As you all may know by now, Jay-Z’s highly anticipated album, “Blueprint 3,” leaked on August 31. I got a copy of it, and decided to do a video review for it (the first one ANYWHERE in the world).
So, what did I think of the album? Is it an album worth picking up at the store, or is Jay-Z starting to get too old to do this anymore? Find out by watching the video below!
-A.P.T.
This week’s video is for the song “I Get Honeys (50 Cent ‘I Get Money’ Parody).”
AVAILABLE ON A.P.T.’S “Welcome 2 Cali” Mixtape! Click HERE for download info!
INSIGHT INTO A SONG:
This week’s song, “I Get Honeys,” is a parody of 50 Cent’s popular song, “I Get Money,” which came out 2 years ago. I also wrote this song two years ago at the height of the song’s popularity in an attempt to get national attention via riffing off someone’s song. It didn’t quite work out that way – I had to wait to riff off Lil’ Wayne via “Obama Milli” for THAT to happen – but I still deemed it a song worthy enough to make.
Coming up with parodies is fun for me. Because of me listening to “Weird Al” Yankovic so much as a kid, my first instinct when I hear a new song is to think of a parody of it. To me, the best ones come naturally without me having to strain and think about it.
I forget how or when I came up with the song, but I’m sure it consisted of me walking around singing “I Get Money” and changing “money” to “honeys” at some point. In fact, as I recall, it was around the same time I got my previous microphone, the H2 Zoom, and was looking for stuff to record to test the sound levels.
I don’t remember the song-writing process for this too well, except that, because I was eager to record ASAP, it was fast and easy to write and record. The only part that sucked was that, upon downloading the beat, I couldn’t find the instrumental without the words “I GET MONEY, MONEY I GOT” being yelled over the chorus. So, when I recorded it, I managed to say the new chorus – “I get honeys, honeys I got” – over it well enough so that you couldn’t really distinguish the original chorus all that wall.
As for the song itself, it’s not all that funny – it’s more of an egotistical “ha ha, I can get chicks” song – but the video is more than humorous enough to make up for it. More on that later…
Some Intersesting Song Tidbits:
1. This is one of those songs where, while I don’t curse, there are a LOT of adult situation references. This was recorded back before I ever anticipated having a large audience for my music. Luckily, I was smart enough by time “Obama Milli” came out to realize the benefits of being a bit more clean.
2. My voice changes to a higher pitch during the chorus, but I can’t remember why. I think it was because I was trying to sound like the chorus of the original song, with it’s scratched-in sound. Didn’t quite work out too well…
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
First off: For the record, I actually had ANOTHER song and video for this week. However, that video uses green screen, and – since I’m still figuring out how to use it – the video itself is not finished.
Luckily, I made this one early last year, and it proved to be pretty popular on YouTube (around 10,000 views or so). Unfortunately, the YouTube site I had it on got taken down by the YouTube po-po, and I never re-posted it on my new YouTube site. I don’t think anyone will fault me for wanting to re-post this up… but I ain’t got nothin’ else to put up this week, so HA!
Besides, the video has always been very funny to me and everyone I’ve shown it to. The original idea was to have picture after picture of gorgeous women, but I didn’t think it would make the video funny. Then, it dawned on me to take that idea, and bastardize it! The way I saw it, people would start watching the video and be like, “man, these girls are HOT…”
And then, BOOM! – I’d hit them with a picture of one of the ugliest girls they’ve EVER seen! Then, a few more pics of good-looking women, then… BAM! Another ugmo! It was genius!
Amazingly, finding suitable pics of ugly people online was pretty easy. All I had to do was go to Yahoo.com, type “ugly girls” into the search engine, and a gang of sites and pics came up. As for the editing of the video, I used my muvee program, which was the only one I thought I had installed on my laptop at the time, and picked out the “paintball music video” edit choice to add some “excitement” to some of the pictures.
All in all, a really funny video, and one I’m very proud of, especially since it manages to be funny using all still shots!
