Tag Archives: Studio Campfire

Studio Campfire Stories: The "SunStorm" Edition – "This Could Be the Night" and "Flight of the Blackbyrd"

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9. This Could Be the Night (feat. Eric Roberson, Darien Brockington & Rapper Big Pooh)
The funny thing about making music, or art for that matter is that you never know what you’re sitting on. I had been sitting on this drum pattern for about 2 or 3 years not knowing what to do with it… just the bare drums exactly how you hear them in the final song. It was something that I would listen to every quarter or so, mess around with it, get mad with what I recorded and scrap it altogether. I had even done a song where that drum pattern’s tempo was cut in HALF… It just still wasn’t there yet. FINALLY, one day during the recording of SunStorm, I finally came up with a chord progression that I was happy with and actually kept it! But the joint had been sitting for so long that even when I found the progression that worked, I was still skeptical. Even when I would include it on a CD with the rest of the album formulated around it as just an instrumental, I would think, “It will get life once vocals are recorded on it.” I ended up tracking it out and sending it through to Phonte so we could have the usual “who do you think would fit on this joint” talk. We talked about Erro (Eric Roberson) being a part of the album pretty much from the beginning… in fact, when I first met him back in December 2007 in Chicago, we spoke about working together, but it just never came together……

The first time I heard vocals on the joint, it was Phonte demoing the hook that he wrote for it. That is what changed my whole perspective… “WOW, this may become a JOINT!” The next version I heard was Darien’s verse and his re-singing of the hook…. Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. The NEXT version I heard was of Erro’s verse and hook. We then combined that with D. Brock’s and dammit we had a song!… It wasn’t done yet though… My two brothas FROM Little Brother decided to pull a ‘fast one’ on me… So after receiving the next draft of vocals, I heard the ‘announcer’ list the performers. Eric Roberson… check, Darien Brockington, check… The Rapper Big Pooh…. HOL’LUP, WORD?! I actually brought it back some so make sure I was hearing it correctly… NICE! At that point, I had know idea. So of course, once Big Pooh’s verse came on, I damn near started partying in the studio because the joint was RIGHT on time and was an excellent addition to the song. Eight bars of energy, where the music drops and it’s just he and the drums mainly… The change follows behind with D. Brock for four bars and right back into the closing hook and vamp… All of a sudden, this 2 to 3 year drum pattern had a promising pulse. Once again, you NEVER know what your music or art may become. I can never really explain it straight up… I can only continue to share these stories with you all and allow you to find out for yourselves.

Oh and make sure you read the story behind the making of the video for “This Could Be the Night” as well…


10. Flight Of the Blackbyrd (ft. Phonte)
The actual motivation behind this song is pretty interesting. Those who know me personally understand that I am pretty laid back for the most part, but that I am very competitive. It is part of my personality, it’s a motivator for me, and I guess it’s simply just the way I am wired. Hell, I played baseball through college so it was a NECESSARY trait if anything and I definitely have not “grown out of it”. The reason why I remember the exact date of my creating this song is because another one of my brothers and great friends in music, Nicolay released his excellent City Lights 2: Shibuya album. Where’s the connection? Well, I haven’t even told Nic this… But I remember sitting at the computer and logging on to Twitter and seeing everyone talking about the new City Lights 2 album. So I’m reading, retweeting the album link, checking out all the positive comments…. and it hit me. My competitive side began to talk shit to me…

“Uhhh… what the hell are YOU doing right now?! Your people are releasing dope albums and you’re sitting up on TWITTER. GET yo punk ass in the studio!!” © My Competitive Conscience

This is yet another advantage to working closely with kats who are so great at what they do, because it causes you to HAVE to be on point at all times. I put my computer to sleep and walked into the studio and a drum pattern just kinda came to me (higher power) that happened to be written in 3/4… Hmmmm, that’s kinda different already. The chord progression soon followed and not too long after that, a “B” part (a section where there is a change in the music – kind of a “part 2”). I laid the song out FULLY, the intro piece, main part, the piano solo, the percussion breakdown (where I used percussion instruments that I bought specifically for the “Perfect Angel” remake), and the B part. …I got Phonte on the phone and told him I would be sending a new one through. I sent him the instrumental and heard nothing back……………

…The next morning, I woke up to a text at about 6:55am……

Phonte: You at the crib?

Me:Yeah

P: SENT.

