BOOM BAP
Boom Bap is one of my favorite tracks on the album, an homage to poppy 90’s hip hop, and a love song to the city where I developed my sound, NYC. Put the top down and the volume up for this one.
front on me not
The first song on the BACKSTAGE tracklist, Front on Me Not was ironically recorded last, and as such, serves as a look back at the process of putting BACKSTAGE together.
“This is just the kick in the butt that I needed.”
I grew up on a steady diet of Motown, Rock, and R&B from the 60s and 70s. Not complaining, but I wanted to hear what every other 14-year-old was listening to, so I sat down on a July afternoon in 1997 and listened to Top 40 radio for hours, making a cassette mixtape of the stuff I liked.
That was the day I heard the Notorious B.I.G. for the first time. By the end of the song “Mo Money, Mo Problems" I knew I was going to be a rapper. For me, it changed everything.
Since that day I’ve been pursuing that dream. The problem was, I never really defined what the hell that meant, or how the hell I was going to accomplish it. I moved to NYC, rocked a ton of open mics, recorded an album, and formed a band…and waited to be discovered.
Didn’t happen.
I turned 30 and started to wonder if I had missed out, if I had fucked up my opportunity, if it was too late. I grew up equating “success in the music industry” as superstardom, and that wasn’t even close to happening. As the years went by, a creeping dread set in that I should maybe put my dreams to bed, find a “real job,” and settle. I used this as motivation to give it one more shot, and put 110% of myself into making something happen.
This album was my do or die moment.