First off, I want to give some good news: I am BACK in song-writing mode! This means I will also be posting up some more videos. However, since this site was specifically dedicated to showcasing my “One-Song-A-Week” project from May 2008-May 2009, I will soon be opening up another site to post up my newer videos. Until that happens, though, I’ll be posting them here, but I will keep you informed about the changes!
As for this song, there aren’t too many deep insights about the song. I was lying around bored on my futon/bed this past Wednesday, and a chorus melody suddenly popped into my head that said: “No memories, no memories/Of me and you, I ain’t got no memories…”
I liked the chorus enough to check my beat archive and see if I had a beat to match it. Turns out, I had downloaded a beat by Vybe Beatz a couple of months back that went perfectly with the chorus. From there, started thinking of some words to go with the melody, and the whole song was written in about 20 minutes!
The song is not about anyone in particular – I really just wanted to do a narrative type of song, and it ended up coming out that way. Since the chorus talks about having “No Memories” of me and a girl being together, the words to the song correlate with that thought. The first first deals with all the things I can’t remember about the girl, while the second verse talks about one final memory I have of said girl that ends up fading away near the end of the verse.
It’s a pretty cool song. It’s not one of my funnier songs, but the concept is interesting enough to warrant some listens!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT
For this round of videos, I’m only interested in one thing: selling my “Bubbles is my Homeboy” T-shirts.
To that end, most of the videos will be pretty consistent in terms of what I’m doing in them: sitting on the bed mouthing the words to the song while wearing the same shirt. Hopefully, this will allow people to match up their image of me with that shirt on, and, if they like me and the shirt enough, they’ll want to buy it!
With that said, I did switch my shirt up for the chorus, opting to wear one of my blue surfer shirts. It was really more of a stylistic choice, nothing too thought out.
Yes, I’ve been gone for a while, and with good reason: I wasn’t making any videos! After I finished my 52-week project in May, I ended up making two more videos – one for a contest I entered for Jimmy Fallon’s “Late Night” show, and one for a song where I dissed Tyga – and then took a much-needed break. It’s not easy making 56 videos in a row for release each week, so I figured it would be a while before I even THOUGHT about making another video.
Meanwhile, one of my fans, King Kut, had started his own “One-Song-a-Week” project earlier this year. His goal was to make 50 videos by September. I became aware of this back in March, and was impressed enough with his beats and one song in particular – “Rock and Roll” – that I asked him if I could jump on the remix for it AND make some video clips for a remix video. He agreed, the song was made, the video was made, and it ended up being my video #50 and his video #28.
Since then, I’ve been keeping up with his weekly videos. There were a few times where he’s release a song without a fancy video – songs that were not officially part of his project – and one of them was a song called “I Got Some Haters.” I heard the song, and as soon as I heard the chorus and the beat, I started doing what Jay-Z calls the “rain man”: I started mumbling off words that could go with the song.
Not knowing if I’d actually have a full 16 bars to spit on the track, I logged into my hotmail account and begin typing. The words came to me effortlessly, and in no time at all I had a full 16-bars written. After I sent them to myself, I wrote King Kut and told him that I liked the song, and that I wanted to do a remix to it. He sent me a copy of the track with a blank space in the third verse area for me to “do my thing,” and the rest is history!
As for the song itself, the chorus is simplistic but catchy – the perfect formula for a memorable chorus. The song is basically an attack on people out there that might be hating on what it is me and King Kut are trying to do. Hopefully the song will catch on!
Some Interesting Song Insights:
1. When I asked King Kut to send me a copy of the song, he decided to remix his verses. While the remixed words were okay, they deviated from the original concept of the song. Therefore, I ended up using his original verses, then cutting and pasting the blank verse part he had sent onto the end of the original version.
2. I hate hearing songs when everyone on the track is rapping at the same pace/tone/etc. The purpose of having a guest artist on a track is to bring a different element to the song that’s not already on there. Since King Kut is rapping at a slow pace in his verses, I felt it necessary to be faster and/or more high energy, especially since I was the 3rd part of the song.
3. At the part of the song where King Kut is introducing me, I added in the effect of the crowd cheering. Gotta love the MAC sound FX department!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
Like I said before, I’ve been watching King Kut’s videos each week and keeping up with his progress. His videos are pretty enjoyable, and I was looking forward to seeing him get to his 50th video.
Then, bad luck struck: his PC, much like my laptop had after video 39, started acting up and quitting on him when he tried to edit his videos. He placed a notice up on his site one day that said he would no longer be able to make videos due to technical issues (along with some other things).
I’ve always been a big believer in finishing something you start. So, I sent him an email encouraging him to try and do so, along with a few suggestions about how he could overcome some of the computer problems by doing simpler videos. He thanked me for the advice, but still didn’t think his computer would be able to handle it.
Sunday approached, and I was sitting at home thinking about his project. He had stalled out at 44 videos… but to me, everything looks better in fives. Like, even if he couldn’t finish the project, it would be better for him to be able to say “I did 45 videos” instead of just 44 (don’t ask me why, though – it just sounds better).
Then, it dawned on me: I could help him edit together a video for our “I Got Some Haters” collaboration!
I wrote him and asked him if he could possibly send me a single-footage shot of him mouthing the words to his song. Lo and behold: he was originally going to do the original version of the song as a video, and had already shot some footage which he sent to me. Prior to that, though, I had already thought out a simplistic enough idea for the video: intertwine shots of me and him mouthing the song with pictures of people mean-muggin’ (i.e. “hating” on us) and pics of slogans denouncing their hater ways.
