One-Song-a-Week: Song #47 – Flashing Lights Remix

This week’s video is for the song “Flashing Lights Remix.”

Available on “The O-bama Mixtape” – Click HERE for download information!

INSIGHT INTO A SONG:

This is one of the songs I wrote, recorded, and made a video for BEFORE I started this whole “One-Song-a-Week” site.  Kanye West’s album, “Graduation,” had dropped a few months prior, and many of the songs from that album were being played prior to a video actually being out for it.

One of the songs I kept hearing at these clubs – and one of the songs I liked the most off the album – was “Flashing Lights.”  It’s a song where he talks about the effect being in the spot light has on his various relationships, and the beat for it was semi-futuristic, souly, and dancable all at once.

I wanted to do a freestyle to it, and did the best I could to find the instrumental for download.  Once I tracked it down, I… okay, so I don’t remember if I ended up actually making any freestyles to it.  What I DO know, is I downloaded the beat around the same time that Britney Spears, now somewhat sane, was having a nervous breakdown.  The paparrazzi has been following her every move for years on end now (this is year number 9) and the pressure of all that, combined with her having had 2 kids and then going through a divorce, was finally catching up to her.

Many people in the news media were, at the time, condeming this girl for the way she was acting.  However, I always tend to look at issues in a different light.  To me, I could understand why she’d finally break down.  Despite the number of videos I’ve done for YouTube (47 so far) and the extreme popularity of the “Obama Milli” song, I am actually a person who enjoys his alone time and privacy.  I could not even begin to imagine how I’d act if a swarm of camera people were trying to follow me from the minute I stepped out my door in the morning until I drove back to my house at night.  That’s like, 10 HOURS of people following me! I don’t even like being around my family members for that long (love y’all to death, though!), let alone complete strangers!

So, I decided to make a version of “Flashing Lights” where I acted as though I was already famous and being stalked by the camera guys.  I also made references to people who had been harrassed by the pap “smears”, such as Anna Nicole (R.I.P,), Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, T.I., Bobby & Whitney, and Dave Chappelle.  It’s one of my shorter songs, but I think it gets my ideas across pretty well!

Some Interesting Song Tidbits:

1. Most of the ideas in the first few lines stem from seeing the things the paparazzi puts people through when they are following them around.

2. It’s amazing to me how, if you speak enough about something, it may eventually happen.  I wrote this song a few months BEFORE I dropped “Obama Milli,” yet many of the things I talked about in the song came true.  For example, I have a line where I say, “I once did this for the love/now I’m doing it just because…” sure enough, once the song got popular, I had writer’s block for a while because I felt I had to make songs for everybody else to like, not necessarily myself. I also have a line where I say, “…and now I get jerked/by cousins, who wouldn’t even call before.” I didn’t get jerked around by anyone in the family, but I did have quite a few friends and family who I hadn’t heard from in a while suddenly contact me on Facebook like, “What up, how are things going? By the way, I heard your song in the club/on the radio/on my friend’s ring tone…” followed by the requisited, “don’t forget about me when you make it!” Geez…

INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:

I made this video back before I was aware of a “Windows Media Maker” program on my PC.  I did, however, have a program called “Muvee” that came pre-installed with the system as well.  It allowed you to take photographs and/or video footage, load it into the program, choose what transition option you wanted to use, and voila – instant video!

Unfortunately, it was the trial software version.  Meaning, you could only post up to 50 pictures in a video – after that, they would start to repeat themselves until the song ended.

No matter – since I was doing a song about being stalked by the paparazzi, I figured it would be the perfect program to use.  Plus, it had a transition option whereby the pictures would look like they’d been taken by camera guys and put on film.  Awesome!

The pics I used were candid photos of me.  Pretty simple, since those are the kinds of shots paps usually take.  In addition, I wanted to mix in pictures of (a) paparazzi guys at work, and (b) the names of the stars I mention towards the middle-to-end of the song.

