Black Saturday by Tawobi

This is where rap has gotten me so far. from dropping out in 2015 to my true start with friendly neighborhood struggle rapper in 2018. What have I become? An alcoholic? An artist? A failure at 27? My faith and my pockets are running dry. I’ve put everything I have into this and I haven’t gotten enough back to change me or my family’s situation. The price of living is going up. My landlord’s trying to sell the house again and a friends dead. My usual copping mechanism of diving deeper into music and art has started to feel like that Anderson Silva fight where he broke his leg. I’ve lived life and ran away and isolated myself over and over again I’m afraid it’s starting to hurt more than it’s helping. I haven’t let my leg heal but practicing this kick is the only way I know how to function. It’s so bad now that outside of my HBC family and a few members of my own, my whole life has totally become me and this leg. I’m afraid every kick will be my last. As I take a step back to swing my leg again I hope at the very least that I made it sound interesting.

The original title for this project was ‘OVRWOBI’ being that it was produced entirely by HBC producer duo OVRTHNK and that towards the end of its completion I was completely burnt out with music. The album has themes of excess, addiction, trauma, drive, self belief and self doubt. In some ways it can be seen as a light concept piece on quitting music. The album cover itself is a light reference to the Spiderman comic where he throws the suit away and quits being a hero. A kind of full circle moment from 2018’s Friendly Neighborhood Struggle Rapper. I want to remove everything associated with me so far. It’s starting to hurt more than it helps.

We started recording in January 2020 in artist camps me and HBC put together for two weekends to record in a high productivity environment with a bunch of our favorite Philly artists. We were inspired by Troy Carter Jr who had put together 3 artist camps a few months before that we were invited to. Those sessions felt like my first little sink or swim moments in a while. Especially the one day I went to troy’s camp. I was surrounded by so many talented artists and producers I honestly didn’t feel like I could hold a candle to most of the people in the room. I maybe got one verse in that night and I was happy then sat in a corner and worked on a couple records. It really made me question my place and talent in music and I thought maybe I’m not as good at this as I thought. The only option was to sink or swim. I was scared. I almost wanted to sink I wanted to stay home in my own self validation and not show up.

But I showed up and showed out when it came time for our own artist camps. That whole time was life changing for me I was truly living a cheap version of what I imagined my life would be like when I was 13. I didn’t have to go to work, finally built up my credit and was in a solid off and on relationship with my ex. Aside from some bull shit goin on at the crib and the national guard occupying the city now and again life was good. My drinking was getting bad though and as the end of lockdown was nearing I was starting to go through it.

I was doing free lance work that was going left. I was up for about 3 days on addy’s and tried to fight my cousin at our grandfathers funeral. I was going to have to go back to work. I felt like a failure. Music was the only thing I could think of and was doing. My album F.A.T.E hadn’t done what I had dreamed of it doing, the hype from Baffroom was dying down and I wasn’t getting booked for any shows. I’d gotten into this fight or flight mode especially after walking out to a body on the street. I couldn’t even appreciate the good shit that was happening I was so obsessed with getting out of here! Everything was temporary. Everything that wasn’t adding to the overall goal wasn’t worth the time. I pushed a lot of people away.

SXSW and getting on Kill Tony though put a crazy battery in my back. But the truth was even before then I’d been burnt out and I didn’t stop. Things snowballed when we got home from that. The landlord decided to sell the house (actually just got a text today saying they're putting it back on the market again). A friend attempted suicide and another was killed in a hit and run. This was kind of the end of the rope for me. I was burnt out and spiraling. A dark time. A Black Saturday. Another name for the day Jesus spent buried in the ground. I just hope i can make it to Easter.

Tracklist

1.	Outtasite	2:42

2.	Pegasus	2:20

3.	Runaway feat. Eli616	2:24

4.	American Psycho	2:04

5.	Dash feat. Quadie Diesel	2:40

6.	UhHuh 2 feat. Sprout	2:06

7.	Dream	3:25

8.	Big City	2:30

9.	Control	2:20

10.	Freaky Friday	3:00

11.	Whoa feat. Zasso Luxke and Journell Pierre	4:05

Credits

released April 8, 2023

Produced by OvrThnk.
Written and performed by Taylor Thompkins
(features all wrote and performed they own shit I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that but here we are).
Mixed by Justin Miller.
Mastered by Charley Coin.
Cover art by Evan Mader.
Typeography by Andrew Vickery.
2023 Highest Basement Collective.

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