Once I had everything together, the last part I had to do was my performance. I thought it would be cool if I had half of my face showing towards the ends of the screen so that I could flip-flop them later – turned out pretty good, actually! (Incidentally, I also shaved my face for this video – you’re welcome, King Kut!) I also did a few takes of me directly in the middle of the screen (I filmed my part using my built-in MAC computer camera).
The last part was doing the post-edits. I had to add in the parts advertising King Kut’s new album, “The Last Man Standing.” I also added some nice effects to some of the shots so they wouldn’t get too boring.
Note: he usually posted up his videos every Monday; however, I forgot how long these things can take to edit, so I didn’t get the video to him until around 2 or 3 A.M. EST. Sorry about that!
Some Interesting Video Shoot Tidbits:
1. I shot my part of the video in my room, sitting on my futon. I had to clear out my background so it just looked like I’m sitting in front of a clear space.
2. This video didn’t take long to edit per se, but I had other stuff I was trying to do in the midst of editing this video. I just found out I have 30 days to move out of the place I’m currently staying in, so I spent a good portion of the day looking up new places to live!
That’s all for now! Once again, you can get this song off King Kut’s newest album, “The Last Man Standing” (FREE Download) over at http://www.kingkutonfire.wordpress.com!
A few weeks back, I did a video blog where I talked about TuneCore.com. For those wanting to actually make money off your music, TuneCore is a site whereby you can load up your music and have it sent out to the major music hubs, like Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, LaLa, and iTunes.
In my video blog, I mentioned that I decided to test out the program by sending one of my songs, “Obama Milli,” to their site. Yada yada yada, the experiment worked, and for the last two months I have been getting actual royalties from TuneCore that they collected from the various site my song was placed on.
What I didn’t notice until today, however, was that I don’t just get paid when someone buys my songs… but also when my song gets streamed. In other words, anytime someone goes to Rhapsody and plays my song, I get paid a whopping ONE cent (okay, it’s actually $.009).
Now, you may not think that getting a penny for a song is a big deal. However, when I looked at the statement sheet, I noticed that, for the month of April, I made $7.54 off the song being streamed 783 times on Rhapsody. That means that, just by having people PLAY the song, I made money.
Now again, you may not think that $7.54 is a whole lot of money. But think about it: I made that off of just ONE song. I don’t have any other songs on any of these other sites at the moment, but imagine if I had 10 total songs streaming over at Rhapsody. Even at a conservative number of – oh, let’s say, 500 streams per song – the total amount I’d make each month would be $45. This may not seem like a huge deal, but considering that most albums sell at 7.00 a pop, and knowing that not all people like purchasing full albums these days, getting paid for 10 steaming songs sounds pretty kick-ass to me!
And again, that’s not even getting into how much money would be made if the whole album sells! Because I’d be getting $7.00 from each album, I wouldn’t even have to sell that many albums to be “comfortable.” Let’s assume my album goes to the 5 sites mentioned above, and each site only sells 5 albums a month. At $7.00 profit (yes, PROFIT) per album from each site, that would be $35 per site x 5 sites, which equals $175 per month.
And that’s if I only have ONE album up.
As of right now, I have two albums I can legally sell, each with 11 or more songs, plus a third album I’m finishing up as part of my newest project (to be launched within the next two weeks). So, let’s do the math one more time, shall we?:
$35 per site x 5 Sites = $175 per month per album
$175 per month per album x 3 albums = $525 per month total (Not including the money I’d make off streaming, of course :])
Wow… sorry, but now that I’m realizing the money to be made, I’m pondering why I didn’t sign up with TuneCore LAST year when the “Obama Milli” song first came out!!!
Anyway, since I’m still getting traffic off the song, I figure now is the time to place all my albums up for sale on TuneCore. However, I don’t want to present the public with the records as the currently are. It’s not that they are bad records, but the items I used to record them with last year are nowhere near as sophisicated as the items I’m using now (better computer, professional mic, etc.).
To that end, I am going to re-record the bulk of my tracks that I recorded last year, and place them up on TuneCore. The first album up will be the one I’m currently working on – since we’re launching the site soon it will be the album that gets the most publicity. Once I’ve finished recording the last few songs for that (which will be done this week), I will go back and focus on re-recording “The A.P.T. LP,” then “The Great Black Hope.”
It usually takes 6 weeks for the songs to appear on all the sites; I figure if I re-record the last two by the middle of July, they should be posted up on the sites by September. By then, our site should be seeing an increase in traffic, which will also prove helpful to my musical endeavorus – especially when people start trying to Google me and figure out who the heck I am!
Last year, on Sunday, May 25, 2008, I was living in Atlanta, pondering where my life was going. I had moved to Georgia in the hopes of expanding my musical fan base – okay, of GETTING a musical fan base – and, a year-and-a-half later, I found myself not making any progress, working at a restaurant with good friends (and food) that was nevertheless NOT something I wanted to do.
And so, after another afternoon of work, I went straight home. I could have gone and hung out somewhere, but I had other things on my mind…
About a week or two prior, I had been surfing online and came across a guy named Jonothan Coultran. He was an ex-engineer turned touring musician who had created a fan base for his quirky rock songs by posting up a song each week for a whole year. His fifth song, a guitar remake of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” had helped him in reaching a wider audience, with radio stations playing the song all over the country for a decent amount of weeks.
I read about this, and thought to myself, “That’s not a bad idea. I could do that. I could do that!”
The question, though, was how I would post my songs. I could start a website, I thought, but how would people even know where to find/download the songs? I already had a MySpace account, but there were already millions of people putting music on those that were getting NO WHERE.