All in all, a very, VERY simple video.  I actually posted it up back in March or April of last year on my first YouTube site, but since it’s been taken down (again), I figured it was worth re-posting.  Plus, because the Muvee program is automated, some of the pics didn’t match the words of the song at the right time.  I was able to re-edit the video on my PC via Windows Media Maker, so the video flows much better now!

Some Interesting Video Tidbits:

1. A LOT of my friends show up in this video.  In looking at it, I didn’t know I hung out with that many people!

2. The shots of me in the apartment were the only ones specifically taken for this video.  I wanted shots where I was looking at the paparazzi from my apartment.  The shots were taken when I was still living in my studio apartment in Atlanta, GA. How was I able to take them? Easy – my camera has a timer on it!

3. I don’t remember the original estimated time of editing since, again, I “filmed” it early last year.  Today, though, it only took about an hour, and most of that was just re-adjusting the video so it stretched out to the end of the song!

That’s all for now! Only 5 more videos left to go – see ya next Sunday!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: APTsongs@hotmail.com

One-Song-A-Week: Song #29 – Go Hard (The Unofficial Remix) feat. DJ Khalid, Kanye West and T-Pain

Note: The “Go Hard Remix” video is now available for FREE Download!  Click HERE for more info!

This week’s video is for the song “Go Hard (Remix)” featuring DJ Khaled, T-Pain and Kanye West (produced by The Runners)!

This song appears on the following mixtape:

THE NEXT BLACK PRESIDENT (a.k.a. BACK ON MY GRIND)!

Featuring the hits: “Go Hard Remix” with DJ Khaled, Kanye West and T-Pain, plus “O-bama O-Bama MegaRemix” with Tyga, “#1” with Jay-Z, “Where My Money At” and more!!

Click HERE for mixtape and download info!!

INSIGHT INTO A SONG:

In putting together my latest mixtape, “The Next Black President (a.k.a. Back On My Grind),” I was looking for songs that I wanted to parody.

As I did more and more original songs for the mixtape, though, I started to realize that (a) I had a lot of good ORIGINAL material, and (b) if I wanted to have people start taking me seriously as an artist, it would be wise to release a mixtape that didn’t have any parodies on their so people could see that I had real skill.

Prior to this thought, though, I had downloaded the beat to this song called “Go Hard,” featuring DJ Khalid, T-Pain and Kanye West. I heard the song once back in August, but it wasn’t until about 2 weeks ago after I saw the music video for it that I really began to like the song.

I downloaded the original song, and thought to myself: “Man, I would LOVE to use this beat for a song on my mixtape!” I found the beat, and was going to try and make a parody – something obvious, like “Go Hard,” only talking about trying to get it up in the sack – but decided against it. (Plus, I kinda did that idea already with “Erectile Dysfunction,” and I don’t wanna make too many songs about that, lest the ladies think I really have a problem performing my “manly” duties!)

Instead, I decided it would be cool if I did a remix to it. I didn’t want to do two full verses, though, so I decided to keep T-Pain’s chorus and Kanye’s first verse, then have my verse come in second. A pretty ballsy move on my part – there’s always a danger as a new artist that people will hear the first verse of a song, then skip to the next one without ever hearing your verse.  Still, the verse I had sounded better as the second verse, so that’s where I put it!

As for my verse… well, even though I didn’t go the parody route, I still ended up talking about “going hard” in the sense of popping Viagra and Enzyte! I talk about going hard like a man in Vegas who pops the helpful little pills, only to end up taking too many and staying “hard” for more than 10 hours. It ends up being a metaphor for how “hard” I go on a track even when told to “stay down.” Even though the verse is funny, I had to make sure my delivery was just as HAAAAARD as T-Pain and Kanye’s verses.  If you ask me, I think I pulled it off!

Some Interesting Song Insights:

1. Back when I did “The KKKramer Song” (from The A.P.T. LP – get your copy today!), I mentioned how I don’t like to use the N-word in songs. Therefore, once I downloaded the original song and the instrumental, I went through the entire song and edited out all uses of the N-word by T-Pain, Kanye and DJ Khalid. Yes, I kept all the other curse words in there. No, I don’t know why it doesn’t bother me to hear those other words but not the N-word – at least the other ones don’t sound racist!