Some Interesting Video Tidbits:
1. I’m not in most of this video…. until the very, VERY end, when there’s a picture of me being kissed by an ugly, UGLY woman. It’s a pic I took when I went to visit my friend Michele when she lived in New Orleans 3 years ago – we went to the Ripley’s “Believe It or NOT” museum, and they had a statue of the world’s ugliest woman. I didn’t know I’d use the pic for a video, as I wasn’t making them at the time, but when it came time to do this video I knew I had to include it in there somewhere!
2. Near the end of the video, there’s a picture of a guy dressed in women’s clothing and a wig on. This same pic was also used in video #3, “Your Mom’s a Ho.” S/he was one of the “six baby fathers”
3. Editing time for this video, as I recall, was very short. The longest part was trying to think up the names of various beautiful women celebrities and saving them to my computer.
That’s all for now – I have no more videos in my reserve, so I’ll definitely have something new for you all next week. After all, there’s only 4 more videos left to go!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: APTsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: http://www.MySpace.com/NotoriousAPT
This week’s video is for the song “Fairytale or Nightmare,” produced by Arsha Asteraki.
AVAILABLE ON A.P.T.’S “Welcome 2 Cali” Mixtape! Click HERE for download info!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
Usually, the first part of the song explanation process starts out with me giving insight into the song. However, this is one of those rare times where I actually filmed the video BEFORE I had an entire song written.
What happened was, I opened up a new Facebook page soley for my music, and began posting up some of my older videos. I posted up video number 4, “Smile 4 Dad (Letter 2 My Father),” which is one of my more serious songs. In looking back on my videos, though, I realized this is one of the few serious songs I’ve done. Most of my stuff tends to be either hilarious or light-hearted, and I do that because I feel I’m at my best when I’m being funny or sarcastic. However, since I’m near the end of this year-long project, I figured it would be good to switch things up and do a more dramatic song and video.
Then, while surfing YouTube one day, I clicked on one of the videos suggested to me by the site itself: a video of a remix instrumental from one of the tunes from “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.” I like when beat-makers use video games as source material for their beats, so I HAD to listen to it. When I clicked on it… well, the song itself wasn’t posted – just some guy named Arsha Asteraki going on about how people could download the beat in the link next to the video. I clicked on it, and when I got to the site and heard the beat…
Two words: pure heaven.
It was mixed perfectly. He sampled the Great Fairy’s music (for non-Zelda fans, it’s the music that plays whenever you get near the Great Fairy’s life-healing pool), added some drums and DJ scratches to it, and made it sound like a hip-hop beat!
I downloaded the instrumental, then left it alone for a while. (I think I had to go out of my apartment for something.) When I came back to it, I listened to it a couple of times, and a chorus started popping up in my head, something about “fairytales or a nightmare,” which I found brilliant since the song is sampled from a beat used by a Great Fairy, and my song could be about “fairy”-tales.
I decided to focus the song on a break-up. I don’t know why, but the beat just seemed to take me in that route. I began writing down a few words here and there, and by Friday afternoon I had half a song together. However, while in the midst of writing the song, I began thinking about the exact type of video I could shoot for it.
The main catalyst for the video? Simply put: my place was messy. My roommate went out of town for 5 days, and since I had the place to myself I purposefully allowed for it to get messy. (Hey, five days of no cleaning is FANTASTIC, I don’t care what no one says!) I figured the place looked similar to how it would look were a person going through a bad breakup, where they just stopped caring about doing ANYTHING, especially cleaning!
What’s cool is that, because I didn’t have the entire song written, I could use the parts of the song I had written to correlate with actions in some parts of the song, and then go back and write the rest of it in correlation to whatever else I decided to film. I had the first verse written, so I just filmed according to that.
I filmed parts of the kitchen, table, living room, and bedroom that were messy, then filmed myself lying down on my futon bed moping. After getting up and pondering what went wrong in the relationship, I go to brush my teeth, then attempt to clean my kitchen and write a new song, but with no luck. Finally, I take my frustrations out on… something… lying around the apartment before breaking down, crying, then going back to my room.
Some Interesting Video Shoot Tidbits:
1. The pizza box was courtesy of Lil’ Ceasar’s pizza I had just gotten that day.
2. Part of the reason my room was so messy – and part of the reason I was wearing swimming trunks – is because my roommate, prior to leaving town, had lost the laundry room key, and I didn’t feel like lugging my laundry down the block, so stuff just piled up. Don’t worry, I’m doing laundry today!
