Yo! from Our Lives by 13th Son
Very early on in the process of beginning this album I got a call from Chris V of Soulmate Records. He said he’d heard from M-Phazes that I was working on a new album and would I be interested in hearing some beats from his stabled producer Stat-D. I hadn’t heard of Stat but if M was recommending Chris contact me then I thought he’d be worth a listen. I wasn’t disappointed. This was the first beat on the CD (the second being the track now know as Mad At The World). Within a short time of receiving the CD I was on the phone to Chris putting my order in – I couldn’t have anyone else getting the beats I wanted! I was lucky. The rhyme had been written a month or two earlier over a random instrumental I’d heard on a DVD and I had a feeling it would go well with this beat. It’s a straightforward rumination on the state of hip hop and how the scene here now is very different from when I was coming up. These days any kid can make up raps, record them, put them on the ‘net and claim he/she is a rapper. But how many have really paid their dues, played gigs, and learnt to rock a crowd? The clan-like infrastructure of the scene in the 90’s has disappeared. I remember having to show and prove – feel me? I miss that. In some ways it’s just too easy now and when things come to easy, there’s no respect for those that worked hard to make it that way, in a time before it wasn’t. I wanted to honour that history. ©2007