M:Got it… putting it on the iPod and listening on the way to the craziness (a/k/a WORK)

P: Nigga, call/text/IM/two-way/smoke signal me as SOON as you finish that shit

Maaaan, look. There are some songs that you listen to the first minute or two of them and know you’re sitting on something special… THIS was that song. As soon as I heard Phonte’s vocals come in, I was like… “This is it, this shit is CRAZY.” I called him right back on the way to work and we were hyped up about this new joint… and the ideas started pouring. The next thing I know, here’s a final version of the song with trumpeter Stan Graham goin’ off on the joint with Phonte doing horn arrangements. DOPE. Overall, this joint took us the least amount of time to complete… Less than a day.

Musically, this was my “show off” joint all because my competitive side took over for a minute. Thanks to my FE family for pushing me to make music like this joint in particular and not even realizing it! lol

Studio Campfire Stories: The "SunStorm" Edition "SunStorm" and "If I Could Tell You No"

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7. SunStorm (feat. YahZarah)
I started teaching back in the summer of 2006 and the first summer that I took off wasn’t until 2008. I was so damn excited about having an entire summer to myself that as soon as I got home from the school on the last day, I went to work in the studio. The FIRST joint that I put together wound up being the music for the title track of this album… “SunStorm.” Once again, the drums were done first and they resulted from me being in such a happy ass mood, I can’t really describe it any other way. The drum pattern made this music what it wound up becoming. The feeling that I got from it was one of ‘freedom’ and ‘fun’. With that being said, I distinctively remember figuring out a synth bassline that was very busy while keeping the fun and free elements in that music. And just like 95% of the music that I make, I played that synth bassline part all the way through the entire song. I think that when you actually play all the way through your piece, you are able to capture MUCH more of a feeling than that of a looped track. I don’t think that the bassline should hit the same way in the first 8 bars of the song as it does coming out of the first hook, for example. The second half is what put it over the top… I made sure to send it to Phonte as soon as I was finished. He hit me with a text back, “I’ma MURK this joint!!” He was originally going to keep this one for himself… but ended up sitting on it after writing about 50 different things to it and not feeling satisfied with anything – I understand that pain FULLY (wait ’til you read the “This Could Be the Night” story).

Enter YahZarah… Now, I’m gonna tell y’all this right now. This is as straight up as it gets. When it comes to vocalists… Not female vocalists… When it comes to VOCALISTS. YahZarah is the best vocalist that I know, personally. She’s just absolutely unfair. Plus, the fact that she’s sitting a lotta people DOWN live makes her a threat to a lotta folks …..and I love her to death! Phonte and I talked about having her cut the song because…hell, it seemed like a perfect fit. She ended up gettin up with Phonte and recording her vocals and I’ll just say this… When Phonte sent it to me, we knew we had something – not just with the song, but with the entire album. This was the song that made us kinda look at each other like, “This is gonna be something crazy.” It was STRONG and perfect as the title track. And let me just say that my favorite part of this song comes during the second hook at about 3:55 when Yahz hits the, “WHOOOOO!!!!!” I get goosebumps EVERY TIME I hear that.. Why?! Because that is raw emotion displayed in a recording and to have captured that is priceless to me. Also, when someone busts out with ‘WHOOO!!’ that means something was so good that NO other adjectives worked in that space… It’s just a great moment that was captured and I’m glad it happened on my album. …Oh and for the record, YahZarah recorded her vocals sitting down. That’s a bad woman….

The second half of the song where Phonte comes in was actually supposed to have a few kats on it. It was gonna be Phonte, Jesse Boykins III, Darien Brockington, and another favorite vocalist of mine Ab. But sometimes, you listen to a song that if it is changed, no matter what the change is it probably will not work like that original take. That was the case here. The original take felt so good and came off so correctly that it was not changed. Darien did however complete the final two lines AND you can hear Jesse’s adlibs over top of “You can lay me down…”

8. If I Could Tell You No (feat. Jesse Boykins III)
This was actually the only joint on the album that Phonte and I worked on together from scratch. Back in November 2008 when The Foreign Exchange first started touring Leave It All Behind, we did a date in D.C. Anytime kats are in town, we normally take advantage of that time and get in the studio to do SOMETHING… It doesn’t matte if it’s a full song, a demo, a couple of ideas… Something is getting done. This time around, he told me he had an idea to do a jazzy joint, which I was all for because I hadn’t done anything like that yet. So, I loaded up a new Pro Tools session, set the mic up for Phonte, sat down at the keys, programmed some ‘dummy drums’ just for tempo and arrangement’s sake and we got to work. The demo version is actually rather entertaining. There’s a part where I went to a change before he was expecting me to do so and right in the middle of singing the melody he says, “Awwww man, you fucked me up!” LMAO!!! Classic material right there. The chords from the demo are basically the same as the finished product, the arrangement is different, but you could tell what direction the song was headed into. We actually held off moving on the joint for awhile… No reason in particular, we just didn’t get to it.

