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What a great guy to work with. This is the second track, that I wrote, that Couch King worked and rapped on. Love his positive energy both in music and life. Thanks Marquis!
https://soundcloud.com/king-of-the-couch
Here's a bit more information, for those who are curious.
I am by no means in the habit of explaining what I was trying to say in a piece of music. I generally think the views of an artist on their own work are often, at best, partial or wrong and, at worst, self-serving. It's be better to stick to answering questions if asked(not that for the most part people's interest in my music rises to the level that they do ;). I've started to rethink that position though, in light of my own interest in what the people I listen to are thinking, and in any case I probably owe my collaborator a fuller accounting. I'll start with my own relationship to hip-hop. I'm older than the form. Making it the only major form of music that that is true of. It was also born close, geologically and culturally, to where I'm from but not in my neighborhood so to speak. So to me it's like the kid from down the block, say, four years younger. Growing out of the same environment, ie. soul, funk, jazz, etc., but with a bit of a divide. That being it's original construction out of samples. It was an audio collage art form. This has over time changed of course, although the original form still exerts influence over the way it's played and constructed. I had none of this in my mind when I sent the original tracks to Marquis(Couch King) but when he sent back his first rough draft of his rap; a thought came together in my mind. His speedy delivery set against my languid backing track brought to mind a slightly self conscious dinner guest. A new friend over for the first time. Filling in details of his life, and how he thinks about it, through stories of his past. The first verse addressing his new friends on his background. Small talk if you will. As he gets more intense though he starts to really talk to, in his mind, his father and then an old lover. Not unusual in an interesting, thoughtful conversation, no? I'm taking the role of the host of course. Inviting the younger, but now mature, man from the old neighborhood to my home. It's a dinner party so there are other people there. Chirping in about drinking, smoking, Nietzsche, chasing girls and his date sighing about his story(the samples in order except the bell which I'd rather not explain, you've got to leave something, no?). The music changing as his stories effect the mood in the room. The host though shares nothing. Polite and reasonably warm but sphinx like and a bit haughty. Making interesting ambiguous comments and not explaining them.
- Genre
- Hip-hop & Rap