2. I was originally going to just use the Viagra metaphor in one line – i.e. “I’m fitn’a go hard/harder than an old man on Viagra” – but that seemed to be the very obvious route go to, and I couldn’t think of any metaphors beyond that. This is why I dragged the scenario out all the way until near the end of the verse. It’s similar in vein to the way Eminem would have done it.

3. The last line of my verse is spoken by Kanye – “F–k y’all n—ers, I’m outta here!” The reason I left that line in the song? When he says the word “here” it’s at the same time as T-Pain when he starts singing the chorus. I couldn’t edit the transition into the chorus without having part of Kanye’s “here” in the mix. Rather than try to fight it, I just said “Screw it – I’ll let him have the last line of my verse instead!”

INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:

I really, really, REALLY wasn’t planning on shooting a video for this today.

I was actually going to shoot a video for “Hooptie,” the last song off “The A.P.T. LP” that needs a video. I even had the idea for how I want to shoot it.

Unfortunately, that idea meant having an actual car to shoot the video in. I don’t have a car, I didn’t have enough time to use my brother’s car (since I didn’t think of it until after we were about to hit the road back home from my Grandma’s Thanksgiving gathering), and I didn’t have enough money to rent a car. I start my new job today, though, so I should (hopefully) have enough money in soon to shoot the video for it within the next 2 weeks.

In the meantime, I knew I still needed a video, so I figured, “Hey, why not shoot one for one of the songs off the new mixtape?” And here we are!

The video shoot idea for this one was REAL simple. I wanted to do the video in a style similar to the original “Go Hard” video – not with the same camera shots, mind you, but with the idea of simplicity: just me in front of a camera, along with T-Pain and Kanye West…

Oh, wait – I don’t actually KNOW those guys well enough to call them down to my video shoots… Hmm…

So, I went with my second idea: I could portray them by wearing symbolic things indicating I was them. For the part of T-Pain, I wanted to get a top hat and dreads.

One problem: I’m broke!

So, after scrounging around my room, I found a long and narrow rectangular box that looked kind of like a top hat. However, the flaps on the side wouldn’t stay straight enough to give it a 100% top-hat look. After a quick deliberation with myself, I decided to add some paper eyes to the front flap, thus giving the appearance that I had eyes even though the flap covered up my actual eyes. Genius!

For Kanye’s part, I simply wore the Kanye “Stronger” glasses I got back at his concert in May. So far, I’ve worn these glasses in two other videos: “Shout Out 2 My Big Girls” and, most recently (like, last week recently), “Stop Cock-Blockin’.” I also wanted to keep his outfit simple, as he seems to be wearing more down-to-earth stuff in the “Go Hard” video. Thus, the shirt I’m wearing with the name of me and my bro’s ideal record label name, “Buckbo Entertainment.” (You may have first seen this shirt in video #12, “I’m Gonna Make It” – there’s a picture of me and my bro wearing it.)

As for my part, I figured that I, too, should dress down, as if I were just hangin’ out with the guys. I decided to wear the T-shirt I got back in 2004 when I attended the Jay-Z and R. Kelly “Best of Both Worlds” tour (back when they were still talking to each other and hadn’t yet broken up the tour) and some brown shorts (also worn in the “I’m Gonna Make It” video).

And of course, I had to put it in Black and White, just like the original video. All in all, it came out pretty well, and only took 13 minutes to shoot – in one take!

Some Interesting Video Insights:

1. The camera itself was kept stationary, similar to what I did in the “Obama Obama” video, only this time I didn’t cut the camera off. I filmed the entire video straight through in one shot so that the background would also look stationary the entire time (i.e. no small little off movements – yes, I notice those types of things).

2. The hardest part of the shoot was wearing the box on my head. Right above me was our chandelier, and I had to duck down so I wouldn’t hit it with the top of the box!

3. I didn’t just want to shoot the video in front of a boring old flat wall. Luckily, the wall I used is one that has 3 squares on it. Sometimes, even a simple addition to a background can make it less boring!

