…especially when you’re trying to conserve your funds for a big move like I am!
I was really, REALLY not planning on spending money this year on anybody for Christmas. Not because I don’t love them or anything – it’s just:
Christmas feels more and more commercialised to me every year, to the point where finding the gift is more important than the meaning behind it; and
Moving to California means having to conserve as much money as I can
Right now – as in, at this very moment – I have just enough for a deposit on my new place, plus two months rent. The last thing I want to do, then, is spend money I may need to survive while getting settled in California, especially since its such an expensive place to live (or so I’ve been told).
However, everyone kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas. You would think this is a good thing, right? WRONG!
I have found that the only reason people ask you what you want for Christmas… is so that you will then turn around and ask them what THEY want for Christmas. It would be nice if I could say to someone, “Hey, I love you, but I can’t afford to get you a gift right now ’cause I’m about to move,” and they could turn to you and say, “That’s okay – I’ll still get you something, and won’t expect anything in return.”
But, of course, this isn’t the way things work. The way things work is, if someone is going out of their way to get me something, it’s an unwritten rule that I must get them something as well.
This year, I kept the gift-buying to immediate family – mom, brother, brother’s fiance – and it STILL cost me a good bit of money. How much? Eh, not important – just know, it was more than I had planned to spend, especially since, again, I’m MOVING in two weeks!
I don’t feel too bad about it, though. Both my Mom and my bro helped me out financially when I moved here to D.C., with way more money than I spent on their gifts. So, even though I’m not paying them back those monies (since they did it out of the goodness of their heart), I figure, at the very least, I can buy them gifts costing a fraction of what they gave me. Plus, they’ve both always encouraged me to follow my dreams and make it, which I am doing, and their support means all the world to me.
But for everybody else – they ain’t gettin’ nothing! Hopefully, though, they’re not getting me anything either…
…but if they are, I could certainly use some Cinnabon coupons, and a copy of the “Sex and the City” movie on DVD
This week’s video is for the song, “Where My Money At” (beat produced by Mister KA).
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!!
FREE DOWNLOAD! Click HERE for mixtape and download info!!
INSIGHT INTO A SONG:
I don’t normally do songs that could be considered “hard” or “ganster rap-ish.” I’d like to think that my “lane” in this rap game is the funny, comical guy that can also make raps saying something while keeping the mood light.
However, if I DO decide to do a song not normally in my nature to do, I’ll only do it if (a) I can use it as a means of making a commentary about something (i.e. “Bust My G.A.T.” where I rap about shooting people as a means of showing how dumb it is for rappers to rap about guns), or (b) if it relates to something I’ve personally experienced, to the point where the emotions in the song I’m writing can come across as believeable since I’ve gone through them.
And so it is with this week’s song, “Where My Money At,” a song where I’m basically out for revenge against someone for doing me wrong in one of the worst ways possible – by stealing my money.
I found the song for this beat online, and was originally going to do a song called “I’m Sorry, Mama,” where I’d rap about some of the things I did wrong as a kid (nothing big, but ALL kids do stuff to annoy their parents while growing up). However, life often throws curveballs that make one idea turn into something else.
When I wasn’t doing music stuff, I spent a LOT of time selling stuff on eBay, and I was always looking for a wholesale source to buy goods anywhere I can. I put an ad up on Craig’s List – in the New York City section - where I said I’d give anyone a PS3 if they could give me a legitimate source for wholesale iPhones (since, during Christmastime, I had bought other name-brand phones from people off Craig’s List and made a LOT of extra money re-selling them on eBay).
I got contacted by someone in New York who said they had a source, so I took my free plane ticket and flew out there. He showed me the source online, and even showed me where he and some of his relatives had made a purchase for goods. It seemed legit enough, so I gave him a PS3, flew back home, and began saving up to buy some phones from my new source.
I could type this all day long, but here’s the short version of what happened next: I got into contact with the person, ordered a wholesale lot of iPhones, and – with the help of a college friend of mine – sent a check to the person in New York. I figured the phones would get to me within 2 to 3 weeks.
Then 2 weeks passed. Then a 3rd week. Then a 4th week. Then a 5th week.
By the 6th week, I started to get worried. I contacted the guy and, according to him, the person he gets his phones from – in the United Kingdom! – had sent him a set of iPhone knock-offs. The phones themselves worked, but since they were an unknown brand and were of cheaper quality, there’d be no way I’d make nearly as much money back on these phones as the Apple ones.
I asked the guy if I could just get my money back for the transaction, to which he replied that because it was a check and he had already sent the guy in the U.K. the money, the only thing he could do was send me the non-name brand phones.