3. Most of the shots I took for this video were cut WAY down. There’s an extended cut of me brushing my teeth, staring out the window, and sitting at my computer that were about 40 seconds long each, but wittled down to less than 10 seconds. It’s better to over-film than under do it!
4. Me attacking the… thing that I attack in this video was spontaneous. As a result of me filming it, though, I had to add an “angry” part to the song to make that part of the video more effective.
5. At the end of the video, I go to my room and close the door to go to sleep, while it’s still daytime. As the credits roll, it looks like it’s nighttime. In actuality, it’s a post-edit effect of an earlier shot, only I gave it the “Night Effect” lighting. God, I love having a MAC!
6. Editing time for this video: 2 hours, from start to finish. God, I LOVE HAVING A MAC!! This video would have taken me at least 5 to 6 hours on my slow-ass P.C.!
INSIGHT INTO A SONG:
Once I had the video shot, I went back and did tweaks on the song. I kept the first verse the same, but I had started on the second verse prior to filming, and the opening parts sounded too slow-paced to me. The first verse was purposefully slow-pased, like I was in a daze over being broken up with, but I didn’t want the whole song to sound that way because then it just starts sounding boring. So, I scrapped whatever it was I had, and changed the words and style of how they were said so the delivery would be more like, “okay, I’m starting to realize what really happened here and I’m angry about it.”
As the second verse hits the 12 bar, the beat changes into a frenzy-sounding remix, and I wanted the emotions of the song to match with the sound at that time. Thus, my idea to go completely crazy (also matching with what I do in the video), then calm back down when the beat goes back to normal. And, of course, since this is a “broken heart” song, I added some crying in for good measure. Ah yes, all those years of theatre classes are finally being put to use!
This song is beautiful. The beat sounds good, and, with the clarity of my new mic, the words sound great as well!
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. Like I said before, I wrote out the first verse first. Although most of the second verse was scrapped, the “angry” part of the verse was actually completed before the other parts were.
2. I didn’t actually know what angle I was going to write the song towards until near the end of the first verse. I knew it would be about a break-up, but I added the “cheating” element to make the song more dramatic.
That’s all for now – only 6 more videos left to go! See ya next Sunday!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: APTsongs@hotmail.com
Another week, another video in the can…
Next week will be my 26th video. I started this whole “One-Song-a-Week” project on the last Sunday in May, with the goal of making at least ONE video a week – preferably every Sunday – for ONE year. The goal was to get myself an audience for my songs, earn some money, become popular enough to where I could start touring, and get national recognition, which would, in turn, get me noticed enough to get signed by a major record label.
So, how have I done so far?
The truth of the matter is, having a song like “Obama Obama” taught me quite a few lessons about how the industry works:
Most importantly, though: TAKE A HOLD OF OPPORTUNITY WHEN IT COMES TO YOU AND RUN WITH IT. I kept telling myself all summer that I didn’t want this song to be the one I got famous off of. I didn’t want to risk being forever known as “The Obama Guy,” when I’ve clearly done 24 other videos so far outside of that one song.
At the same time, had I known better, I would have done the opposite: I would have branded myself as “The Obama Guy” (in the same way that “The Obama Girl” did) and done enough clips about Obama online to gain national attention for it and earn money that way.
Of course, I still would have probably had that conflict of “if I had done that, would I have been taken seriously as an MC?” I read one of Russell Simmons’ books where he talked about designers coming to him and wanting to add baggy jeans and jerseys to the Phat Farm clothing line. He was tempted at first, but didn’t want to change the image of his line just to make a few quick dollars off a fad that would go away and leave his line in jeopardy.
So, in a sense, I didn’t want to be tagged as “The Obama Guy,” then have to struggle once the election was over to carve out a new identity. As of right now, I have fans that watch my videos weekly – not as much as the number of viewers who have watched “Obama Obama,” but every fan base has to start somewhere, and I’m not trying to look like a sell-out to them, no matter how big or small it might be.