Then, I hit upon an idea: what if, instead of just posting up a song, I posted up a video for the songs as well? That way, people would have a visual element of me to go along with my vocal element, and I could, in time, grow a fan base of people to download/buy my music?
GENIUS!
So, on that fateful Sunday, I headed back home and got to work. I opened up this website, and posted my first video – a song called “Erectile Dysfunction,” a parody of Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction” that I had posted a video for back in December of 2007. When I started the site, it was about 10 minutes before midnight, the start of Monday. In those 10 minutes, I started to think about what starting this site, and this project in general, would mean:
* Was I REALLY about to commit to a year’s worth of videos?
* Would I even be able to come up with a minimum of 52 different concepts?
* What if I got too busy, or moved, or someone died – would I still post up a video on that week’s Sunday, or would I give myself some leeway and say, “eh, I’ll make it up next week?”
* And – most importantly – would it work? Would doing these videos REALLY help give me the exposure I wanted?
After thinking about it for 5 minutes, I said to myself: “Y’know what? Let’s do it! I don’t know if I’ll be able to post a video up each week, but I’m certainly up to the challenge.”
And with that, I posted my first video, with 5 minutes left to spare. From then on, it was all systems go…
—-
As I lie here on my futon in my bedroom, from my apartment in sunny California, I think back to the day I started this journey. And it still amazes me all that happened…
By now, those of you who have followed my story know what happened, but for those of you stopping here for the first time, I’ll summarize:
Above: The video for song #5, A.P.T.’s Lil’ Wayne “A Milli” Parody, “Obama Obama” (re-dubbed “Obama Milli Remix by the public).
I created a parody of Lil’ Wayne’s infectious “A Milli” song, “O-bama Milli Remix.” The song was turned into a summary of all things Obama, with the background words “A Milli” replaced with “Obama”’s instead. I thought of it while walking around at work one day waiting for customers to come in, and I burst out laughing.
I wasn’t even going to make it into a song because I couldn’t find the beat without the words “A Milli” being said in the background, but I used my Fruity Loops music program to remake the beat. Then, using my H2 Zoom talk radio mic, I recorded myself saying “Obama” 12 times, then cut and paste it through the rest of the song. Then, after spending 2 days writing the song and figuring out how to flow on it like Lil’ Wayne, I recorded my verses and did a final mix-down. That Saturday, I recorded the video, and posted it on YouTube that Sunday.
When I posted the video, I placed it on my Facebook wall, as well as the walls of some of my friends, most of whom went to college with me and were familiar with my parodying of songs since I used to do it for my phone message machine Freshman year. (And Sophomore year, and junior year…) I also sent it to a few of them via e-mail. From then on, I didn’t think too much about it…
…until I noticed that it was getting quite a few views on YouTube. In the first 2 days it received about 100 views, which was impressive to me at the time. I figured the video would die down after a few days like my other ones had.
Boy, was I wrong.
Over 10,000,000 video views (thanks, in large part, to the number of re-postings of the song on other people’s YouTube & MySpace accounts), and countless world-wide radio plays later, it amazes me how I wasn’t able to see this coming. Part of it was probably because people told me I couldn’t sell the type of songs I do – namely, funny songs and parodies – to the public. I think they thought that was reserved for white people like Weird Al or something.
Regardless of what I thought at the time, though, the song WAS very successful. No, I didn’t get a lot of money from it since I didn’t know how to get it to iTunes, Amazon, or any of those other sites until recently (though, amazingly, I AM making money from it now, despite the song being 11 months old). And yes, there were people out there who tried to take my song and claim it as their own (Industry rule #4080: industry people are SHA-DY!!).
The reason I wasn’t too mad about any of it, though, was because the song helped me do what it was I wanted the project to do: (a) shine a light on my writing skills, (b) get a song of mine on the radio, and (b) give me enough exposure to help get me to “the next step,” whatever it may be.
Don’t get it twisted, though. There are still times when I look back and think: “Man… if only I had done this, or done that, I could have really capitalized off the song, gone touring, and other stuff.” I think everyone who’s had what I called “unexpected success” has that feeling, especially when they finally learn about the ways in which they COULD have done something better. At the same time, though, had I not gone about doing this whole project the way I did it, I may not have even been here in Cali right now.
Who knows what would have happened if I actually HAD gotten the fame and accolades that normally come with having a hit song? I might have gone on tour for a bit, but I could have ended up being a “One-Hit-Wonder”. I mean, I still COULD end up being that; however, I would have started doing shows and forgotten about doing a video each week, meaning I wouldn’t have had the motivation to train my brain each week to come up with video scenarios, practice my directing skills, and other things needed to really function out here in California. By NOT getting those accolades, I basically had no choice but to put myself through film school for a year, teaching myself each week how to edit, light a “set,” use certain computer programs… it’s really all in how you look at it!
—
Now that the project is complete, what are my final thoughts? What have I learned from doing all these videos?
1. TRULY, EXCUSES ARE LIKE @$$HOLES: THEY ALL STINK.
What I mean by the above statement is this: Back in the day, when I’d hear someone give me an excuse for anything, I’d take it at face value. Now, though, I realize that, if someone truly WANTS to do something, they’ll figure out a way to do it, no matter what.
I managed to make a video and post it up EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY for 52-weeks in a row. If I was sick, I’d put up a video. If I had to go out of town, I’d put up a video. If I moved – and I moved TWICE in the last year – I’d put up a video. If my computer crashed, slowed down, or – in one freak incident – the cord stopped working, I’d managed to get it fixed by Sunday… IN TIME TO POST UP A VIDEO.
