significant role in developing the genre.

what really stood out to me was him saying the different styles that emerged during that time. seems like artists not only didn't want to sound or look alike, but they would also even call you out if you were biting someone's style. originality was key. new york was definitely grimmer at the time and consumers would actually have to search for the artists they liked. that reminded me of when i bought reasonable doubt from a mom-and-pop shop in park slope when i was in high school, years after it had dropped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOjEKt3ZDtM

captured by: punc.h

sonny talks about the culture experiencing the loss of the notorious b.i.g. and how it was felt, especially with the release of life after death. around that same time, dmx emerged with a raw gutter style that introduced a new energy into hip hop. in sonny's view, that was the period marked by both loss and transition that played the role in reshaping the sound and direction or rap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oSZumNr2ig

we spoke about the perspective of "get on" or get signed. one thing he was clear on is that consistency is everything. as simple as that sounds, life gets in the way of just showing up. not only for the artists but for the people who are tapped in with you. focus on the quality of the work but the consistency is really what's key.

truth is, that's something i've struggled with. being consistent, being present has definitely been an obstacle. sometimes i let life pressure pull me away from creating, then when i'm ready to jump back into being an artist for real, it feels like i'm starting from square one all over again.

working from home. sonny stated working in your own space matters, but so does showing up in a real studio. you would think he'd only want artist to show up to studios because he owns one, but the truth is artist should take their time in finding their flow and sound. then come to a solidified studio to sharpen the sound and connect with other artist and producers. honestly, a lot of artists are missing that structure.

we need balance. creating only at home has its pros and cons, just like relying only on the studio does. at the end of the day, everything wraps back to the same consistency, and dedication is what's needed to move everything forward.