2014 in Pictures

2014 was a year I spent on the ROAD. Shall I even attempt to list all of the cities?! ….Hell, why not. This year I hit up Amsterdam, Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham (Alabama and United Kingdom), Boston, Brooklyn, Cape Town, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Cologne, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Durham, Fresno, Houston, Johannesburg, Kansas City, Las Vegas, London, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City, Oakland, Paris, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Richmond, Rotterdam, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Ana, Seattle, St. Louis and right down the street…. Washington D.C.

I got to hear music that I worked on every single week on Adult Swim’s animated series, Black Dynamite, saw myself on TV one day and decided to make a change by dropping off 35 lbs in the first few months of the year, traveled and saw some of the world with The Foreign Exchange and solo with Carmen Rodgers, started working on an EP with 1/2 of +FE, Nicolay, rocked an NPR Tiny Desk with +FE, began scoring a documentary, began a storytelling series, “Studio Campfire Stories: LIVE” that started on the right foot with a sold out show in Atlanta, and released one of the more talked about videos of the year (in my eyes anyway haha)..

Here’s to a helluva 2015 and much love to everyone riding with me throughout this musical journey… *raises glass of brown likkuh* Cheers!!

Black Dynamite Season 2 …Jams.

With the first three episodes of Black Dynamite Season 2 in the bag, there has been some talk about the parody work that we have done for the show. Music Supervisor Fatin “10” Horton decided to go ahead and post the full versions of some of the songs that have been featured so far (not including the various background music that I’ve also played throughout). Listen, share, download, laugh and enjoy them all…

All Instruments by Zo!
Vocals by Phonte
Mixed/Mastered by Chris Boerner
Music Supervisor Fatin “10” Horton

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From Episode One: “Roots: The White Album”
(Premiered October 18, 2014)

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From Episode Two: “Black Jaws”
(Premiered October 25, 2014)

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From Episode Three: “Mean Queens Of Holloween”
(Premiered November 1, 2014)

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From Episode Four: “How Honeybee Got Her Groove Back”
(Premiered November 8, 2014)

B2gqpUuCQAAwEo-From Episode Five: “Sweet Bill’s Badass Singalong Song”
(Premiered November 15, 2014)

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From Episode Six: “Mister Rogers’ Revenge”
(Premiered November 22, 2014)


*”Bussin’ Bitch (Bussin’ At Em)” …Music by Fatin “10” Horton

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From Episode Seven: “American Band Standoff”
(Premiered November 29, 2014)

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From Episode Eight: “Diff’rent Strokes, Same Folks”
(Premiered December 6, 2014)

Black Dynamite – Season 2 Premieres tonight @ 10:30p ET/PT ….and I made music for it.

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Back in November 2011, while on the road with The Foreign Exchange, we were in Nashville and I was sitting in one of the vans waiting to drive some of the crew to the venue for our show at BB King’s that night. I received a call from a friend of mine who I consider family, Fatin Horton. He reached out to me to see if I had the time and would be interested in playing/recording music for the new, upcoming season of Black Dynamite – The Animated Series……. As a huge fan of the movie already (and later the first season of the animated series), I probably looked at my phone with an expression similar to Russell Westbrook

HELL YEAH I was interested!!

Now of course, this wouldn’t be music that you would find on any of my releases… For example, you’re not gonna hear “Count To Five” during a fight scene between Black Dynamite and some sinister villain where they try to kill each other. We were set to work on all new compositions that fit the show’s theme – 70’s Black films. Once again, as a fan of all of those movies whether they were good, terrible, or good and terrible, the idea of making that type of music while putting my own spin on it only sweetened the deal. I knew that creating the music would be challenging… not because I would be playing all of the instruments on it, but because once we started working on pieces that were to be scene-specific to the episodes I knew I was gonna be kept on my toes… and I WAS. I have always been the first one to admit that guitar is my weakest instrument, but after working on this batch of music, I have become a lot more confident in my guitar playing as the majority of the work required heavy amounts of the instrument – Chords, lines, rhythm, wah-wah, etc. Come to think of it, working on Black Dynamite music is quietly what inspired me to do “Show Me The Way” from the ManMade album.

When Fatin and I first got together in the studio back in June of 2012, we set up what was to become a series of “studio marathons.” The plan = Basically, he would come up to the studio to create for three days straight. Typically from about 10a – 6p and again from 9p until. The first time around we knocked out about 7 “cues” or 30-90 second pieces to be used within an episode as background music to set or emphasize a mood or current theme. The second time we got up we finished 13 cues, almost double the total from the first studio session. To me, that was a clear cut sign that a working groove had been established. The first couple of sessions were dope because I was told to work strictly off of inspiration. Fatin would set up shop in the studio, pull out old records, chop um up and say something like, “I need it to match this mood of this record…,” “Make the organ a little darker…” or, “Add a higher octave string line to this part…” It was crazy to be creating “70’s Black film” pieces in 2012/2013, but I felt honored because hell, in a lot of those movies the MUSIC was the highlight and played just as large of a role as the film’s leading actor. So the pride I took in the work was through the roof.

Now, the reality of it all didn’t really hit me until I started hearing drafts of some of the show’s cast singing over my music. To hear Tommy Davidson and Kym Whitley do their thing on some stuff I had just sent in was kinda bugged out and a nice “WELP, this is real” moment for me, to say the least. Then, once we got really heavy into episode and scene-specific music, that’s when my brother Phonte came in crushing the vocal work. Guitarist/engineer and The Hot @ Nights member, Chris Boerner would receive the final products for mixing and mastering purposes…. 150+ cues and eight episodes later, we have our contribution to Black Dynamite, Season 2. And I know that I have been telling a few of you about this for over two years now… Well, today is the day!!! You can catch the show tonight at 10:30p ET/PT. I’ll actually be live tweeting and pointing out my contributions because… 1. I’m hyped as shit about it, 2. This is a first for me, and 3. See #1.

Tonight…
Black Dynamite – Season Two
premieres on Adult Swim @ 10:30p ET/PT

2013 In Pictures

With 2013 being the most successful year in my music career, it’s only right that I share the pictures that documented it. Looking back, I released my newest album, ManMade, and had the pleasure of visiting Brooklyn, Baltimore, D.C., Chicago, Richmond, Philly, Pittsburgh, LA, Tucson, Detroit, Vegas, Seattle, Austin, Durham, Atlanta, Charlotte, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Cleveland in support of it – I was even asked to perform on the eight-day Capital Jazz Cruise at the beginning of November. I contributed to the new The Foreign Exchange album Love In Flying Colors with “Listen To The Rain,” and The Reworks with a remix for Phonte’s “Gonna Be A Beautiful Night”. I hung out with Bobbito and Crazy Legs of Rock Steady in NYC, began endorsing Lewitt Audio, released an ode to Sesame Street in the form of the “Count To Five” video, was the subject of my FIRST documentary, and even had a day named after me in Las Vegas.

Things to look out for in 2014…
• Making the music for Black Dynamite – The Animated Series (Season 2) with Fatin “10” Horton
• My very first trip to South Africa with The Foreign Exchange at the end of March + a world tour with +FE
• A brand new single + video from ManMade + more solo dates
• New, original music… Including a collaborative EP with…………………………

…….anyway, thank you, 2013… Here’s to one helluva productive and positive new year in 2014. Cheers!!