So now, when people give me an excuse, or try to flake out on me, or say, “gee, I know I said I’d do this, but I just can’t”… to me, it’s B.S. Of course, I don’t TELL them that, but I’m definitely thinking to myself: “this excuse wouldn’t even be spoken if they WANTED to do it!”
2. STICKING TO A COMMITMENT CAN BE TOUGH AT TIMES… BUT IT’S WORTH IT.
I cannot begin to think of all the times I wanted to quit doing this project.
Sure, it was fun – especially once I had a hit video that everyone and their Mom wanted to here – but not every week was a walk in the park. There were times when I couldn’t think of a video concept until the last minute, or people who agreed to help with a video would pull out at the last minute. Not to mention the times I had to work on Sunday and stayed up all night Saturday editing a video, or spent 9 hours editing a video because my slow-as-molasses PC couldn’t handle the large amount of memory my videos was asking it to handle.
But, even when going through all those tough times, there was always a part of me that said, “You’ve made the commitment, and you’ve got to make it work.” And, regardless of how much agony I was going through to make some of those videos, I was always happy at the end simply because I was able to post the video and follow through on the commitment I had made.
3. WORKING BY ONE’S SELF CAN BE PROGRESSIVE… BUT THINGS MOVE QUICKER IF OTHERS ARE INVOLVED.
As much as I liked making videos by myself, I learned that having others to help you out can certainly take the load off.
Now that I’m in Cali, I’m making new videos for another site I’m working on. Because I don’t have to do everything, I’m more relaxed and able to focus on the parts I’m good at. The camera work, business aspects and negotiation parts are handled by others, while the creative aspect is handled by me.
I used to think that I could get famous on my own, or make a lot of money by doing it all by myself. And I still believe that. I just believe that it would take LONGER, and working with others is a better way to get money FASTER.
4. WHEN I DO FINALLY GET RICH, I AIN’T TELLIN’ NOOOOO-BODY.
I didn’t get rich off the “Obama Milli Remix” song. What I DID get, though, was people contacting me that I hadn’t heard from in YEARS.
Some of the messages I got was to congratulate me on my success, and to them I’m grateful. However, some people sent those “hey, when u make it big, don’t forget about me” messages that really piss me off. I’m like, “I’m sorry, but aren’t y’all the same people who wouldn’t return my Facebook/MySpace/Hotmail messages BEFORE the song came out??”
With that said, I’ve learned that the vultures are out, and it’s probably best to keep the number of any large amounts of money I make to myself. Heck, I’ll probably end up dressing worse than I do now and driving a bummy-looking car just to throw off the gold-diggers!
And, most importantly…
5. THE EASIEST WAY TO SUCCESS IS TO “LET GO AND LET GOD.”
I grew up in a family that was (and still is) heavily involved in church. Like any kid, I absolutely HATED going to church (and I still do – it’s the whole “public displaying of praying” I hate. Like, why do I have to put on a show for others to prove I have a relationship with God?).
However, I’ve always believed that God would take care of me, no matter what I was going through, and that He would be the one to lead me towards the successes I needed to have. What’s funny to me is, most people who go to church worry from day-to-day about how, if, or when they’ll be able to achieve their goals, or if they are even possible. Me, I don’t go to church (momentarily – still looking for a church in CA), yet probably live more by faith than any church-goer I know.
Think about this: I’ve been trying to figure out how to afford to move to California for-EVER. Who else but GOD could have allowed my song to get as big as it did, have the video/song go worldwide, have it get noticed by people out in Cali who just HAPPEN to be doing projects of their own, and make things happen so that I end up in Cali so I can further expand upon my success??
Bottom line: if you don’t have faith in GOD and faith in yourself, you’ll never be successful. God wants his people to be successful, but if a person isn’t willing to let go of their worries and be mindful that God is doing his half (so long as you’re doing yours), there’s no reason for him to help you.
—-
And that’s it! The project is done. So, what’s up next? I can’t say too much just yet, but all will be revealed soon….
In conclusion, though, I am so grateful for all the experiences I had in the past year, and I’m glad I have a time-capsule of videos documenting various periods in that year. And to all those that helped out with my videos and songs in anyway, your friendships and extended hands were, and still are, truly appreciated!
Above is a video I made for all the Adam Lambert fans out there… who are still going through the withdrawl pains of not seeing their favorite “American Idol” contestant win the contest. Its already racked up over 3000 views on YouTube in a day and a half, so I figured I’d post it here!
This is a video I made talking about www.TuneCore.com. It’s the best site to use for musicians looking to sell their music.
Why?
In short: TuneCore does what you probably can’t do on your own – it sends your music to other sites like Rhapsody, Napster, iTunes, Amazon, etc. You pay a small one-year membership fee, and that’s it – any sales you make from your songs on those other sites go directly to you.
Yeah, I know, it sounds like I have stock invested in the site, right? Well, guess what? I posted my “Obama Milli Remix” song on their site in April, and today I got a royalty check from them for $42.26! Considering that (a) the song has been out for almost a YEAR, and (b) that I didn’t even advertise that the song was for sale on these sites, that’s pretty damn good.
Check out the video, and start posting your songs on Tunecore today!
This video is NOT a music video. It’s a video review I did last Thursday for Eminem’s newest LP, “Relapse.” The album leaked 2 weeks early, and I got the brilliant idea of doing a video review for it thinking it would be a fun thing to do. And it was.
What I did NOT expect, though, was that my 8-minute and 14-second video would have over 3800 + views in less than a week’s time!
