Well, I finally did it. After years and years of talking about it, of dreaming ab0ut it, and of wanting to do it, I finally did it.
I. Am. Living. In. California.
My winter is already 3 times better, just for the fact that the weather is warm most of the day (though, since it IS winter, it’s still cold at night) and the sun is bright. The place I live is in a nice area, my roommate is nice, and my apartment is a nice size. My room is even bigger than the room I had at the town house I was staying at in D.C.
It feels good to be able to do something that I’ve always said I wanted to do. Anyone who thinks it’s not possible to actually go through with a dream or goal is living in la-la land. At least as far as I’m concerned. I never understood why someone would doubt themselves – if anything, a person should be their own cheerleader, yet they usually end up being their biggest obstacle towards success.
Anyway… so, yeah. I’m in California, and I couldn’t be happier. My next goal: to see “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” in studio, LIVE. That’s been a dream of mine for even longer than wanting to move out here, and now I live in the same city where the show is taped. Yay!
Of course, that will be on Monday. As for this week’s video, I filmed it while in Virginia, and will be my last video from out there. It’s for one of the songs off “The Great Black Hope” album, and it’s jammin’, man!
That’s all for now! By the way, if you haven’t gotten it yet, definitely get “The Great Black Hope” album. It’s really good, and I put a lot of effort into it so you’d enjoy it.
Yeah, they took down my entire site, but so what?!? I’m on a mission people. One video/song (minimum) every Sunday for one year. That’s 52 videos (minimum) from May 2008 to May 2009.
I hope you didn’t think losing all 316,000 views for my “Obama Obama” video, or the 4500+ views for my “The N!@@er Song” would cause me to go crying off into the sunset.
And yeah, who cares if you messed up my advertising plan for my album – I STILL sold a few copies, and guess what? I’m going to sell even MORE once the videos come out — on YOUR site!!
So… with that said, this week’s video is already in the can. It’s from one of the songs off “The A.P.T. LP”, a hot dance song with a bangin’ beat and some… interesting… lyrics and scenarios. Yeah – that’s all I want to say about it for now!
Okay, I’m done! And HA HA HA to YouTube – you can’t stop a man with a dream, people!!
This week’s music video is for the song “Tha Hood vs. The ‘Burbs” (Produced by ME!)
INSIGHT INTO THE SONG:
This is one of those songs I created backwards. Usually I’ll have a song idea and try to either make or create a beat to go along with it. In this case, I was messing around on my Fruity Loops program and created the beat, and, in the process of doing so, came up with the song, “Tha Hood vs. The ‘Burbs.”
The song came about because I was tired of hearing people complain about how hard life was for people living in low-income areas, more commonly referred to as “the ‘hood.” People always assume that those living with little money are the only ones with problems. However, as a person who grew up in the suburbs, I knew that there were just as many issues being faced by suburbanites as there were for people in the hood.
Growing up, I lived a fairly privileged life: I lived in a planned community, went to private schools (high school and college), and have been very good at keeping the amount of drama in my life to a minimum. Even so, hardships hit people in the ‘burbs just as bad as people from the hood. My Dad died when I was nine; I got sick a LOT as a kid; and, because I didn’t think like most of my peers (especially when it came to doing stupid stuff), I got teased a LOT.
Furthermore, it was hard to get along with other black kids, who were either trying to act like they were hard (courtesy of their perceived ideas on what it meant to be “black” – thanks, rap videos!), or who grew up in the hood and thought I was trying to act White simply because I spoke good. Er, spoke “well” – did u catch that?
Anyway, with all this life experience, I figured it would make good fodder for a song.
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. There’s a line in the song where I say: “Down south in Virginia, born and raised/In the suburbs is where I spent most of my days.” It’s a play off a line from the opening of Will Smith’s TV show, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (“In West Philadelphia, born and raised/on the playground is where I spent most of my days…”). I don’t think Mr. Smith gets the recognition he deserves for bringing rap to the forefront of people’s consciousness via his family-friendly raps, so this line is a shout-out!
2. All the stuff I mentioned about either me or my brother’s experiences growing up in the suburbs are true. Our neighbor from across the street had a daughter around my age whom he didn’t want playing with my brother and I because we were Black. (Our Mom told us to respect her parents wishes, so we stopped playing with her for 2 days. She wanted to hang out with us so badly, though, that her parents finally relented. I think they were shocked that we were actually respecting their wishes!)
And the incident with my brother happened more than once while he attended James Madison University. He’d be a passenger in a car full of white people, and the car would be pulled over so cops could search him – and ONLY him – for drugs. Ain’t that f–ked up?!?