Finally, Phonte was hittin me up saying that he had gotten in contact with Jesse Boykins III and needed me to record a music reference so that he could reference the vocals for Jesse to sing… So I sent him the song with the same dummy drum track from the original demo, but I relaid the piano and bass parts for a more ‘official’ reference (the piano part I recorded for that particular reference actually lived long enough to see the final cut). When he sent me the vocals back, I was like, “WOW.” It was kinda of the same feeling I got when he first sent me vocals back for our “Africa” remake for the 80’s album because again before my very eyes, I saw Phonte expand as an artist. I mean, dude was doing jazz riffs! The hell? It sounded great… And we ALMOST kept Phonte on the joint. But the feel that we wanted for the song was a smoother sounding voice and delivery. So we passed the song on to Jesse and he hurt that joint! It was EXACTLY what was needed… His tone and voice fit the music perfectly – and for his version I finally re-recorded some live drums, which remained on the final cut. With Jesse’s singing and the addition of trumpet player Stan Graham, the feel of the music placed me in a classy jazz club circa the 1940s, where folks thought it looked cool to smoke cigarettes and once this song came on, people began to “make eyes at one another ‘cross the room.” It was a well designed curveball for the album and something that I haven’t seen done on a project of mine. Overall, it was great to have everything come together as beautifully as it did…

Studio Campfire Stories: The "SunStorm" Edition – "Be Your Man" and "Free Your Mind"

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5. Be Your Man (feat Darien Brockington)
Musically, the instrumental for “Be Your Man” was one of those joints that just kinda came to me. I vividly remember arranging the drum track first because at the time my intention was to lay something slower and also very simple… So I laid a simple ‘one-two’ or ‘march’ pattern for the drums at first. But in playing around with the pattern a little more, I ended up bringing the rimshot in simply for the additional nod factor and purposely left the hi-hat out (I actually experimented with an eighth note hi-hat pattern but hated how it sounded, it didn’t work at all). The chord progression was something that I worked out through playing around on the keys, it wasn’t planned… It was definitely a feeling, and I liked how it moved – pretty, but contrastingly dark. Once the progression was found and practiced, I played the chord stabs and allowed them to act as the eighth-note hi-hat rhythm instead of using an actual hi-hat. The live bass served as the glue for the music and the spacey sounding pad was the additional ‘candy’ and it was to my liking… still simple and now more mysterious. Once I sent this piece to Phonte and we got on the phone about it, he already had in his head that D. Brock was the man for the job, which completely worked since at that point Brock didn’t have a feature on the album yet.

Now, I wasn’t there for the writing process and recording session that took place for “Be Your Man” but according to Phonte, he and Darien were able to return to their circa 2003-2004 writing form by locking themselves in the studio for a night and knocking out a masterpiece. I mean if you listen, the vocal arrangement and harmonies are vintage Darien and Phonte. When he told me that, my mind immediately went to their writing efforts for FE’s “Come Around.” Understanding how much I dig that song, it made me proud beyond words as a producer to have had a hand in bringing Phonte and Darien Brockington back to their co-writing comfort zone they had abandoned for a few years. Phonte sent the the joint attached to a message that simply read, “Hit me back when you check this.” Of course, once I got the song back with D’s vocals on it… I hit Phonte back with the ever-so-popular, “The-hell-were-y’all-DOING-in-the-studio?!-DAMN!!” phone call.


6. Free Your Mind (feat. Lady Alma)
Lady Alma and I have a history that dates back to the good ole MySpace days. We would correspond off and on as early as 2005, always saying that we should be getting together to work on something soon… Fast forward to September 2009, she happened to have a gig in D.C. and The ELs were the band that was set to back her up for it. We had a rehearsal scheduled up at Rock Creek Academy (the school where I teach music) and while we were getting set up and running through a couple of her joints, Alma happened to be running pretty late. Now, the primary reason why I knew we would get along so well was pretty simple. For the entire duration of our rehearsal, I was lacing her with direct and indirect jokes about being so late… Because in my slightly twisted opinion, if I can joke with you and on you at a rehearsal even when we first meet, then you’re alright with me – that is definitely a gauge that I utilize. And low and behold ever since that day of rehearsal, we’ve been good friends.

