#TheTinkerer is now on iTunes.

Click the pic to go to my page in the iTunes store where you can preview and purchase my latest album, folks.

Thanks for rocking with me.  

#ATFU

#ATFU LIVE

My man, @hotmixprincejay, just uploaded a BUNNNNNNCHA clips from ‘The Tinkerer’ album release party. Check out Sleeper Cell, Grey Granite, Mr. Kinetik & Eratic, and myself JAMMIN…

Hit the link, he’s got clips of EVERYBODY. #NAPTOWN groovin, man. 

#TYWBG

#ATFU and PRINCE JAY TOO. 

We’re making some noise. Thanks to @KevinNottingham for featuring the ‘Iron Man Monster Factory’ video. That’s dope. 

Album Tuesday, man. ‘The Tinkerer’ this Tuesday!

RR

I been trying to figure out how to get the monster onstage with me. I was lucky enough to have my homeboy, TXTBOOK (DYOG), bring his gear and DJ, so my mixer was sitting off to the side looking all lonely, feeling ignored. Poor lil mixer… 

I hollered at Doug the sound man, who happens to be awesome, was in the first group I was ever in with me, and is a KILLER sound engineer, about a ‘Monster Mic’. He didn’t have the effects unit he needed to pull it off. Being the #punkrockthisshit guy that I am, I came up with the idea of running a microphone thru my mixer. I would use the effects unit on my mixer to get the monster rocking. We sound checked it and got it right. I think it came off pretty cool and this is only the second time I’ve played this song, so I wanted to get it on tape. 

I’m the toolbag holding the camera/iPhone and that other voice off-frame is my main man, Mr. Kinetik, who rocked as my DJ for the night. That’s love. That’s multitasking. That’s holding it down for your gee. My brutha…I love that cat, man. That’s how #ATFU does it, man. 

Big shouts to @SleeperCellCrew, @GreyGranite, & @Eratic for rocking with me tonight and their support in general. Thanks to everyone that was at the release party tonight. I had a GREAT time. I hope you like the album. ‘The Tinkerer’ is available on iTunes this Tuesday, January 31. You can order the CD now at DADDYREAL.COM…and yeah, I’m geeked.

#ATFU, fear no men, fear no monsters. 

RR

#ATFU LIVE 1/26/12

Thursday, Jan 26, Mr Kinetik and myself kick off the Local Uinderground Tent Party at Sun King Brewing Company. Come out and jam with us, as we play cuts from our album, ‘The Professor And The Hustler’, preview some tracks from ‘The Tinkerer’ and rock the wheels of steel.

Sounds like a good time, you already know…come on through after work, show starts good and early at 6:30 p.m.

We will get down. 

#ATFU

#TheTinkerer #ATFU 

Man, this right here. 

I went to the Daddy Real complex today after I found out the CD’s of ‘The Tinkerer’ had arrived. Like, immechatlee….I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was to hear that they had arrived. I wanted to see what the ‘Iron Man Monster Factory’ video was looking like too, man. 

I got there and people were hustling in every area of the building; cats working promotions for bands, folks in the studio putting music together, people moving and shaking…getting stuff DONE. I popped my head in the office with what was undoubtedly the goofy grin of a kid who got straight A’s right before Christmas and said, “Soooooo….I hear there’s something here for me to see!”

Man, it’s beautiful. It’s exactly what I pictured in my head. It sounds great. It looks great. It ‘pops’. It ‘sizzles’. It ‘thumps’. The packaging really came out so awesome, man. SHIT. I am GEEKED.

Here’s what you hafta understand; I really had no idea that I was gonna be releasing this album in this manner when I was creating it. It’s a sign that @ATFU_ is growing up, man. I really want you to understand how hard we work to do this and how much we have done to get the name and concept to the people. We started the blog a year ago on January 31. In that time, we’ve posted no less that 30 FREE ALBUMS from the group and our affiliates. Here’s the page with all of em…

#ATFU - Every Free Album On Our Blog, Yo. 

…ay, that’s a lotta work we give away to get this thang started on a real level. There’s no expectations other than the hope that it reaches people who will dig it and pass the page and the word of the crew forward. 

When I was crafting ‘The Tinkerer’, I was expecting to make another album we could throw on that page. I wrote, produced and recorded the bulk of the album in a week; I was gonna stop there. Part of my original M.O. for the album was to see what I could get done in a week. I sent a version of it to @MrKinetik for mastering immediately after that week was completed. (He’s the first dude I bounce ideas and songs to, as well as my mastering guy. We work well together.) He was kinda the dude who put it in my mind that I could produce an album, man, and with that in mind, I asked him to hold up and rethought ‘The Tinkerer’. 

I refined and expanded on the concept of the album and continued to make promo videos and memes to post the whole time. I really like being able to involve people in the creative process with social-media. I was still adding on to the album the whole time.