3. My favorite line in the song: “(In the hood) Whole neighborhoods get shot up/(In the ‘burbs) Whole colleges get shot up!” It’s tragic, but it’s funny when you think about it!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
I actually shot a video for this earlier in the year, back when I had grown my hair out for 6 months. I was on my way to get my hair cut off, which meant I would have to go back to my ol’ stomping grounds, Campbellton Road. For those of you not from ATL, this road is like a dividing line between the hood and Black suburbia. When I first moved here I live in a basement apartment on the suburban side of Campbellton; however, whenever I had to catch the bus or go grocery shopping, I had to walk a block up the street to the ghetto portion.
I live in Midtown now, which is much nicer area, but since this was the only place I knew of that had a barber shop I liked, I decided to head back to the ghetto and get my hair cut. Whilst doing so, I figured, “hey, why not get a video of yourself getting your hair cut?”
Then, while I was on the train, I said, “hey, why don’t you film a video for your hood vs. burbs song?”
For the video, I wanted to do a contrast from what people normally expect when they think about the hood. People’s minds automatically go to gun shoot-outs, drug dealers, prostitutes, and other negative images; however, having lived around it, the majority of people in the hood are much like those in the burbs: they’re decent people simply living their lives day-to-day trying to survive.
The shots I took in the video are from areas surrounding the barber shop: the grocery store, laundry mat, Chinese food place, and – of course – Church’s Chicken. You ain’t in the ghetto until you see a Church’s Chicken!
Some Interesting Video Tidbits:
1. I hadn’t got my hair cut in 6 months. The place I went to in the video was now owned by new owners – they still cut hair, but man was I surprised!
2. Amazingly, as many shots of people that I got in this video, most were unaware that I was filming. Odd, ain’t it? Guess it’s a good thing my “filming” cam is also a picture cam – most people probably aren’t even aware!
3. Check out the shot of me at the end of the video with my half-hair, half no-hair scalp!
That’s all for now – this song is on “The A.P.T. LP,” so go get it!
This project has been quite a learning experience, and a true labor of love for me! I just spent 32 hours up straight putting this album together, and a lot of hard work went into making these songs!
Here are all the important links you need to know:
*** To purchase the MP3 Version of “The A.P.T. LP” (5.99): Click HERE!
You will be greeted at my Payloadz site by three men dressed as hunchbacks named Sam. Okay, not really – but you will be able to pay and immediately get the download file for the album!
*** To purchase the CD version of “The A.P.T. LP” (7.99): Click HERE!
CDs will be shipped out every Tuesday and Friday (I don’t have a car yet, so I have to schedules these types of trips to certain days.) It will arrive in your mailbox in an envelope, which will contain a CD inside a packaging sleeve for added protection. The CD will have a cover with a list of the songs on the album.
Oh, yeah – here is a list of all the tracks on “The A.P.T. LP”:
Intro – “And the Award Goes to..”
A.P.T. (What’s My Name?)
Hooptie (Guest Appearance by S. Stephens)
What We Do
Tha Hood vs. The ‘Burbs
Smooth Talker
It’s Over
Stop Cockblockin’ (feat. Ms. Theory)
The N-word Song (a.k.a. The KKK-ramer Song)
Fly Chick
Blow It All
Skit – An Interview w/DMX (feat. Mr. Smallwood)
Bust My G.A.T.
Retirement Home
A Commentary on Each Album Track
BONUS TRACK: F–k New Orleans (feat. G.W. Bush)
I’m still working on getting each of the songs posted as an individual purchase – for right now, though, GET THE ALBUM!! It’s hot!
Last December, Snoop Dogg released his song, “Sensual Seduction,” and after one listen, I KNEW this song would be ripe for a parody! After taking two days to figure out what I could use as subject matter that would sound close to the phonetics of the original song, I suddenly thought of “Erectile Dysfunction” and burst out laughing!
Clearly, this was a good idea to run with.
I recorded it and wanted to get the song out there, but I had two problems: one, I didn’t have time to put a REAL video together because it was around Christmas and staying with family; and two, I wasn’t too familiar with any free MP3 download sites. So, I found a bunch of pictures online, pasted them and put them together on www.onetruemedia.com, loaded up the music and made a crappy-ass video for the song, figuring it wouldn’t get much play, but I could at least send it out to my friends via youtube.
Imagine my surprise when, one day after putting it on youtube, it had 120 views – and I hadn’t even told anyone about the song yet!
5 months later, the song just passed the 10,000 view mark. My brother’s girlfriend’s brother, who goes to VCU, said it was the #1 downloaded song at his school – odd, given that I didn’t give a link address for the download of the song until last month. Guess someone must have recorded it and sent it around – and I couldn’t be happier about it!
So, enjoy the song! Come back next week for another song, courtesy of me!
-A.P.T.
*UPDATE: After the project ended, I started working on another website featuring a character named Non Juan, a puppet who is terrible at getting ladies to date him. One of the music videos we shot for him was a remake of “Erectile Dysfunction” recorded in his voice. This is the video that now takes the place of the original video which, as you may recall, was very, very crappy. Enjoy!” – A.P.T., May 18, 2010.*
A.P.T.'s Songs, Albums and Music Videos 