I don’t quite know WHY this non-music video of mine has been so successful (nor do I know how to capitolize off it), but it’s nice to be having a video that’s moving at an even faster pace than “Obama Milli Remix” was… even though none of my music is involved in it
Oh well – take success anyway you can get it, I guess! In the meantime, enjoy the video, and look out for my FINAL music video airing on Sunday, May 17th!
This week’s music video is for the song “Welcome 2 Cali!”
AVAILABLE ON A.P.T’S “WELCOME 2 CALI MIXTAPE!” Click HERE for download info!
INSIGHT INTO A SONG
When I came up with the idea to do a “Welcome 2 Cali” mixtape, I knew I wanted to do a title track.
I had downloaded a litany of albums with instrumentals from the most current songs out, and was shuffling through them to pick a beat for the opening. My original choice was a Rick Ross beat I had heard; I also liked some of the 50 Cent beats on those albums (ironic, considering those two rappers are beefing each other right now). I actually had a rap I was going to write, and I knew I wanted it to be something about going from living in VA to being in Cali within the span of 2 years’ time.
Just as I was about to write the song, though, I looked at the other tracks on the album, and realized there was one thing missing: a song that was NOT a rap song. Yes, I like to rap, but I also like to have at least one or two songs where I’m harmonizing, or doing something with a rock edge to it – just something so the album won’t be so monotonous.
As luck would have it, one of the instrumentals on one of the albums happen to be a rock beat! And as I heard it, I automatically started going into rock and roll mode, and crooning out lyrics that, while not rapped, sounded GREAT with the track!
Oh, and guess what the instrumental track was? “Prom Queen,” by Lil’ Wayne!
Yes. So, once again, I found another Lil Wayne beat that I had no choice but to make a song to (this is song number 3, after “Obama Milli” and “A Time 4 Change.” Luckily, I had only heard “Prom Queen” once, and didn’t remember what it sounded like, so I was able to make a completely new-sounding track without having to worry about copying his style.
The lyrics of the song, like all good rock songs, are simple but effective: I talk about how hard I worked to try and make it and how, once I got the opportunity to move to Cali (which, for the record, I NEVER thought would happen as quickly as it did), I jumped on it. That’s the first verse; in the second verse, I talk about how happy I am now that I’m out here, and that speaking your goals into existence actually CAN work.
Again, very simple in terms of lyrics, but sometimes something smart can be said w/o having to say so damn much!
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. Contrary to what the song says, I did not almost “cry” when I thought I’d be able to move to Cali. I’m pretty sure I screamed, though
2. In case the last part of the chorus sounds like I’m repeating myself, the words I’m saying are: “I never thought I’d be here/And I’m so glad I made it here.”
3. In the second verse I say I was “taken away at 5, I wasn’t lovin’ that.” When I was 6 months old my Dad moved us out to Stockton, CA, where I lived until I was 5-1/2 years old. I’ve been trying to get back to this state ever since, and now that I’m here… I’m just so damn happy. Like, EVERY DAY. It’s amazing how much happier your life becomes when you’re living where you want to live and doing what you want to do!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT
So, as you all know, I’ve turned video #52 into a three-part video. Why? Because, due to having two weeks where I made additional videos I technically had 2 more weeks of videos I needed to make. I guess this counts as video 53, but it’s MY project, so screw you!
Anyway, I finally came up with a concept as to how I can tie all these videos together, which is simply by making it a saga about how I went from living in Virginia at my Mom’s house, to ending up in California. Last week’s video, “I Need a Job and I’m BROKE (Mobb Deep Freestyle),” showed me at my Mom’s house doing a freestyle on my computer about the despair I felt that life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to.
For THIS week’s video, I wanted to move it up two years to a very important date in the A.P.T. Success & Progress timeline: Saturday, June 20, 2008. This is the date I decided to film a video for song #5 which, at the time, was simply called “Obama Obama.”
But wait! How do I jump ahead two years without first letting people know how I got to that point? What about the move to Atlanta? How did I get out of my Mom’s house??
I knew I had to let people know those details… but luckily, I already made a song for “The O-bama Mixtape” that detailed it for me! In the first part of “I Put On Remix,” I talk about leaving my Mom’s house. I figured I would just work that part of the song into the video so people would hear it and say, “Oh, so THAT’s how he got out of there.”
But WAIT! How to actually SHOW that??
I couldn’t just type it up and have the music play, and that be it. NO! Luckily, again… last July, when I went to visit my Mom and brother for their birthdays, I filmed some footage of Mom driving me to the bus station, and also asked her to let me get footage of her waving to me saying, “Good Luck!” I was going to use the footage – along with some other footage I took of me on the bus ride back to ATL – for another video, but never did. Who knew that footage would eventually come in handy! (Plus, I wanted to include her in this video since it’s dropping on Mother’s Day. Love ya, Ma!)
So, after adding the aforementioned into the beginning, it was on to the poignant stuff: the “Obama Obama” video shoot. Basically, what happens in the video at the beginning and end is what happened on that day (with added dialogue for story-moving effect, of course). I call up my friend Charis – (a.k.a. the hot chick that appears in the video) and ask her to send me pics and/or video footage of herself with Obama gear in view. I explain to her that I’m shooting a video for a song about Obama that I couldn’t yet talk about, and ask if she’d participate since she was (and still is) a big Obama supporter.
I needed a way to transition into the song, “Welcome 2 Cali.” Obviously since I wasn’t in Cali at the time I filmed the video, I couldn’t fake like I was – the song would have made sense, but people who know me who know the song know I recorded it AND the video when I was in Atlanta.
