Words With Friends Song (Rapping My Life Week 5)

Today’s music/video insight is for the song “Words With Friends,” produced by ME!

FREE Download – Click HERE

INSIGHT INTO A SONG:

During the week when I’m not working on a project, I’m usually playing “Words With Friends” on Facebook.  I play it so much that I figured it would be worth me making a song about.

Writing the song itself fun; making the beat for it, though, was a chore. I wanted to use sound effects from the game to make the beat, but couldn’t find them available for download anywhere online. So, I had to go through the daunting task of playing the game against myself and recording the sounds as they came up.

The main sound in the song – which you first hear when the song opens up – was the last one I tried to get. I heard the sound once while playing, then couldn’t seem to get it to pop back up when I wanted to record it. I didn’t figure out until late in the process that I could get the sound by simply starting a game then resigning. Go figure.

Anyway… so, aside from the base drum and clap sound, every other sound – from the tapping to the bubbling up tile regeneration sound – are from the game.  Once I got the beat, it was just a matter of figuring out what I wanted to talk about specifically in reference to how I play the game.

I’ve gotten into the habit now of taking more time when editing my songs. I’ll write a complete song, then sit on it for a minute and see if I can go back and take out things that were just okay to make room for something better. With that said, I re-wrote parts of this song quite a few times just to make sure I had a song that was funny and getting my point across (about just how much I like/play this game).

Some Interesting Song Tidbits:

1. I wrote this song at the very end of the week. How can you tell? The last line of the song has a mention to Don Cornelius’ passing. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you what the line is…

INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO:

I didn’t have much time to really create the video I wanted to create, especially since I had shot another video that week (for my “Rack City” parody, “Black President”) and didn’t really want to edit together another video involving a plot.

That’s why the majority of this video is just me standing in my room rapping the song, with the occasional shot here and there of different things happening. As I have discovered time and time again, though, even the most simplistic of videos take a while to edit. Between the 1-shot take of me rapping the song and the various pics used, I still put in a good 5 or 6 hours completing this video. Eh, go figure.

Anyway… that’s all for this week’s video. Check it out and enjoy!

-A.P.T.

Song: New Year’s Fight (Part of My New Weekly Series, “Rapping My Life!”)

Hey all!

I’ve started another new weekly music series called “Rapping My Life!” Each Friday in 2012, I’ll be posting up a new video featuring a song that’s based on something that happened that week in my life!

The official website for these videos is over at Tumblr (www.RappingMyLife.Tumblr.com), but the videos will be posted up here as well.

Check out the first video from the series called “New Year’s Fight!” It’s a FREE download over at the Tumblr site, so go over there and get it!

-A.P.T.

When It Comes to Your Music, Everyone Else is Wrong

Billboard.com’s been having daily articles for the past month talking to different artists who have had #1 chart-toppers since the inceptions of its chart back in 1954.

It’s been quite interesting to hear the stories from the artists themselves as they talk about what it was like to have the most-played song in the country.  Many of them never guessed that their song(s) would get that high up on the charts, and many of them didn’t know how or why a particular song of theirs became so popular.

Today, I saw the interview they did with Shaggy, where he talked about his number 1 chart-topper, “It Wasn’t Me.” As the story goes, he almost gave away the song to another artist altogether!

Why? When he originally recorded it, everyone at his record label said it wouldn’t be a hit.

At the time, he actually bought into what everyone was saying, and decided it would be better to give the song to another artist.  He even went so far as to get vocals for the track from various other artists who were popular at the time.  It wasn’t until a new A&R came to his label and heard the song – upon which he said, “Dude, that’s a HIT right there!” – that Shaggy decided to finish up the track and release it!

The point I’m making here is simply this: if you are a new artist in the music game, it’s very easy to want to listen to others who have been in it for a long time. However, you must remember that, while what others tell you can, at times, be helpful, you should also trust your own instinct at times.  If you’ve had any kind of musical success, it means that, on some level, you know what it takes to reach an audience and convince them to like your stuff.

Don’t be fearful that your instincts may be wrong. Everyone has had to fall on their butt at some point on the road to success… but you have to get into the practice of being able to make your own decisions and realize they’re the right ones. The music industry is one that likes to follow, not lead; yet, the catch-22 is, it always needs new leaders to follow.  So don’t be afraid to do things that everyone doubts at first – those same doubters will become followers later one once what you’re doing proves to be successful.

Anyway… that’s all I have to say. Just a lil’ rant of encouragement from me to you

-A.P.T.

New Music Project(s) for 2012

Greetings, fans and well-wishers!