On top of being a great person… Lady Alma can SAING …YES… SAING, with an “I”. This was extremely evident once we hit that stage with her the following night at Station 9 in D.C. The band consisted of Biscuit on the drums, Omar Hunter on bass, myself on keys, and Lady A on vocals, jokes, ackkin a fool and entertainment. She was all over that space during her performance all while singing her ASS off. I remember calling Phonte sometime that week and telling him that I needed to get her to do something for the album. As a matter of fact, Alma and I talked that weekend and I told her that I would construct something especially for her that would be intended for SunStorm. Since I had a drum pattern in my head already at that time, it didn’t take too much longer to put the music together for her. After recording it, I sent it through to Phonte just to get another opinion on it, and sent it to Lady Alma – We actually started tweeting each other about my sending the song to her. I remember her calling me and saying that I was ADD because of all of the different changes contained in the piece. LOL Once she recorded the joint and sent is back to me, I was thoroughly satisfied and she was just as humble as anyone I’ve ever worked with. After sending the draft version of the song, she was texting me asking my opinion… almost nervously! I got her on the phone and assured her that she had absolutely NOTHING to worry about, I mean damn… vocally, she showed no mercy on that song. Another thing that I LOVE about her performance on the song is that the first time I heard it, I said to myself… “Welp, that’s Lady Alma.” Meaning, her personality is all spilling over in this joint… “Let me lay it back a lil bit…” <— THAT’S Alma. “Plus I know you wanna hear a little bit of this, Zo”…then she just starts scatting. Word? THAT’S Alma! I was able to vividly picture her performing this song live as I was listening to it – now that’s a great performance.

Once again, as a producer I felt accomplished because she stated that the track really made her work (hence the “Zo…. I’ma get you for this one” line in the song). It is an awesome feeling to be able to stretch artists’ abilities who are already experienced and extremely talented with my music…

Studio Campfire Stories: The "SunStorm" Edition – "Say How You Feel" and "For Leslie"

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3. Say How You Feel (feat. Phonte & Carlitta Durand)
In April of 2009, Phonte and Carlitta were both in town for a video shoot with my brovah and good friend, DJ Roddy Rod. If I remember correctly, the shoot was on a Saturday and I was mad that I couldn’t make it to the group video shoot at night because I had a two shows with The ELs scheduled on the same day. But when Sunday came around, the two of them made sure to stop by the house to hang out for a little while. The day was interesting because being that I lived in a 17-story building, the apartments didn’t have thermostats that controlled ‘heat’ and ‘air conditioning’. So therefore, the entire building would have to be ‘switched over’ to heat when the weather typically got cold (around Oct/Nov) and would switch to a/c when the weather typically warmed up, which was normally around April. Well… the air conditioning had not yet switched over to a/c and the day that Phonte and Carlitta decided to come over, the temperature was in the upper-90’s… and I lived on the 15th floor. So the heat in the apartment that day was damn near unbearable, the humidity was up, and it was just plain uncomfortable. Realizing this, I stopped up at Target in order to get a fan big enough to accommodate kats… The problem was, OTHER folks in the area had the same idea that I did, which equated to a “late arrival” (about 1pm). When I got to Target, the big floor fans were GONE and the only fans they had left were a couple of small joints that were gonna do NO good in the heat we were gonna be smothered in. But, I bought one of them anyway and took it back home. By the time I got there, Phonte and Carlitta were already in the spot and sitting in the living room. We plugged in the fan, sat very still and checked out a couple of movies… aaaaand as expected, that little ass fan was moving NO air around in the apartment.


I decided to take them back into the studio to listen to a newer joint that I was in the middle of working on that was still sitting in the sequencer. I pulled the joint up and played the four-bar loop that I demoed and Phonte sat down, said, “Let’s do it then” and proceeded to start humming basic harmony lines to himself…. Well, that was easy. After that, I tracked everything out in Pro Tools and recorded the bass and re-recorded the basic keyboard parts right then and there while they waited just to have some type of reference. Once the music was recorded, the three of us gathered around the instrument mic that I have in the studio and recorded about three and a half minutes worth of handclaps. This is not a big deal in room temperature conditions, but in 90-degrees?! We finished recording handclaps lookin like we were training for a damn 50K race. So after a water break, the two of them dug in and began to write. The writing process wasn’t too long and tiresome, it was the actual recording process that proved to be the energy drainer. I can still see Carlitta sitting down on the floor of the studio with the fan sitting directly in front of her hot as hell… But she ended up baring down and knocking all of her parts out after Phonte laid his vocals down. A little later on in the night, we ordered pizza from Papa John’s in a sad attempt to rejuvenate, but in the long run, I think it just managed to increase levels of ‘itis. My mixing efforts at that point were definitely sidetracked by thoughts of melted cheeses, tomato sauce, toppings……… and crust……………*salivates* …and damn cheese sticks….. Apparently I’m getting sidetracked right NOW.