4. I didn’t know what to wear for the “T-Pain” part in terms of clothing, since most of his clothing in his videos seem pretty elaborate. I figured a vest would be a good contrast to “Kanye” and me, who were more dressed down.

5. While editing, it dawned on me to start the song with the first panel of the video.  Usually I have all my “Get A.P.T. Stuff” advertisements run BEFORE I actually start the song.  However, I wanted people to get into the song right away, as soon as they clicked on it.  So, the video runs the length of the song, nothing more, nothing less!

6. Estimated time for editing: About 20 minutes to add the effects, 39 minutes to transfer the video into Windows Media, another 2 hours to cut and splice everything together… so, about 4 hours total.  Also, I would have added more edit cuts and effects, but I ended up calling the cops on my roommates after I heard screams of “Stop It! You’re hurting me!” coming from the woman half of the couple.  I can’t wait to get my own place…

That’s all for now! Incidentally, “The Next Black President (a.k.a. Back on My Grind)” mixtape is available NOW for FREE download – consider it my Christmas gift to you!

Only 23 more videos to go – see ya next week!

-A.P.T.

E-Mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com

MySpace: www.myspace.com/NotoriousAPT

Soundclick: www.soundclick.com/APT

One-Song-A-Week: Song #2 – Shout Out 2 My Big Girls (a.k.a. Big Girls Need Love, Too)!

DOWNLOAD “THE O-BAMA MIXTAPE” – Click HERE for the link!

Hey! If you like the mixtape… help a brotha get his music career started – SEND A DONATION! Click HERE for more info!

This week’s song/video is called “Shout Out 2 My Big Girls (a.k.a. Big Girls Need Love, Too)!”

DOWNLOAD THIS SONG : A.P.T. Song – “Shout Out 2 My Big Girls”

SEND DONATIONS – Click HERE For More Info!

 

INSIGHT INTO A SONG:

5 years ago, when 50 Cent burst onto the music scene and became really popular, him and Lil’ Kim had this song out called “Magic Stick.”  I wanted to write a parody of the song (since I’ve always been a HUGE Weird Al Yankovic fan), and thought it would be funny to do a song called “Fattest Chick” (with the chorus being, “I date the fattest chick/take her out to eat once, she wants to eat twice…” and so on).

I took the 50 cent beat and made a freestyle to it - in fact, the entire first verse of this song is that freestyle verbatim, except for the last line – and was going to make a whole song out of it… but the CD I recorded the beat on started skipping, and I couldn’t find where I got the beat from, so I said “Screw it” and saved the freestyle as is, without any plans to release it.

Fast-forward 5 years (wow, that’s a LONG time):

In the course of my dating life, I’ve noticed that the majority of the girls I end up dating or having crushes on were those with a lil’ meat on the bones.  I don’t know why this is, but skinny girls, while attractive, are nothing in comparison to a big girl that knows how to accessories properly – and, they can usually cook, and I can eat a LOT, thanks to my high metabolism.

So, when I started making songs again, I decided to see if I could re-use the song I made for parody, and turn it into a REAL song.  When I was in college and went to parties, there was always a portion of the night where they would play this song called “Watch Out for the Big Girl,” and all the big girls in the club would dance to that song HARD, like it was their anthem or something!

Only problem was – those were the only words to the song!  And frankly, I found it kind of insulting – like, what, we’re supposed to watch out for her like she’s going to (a) run us over or (b) eat us??  What kind of B.S. is THAT?!?

So, I decided that I, too, wanted to make a big girls’ anthem, one that would allow me to use some humor yet also point out what I like about big girls.

Incidentally, the first line of the song – “Big girls need loooove, too/so if you’re a big girl, I loooooove you” – has been in my head for almost 6 years.  I just like the way it sounds, and encompasses what the rest of the song is about

Also: I got the glasses from the Kanye West concert.  He came down to Atlanta on May 4th, and when I saw them, I knew I had to get them and use them at some point for a video.  Plus, they were the cheapest souveigneer available – and they were $10!

That’s all for now – see you next week!

-A.P.T.

E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com