So, what is “The Obama Guy” doing for election night? I was going to go to downtown D.C. and party at some place being hosted by a local radio station. But I’m not really that much of a party guy – I think, instead, I’ll be heading home to catch “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” coverage of the election results.
As for this week’s video, it will be for one of the two songs off “The A.P.T. LP” that I have yet to shoot a video for. The last video from the album will be shot next week. These are two songs that, in my opinion, should be BIG hits, and I hope to be able to include people outside of just me in the video to give them more entertainment value.
Let’s just hope I can pull it off…
-A.P.T.
This week’s music video is for the song, “John McCain is a P.I.M.P.” (Produced by Shah Bros.)
DOWNLOAD 4 FREE: A.P.T. Song – John McCain is a P.I.M.P.
INSIGHT INTO A SONG:
On June 22, 2008, I released my Lil’ Wayne “A Milli” parody, “Obama Obama,” a song that, much to my surprise, took on a life of its own.
I created a video for it and provided it as a free download. Little did I know that making that song would result in worldwide radio play, as well as a few radio DJs and “in the game” MCs (I’m looking at YOU, Tyga) wanting to take it and make their own versions.
Most importantly, though, the song is STILL being played 3 months later, and everyone from middle schoolers to college graduates have been writing me telling me they’ve been hearing my song in their school hallways.
I also get a lot of fan mail as a result, and one of the questions I’ve been receiving lately has been: “So, are you going to do a song about John McCain?”
And, to be quite honest, I wasn’t really planning on it. I made the “Obama Obama” song because it made sense to make it at the time it was created (one week after he received the Democratic nomination, and one week after Lil’ Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” sold “a milli”-on copies in a week). I didn’t want to just create a song about John McCain simply because people were asking me to, especially since I didn’t want it to come out sounding like crap.
And then, John McCain threw me a musical lifeline by choosing Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate for the White House.
Mr. McCain has a history of dating fine ladies, and it seems to me that he always has hot girls around him. His wife was a hottie when they met (so much so that he dumped his first wife just to be with her), and still looks pretty good today considering how old she is. And then, when it’s time for him to choose a potential vice president, who does he pick? A woman who is an ex-Beauty Pagent participant!
Clearly, McCain must have some kind of knack with the ladies.
So, much like with the way I created the “Obama” song, I was at work one day when I just thought of a random chorus:
“He got a hot wife, and a model V.P./That boy John McCain is a PIMP…”
And, once again, I burst out laughing. Clearly, the chorus alone meant the song had potential. The question was, what kind of song should I make it? I was going to do it as a parody… but I didn’t know what I’d make it a parody of. Plus, I didn’t want to deal with the hassles of having to remake a beat for a song that I wouldn’t be able to legally sell.
So, I decided to look through the catalogue of beats I had stored up on my computer. I actually had about 3 or 4 beats I could have used, plus I went online and heard a few more. All and all, though, I wanted to make it an upbeat song to counteract against John McCain’s “old guy” image. I.E. make a song that’s hip so McCain would sound hip.
As for the song itself, it really didn’t take long to write. I think I was watching TV or something, and suddenly decided that now was the time to write the song. I went to my hotmail site, typed up some lyrics, and e-mailed it to myself.
The song is broken down into two parts. Since the song is called “John McCain is a P.I.M.P.,” I figured the focus should be on the two women whom he’s “pimped” already: namely, his wife, Cindy, and Sarah Palin, who came from out of nowhere to suddenly be thrust into the limelight by siding with McCain. You can hear the song for yourself to hear how I did it, but I tried not to be TOO disrespectful to the women (I learned THAT lesson from the frenzy that insured after the comments I made about Michele in “Obama Obama.” I’ll probably still get letters, though 🙂 ).
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. For the chorus, I was originally just going to say “He got a hot wife and a model VP/That boy John McCain is a PIMP…” but I figured that would be extremely boring. So, instead I decided to add at least 2 other lines I could say, thus the addition of “I don’t know his policies but I know one thing…” and “Got girls on his arm everywhere that he be…”
2. Again, like the Obama song, I wanted to do a song with things that related to things mentioned during his campaign. Thus, the mention of the Straight Talk Express, his wife’s rich bank account, the fact that Sarah Palin looks like Tina Fey from “30 Rock”/ SNL fame, and, of course, the mention of how many houses he has.