I. Was. FURIOUS.
All I could think about was all the money I’d lost. Not only that, but I also had to think about all the money my friend had contributed that HE lost. Well, scratch that – I made him a promise prior to making the transaction that, regardless of what happened, he would, at the very least, get his original investment back. I had to work extra shifts at my job for 3 weeks, but I made sure he got every last penny back.
Anyway… so, after I got the news about the phone, I had to go to work. And I had my T-mobile Sidekick phone with me at the time, so I flipped to the note-taking section and just started typing out the words:
“Got a connect in New York, I sent his ass some cash/he sent me a message and the news was bad/His connect sent the product – that shit was fake? Oh great…”
From there, I started typing out a scenario with a very simple question: if I had the means to do so, how would I handle this situation? To find out, you’ll have to hear the song!
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. I curse a LOT in this song. I don’t really like to use bad language too much when I’m making songs since (a) I know I have family members that watch my videos, and (b) I really don’t cuss all that much when I talk to people. However, when I wrote this I was so pissed off – think about it: I not only LOST money, I had to work extra hard to earn back money for someone else, AND I wasn’t going to make any profit on the whole deal. I think that warrents a lil’ bit of cursing!
2. My favorite line in the song: “Hit ‘em with my umbrella – ella – eh/’Cause A.P.T. don’t mess with gunplay.” Even though this could be considered one of my hard-core songs, I’m still me, and, seeing as I’ve only shot a gun at shooting ranges, I figured I wouldn’t be holding up some guy with one. Plus, it’s hard to get on a plane with a gun these days! However, I figured I’d have to cause harm to this guy in someway, and the umbrella idea seemed funny, plus I knew it’d be something people would sing along too, even if they didn’t remember how the rest of the song went. Yes, I put THIS much thought into certain song lines, people!
3. The last part of the song - where I mention how I spent $5000 trying to get 3 grand back – stems from an episode of “South Park” where Stan and Kenny catch a plane/bus to Mel Gibson’s house to get back the money they spent seeing “Passion of the Christ.” On the way home, Stan mentions that they spent more money actually trying to GET their money back than the refund itself - but at least they proved their point!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
There’s really not too much insight. I had gone to visit my brother up in D.C. for the weekend back in late March (and to see Stephen Colbert’s portrait in the National History Museum), and, as I was driving back early in the morning, I got bored and decided to film myself singing along to this song (because, as you can imagine, all musicians carry their latest songs on them at all times).
I posted this video on YouTube a while back prior to the start of this whole “One-Song-a-Week” thing, but it hadn’t gotten many views. Rather than just re-post it, I decided to add a grainy-looking black-and-white effect to the film to match the mood of the song.
Some Interesting Video Tidbits:
1. You’ll notice that, as the video rolls on, the white areas of the film become more and more prominent. When I shot this it was near dawn, and I just happen to pick the time to film this when the sun was starting to rise, thus affecting the light outside, and therefore the white in the film..
2. I still had hair in this video! I had grown it out for 6 months, and got a hair cut shortly after this video was filmed.
3. Edit time – HA! Barely an hour and a half. All I had to do was add the black-and-white effect, the beginning and ending, and BOOM! Done!
That’s all for now – enjoy the video, and I’ll see you next week!
Attention Colleges, Universities and More (especially in Atlanta):
Demand A.P.T. to perform in your city at your venue! Go to: www.eventful.com/apt and request a performance by ME - the more invites I get, the better chance you have of seeing me perform in your town!
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/music video is for the song “I Just Want the Paper” featuring chorus vocals by The Notorious B.I.G. (Produced by ME!)
Strap yourself in, get a good cup of coffee, a light snack, and a comfy place to sit – THIS one’s gonna be a looooong one…
The journey for this song starts back in 2005. I graduated from college in May, and had been living at my uncle’s house in Lansdale, PA for 6 months. During that time, my financial situation had gone from bad, to much worse, to the point where I could no longer afford to make payments on my Honda Civic, and had to change over to an older car donated to me by a family friend. For reasons too long to type right now, I moved back down to Richmond in November of that year to live with my mom.
Then, believe it or not, things got even WORSE. My car broke down, and the only job I could manage to find was as a window cleaner, which, due to my fear of heights (combined with the fact that it was wintertime, and I got VERY cold having to deal with water in 40-degree weather) lasted barely a week.