Anyway, I completed the music for the song a couple days after the original recordings took place… Keep in mind, I STILL didn’t have A/C that day either thus making “Say How You Feel” the hottest (temperature-wise) damn song I think I have ever recorded. AND, it was the only song on the album where ALL of the artists were recording together in the same place at the same time…


4. For Leslie
I came up with this chord progression and pattern at the worst possible time… while sitting in a slow-moving boring ass two-hour meeting at the school I work at. Therefore, in order to keep the music in my head, I was forced to hum the melody and tap my foot or nod my head (to remember the drum pattern) for the duration of this drawn out meeting. At the close of the meeting, I literally ran down to my music room so that I could record the idea onto the ‘voice memo’ application on my iPhone (I actually still have the original recorded piano on my phone). I was then able to take it home and put together an arrangement that worked for it.

One day while on the phone with Phonte, we were discussing the type of instrument that would sound dope over this particular track. I think we covered damn near the entire spectrum of instruments from the piano, to the guitar… to various woodwind pieces. From there, he started telling me about a flutist he knew of who was based out of New York named Claudia Hayden. Now, she told him to hit her up if he ever needed her to get down on some music… Welp Claudia! Guess what?! This was the perfect time. I looked up a couple of her performances on YouTube and was thoroughly impressed with the clips I saw of she and her band. Her playing was concise and I liked how she made the flute “talk” to me during her performances, which is exactly the type of style I needed on this piece. He contacted her and she turned it around with no problem… Not wanting to lose the instrumental element of my previous solo albums, I wanted to make sure that this sentimental piece of music was included…

Studio Campfire Stories: The ‘SunStorm’ Edition – “Greater Than The Sun” and “Greatest Weapon Of All Time” (SunStorm Week Day #2)

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1. Greater Than the Sun (feat. Phonte)
For those of you who have listened to Little Brother’s Getbackalbum, the closing track “When Everything Is New” was initially supposed to be the intro joint for THIS album. After hearing the recorded hook sung by Phonte, Big Pooh requested that he call me and ask that I let the song go to them for their album… I remember answering that “no-brainer-question-of-the-year” before Phonte had even finished what he was gonna say.

Phonte: Ayo man, I’m sittin here with Pooh… he heard the joint and loved it. Wanted to know if we could use it for o……

Me: YEAH!

*end of story* lol

I remember writing the piano piece to this song primarily after messing around on the keys one sunny afternoon – I emphasize the weather because those of us who create know and understand that weather can be reflected within your art. In this piece I can ‘hear’ and feel the sun that was shining through my blinds that day. Just by the way that the chords moved I felt as though I had definitely found something. After recording the music, it was only right that I call my brovah in crime Phonte to hop on what I thought could be the NEW intro joint. As a matter of fact, the working title for the joint was something like ‘Zo_Phonte_Intro 2008.’ As usual, he turned it around within a day or two and ironically wrote a song specifically dealing with the sun, which wasn’t anything that I suggested.

Once it was recorded and finished, I got an email from him with the song attached that read, “I ain’t playin’ with these niggas man.”

Hell, neither am I….

 


2. Greatest Weapon Of All-Time (feat. Sy Smith)
I got familiar with the name Sy Smith and her talent via her appearances on Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s Shaheedullah and Stereotypes album back in 2004. A couple years later, I was introduced to her via my good friend up in Chicago, Duane Powell. Duane, who used to work at one of my favorite record stores, Dr. Wax Records in Hyde Park, Chicago (now closed…. dammit) was good for picking up the phone and giving me a call at any given time to say, “What’s up sir? Uhhh… *Insert name here* is in the store right now and I wanna introduce you.” And understanding his good taste in music, it was always someone who I was a fan of. This is the same kat who sold two copies of Freelance to one of the Kaaaings. The late, great Mr. Bernie Mac ……and gave me a call about it right afterward. I mean damn, who does that? So anyway, he had been telling me for months about Sy and how she really enjoyed the Freelance album… And in typical Duane fashion, he called me up one day outta the blue…”What’s up sir?… Uhhh… Sy Smith is here in the store, I wanted you to get a chance to talk to her.” Bet!! Put her on! She got on the phone and we chopped it up for a short while eventually discussing the fact that we really needed to do some work together – the conversation left me pretty excited and even more motivated to work with her.