3. For the Sarah Palin part of the song, I was originally going to make it 24 bars… but the beat I had only did it in 16-bar format, so I had to cut a few lines. Luckily, they weren’t really too important!
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
I was actually going to do this same video for a different song! However, with the election less than 50 days away, the timing for this song was much better than it would have been next week. I mean, the campaigns would still be going on, but you gotta get these things in as early as possible!
I wanted to do something simple, i.e. something that wouldn’t have me editing for 8 or 9 hours like I did with the “Obama” video (as well as a bunch of other videos I’ve made). I didn’t know what the video would actually be until I was watching Conan O’Brien one late night and said: “Hey… I can do it like a talk show!!”
And, since I still don’t have many friends helping me out, I decided to play the host – Johnny Wilkins – and the performer (duh), A.P.T.! The host would introduce the performer, who is supposed to be on the show performing “Obama Obama,” yet decides to change the song at the last minute for a new song he wrote about John McCain. The host decides to let A.P.T. perform the song, unaware of what type of song it would be. Wise decision, Johnny.
Again, I didn’t want to spend too much time editing it, so I decided to do the performance part in one shot, then add a bunch of effects to it (pan shots, color changes, mirror shots, etc.) so that people wouldn’t get bored just watching a single shot. BTW, it’s funny how the mind works – it will get bored watching a single shot for 5 minutes, yet if you cut and chop it up a bit the mind will think “wow, look at all the scene changes!”
Some Interesting Video Tidbits:
1. People always ask if I have a camera man helping me. The answer is NO, but you’d be surprised how I’m able to get shots with a little creative thinking. For the performance shot, the camera is slightly tilted and bobs up and down a bit. How did I do that? I placed my mic stand on my mini-table I use to eat on, then placed the camera on my pop filter (the round think I place between me and my microphone so the “p”s and “t”s will be softened when I’m doing a song). Because the pop filter is filmsy, it bounces up and down when I move around on the floor. Smart, ain’t it?
2. I actually did a second film take where I shot myself doing the song from a side angle, but decided not to use it because it would have added to the editing time. I like making videos, but I’m also LAZY, and have other things to do besides edit a video all day!
3. The beat used at the end of the video is a beat I made!
4. The ending of the video… I thought of that at the last minute. I thought it would be funny to have the show go to standby, and just have that be the end of the video.
5. Editing time for this video: a meazly 3 hours, and I spent most of that time playing Goldeneye (yes, I still have a Nintendo 64) while transferring the files into Windows Media format. Good times!
That’s all for now – enjoy the video!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/NotoriousAPT
This week’s video is for the song, “Where My Money At” (beat produced by Mister KA).
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 believable 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 curve balls 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 warrants 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 gun-play.” 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 Shoot 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!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/NotoriousAPT
This week’s music video is for the song “Bust My G.A.T.,” produced by me, A.P.T.!
SONG AVAILABLE ON “THE A.P.T. LP” – Preview it at www.Myspace.com/NotoriousAPT
INSIGHT INTO A SONG:
This song is four-and-a-half years old, and has been on every album I’ve put together, from “The A.P.T. EP” to “Check The Resume,” and now, “The A.P.T. LP.”
Why, you ask? Because I just really, REALLY like this song! Plus, it’s hilarious as heck, and any time I play it for people, they usually end up laughing their ass off!
The journey for this song begins in January 2004. I was still in college, and was starting to take this whole “wanting to rap” thing seriously. I had been on tour the year before, and had bought myself a drum machine and an interface device that I could record songs on.
I made a song called “Imma Skitzo” which used a very minimalist-type beat – just drums, a few taps and a long hold note for the chorus. One day I went to tweak the beat I made for the song, and I inadvertently came up with another lil’ jam using the same chords, only at a different pace and with a different pitch.
I also found that this particular drum machine also had sound files with sound effects, one of which was a range of gun shots. I thought it would be cool to make a beat using the drum shots. However, there was just one smaaaaall problem: I’m not exactly a gangsta rapper, and beats with gun shots in them are usually reserved for an MC that’s talking about bustin’ proper on his haters.