By January of 2006, I was feeling beaten down. Here I was, a college graduate from a well-respected historically Black college, and I was back at home with no idea how to get myself out of my rut. And I was depressed – not in a “oh my God, my life is so horrible I want to kill myself” type of way, but more in a “I should be doing more with my life than I am because I know I’m smart enough” type of way.
When I wasn’t searching around town for a job – eventually, I ended up working at a dinner theatre company in Richmond on weekends for $30 a day plus tips – I would be on my Mom’s computer making beats on the bootleg Fruity Loops program I’d bought off eBay. I had been working on a beat where I placed Aaliyah’s vocals on top just to see what it would sound like. The instrumental was upbeat, but it seemed too fast-paced for the Aaliyah sample I had chosen.
Eventually I ended up placing her vocals on another song (which has yet to be released, but will be once I become famous and can afford the cost for using said vocals), but had no idea what I would use the beat for.
Then, a wonderful thing happened: I started to make some money. And not just from my job…
While at home one Sunday in January, I was looking in The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s auction section, and happen to come across an ad for a yard sale where the lady was selling everything in her house for $5 or less. I hadn’t started getting paid at my job yet, and all I had on me was $12. I borrowed my mom’s car and headed over to the sale, buying as much as I could with the money I had (which, given how low the prices were for these items, was actually a lot).
Once I returned home, I put all of the items up on eBay. Lo and behold, the majority of the items sold for 3 times what I paid for them!
I proceeded to do the same thing each weekend for the next 8 months: I’d get up either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday morning (or sometimes all three), go to yard sales around town, buy stuff I thought would sell well on eBay, then go home and place them up for auction online. Eventually, I ended up making enough money to buy a car for $500 and move down to Atlanta, along with the first two month’s rent to boot!
Anyway… around my second month of doing this, I became less and less depressed, and I realized why: even though I still didn’t have a car, and still lived in my Mom’s house, I was happier simply because I had some money in my pocket. It may sound dumb, but just knowing that I was able to not have to rely so heavily on my mom to help me financially, and that I could contribute to the groceries and gas bills made me feel like I was on the right path towards being on my own.
BTW: Anyone who says having money won’t make them happy is LYING to themselves. I had next to no money, and I was definitely NOT happy about it.
It was also around this time that the 8th anniversary of the death of one of the most beloved rappers of all time would be coming up soon – namely, Christopher Wallace, better known as “The Notorious BIG.” He died in March 1997, and I always had a dream of wanting to do a song with him. So I figured, what better time than then to do a song with his vocals somewhere in the song?
I started tinkering around with some acapella Biggie vocals I found online, but couldn’t figure out which one I wanted to use. Then, I got the acapella from his song “Dead Wrong” – most of the song is actually quite inapproriate, but I’ve always loved the song – and I found a part of the song I could use for the chorus:
“I don’t wanna rape ya/I just want the papa’/the visa, capicia?/I’m out like – the vapors!”
I was going to use the verse as originally said, but it dawned on me that talking about rape in a chorus might not catch on too well. So, I decided to just have him say “I just want the papa’” twice in the beginning of the sentence. Still sounded pretty catchy!
So, I was going to just use that, but I wanted the chorus to switch up a lil’ bit in the second half. I found another song of his called “Everyday Struggle” where he says the line, “sittin’ back, countin’ double-digit thousand stacks,” and thought that would go perfect with the song!
Lastly, I figured I should add my own part to the chorus. I decided I would take Biggie’s words literally when he said he “just” wanted paper, meaning all other things associated with it – “the cars, the clothes” – wouldn’t matter nearly as much as just having some money in my wallet.
From then on, the song just kind of developed by itself. It took me a couple of months to get all the words down for the song, working on it bit by bit until it finally sounded right. Why did it take so long? Read on…
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. This is one of the songs I made where about 75-80% was freestyled. For some reason, I was able to think of the verses for the song in chunks, at different times, and memorize them. The entire first verse was recorded off memory, and portions of the second and third verse were also mostly freestlyes that stuck in my brain.
2. The fourth line of the song uses a sample of Destiny’s Child’s “Soldier,” the part where they say “gotta carry big things, if you know what I mean…” The “big” thing they are referring to is their man’s member endowment, and I thought it would be hilarious for me to put in the song. (And, in case you’re wondering ladies… well, keep wondering!)
3. The line, “now my future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades” came to me when I was watching a VH-1 special of the top 100 1-Hit Wonders, and one of the songs mentioned was “The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades). Ya never know where influence will hit ya!
4. Starting at the 3rd line of the second verse and ending at the 5th line, the flow used was copied from Nelly’s big hit “Grillz.”