I decided to do something simple: while talking to my friend about the song, I’d tell her what my hopes for the song were: namely, that it would get big enough to where I’d be able to tour, make money, and move out to Cali. As I’m telling her this, I gaze off and start thinking about what my life in Cali would be like…
…and BOOM! Now I’m in Cali for a “daydream sequence!” Brilliant, ain’t it?
From then on, the video is similar to video #45, “Y’all Haters Should Know”; it’s basically the parts of Cali I would have filmed for that video… had I not forgotten my camera that time
I went to Santa Monica first and got a LOT of beach footage (as you’ll see in the video). Then, I rode the bus all the way to the Pico train station, got some footage there; then I went to Hollywood and Highland Heights, home to the Kodak theatre and a big ol’ outside mall. I took a LOT of pics – even with my digital camera memory, I think I was down to about 4 minutes left of footage I could film or 50 pics I could take before I went home!
On Saturday, I finally filmed the opening and closing parts of the video. Since I was acting like I was calling from the “set” of the “Obama Obama” video, I had to wear the original blue striped shirt I wear when the video first opens. I also needed to have a backdrop of me in my apartment in Atlanta – yet amazingly, I actually forgot to take pics of my studio apartment sans me in the background when I lived there! It took me all week to think of a background I could plaster onto the green screen once I keyed it out… then, I think on Friday, it popped in my head: just use a pic of the background you used in the video with the blue background and the pics hanging up, DUH!
I filmed it, then headed off to the beach to hang with my friends. This morning, when editing the video together, I came across a problem: keying out – or, getting rid of – the green backdrop in my video was a BIAAAATCH!! My camera isn’t a high-def cam, which means that sometimes the green in the background doesn’t always stay the same green color, which is IMPORTANT in order for a keying session to go quickly. My keying session took a whopping 3 hours before I finally got about 85% satisfied with it (and even now, if you look in the video, you can see traces of green around me. I need an HD camera, people!).
Once I got the video sequences together in the order I wanted them, I went back and added a “dream sequence” effect to the parts where I’m day-dreaming about Cali. After I finished adding it, and processing the video, I went back and asked myself: “I wonder what it would look like with the cartoon effect on it instead?” It was a simple question, but when I tried it… it’s not necessarily that it looked better than the “dream sequence” effect, but it worked for me better. Plus, I already used the DS effect in one of my videos (Video #44, “Hey There, Rihanna”), and I didn’t want to copy-cat the effect. I used the cartoon effect once this week on my album review for Eminem’s “Relapse” LP and I liked the way it looked.
This is my biggest video to date, and I’m talking in terms of memory size – because I published it in HD format, it clocked in at 461.3 megabytes. (As a comparison, the video I did for “Obama Obama” (re-dubbed “Obama Milli Remix” by the public at LARGE) was 29.5 megabytes.) It’s also a video I’m very, VERY proud of, mostly because it’s taken me all day to edit, re-edit, and post it up!
Some Interesting Video Shoot Tidbits:
1. I actually filmed this video early in the week! My roommate was off work last Monday and, since he (a) was cleaning our bathroom with bleach (which started to hurt my eyes since the bathroom is right next to my room) and (b) rarely gets time in the apartment by himself since I work from home, I decided to venture out to Santa Monica. I figured since I had a whole day to myself, I should bring my camera and film/take pics of everything I could while I was out so I could use it for a video later!
2. I also ended up going to the beach with friends on Saturday. I took film footage and pics there as well, but ended up not using it in the final video, as I didn’t think it went well with the footage I had already shot Monday. Plus, it was cloudy at the beach I went to on Saturday, and night-time filming… well, it didn’t turn out too good
3. There are parts of the video where it looks like the camera is looking back while I’m walking forward, but no one is there. I had plan to green-screen myself singing the song in the same clothes I wore to the beach (which I did film) and have these be my moving backgrounds. However, after spending 3 hours just trying to get in the “Obama Obama” background, I said “screw it!”
4. Speaking of the “Obama Obama” background: I didn’t actually have a picture of it (that I could find), just the video itself. Luckily, I have software on my PC that allows me to take stills from videos and use them as pics. Now that I think about it, though, I have the same ability to do that on my MAC. Dang it!
5. The opening segment and the song don’t exactly match up. In the song, I mention how I got my own car and left my Mom’s house to move down South, which is what actually happened. Unfortunately, as soon as I got down to Atlanta, I drove to Alabama the next day to stay with my aunt and uncle… and my car died. Which is why, in the video, my Mom is just driving me to the bus station.
6. Also, that footage of my Mom driving me to the station was shot last summer, not in 2006.
7. The Thai restaurant in the video? What had happen was, when I got to Santa Monica, I was hungry ’cause I hadn’t eaten breakfast. On the corner was a P.F. Changs. I was going to eat there, and when I walked up to the restaurant, I saw some businesses across the street that had red curtaining for its signs. So, I said, “I’ll walk down this small part of the sidewalk and get a side shot of me walking by these lil’ businesses, then I’ll go eat.” One of the places was a Thai food place, and I have been wanting to try Thai food for the LONGEST time! I went in, saw they had a $7.95 lunch special, and figured I could eat & film there at the same time! (I ordered the Mongolian Beef.)
8. For the “beach-to-water” shot (the one where the camera zooms really fast from the sand to the ocean), I had to film 2 minutes and 7 seconds of me running my butt off with the camera in front of me. In post-edit, I squeezed the time down to 6 seconds.
9. That big “statue” thing I circled around is actually a time capsule! I took pics of me in front of it, but I didn’t feel the need to put them in the video, as it would have been repetitious.