Yeah, I can talk that slang too, yo!
Furthermore, one of the concerns others had about me being taken seriously as a rapper was that I wasn’t… well, I wasn’t a LOT of things: I wasn’t from the hood, I wasn’t hard, I didn’t have a hard life growing up, I didn’t “sound” black enough to be a rapper (what a f–kin’ insult – what, I gotta sound ig’nant to be black?!?)… and so on.
So, in finding this gun shot sound, I thought it would be funny to put together a song with the following question in mind: “If I really WAS trying to be a hard-core gangsta rapper, and I claimed to have a gun like all the other ones do, how would I go about using it?”
From there, the song just kind of flowed out on its own. I typed up 3/4 of the song in Hampton University’s library (when I should have been doing REAL work), and came back the next day to finish up the rest. The hardest part was trying not to laugh as I was typing up the lyrics – they just seemed so damn ridiculous and funny to me.
4 years later, and the song STILL cracks me up!
Some Interesting Song Tidbits:
1. Rappers like to say lines that are similar to an old-school artist as homage to their rap forefathers. And I am no different; the opening lines of the song – “Now what you hear is not a test, I’m rappin’ to the beeeat/It’s just A.P.T., and his gun, we gon’ knock you off your feeeeeet” – is similar to the very first popular rap lyrics spoken by Sugar Hill Gang in the song “Rapper’s Delight.”
2. A LOT of people get killed in this song – not to mention animals, objects, and other MCs. I figured the more absurd I made the song, the better I’d be able to get across my point of how stupid I think MCs are who rap about using guns like it’s a GOOD thing.
3. Incidentally, I eventually sold my drum machine when I needed money for something else. I saved the beat somewhere, but I have no idea where. In other words, this song has only been recorded once, and the same version has been placed on all my albums ever since. I hope to find the beat and re-record it, but to be honest with you, the song always sounded good to me ever since the first time I recorded it.
INSIGHT INTO A VIDEO SHOOT:
This song was NOT going to be made into a video.
I want to make a video for all the songs on my album, but for this one I had NO idea what I’d do. In fact, I was supposed to be shooting another video this week, but I’m still waiting on footage from a friend of mine in Cali to do that other video (hit me up, J!).
I hadn’t gotten the footage by Tuesday, so I started thinking about other videos I could do. And “Bust My G.A.T.” kept coming to mind. I have a Nintendo 64, and my original plan was to be completely lazy and film shots of me playing “Goldeneye 007,” which is a first-person shooter.
Then I thought: “Hey, wait a minute: instead of filming a TV screen with ‘Goldenye 007’ being played, why don’t I film a real-life version of it instead!? I could walk around town, holding a gun at the bottom of the screen like in the game, and ‘shoot’ the various people/things/animals mentioned in the song!”
One problem: I didn’t have a gun. Of any kind – no real gun, toy gun, water gun, nothing.
And I try to keep the budget of these videos to ZERO if possible, so I didn’t feel like spending money on a gun I’d only be using once.
Then, it hit me again: “Why don’t you just use a Nintendo 64 controller as the ‘gun?'” Now THAT sounded hilarious!
Once I had the basic idea, I started searching on the Internet for the items I mention in my song. Pictures of nuns, pee-wee baseball leagues, cashiers, models, other MCs – I wanted to make it a “game” where the player walks through the city shooting people as a means of gaining street credibility, and thus, increases his popularity as a rapper. Every time one of these items pops on-screen, the player would shoot at them, thus gaining points.
In terms of the playing aspect, I really, REALLY wanted to use a Wii controller so I could act like I was actually shooting the objects on the screen. One problem (at this point, hasn’t it really been more like 3 or 4 problems?) – I don’t own a Nintendo Wii. Oh well, I figured – I could just act like I’m playing it on the N64 with a regular controller. No big deal.
I had everything mapped out, and I wanted to shoot during the daytime on Friday… but then I had to go to work. CRAP!
“But wait!” I thought to myself, “Since you have to walk to work anyway, why not just take your camera with you and film the damn thing while you’re out and about and/or on break?” And so, I did!