I finally met Sy face-to-face at a show she was doing here in D.C. at Bohemian Caverns in March ’08 and that’s when I truly discovered her… She was murdering her set. Talk about a phenomenal vocal talent and such a genuinely sweet person, which is a rarity in the nignorant and wonderful world of music. We spoke once again about working and exchanged contacts. With her live show in mind, the first thing I sent her was the music for “The Greatest Weapon Of All-Time.” I felt as though the music was uplifting and fun – the same feelings I took in from her show. Once she recorded her vocals and sent the song back to me, upon listening I couldn’t WAIT to work with her again (and we did a year later in the form of a remade “Crazy You” for the …just visiting too album). Come to think of it, when I called her after first hearing how she showed no mercy on my song, she was on the phone like, “How do you like the song, is it alright?” Uhhhh…”Alright?!??!” Ole humble ass…

Studio Campfire Stories: Platinum Pied Pipers “Stay With Me”

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platinum-pied-pipers-triple-p.jpg
The Summer of 2004 was a pretty interesting time in my life to say the least. I had just released my first ‘pro pressed’ album, Passion & Definition in July, was playing some shows here and there, meeting kats in the Detroit scene who I had been a fan of for years. I had also been let go from the Medical Supplies Sales job I held for a year, and as a result I became a full-time musician (until I moved East in 2006). I had some die hard supporters, thinking I was doing something… But looking back on it, I was just beginning to pay my dues hadn’t even really begun to get my feet wet musically. Anyway, with all of the new kats I was either meeting, running into, or working with around The D, I had yet to meet Waajeed. I always had people telling me, “Man, you gotta work with Waajeed,” yet, I hadn’t even met the brotha yet. Of course, with the way everything else was just kinda ‘falling’ into place, I simply assumed we would run into each other at a venue one night (which actually happened at the Carbon Lounge in Hamtramck… and we said ‘what up’ in passing). Oddly enough, it was actually my homegirl introducing me to his girlfriend at the time after running into her at Buffalo Wild Wings that did it – If I remember correctly, the two of them went to high school together. Weird? Yes… But, I happened to have a copy of Passion & Definition on me (as I always did back then) so I passed it to her to give to him. The next thing I knew a few days later, I got a phone call from Waajeed and we agreed to get up one day at his spot in Downtown Detroit just to meet up. And now that I think about it, that instance was probably the first and only time that I have ever gotten a call back from passing material along to someone… in HOPES of a call back. OH, I take that back…. I actually met 14KT, Buff1 and the rest of the Athletic Mic League the same way back in 2002. They called me back to back after I hit them with a copy of Zo! Presents… A Canvas For The Adoration of Music at an Athletic Mic League/Subterraneous show in Ann Arbor. So, I guess passing music along comes through every now and then, huh? Maybe…

Anyway, I ended up taking a trip to Jeed’s spot in Downtown Detroit and we chopped it up for a good hour or two about music in general… Including the hustle, the passion behind it, and the bullshit. We hadn’t planned to work on anything that day but I guess higher power saw things a bit differently. During our entire conversation, I was sitting at a suitcase Fender Rhodes just messing around on the keys until finally Jeed was like, “Ayo, you know what? Let me see if you’ve got something for this joint real quick.” I was sitting there with the “oh damn” face on as I was partially put on the spot… I’m good, no pressure, right? So he played the joint he was talking about and all I hear is a stripped down track with nothing but these swinging ass drums with this seductive voice on top of it. That was IT….

Me: “Who is THAT?”

Waajeed: “Tiombe Lockhart, a singer I’m working with for the new album.”

He then proceeded to explain to me the meaning behind his newly formed group, Platinum Pied Pipers and even broke down some of the album’s concept…. but I was all into this track that I was hearing. After listening through the song, I told him to start it over so that I could feel my way around what she was singing. By the middle of the song, I knew I had something as Waajeed said, “Aw man… we’ve gotta record that!” Right then and there, he started the joint over and I proceeded to record the bass part via the Rhodes…. and recorded another pass with just the chords and it became the foundation for this new song. Jeed was so hyped up about it, he started talking about turning it in to Ubiquity (Records) (PPP’s label at the time) and knowing that they would love it, etc…. I was kind of excited, but the music “industry” had already warped me so, even by 2004 that I wanted to see proof of things happening.

