Happy Birthday, Jimi Hendrix!
You’ve seen the still shot a kajillion times, you gotta peep how it went down…
Jimi sacrifices the thing he loves most and the people knew it was real…
Happy Birthday, Jimi! You can play any axe you want now, bruh. Thanks for leaving us with all this great stuff that continues to pay off all these years later.
I can’t imagine what you woulda been doing now, at 70 (wow), and I am so thankful for everything you did in your short time here. You’re a blessing.
I love ya, Jimi.
RR
…there’s one of these for each song on #LOWER. When you hit the ‘down’ button on the playlist, it looks like a GIF. #ART #SWAG #Warhol #JoyInRepetition #DIY (Taken with Instagram)
#NaptownSlim gotta LOGO, hoe.
Y’all…the love for Naptown Slim is so real out here. A brutha really touched right now, man. I could cry thug tears of joy.
My man on Twitter, his name is @DigitalPharaoh, made this for Slim and sent it to me today.
I mean, does that NOT look RIGHT? People can FEEL me, bruh. I’m out here saying real funky REAL thangs. I treasure these kinds of gifts from the people I have met or touched with my words, even in a digital forum.
Love is real, man. It never dies…and when you got it in you, you give it and you show it. I shouldn’t say it never dies, cuz that is sho nuff a way to kill it, keeping it inside of you and not showing it…word…cold blooded, man.
Love can’t live alone, man. I put the word into the streets because it’s real.
Thanks to my man, Stephen. It just got realer. Naptown Slim got a logo.
Another funky, cold blooded Naptown Slim production. Always real.
Dig this, just a lil something I put together to let you know what’s going on here.
I’m about done with ‘LOWER’. It’s funky, raw, and real. Again, I am responsible for every sound you hear on this album, just like ‘The Tinkerer’.
There will be a companion piece for ‘LOWER’ called ‘OTHER’ consisting of outtakes and remixes. Fon kay.
Stay tuned for release dates and more info…
Yuh man, Rusty in Indiana gets busy…
#ATFU
#RustyWrites
To all my fellow artists, my peers, my friends, and people I admire,
I’m sitting here, live from #Naptown, looking at all the music I have created in the last couple months and really trippin…
As an artist, you will see far more obstacles than opportunities. Things will be placed in your way to stop you on purpose. Some people you think are in your corner will not stand by you when the going gets rough. People you love will tell you to quit, without understanding that you are speaking from your soul when you do whatever kinda art it is you do.
Don’t.
This is JUST LIFE for those who are truly ‘ARTISTS’ and using their life’s story to say something and leave SOME kinda legacy behind you when you pass. Yes, I suppose I am in the ‘music business’, but the business of music isn’t what made me write songs. We ain’t talking about the music business right now, we’re talking about ‘art’ and the motivation behind it.
I have something to say.
If you really believe you have something to say, whether you are saying it on canvases with paints, by scratching records back and forth, or by acting on a stage or screen, giving breath and life to someone’s words…don’t you EVER let anyone take your passion from you.
LIVE YOUR LIFE, PUT IT IN YOUR ART.
SOMEONE IS LISTENING…SOMEONE IS WATCHING. IT WILL AFFECT THEM IF YOUR HEART AND SOUL ARE IN IT.
Every part of your life can be used for inspiration, even the bad things. Use ‘em. I’ve had to get very real with life over the last few years. I’ve learned hard, hard, HARD lessons and the thing that kept me sane was being able to put it into art, to bleed it out, to use it to continue living MY LIFE, the real life that I’ve committed myself to living and talking about in my music. I can always get back to ‘me’ through music. It’s a blessing.
Just keep doing the things that you are passionate about, my fellow artists and anyone aspiring to be…Good luck with it all and may your Higher Power help you power through the hard times.
#SHRUGLIFE #TBM #NAPTOWN #ADK #LANON ADIYM
CLIENT: @RustyMK2
PROJECT: CD Packaging Design
PROJECT LEAD: Joseph ALLEN Woodsweb: www.TheAIDG.com
twitter: @TheAIDG
phone: 202.618.AIDG
#TheTinkerer #ATFU
He laced this. Get your art RIGHT.
Contact @TheAIDG
#Warhol
There’s no question in my mind that Andy’s aesthetic and vision has influenced my work over the past two years.
#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.