10. This is what I call an “I always get my shot” moment. I don’t have a camera person besides myself, and I wanted to get a shot of me playing in the water at the beach without having to ask anyone. What is one to do? Answer: I build up a mound in the sand, lay my book-bag on it, then place my camera on it. Because the mound is up while the sand below it angles downward as it gets toward the water, it makes for a straight shot, which works even better when the water you’re trying to film yourself in is far away!
11. There is only one part of the video where I mouth the words. I didn’t have a stereo or anything with me, so I just sang the part I wanted to sing and prayed to God it would match the actual tempo/wording of the song later. And it did!
12. For the “congested highway” line, I actually DID film a highway… but it wasn’t congested. I figured watching a passing train would have a similar effect…?
13. Another “I always get my shot” moment: I’m in Kodak theatre, and in the middle of it they have a sidewalk fountain, where they have various holes sprouting water out of them for people to run through. How do I get a shot of myself fighting the water without asking someone else to film me? Answer: I look across from the fountain and see a set of steps with a ledge sticking out the side, put the camera on the ledge and zoom in, then run to do stupid stuff!
14. In the Kodak theatre, they have this thing called “The Road to Hollywood” where they have various quotes from anonymous people giving short quips about how they made it to Hollywood, plastered in tiles in the sidewalk from the start of the Kodak all the way to the end where you can see the “Hollywood” sign in the distance. I actually went through and took pics of most of the tiles, but the one I have in the video is the one I can relate to the most. It says: “I went through a period of rejection, getting close on things but not getting them, having no money, leeching off friends and losing lovers because they thought I was a no-good bum. Eventually things got better. – TV Star”
15. In the “Obama Obama” video, I was clean-shaven and had shorter hair than I do now. At the moment I’m not shaving my facial hair due to a commitment I made to myself not to do so until my next project is launched (which will be very soon). In order to not be questioned about why I had a beard in this video yet not back then, for continuity’s sake I had to add the line in where I say, “I’m about to shave and get a quick hair cut.” Ha ha ha! It’s like that line at the end of Star Wars Episode III where Lucas added in the line about erasing the robot’s memory so they wouldn’t know the events that took place, but only so that fans wouldn’t be asking how they didn’t know about the stuff that happened to Anikan in Star Wars IV, which was actually the first one Lucas shot. Dang, I’m getting good at this!
16. Editing for this video was a bitch, if only because trying to take out the green in the green screen took almost 3 hours. All in all, the video took about 6 hours total to edit. And, because it’s in HD, it took another 2 hours to load up onto YouTube.
That’s all for now – next week is the absolute, FINAL video in this year-long saga, and the conclusion of “Video Wars: From VA to Cali!” See ya next Sunday!
And now, I present to you the newest A.P.T. mixtape…
“Welcome 2 Cali: The Mixtape!”
Featuring the Asher Roth parody, “I Hate Grad School!” Includes unreleased A.P.T. tracks as well as freestyles and newer songs like “I’m The Realest” feat. Jay-Z and “Y’all Haters Should Know!”
The last mixtape I released was “The Next Black President (a.k.a. Back on My Grind)” back in November. 2 months after it was released, I released my second “official” album, “The Great Black Hope.” Prior to those two albums, I released “The O-bama Mixtape” as well as “The A.P.T. LP,” and I re-released the album I made back in college, “The A.P.T. EP (This is ONLY a Demo).”
The only reason I released these albums was because I figured they’d give me enough material to satisfy the needs of my “One-Song-a-Week” year-long project. And it did – technically, with the combined amount of songs on all the albums I could have easily pulled from them to make the 52 videos I needed to make.
But… after the release of video 43 (“The Great Black Hope,”) I started coming up with new songs. Actually, it started before then – when I settled in to my apartment in Van Nuys, CA, I was listening to beats on line, and came across a Paul Wall beat that I used to make “Y’all Haters Should Know.” It was in this song that I first shouted out, “I made it out to Caliiiiii!”
Then, I sold my mic because I was low on rent money, and couldn’t record anything for a while. Which was fine because I was starting to focus energy on things outside music that would be financially beneficial to me in the future. However, as I approached video 43 and started thinking about what other songs I would use for videos, I realized that, although I had songs to choose from, I couldn’t think of videos to necessarily go with them.
Then, I finally got a brand NEW mic – one that sounds 3 times better than my old one – and I got in the mood to record again. It was around this same time that the whole “Rihanna getting ‘allegedly’ beat up by Chris Brown’” incident happened – just in time for me to make a parody song about it for video 44, “Hey There Rihanna.” (Which, BTW, is NOT on the mixtape since Rihanna seems to have finally gotten enough sense to leave him. At least the song was timely!)
Then, I started writing songs for my other project (which I still can’t talk about quite yet). In the course of finding beats, I would occasionally find one that I couldn’t use on said project, but that I DID think of lyrics for that I could use as my rap persona. An example would be the beat used for video 46, “Fairytale or Nightmare?” It’s a beat that remixes the Fairy music from “Legend of Zelda” – clearly I couldn’t make a song to it and sell it w/o Nintendo’s permission, but I COULD make a song and give it away for free!
And since I was nearing the end of the project, I figured that any songs I made from then on out could just be given away for free, one at a time, without me having to put together a new compilation of material….
…but then, because I was putting out new songs, people started asking me: “So…. are you going to put out any more mixtapes soon?”
Dang… why did someone have to ask that question!
Truthfully, I didn’t think anyone would want another mixtape from me. I mean, dang, I’ve already put out 5 albums in the course of less than a year, and didn’t want to over-saturate people with more music. At the same time, though, it wasn’t like I didn’t have material I couldn’t put together. In the span of 5 years I’ve recorded freestyles, songs, and other stuff that I haven’t released. Plus, it’s nice to know that people still want to hear new stuff from me – I’m still amazed to this day that, even with the “Obama Milli” song finally dying down a bit in hype, people still check for my music!