5. My favorite lines in the song – “I’m tired of sitting there all day, simply just lay/ing around, with no chick to hold me down/ you can’t invite chicks – over your Mom’s house!” – was taken from a freestyle I did on a Mobb Deep beat prior to the recording of this song. I figured, “hey, since no one will hear that freestyle, I might as well use that line!”
6. The line, “I’m fixin’ /to get with Vixens…” was written for a specific person. At the time, this girl on MySpace whose screen-name was “Vixen” had been writing me in response to many of the blogs I’d been typing on my page. She lived in Richmond, and we had gone out once or twice. I was considering performing this song at an open mic night, and I asked her if she would like to see me perform. She said yes, and, at the time, I thought it would be cool if I inserted that line into the song so that when I said it at the show she’d be impressed. She ended up not showing up, though… I still performed the song that night, and liked the line so much that I kept it in the song.
7. The line used at the end of the first and third verses – “Damn, it feels good to live life like me” – was taken from a Tony Yayo song! As under-appreciated as his album, “Thoughts of a Predicate Felon,” was, I was bumpin’ that CD HARD when it first came out, and he said this line in one of his songs. The way he said it sounded so good, I was like, “Dang! I have GOT to say that in one of my songs!”
8. The beat was produced by me using my Fruity Loops program. Aside from the Biggie and Destiny’s Child vocals, there are no samples in the beat. Hire me, people!!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
I shot the video in April of this year. I had just gotten my hair cut after having grown it out for six months, and suddenly wanted to make a music video for one of my songs.
I hadn’t really gotten into the whole video-making mode yet, so I didn’t know all the video editing programs I had. I had another one I was using, but it wouldn’t allow me to just load up a video and show it straight through – the program liked to dice up the footage instead and play it out of order. For this reason, I decided to just shoot the video as a one-shot deal.
But I didn’t just want it to look like some boring ol’ video of me staring into the camera saying my song. So, I figured if I moved around a lot and jiggled the camera, people would either get dizzy or think it was a cool effect – either way, they definitely would not be bored watching it!
Some Interesting Video Tidbits:
1. Prior to making this video, I had gone back to Richmond to… well, actually, I had driven up to DC to see a portrait of Stephen Colbert (of “The Colbert Report” fame) and drove through Richmond in the process. I picked up some boxes of papers and magazines I had left in Richmond when I moved down to ATL. One of those magazines just happened to be a XXL Hip-Hop magazine with The Notorious B.I.G. on the cover. When it came time to make this video, I wanted a visual representation of him on camera, and it just so happened that I now had the perfect way of doing that: by showingthe magazine pic during the chorus!!
2. This video was shot in my apartment. I think I may have been sitting around and just suddenly decided to do a video, because my place is quite junky. A slower-deciding version of me might have wanted to clean up first, but oh well!
3. I actually had this video posted on YouTube back in April. However, I took it down yesterday and re-posted it because I had included a download link in the video for the song that stopped working 7 days after I posted it. Of course, back in April, no one was trying to download any of my songs, so all the links to them went dead. Clearly, it’s a different story now
4. Estimated editing time: less than an hour. I think I need to do more one-shot videos!
That’s all for now – enjoy the song, available exclusively on “The O-Bama Mixtape” (for now). See ya next Sunday!
So, a few weeks ago I set up a PayPal button where people who liked my music could contribute monetary donations to (a) help me get further along in my music career, and (b) help me in donating 10% of those contributions towards charity.
On top of that, I’ve made all of my songs available for free downloads, but also put up the option for some of my songs to be purchased for 99 cents for those wanting to contribute via buying songs.
I didn’t know if anyone would send money or buy my songs, but I always figure (a) it’s worth trying something, and (b) if it worked, great, and if not, it didn’t cost me anything.
Lo and behold: people have actually contributed money!
I feel extremely grateful to everyone who has taken time out of their day, and, more importantly, funds out of their bank accounts, to help out a young semi-struggling musician. I’ve written these people and personally thanked them myself, but I also want them to get public recognition for their donations.
So, I’ve decided to create a “Donation Wall of Fame.” Basically, anytime someone donates money to my cause, their name will be posted on my site in the “Donations & Charities” section.
Now, I know how some people are about having their names appear on the Internet. So, I will only be posting the first initial and the last name. (If you donate and would like your full name to appear, write me at aptsongs@hotmail.com and let me know!)
Continue to send donations, people! I have beats to buy, microphones to upgrade, and touring expenses to save up for, and every amount counts, no matter how small or big!