The funniest part of this whole shoot was seeing people’s reactions as I was walking around with a camera in one hand, and a Nintendo 64 controller in the other (with the wire going into my right pocket). Nevertheless, I was able to get the shots I wanted throughout the course of the day.
Of course, not only did I have to shoot the scenes where it was a video game, but also the scenes of me playing the game. While on break from work, I decided to head to the mall and film scenes of me buying the game – “How 2 B A Rapper: The Action-Adventure Game” – from an EBGames store. After filming one or two shots, I remembered that the store had a Nintendo Wii kiosk set up for people to test out some of the games.
And it hit me: OMG, I could film myself playing the Wii in the store, and act like I was playing “How 2 B A Rapper” on it!! The Wii has gun games out where the motion-censored controller is used as a gun, and this would be a perfect fit for what I wanted to do in the first place!!
I placed the camera on the shelf next to the Wii kiosk and filmed 2 minutes of me doing various “reactions” to the game. And it came out PERFECT.
Once everything was filmed, I loaded up the footage on my computer and worked on the graphical look of the video-game portions of the video. Because it’s supposed to be a game, I had to type in all the parts where you see “Status,” “Life” and “Street Cred Points.” I also had to right down what sequence everything was in so I could place the right point numbers on the right footage. For example, the shots before the nun getting shot had to have a Street Cred point reading of “000,” whereas the footage immediately afterward would have to say “010,” or 10 points. It was pretty easy keeping all the info together, and I’m glad the ability to type text onto the screen (as well as include the water-color effect of the video to make it look almost like “Grand Theft Auto”) is already included in my two video-edit programs.
All in all, this has to be one of the more ambitious videos I have shot in a while, even more so than “Smooth Talker” and “Obama, Obama.” And, so far, it’s one of my favorites!
Some Interesting Video Tidbits:
1. Shout-outs to two of the girls who participated in the video (both of whom I work with): Michelle, who’s the girl paying for our date; and Dolly, who, sadly, gets killed for the benefit of me earning more points for Street Cred!
2. The parts of the video where I mouth the words to the song came out pretty good, especially considering that I had NO actual music playing in the background. I thought I’d be filming my parts for the video at my apartment, so I didn’t bring any audio equipment with me. Yet, lo and behold, the mouthing of the words match up perfectly with the video. Why? Because I KNOW THIS SONG THAT DANG WELL!
3. The area for the shots took place in Midtown Atlanta, Dunwoody Mall, and the Dunwoody area of Atlanta, which is actually a bit outside the Atlanta loop… but let’s not be picky!
4. The ending of the video was spontaneous as well. In the song, the last line is, “How come u in prison, dog?/I bust my gaaaaat.” Problem was, I didn’t know what I could use for a jail. However, I thought it would be sweet justice if, after having spent a whole day killing people, I myself were to get shot at by day’s end. So, while walking home from work at night, I filmed the last part of the video. In keeping with the “Goldeneye 007”-type theme, I get shot, the gun goes out of screen’s view, and I do a dizzying fall to the ground. Ha ha, hilarious!
5. For the grocery store scene, I went to Wal-mart (why I end up shooting a Publix employee is beyond me), and filming myself with a gun while trying to push a shopping cart proved to be quite hard. The small footage I used in the video is the best out of a whopping 1 minute and 42 second shot I took where I kept trying to avoid pushing the cart into the actual groceries!!
6. I have no idea WHERE I found the shot of the cat shooting with a gun, but it sure does look funny!
7. It may be a bit blurry in the video for the part of the night scene where I’m standing in front of a big lit-up sign. That’s the Woodruff Arts Center, where they hold plays, concerts and other things involving performance.
8. Edit time for this video was LONG. Between having to add in elements like graphic effects, pictures, etc., the whole thing took me about 9 hours. All for a 4-minute clip – what kinda bull-crap is THAT?!?
That’s all for now – enjoy the video, download “The A.P.T. LP” today, and I’ll see ya next week!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/NotoriousAPT
Another week, another video in the can…
Man. That’s 16 videos so far. I did 2 this week, one for a video called “Shine 4 Obama” which got taken down by YouTube because it featured Luther Vandross. I’m sure Sony probably caught wind of that one… I re-post it on a different site and then post it up on my MySpace page, so it’s now a “MySpace Exclusive.” I’d post it here, but this site doesn’t allow HTML.