So, I decided to make a new mixtape called “Welcome 2 Cali!”
This mixtape contains newly written songs released as videos within the past few weeks, as well as one song (“Back 2 The Future”) I released as video 6 yet never put on any album or mixtape. Also included are my “paperstyles” (freestyles that are written down and recorded right away) I released right after “The O-bama Mixtape” came out, and 2 “freestyles” I recorded (one of them last year, and the other was recorded when I still lived at my Mom’s house back in 2005).
And of course, I also have new songs I recorded, including my newest parody, “I Hate Grad School,” a take on Asher Roth’s “I Love College,” and “Welcome 2 Cali,” which takes Lil’ Wayne’s “Prom Queen” beat to make a totally original song (i.e. no parodying him THIS time!).
So, check it out! It’s a GREAT mixtape, and a wonderful way for me to end this project on a GREAT note!
Track Listing for “Welcome 2 Cali: The Mixtape” (Highlighted links have videos for the song!):
This week’s video is for the song, “I Hate Grad School,” a parody of Asher Roth’s “I Love College.”
AVAILABLE ON A.P.T.’S “Welcome 2 Cali” Mixtape – Click HERE for download info!
INSIGHT INTO A SONG:
Asher Roth’s song, “I Love College” – is just ripe for parody.
When I first heard the song, I automatically thought of a song with the opposite connotation – i.e., “I Hate College.” But it seemed pretty obvious – and one look on YouTube proved me right: just about everyone and their Mamma had done a “I Hate” song of some kind (“I Hate High School,” “I Hate College,”) or an “I Love” song of their own.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned this year, though, it’s that just because an idea has been thought of doesn’t mean you can’t still come in and make your own. Especially if those other ideas haven’t been presented well. Most of the songs were recorded on lousy mics, or had a crappy video with it, and weren’t really good.
Still, even the sucky songs were getting quite a few hits on YouTube. I figured if I made one with good quality sound AND a decent video, I could, at the very least, make people want to download the song for FREE – and it’s only available on my NEW mixtape, “Welcome 2 Cali,” so hopefully it will do just that!
As for the song itself, I knew that, based on all the complaining I did while in school, I could definitely do an “I Hate College” type of song. It was then I realized that, out of all the song parody ideas for this song I found on YouTube, the only one I didn’t see was one about Grad school! And, with these next two weeks being finals time for most students, I’m sure they are feeling enough stress and pressure to warrant a song like this being out there! (It also helps that I have friends in grad school, as well as my Mom, who complain about doing their work ALL the time!)
The song itself was easy to write. Most of the stuff I did in college in terms of work and tests still applies in grad school (or so I’ve heard), only on a much bigger scale. I decided to keep the same exact flow as Asher Roth did in the original version so that, when people heard it, they’d instantly recognize what I was trying to do.
I also used two different choruses for the song. The first two are the exact same, with me talking about sleeping during a lecture, erasing my paper, and going to college to try and be successful. In the last chorus, though, I talk about how, now that I graduated, I still can’t get a job even with my master’s degree due to a bad economy.
This song is pretty funny, and one of my favorite parodies!
Some Interesting Song Insight:
1. I felt the need to brag at the end about how I didn’t go to grad school because “I’m too busy being successful without it!” Part of the reason: many people I used to converse with back in college were so into the belief that they just HAD to go to grad school to make it, while I was of the thought that it was NEVER about the degree, but about (a) who you know, and (b) what kind of opportunities you can make for yourself. (This, of course, excludes things like being a lawyer, doctor, or types of professions where master’s degrees and PH.D’s are strictly needed.)
2. Finding the instrumental for this thing was terrible! It took me forever to finally find a site that had a FREE download for it. In retrospect, though, I could have just used my LimeWire program, but that would have required opening up my slow laptop. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it…
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
Since it’s a song about school, I decided to keep it simple and make the video like a school year book. I found various pictures online associated with the subjects talked about in the song, and put them in an order that made sense with the song.
Along with that, I took pics of myself in various forms of book study. I don’t have any actual text books, but the books I read are mostly about financial stuff, or being persistent in goals. I dunno, maybe I’m studying to be a motivational speaker!
Once I took the pics, though, I decided to do a few film shots as well to break up the monotony of it all. Thus, the sequences of me typing on my laptop, studying in my room and – my personal favorite – drinking coffee. You’ll have to see the video to see why!
Some Interesting Video Shoot Tidbits:
1. I took the pics/shot the footage of myself at about 4 AM. I had just gotten back in from seeing a movie and hanging out with friends, and figured, “Hey, long as I’m up, I might as well get my parts on camera!”
2. For the coffee portion to be sped up, I had to move the mugs very slowly. And no, there’s no actual coffee in the mugs – I don’t drink coffee!
3. There are a few parts of the video where I have a picture, and I let it sit there for a longer period of time. One of them is a comic strip and the other is a list called “Should YOU Go to Grad School?” I wanted people to be able to actually read those pics, so I stretched them out longer.
4. Amazingly, this video took a while to edit. With most picture videos, it takes me an hour, MAYBE an hour and a half. This one, though, took about 3 and a half hours to edit altogether! Good thing I was using a MAC and not my PC!
That’s all for now! Next week is the FINAL video in this year-long project, and I couldn’t be more excited! In the meantime, be sure to download my NEWEST mixtape, “Welcome 2 Cali!” See ya next week!