Well, 2011 is coming to a close, which means it’s time to start mapping out music plans for 2012!

I have a bunch of ideas roaming through my head right now, and while I’m pretty sure I can’t do all of them, I did just come up with a BRILLIANT music project idea – one that I feel will be interesting enough for me to want to do on a weekly basis for a whole year…

I also want to do another music project, this one relating to my parody raps.  Yes, I, A.P.T., also known as the Prince of Parody, am going to be putting out a NEW parody song each week for a whole year! Whether or not all of these songs will have videos made for them is still up in the air, but I’m always coming up with new ideas for parodies so I figured “Hey, why not give it a shot?”

On top of these two ideas, I have some other things lined up as well… all of these ideas involve comedy to some extent, so the one thing I can say is that you all will be thoroughly entertained by me throughout the next year!

That’s all for now – more info in the upcoming days!

-A.P.T.

PARODY: Christmas in Paris (Ni–as in Paris SPOOF)

Hey all! I decided to do a parody of a popular song – in this case, Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Ni–as in Paris,” and turn it into a Christmas song called “Christmas in Paris!” It’s been sent to iTunes, and should be available very, very soon. In the meantime, I’m allowing it to be a FREE download for the next week, so get it and pass it around to your friends!

Here’s the song in YouTube video form (depending on how popular it is, I may make a video for it)!

And here’s the FREE download link: http://www37.zippyshare.com/v/9499906/file.html

-A.P.T.

VIDEO: Drake “Take Care” LEAKED Album Review

What up, peeps? Well, Drake’s upcoming new album, “Take Care,” leaked all over the internet this past weekend. I got to hear it, and did a music review for it! So, what did I think of it? Watch and see!

Be sure to download my NEW album, “Justin Beeber Must Die!!” Click HERE for download links!

-A.P.T.

Apple’s Garageband: How to Acheive Full Loudness with Your Song Exports

Hey people:

So… first off, my NEW album drops on November 1st, free download so make sure u get your FREE download of it.

Anyway… so I’m mixing my songs together out of Garageband. Those of you familiar with the program have probably faced frustration at getting a mix together that sounds loud while in Garageband; yet, upon exporting your song, the volume goes down a bit.

This has frustrated me for YEARS, and up until this point I couldn’t figure out WHY the program kept doing that.  After all, I had marked the tab in the “Preferences” menu asking me if I wanted my songs exported at full volume, yet it never seemed to occur…

Just a few minutes ago – after trying to export my songs, then import them into Final Cut so I could turn the volume up and re-export them – I did a search online hoping I could figure out the answer to this problem.  And guess what? I did.

So, you wanna know how to export your songs at full volume? Here’s the solution: do NOT click the little box asking you if you want to export at full volume.

Yes, THAT’S the solution.  If you don’t choose that option, your songs will export fine. So…

WHAT THE HECK IS THE POINT OF HAVING THAT OPTION THERE IF IT DOESN’T ACTUALLY MAKE YOUR SONGS EXPORT AT FULL VOLUME?!?

That’s like me saying “Click on the following link to download my album,” and when you do you only get a sampler of 5 songs… but if you ignore the link and just scroll down, you can get it in its entirety.  WHAT KIND OF BACKWARD-@$$ BULL$#!+ IS THAT?!?!?

Anyway… I’m just glad I figured this out before exporting out songs for my album. But GEEZ, as much as Apple likes to make things simple, did they really have to make exporting full-volumed stuff so dang complicated?!?

-A.P.T.

VIDEO BLOG: Coming November 1 – Best. Album. Ever.

Video: New A.P.T. Mixtape Coming Soon…

Official A.P.T. Album Release Date

Hey all!

Well, I wasn’t planning on releasing my album release info this soon, mostly ’cause I figured I’d be releasing it sometime around November, which is a bit far off.  However, I went to my Tunecore.com account today to check my album sales for the month, and saw that they are having a discount sale on any albums released through their site until October 31, 2011.  Normally it would cost me $49.99 plus tax to use their service to get my album to iTunes, Amazon, etc.; at the moment, though, their special deal allows me to release it for $19.99.

And so, I am happy to say that my next album will be coming out on…. drum roll, please… OCTOBER 25!!!

So, what’s the name of the album? Eh, I’m still going to wait about a week or two before it’s announced, only because the title is so brilliant and sure to get me some attention.  In the meantime, just know that (a) it will be released on October 25, and (b) it will be available for FREE as well as for purchase (because, amazingly, no matter how much I let people know about my stuff being free, they still want to pay for it – and why let them down??

That’s all for now – new songs and videos coming soon!

-A.P.T.