Friggin’ sux.
Anyway, people really seemed to like the “Smooth Talker” video, and I couldn’t be happier. At the same time, while people are watching that video I’m already thinking of next week’s video – and, to be quite honest, thinking of a video every week can be straining at times.
Sometimes, these ideas will come to me waaaay early in advance. I had the idea for the filming of the “Smooth Talker” video as far back as July. For this week’s video, though, I’m still thinking up ideas of how I want it to come together.
I actually had another song in mind for this week’s upcoming video, but it requires one of my friends to film her part for me – from California – and then send me the footage to edit. I don’t know if she’ll have filmed it in time for Sunday, though, so I always have to have a “just in case things don’t come through” back-up plan video. Of course, I didn’t start thinking about that until Tuesday, so trying to pull an idea out of my ass is, as you can assume, quite painful (as would pulling anything out of your ass in general).
With that said, the video is for a song that’s on “The A.P.T. LP,” and over 4 years old. The song is quite hilarious, and the idea I have for the video it is semi-ambitious. If I can pull it off, though, it will be AWESOME. I start shooting for the video tomorrow – I don’t have to work tomorrow night, which will give me Friday night/Saturday afternoon to film it, then Saturday night to edit. I’m going to try and actually write out a plan for the video this time (usually I just film on the fly) so I can save myself some time.
That’s all for now – see you all on Sunday!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/NotoriousAPT
Well… my world was certainly rocked yesterday.
I spent over 32 hours straight the 2 days before (from Saturday til Sunday morning) editing my album, “The A.P.T. LP,” with no sleep, resulting in me not feeling too good on Monday. But that wasn’t the bad part. No, the bad part was when I went to check on my YouTube views, only to discover that my page had been taken down.
No page, no videos, no views… and, most importantly, NO advertising for my album.
Yes, all those videos I had that included links to my site where people could get my albums and mixtapes were taken down. Takes quite a toll on your album sales when you can’t even tell people where to find your stuff.
So, what do I do now?
Rebuild. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild!
I went back and read the terms and conditions of YouTube, and have a few theories as to why they may have taken my stuff down. One, I had quite a few videos up where I used other people’s beats without permission. Two, I was advertising my products on the site, mentioning the price in the process. Apparently if you’re not paying YouTube for ad space you aren’t allowed to do that. And three – and this is my uncle’s theory – someone from either McCain or Obama’s campaign took it down. My site was getting a LOT of attention and subscribers, and, with the Democratic/Republican conventions happening this week and next week, more and more people would probably be seeing my videos – and lord knows that might be disastrous for their campaigns!
Regardless of the reason though, I always like to learn lessons from my mistakes. The first lesson: if you’re going to use other people’s beats, get a license saying you can do so. That way, you can legally use them and not have your stuff taken down.
The second lesson: don’t put your eggs all in one basket. I placed all my videos on YouTube, but didn’t even consider uploading them to MySpace, photobucket, or other sites where it would have been hard for them to take down every post I had out there.
And the third lesson: utilize MySpace more. The site is set up so musicians can advertise and/or legally sell their music. Now that I know how to gain friends on the site, it should be easier for me advertising-wise to get to more people, and, hopefully, sell a few albums.
Am I down about all this? A lil’ bit – I had high expectations for how this whole album would roll out, and now I have to re-think my strategy on how to get people to know my stuff is out there. But hey, I’ve always been a person able to get knocked down, pick himself back up and try again, and this time is no different.
By the way, my new YouTube site address is www.youtube.com/APTsongs. There’s always a chance it could be taken down, but for now it works. In the meantime, I’m still trying to figure out a way to re-post up my videos on this site – because wordpress doesn’t allow for HTML code, I can’t just load up the vids at another site and paste them on here. Worst-case scenario, I move all this stuff to blogger.com, where HTML code is appreciated!
-A.P.T.
E-mail: aptsongs@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/notoriousapt
A.P.T.'s Songs, Albums and Music Videos 