Tha Playlist vol1: Back At It Again (Remastered) is my follow up album release to “Disconnected...”, and this is my 5th draft of this particular release.
My motivation for rebuilding this album, came after I released my 6th album release: “N My Feelin’s”; I felt that the “Back At It Again (Reloaded)” release had a mood that was all over the place, and didn’t sound consistent with the latter releases.
At the same time, I decided to takedown two album releases:
- 70’s house party
- Tha Playlist Vol1: Tha Beginning
- These albums, I consider to be my weaker releases, comparing them to Playlist Vol3, N My Feelin’s and Disconnected…
I took the stronger songs from my takedowns, and the strong tracks from Back At It Again (Reloaded), and built “Tha Playlist Vol1: Back At It Again (remastered)”.
Since I was totally rebuilding this project, I renamed and remastered this collection; I felt that this was a new album, and since I took down my first playlist volume one, which was named “Tha Beginning”, I needed another volume one in my “Playlist” franchise, and the placement was perfect, because this was my 2nd album release which sequentially fit leading to my volume two release.
This project; I downsized the track line up from 13 tracks to 11, which contains:
- Hit The Gym!
- Up All Nite!
- Celebrate U 2Day!
- If U’re Past Could Speak
- Sleepwalkin’
- Sleep Alone
- I Took Something
- Waitin’ 4 Tha Fone
- That’s My Song
- Still Tha Same
- Big Ole Bed
This release is really my 5th draft of this, and when I was working on the 1st draft, I wanted it to pick up where “Disconnected...” left off at, I wanted to show growth with my sound and the topics. I managed to introduce new topics, but the music was all over the place, It gave too much growth for a sophomore album.
This current draft delivers the hip-hop bass driven core (drums/bass) just like “Disconnected...” but not as gritty, and rough edge. I have what I call an “Old School Flow”, unlike those who rap trap and drill style beats, I possess a style which shines on my crossover genre fused sound.
On “Disconnected...”, my flows, beats and topics of discussion are more underground, and “Tha Playlist Vol1:” is the opposite, it has a more commercial mainstream sound, and I took a lighter approach with delivering my lyrical content. I’m still bringing conscious awareness topics, just not as heavy as I did on “Disconnected...”.
“Disconnected...” was my “Diary” album, because most of the songs were 1st person, and about me; how I react and respond to certain situations, and true personal happenings to me. On “Tha Playlist Vol1:”, these songs are more 3rd person, with topics that connect and relate to my listeners; the subjects aren’t all about me, but more about situations that allow my listener to say “He’s speaking for me, or I was saying what you were thinking”.
I also challenged myself when I decided to create “Hit The Gym!”, and “Celebrate U 2Day!”. These two ideas were my chance to see if I create something that was unique and stood apart from other artist, and material.
When I did “Hit The Gym!”, I wanted to make a workout song that was high energy. “Celebrate U 2Day!” was my rap version of a “Happy Birthday” song to complement Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday”. I had the track for this I didn’t know how I was going to approach writing and delivering the rhyme.
Writing these two songs forced me to change how I write and deliver my flow. Before I would write all the lyrics to an instrumental like most rappers, remember it and then drop it,“Celebrate U 2Day!” required me to shift gears on each verse, and I was struggling to remember my flow where the gears change, so I remember another recording of mine that I had to do the same, and remember that instead of writing the entire rhyme first, I wrote and dropped the bars simultaneously, every 4 bars I wrote and dropped the rhyme giving me precision with the entire song.
Songs on this project required some expansion, which meant my former style of writing and dropping wasn’t going work, it required a lot of gear shifting.
The songs on this album challenged me to bring new topics, and rhyme deliveries that began to establish my sound that extinguishes me from others, and yes I have conscious awareness songs like:
- Sleep Alone
- If U’re Past Could Speak
- Still Tha Same
- I Took Something
These songs address friendship, and relationship issues;
- Waitin’ 4 Tha Fone – is a track dedicated to passing of my best friend; which was my 1st life changing death.
There's more on this album, and overall it’s an extension of “Disconnected...”, which displays growth and maturity from the beats, topics, and my lyrical delivery.
Look for inspiration postings that will further highlight certain singles on “Tha Playlist Vol1: Back At It Again (Remastered)”, in depth.
