by Sankofa
Money Plasma
My dad spent the last almost three years of his life in hospitals, constantly hooked to needles. I never shied away from bleeding, but the thought of needles and blood unnerves me to this day. Add to that the sickening feeling I get in my gut when seeing folks lined up to sell plasma because capitalism is literally sucking us dry with the shock marketing of whatever celeb was selling knock off Nikes with fake blood in the air pockets and you have the line which drives Money Plasma. Bonus points to being able to record at home, where I can be brave enough to do my best Layne Staley (fittingly and tragically adjacent to needles) tribute.
dadhusbandrapperrunner
Clearly written before my leg decided to shut down post Prius getting karate chopped by a runaway 18 wheeler tire, a song built around the concept of the money I once spent on shoes now goes to paying for tapes/vinyl/CDs/printer cartridges/mailing supplies/postage in addition to the various roles I play in life. I would rather be an open book of blank pages than represented by any of the roles which I may be associated with, but the ones listed in the hook are integral parts of who I am.
Palantir Drops
This would be my tech existential dread song. Self awareness being no replacement for action finds me, an independent artist fully aware of the inordinate data being collected, constantly on my phone, almost always reaching out to someone about something or connecting more dots and trying to not get distracted when hitting the IG search function and being blinded by the Smithers Strippers of whatever the algorithm has determined will be sufficient bait. VC swooping in would be venture capitalists.
Glorious Mess
“A ray of sunshine got me cooking with Michelle Kwan, took the leftovers now we’re cooking, the smell’s strong” A reference to this beat initially being a pack MIGHTYHEALTHY had gotten to Raekwon. Honestly, my favorite work on this is the hook, so raw, hindsight definitely has me channeling Ghostface energy. Shoutout to Knuckle Dragguz G Fam Black and P-Ro who came through last minute, Smif-N-Wessun style to fill a middle verse initially intended for a dope friend you’ll hear another time. Money Mogly comes through with the final verse and I’m glad I went first. Dude’s a wizard. All rappers on this song were connected through the Georgian Hills Genius himself, Tali Rodriguez.
Mystery Box
Initially entitled Leaden Blood, trying to answer how I keep dropping all these albums, song title based on a conversation I was having with my man, fellow recovered shoe addict MLP, about ordering new shoes and the excitement having such a short life that the thrill of getting a pair is gone before the box ever arrives. Throw in the hookwork referencing us as the people suffering under a broken system that props itself up at our expense.
Parched
A song was written while reflecting on the travails of last summer. I’ll spare the details, but suffice it to say I hope to never again revisit such experiences. No idea where the idea for the vocal tone came from and the hook was essentially freestyled and repeated. Verse two deals with my becoming jaded at the idea of being a rapper when I was idealistic enough to believe in things like meritocracies.
Let them Hover
THIS IS SKO’S SONG. I love him for what and how he does what he does. I had to get him on a MIGHTYHEALTHY beat. In my mind, my hook is the fault line which separates our work into two entirely different songs. Much like levildevilshevil, Sko and I both recorded at the start of the song, so I shifted my vocals to the second and third verse slots.
Soldier Placeholders
It’s usually a lot easier for me to make songs than name them. Sometimes, names will immediately pop up, but man this one wasn’t easy. I haven’t even spoken on MIGHTYHEALTHY’s production to this point, but suffice it to say I feel like I somehow snuck into an alternate pantheon when getting to work with him. DJ Navin Johnson does his unmatchable scratchwork. Stoked I got to reference the uniquely iconic to Australia Phar Lap.
Damaging Lyrical Launcher
Props to Tali Rodriguez, engineer whose instruction from MIGHTYHEALTHY was to make the album loud, texting me about the end of the song (where the vocals go past the beat) and finding the perfect way to fade it out. I actually revisited this song with a much more aggressive approach, reflected on it, and realized it was iller with me being chill and not going for the throat.
Years Later
I’m still the rapper frustrated I didn’t think to rhyme particular words, even if the rapper who did so was the legendary Rakim. Totally used to wonder if there was a hip hop way of doing dishes, like “How does Lord Finesse wash his dishes because he’s the most hip hop guy I know of?” Pretty happy that I got to sneak in a new (unofficial) title for MIGHTYHEALTHY, the Rhinoceros of Beats, in this track. I mean, dude’s beats KNOCK. This song basically sums up my level of disbelief that, all these years later, I’m thankfully still a fan, but now I’m making music with all these dope people.
Durable Days
This is me being sad but still wanting to fight. I try not to veer into pained voice territory too much, but melancholy constantly calls to me, same reason I don’t like looking at my phone reminding me about what I did with my never not growing older sons. “I’m at a cliff with my queen” was part of the freestyled end of this song and it may be my favorite part of this entire album. What we have been through and the belief we have in each other and the family we have crafted is the most powerful proof of faith I have.
The Goal
My man Adi (illustrator of my first logo and artist behind CunninLynguists’ and MacLethal’s first album covers) is one of those dudes I’ve known since before he had his own dental practice, a zillion shoes, enough hip hop collectible dolls to make JON?DOE and 8Greg2 almost jealous. Friendship to me is the most important part of music, so it was into that bedrock that he and I co-authored and engraved The Tom Rule which states JON?DOE (one of my best friends in life, not just rap) must make at least one appearance on each of my projects. I love that dude, a guy who has a Dr Dre sized vault of unreleased music, and I love that we have a rule which means other people get to hear him (who I considered ridiculously talented, not to mention reliably vulgar, necessitating radio edits on my songs) rap. When a project begins, I send JON?DOE the folder and he selects a beat, this one he did the Silversmiths trick of making an infinity bars verse, which of course meant I needed to match his bar count, so the extended version of this beat became referred to as Limo.
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