Sure enough, he turned that joint in and Ubiquity really took to it. Waajeed hit me up one day telling me that they were considering it as the first single. Word?… Whatever man, I’ll believe it when I see it…….. Well, a couple months later, I was in Record Time in Ferndale, MI flipping through copies of “Stay With Me” 12″ vinyl singles.

Funny how things happen when creativity comes into play. Even now when I hear this song being played in a venue, I always think back on how everything seemed to line up just right in order for it to happen and come through the way it did.

(Not So) Fun Fact: The crazy thing about this song that no one really knows about is Waajeed gave me a “Co-producer” credit on it. So if you happen to own one of the first pressings of the 12″, you may notice that it reads:

“Produced by Waajeed, Co-produced and keys by Zo!”

But Ubiquity wasn’t having it and they pulled the “Co-produced by” recognition and gave me credit for playing keys only… Despite their silly shit, Jeed and I still joke about this story to this day…

“Maaan, I met this dude…. two hours later we did ‘Stay With Me!'”

See?

Most of the time the best stuff never happens in accordance to our script…

Me and Waajeed in D.C., August 2006


Studio Campfire Stories: YahZarah – "Shadow"

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The story behind the song that ended up landing on YahZarah’s The Ballad of Purple Saint James as track number twelve almost never even happened…

Normally and quite naturally, when I learn that family is in town, it’s always time for me to carve out a time slot in the schedule in order to get up and make sure we connect. I don’t care if it is stopping through their performance and showing love, having them come through the house, or even giving kats a spot to crash for the night. In this case back in July of 2008, YahZarah told me that she would be back in D.C. and we needed to get up and record. Come to think of it, we were wanting to finish a song that she demoed about six months prior. In order to maximize our time, I had some newer music that I wanted her to check out in hopes of her recording it for my new album (SunStorm didn’t even have a working title at that time). So she came through, and of course I wanted to let her hear the new joint immediately…BUT, I couldn’t remember what I named the session (file). Yahz was over on the couch waiting patiently as I went through each of these unnamed and randomly named Pro Tools sessions to try and figure out which one contains the music that I want to put on display. This process seemed like it took forever as I was feeling like I was wasting valuable recording time. So I proceeded to have my ole ‘extra-hard-on-self’ talk, which probably went something like: “Why didn’t you just pull up the damn session in advance so she could hear it, see if she wants to write to the music and be done with it??! You’re wasting time right now, bruh… You’re wasting a lotta time!” During this whole “positive” self-talk… er…uhh.. tirade, I happened to come across a session that had not been touched in a few months, so automatically I thought, “Well maybe this could be the one.” I was disappointed when it opened to display just one stereo track of solo piano. I pressed ‘play’ on it so that I could hear what it was and at the very least remember the title of the session for the next time I go scanning through my files. Once it started playing, YahZarah popped her head up from her Blackberry…

YahZarah: What’s that?!

Me: It’s some chords and progressions I was working on a while ago and just happened to hit record on it.

Y: What are you doing with it?

M: Nothing, I damn near forgot it was even on here…!

Y: Can you bounce that down for me so I can take it with me on CD?

M: You want this one??!

Y: Yeah

As I began to bounce this solo piano piece down , I realized that I had actually recorded myself playing a full song that I had composed one late night in my old apartment (the one I lived in when I first arrived to Maryland in February 2006). There were changes in the music and it was already fully formatted. I also discovered that it was not done to a metronome or a click-track. As the song played back during the bounce, I could hear Yahz humming a couple of melodies with each part. Hearing her maneuver these notes up and through the piano chords off the top of her head peaked my curiosity… Just what the hell is she gonna do with this free-form piano joint?! Apparently, I was not aware of who I was dealing with…!

A couple of weeks later, I get an early morning text message from YahZarah telling me to check my email because she had sent something through…. I opened the email and saw the attachment titled, “Shadow.” Hmmm, nice… But what music did she record to? (she took home a CD of about 3 new joints that day) I clicked the ‘play’ button and began to hear that there was some heartfelt saingin goin on in that recording session. The harmonies on the hook drew me in IMMEDIATELY as they continued to build upon themselves as the song progressed. Then, the opera-influenced harmonies at the end of the second verse?!!!!?!? I get goose bumps NOW listening to that part…so I’m sure you can imagine the very first time I listened to it. I had the “C’LAWD!!! SHE’S BLACKIN THE HELL OUT!!!” – face on. I had no idea she was going to transform my piano track into a borderline soundtrack piece to an epic movie… She had truly outdone herself.