I started it August 9th, 2011 and I was adding stuff to, refining, and remixing the album up until I turned in the master around December 27th or so. The fact is, I had no idea I would hafta make a ‘master’ to turn in until @AlmightyMEighty called me one day last month and said, “YOO, hold up…I wanna do ‘The Tinkerer’ RIGHT…”, which led to a meeting, which led to a deal with an entertainment company, which gave me MORE reason to reconsider what ‘The Tinkerer’ was becoming and what I wanted the final product to be.

If I was gonna actually have an ALBUM, I was gonna need to add on to my vision. Adding on to my vision requires working with people that are more skilled than me in some areas. Working with the Daddy Real staff has been productive as a MUG. I hollered at my people, @TheAIDG to help me come up with a cover suitable for this thang and whip up some proper propaganda materials. Lefty at Daddy Real is spearheading the ‘Iron Man Monster Factory’ video and it looks to be the craziest video I’ve ever been involved in in any way, shape, or form.

No bullshit; I really had no idea all this would be going on when I started making this album. By the time I realized what was going on, I added four more songs to the album to REALLY make sure I was giving you the BEST thing I could, not giving you a ‘project’ where the limits and timeline I set for MYSELF ended up compromising how good it could be. As much as the #BASEDRUSTY taught me in terms of recording, expanding on an idea, and social-media campaigning, I had to know when and how to use it. I did the entire ‘Complete Caillou’ in the space of a month, posting every song as soon as they were finished. Some of that technique worked for ‘The Tinkerer’; recording quickly, staying thematically sound, talking to the people the whole time I was working on it. I’m glad that I kept chipping away and adding on though.

I believe the final product sounds, looks, and feels complete. I learned how to make an album by myself. I’m responsible for every sound. I worked my ass off on this thang, not even knowing this day would come…and here it is. It’s a lot different than what I originally thought I was gonna do. It became the ‘album’ it was supposed to be, forget all that nonsense about getting it done in a week. I spent months tinkering with it and added the final ‘act’ a week before I turned in the master. I lived this album for months. It was all I did. I was teaching myself and learning. I was reaching. I was DOING IT. 

I did it.

Can’t wait for you to hear and see more. Video soon, album drops next Tuesday. Release party on Saturday.

Good times. More to come. 

RR

#ATFU

tornadoalleymusic:

#GCE #IAintShit #GMEP #ATFU

Our man from upstate New York, GM. Always rough, rugged, and raw; raps from the guts. We been rocking with GM for a while, now we gotta give y’all the proper introduction over here. 

Check out his newest video for ‘I Ain’t Shit’ and visit Refined Hype at the link below to download ‘GMEP’, the homey’s latest work. It’s some true boom-bap real-life shit, just like we act it and proudly endorse. Watch for collaborations from #GCE and #ATFU in the near future…

Refined Hype - #TwitterListeningSessions - GM - ‘GMEP’ (post with DL Link)

#GCE

#ATFU - we add on…

YUUUUUP!!!! @GM518360’s joint & the download link for #GMEP. Get it. #Shruglife jams and all that…we HERE. 

RR

#ATFU

RR

Check out DaddyReal.com to preorder the CD. 

#ATFU

RR

#SpeakMonsterSpeak #TheTinkerer #ATFU

“I’m just tryna get the paper/the power, the hoes/Wasn’t made for this but that’s the way that it goes/Missing dictionary/…lost words/Blind visionary/…”AWKWARD!”/Close to the mirror/I can feel my stitches/Never sold a dream so they steal my wishes/That’s YOU with that Benz, ha?/You been rolling over my corpses and influencing all the trends, ha?/You like to jack flows, ha?/You that cat that can’t rap/But you got all the hoes, ha?/Im dyin, G from the irony/The abnormal mind/Strange beast with the stylin’, G/They fall, they rise/They tell you lies/They tell you guys/All that shit about my demise/But I’m alive again/Why, my friend?/Because The Tinkerer/Builds monsters, machines, and men.”

‘The Tinkerer’, January 31, 2012…available everywhere you buy music. Digital copies and CD’s will be available. 

#ATFU

RR

#SpeakMonsterSpeak #TheTinkerer #ATFU

“I didn’t ask for this/I was given no choice/They sent me back into the hills to give The Monster a voice/Now, speak. Speak./Speak, Monster. speak/Soon enough, we’ll find out who’s the man and the freak/I gave a dead mind though/Gave cadavers a pulse/Make em shake, rattle, and roll/Do ‘The Wop’, and convulse/The results?/A new beast with a vision/Every incision made with the wisdom/I’m a man on a mission/Creating men for my mission/I needed space and I’m flipping/Off the walls of this castle/Just to land with precision/”Nothin’ personal”/Ay, it’s for #science/I separate men from monsters and keep em divided/Inside it smells of delay, decay, and sloth/This one, I cut from an entirely different cloth/I tinker, I teach/I stumble, I reach/Now, speak. Speak/Speak, Monster, SPEAK.”

‘The Tinkerer’ - 1/31/2012… wherever you buy music. Digital and CD’s will be available.

#ATFU

RR

LET #THETINKERER TELL IT. MEET ‘THE TINKERER’. #ATFU