2020 by Gepetto

2020 was a hell of a year for all of us, and for me, it was a hell of a year creatively. These 20 songs represent nearly all the music I made over the past year, and beyond serving as a vessel for processing that crazy-ass year, they also represent a number of creative changes for me:

1. I started my Patreon at the beginning of the year. If you don’t know, Patreon is a platform for fans to pay artists directly and get exclusive content. While my Patreon fam is a small circle, they’ve helped me immensely this year by serving as a sounding board for new material I’m working on. My big push this year was to be less precious with my music and produce more of it, so I can just start a bunch of stuff and let my Patreon fam decide what’s worth finishing.

2. I started going to school for graphic design in the fall of 2020, and I’ve kind of modeled my approach to making music after a design workflow: create a bunch of rough ideas, get feedback, refine them, and repeat until the strongest ideas become the final drafts.

3. You’ll notice this album has significantly fewer boom-bap beats than past projects. I really pushed myself to make more modern, 808-based beats and to learn how to rap on them. There’s been a real pull away from writing 3 16 bar verses on every song, and a focus on coming up with interesting cadences, hooks, and arrangements instead. I think it really paid off, especially on songs like ‘Firewater’ and ‘Energy.”
I hope these efforts pay off and you enjoy this project! Thanks for listening.

- Gepetto

Gepetto is a Portland, Oregon rapper/producer who brings the spirit of early 2000s indie rap into 2022 and beyond

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