When we talked about her recording process later on, she told me how easy it was to write to and that it was the first time in a very long time that she was able to “just SING” on a track. I took that as the ultimate compliment because as the producer/musician, the goal is to bring the absolute best out of the artists you work with. Just by her sharing that information with me informed me that I had accomplished my creative goal…

Talk about a “things happen for a reason” scenario… Wow.


The Ballad of Purple Saint James
is now available at iTunes and Amazon.com…


“Overdue Process” Track Breakdown… #3 “Overdue Process”

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Track #3 – “Overdue Process”

Alright, so the title track was the second-to-last song that we completed for the album. The funny thing about this one was that the music for it was just sitting for about 4 months before I went back through things and discovered it again. 

I was searching through my sequences one day …actually looking for something completely unrelated to the album. 

Skipping through, I heard some joints…but still couldn’t find what I was looking for at the time.

Then I came to the sequence… *Cue music for “Overdue Process”*

The music really jumped out at me and in nodding to it…the music felt GOOD.

“OOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I FORGOT about THIS one!!!!!!!!”

I remembered it being something that I laid out one day in order to get one of my ideas out and recorded real quickly.

I hopped on the text and hit up A7 like, “I’ve got another one! Gonna track it and send it.”

7 ended up turning yet another joint around in about 24 hours. I had the dry vocals in my possession the next DAY. At this point, 7 was so excited about finishing the album that he had turned into a writing madman…it was damn near hard to keep up with HIM. Passing him a joint pretty much went like this…

Zo: “Here you go…”

(25 minutes later)
A7: “Here YOU go…”

Zo: “Alright, Got another one!”

(all of 17 minutes passes)
A7: “Check your inbox”

Zo: “DAMN man!!”

“Overdue Process” Track Breakdown – “Intro” & “Timeline”

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These two joints were actually the very first (“Timeline”) and the very last (“Intro”) songs completed for the album. It was crazy because “Timeline” is something we talked about doing back in the summer of 2005. At that time, we had already completed the “Listen Up” joint (from when we first met up the year prior) and were discussing the possibilities of creating and releasing music for a 12”. So I wanted to construct something with plenty of energy. Plus, it was a joint that as a fan of A7’s I could say to myself, “This is a joint that I would want to hear him rhyme on.” So after I gave him the beat, 7 held on to it for a minute…not because he was just sitting on it, but because he must have rewritten it about 25 times! 

In true perfectionist form, he didn’t like anything he did for it. 

It was crazy for me because I’m like, “Just lay it!” …I hadn’t even heard anything yet

…until July 2007 when he handed me a copy of a CD with “Timeline” written on it and said, “This is the 12” vinyl joint.” 

I was flying back into D.C. the same day, and threw the disc in…and what I heard was DOPE.  He sounded like he was going for blood on the joint. It was a great foundation laid for the album…we had our first song.

…When I would talk to 7, he would still say, “Maaaaaan, I’m not feeling my energy on it.”

“Nah man, it’s dope! You came off!”

On to rewrite #26…lol

He rewrote the entire song again and it took on an autobiographical life of its own. Talk about personal…he was talking about stuff in the song that I had no idea about. What a helluva song and idea to begin an album with. 

We made a list of DJ’s that we wanted to work with for the album. It was just a matter of placing them on the correct songs. Roddy Rod is a kat that I met a couple months before I moved out here to the D.C. area. From day one, he took me in immediately. So I hit him up and asked him to do the cuts and he took care of um with no problem. He found the “In Detrooooooit” piece and scratched it in the hooks which fit the theme perfectly…

Fast forward to the tail end of production. A7 sent me a text asking about doing an intro. I honestly hadn’t even thought about it because I thought that “Timeline” was a dope intro/song as it was. But when I went back home in September to take the photos for the album, we talked some more about it an agreed that an intro would fit as long as it was short and effective…

The music I used for the Intro was something that I have had in my head for more than a year now…This was the perfect time to utilize it. I wanted to ‘connect’ the two somehow, so I flipped the piano riff from “Timeline” and incorporated it into the Intro joint. 

A7 turned that joint around in less than 24 hours…

…The Overdue Process album resulted.