"Writes of Passage" (SpaceLAB Remix feat. Jake Palumbo) download for free HERE
I have, on two to three occasions in my life, fancied myself the poor-man's-Pete-Rock, and have attempted to re-construct songs by my friends with new arrangements. I was never interested in doing Jake Palumbo Nas Remixes Vol. 20 or anything corny like that, but for my fellow friends/emcees I'm happy to take on the challenge.
First off, it's important to peep the original in it's context, off Ciphurphace's debut album An Honest Day's Work, which can be found HERE:
Originally produced by I.C. You (correct me if I'm wrong?), what you have is a dark, murky and very serious ode to the therapy that is writing, spilling your guts with a pen. Well, by this point in my career I'd already developed a rep for being the irritating little prick who was determined to go the opposite of whatever (insert name) was doing. Therefore I figured if I'm gonna do a remix, I will have to pervert it somehow.
I was only about 9 months living in New York, and the apartment building we lived in had an empty basement, that had (dirty) bedrooms and bathrooms built in, yet un-inhabited. Given the landlord never came around, I moved all my equipment down to the basement so I could make noise (& burn blunts) without my roommate noticing. Voila - makeshift laboratory. It was like having a 2nd apartment for free.
So I got the accapella from the homie James, & sat down digging through my respectable vinyl collection......and nothing happened. For some reason crate-diggin' just didn't inspire me on this joint. Maybe too much like the original? Coincidentally I'd been listening to E-40 or Andre Nickatina or some other West coast Bay Area rap that makes backpackers uncomfortable, & figured fuck it....why not do an uptempo pseudo-hyphy beat and turn this melancholy track into a hookers-and-blow party, while still showing respect to what my man was trying to say on the song?? The beat came quickly after that.
While the beat itself has no samples, I DID fire up a second Dutch Master & went through record after record finding samples to cut up that were relevant to the remix....the ability to rock on the turntables was a leg up I had on the other bullshit local "rap producers" I had to co-exist with in Tennessee, and I was fond of flexing that at the time.
3-4 hours later the remix was finished, but there was still about 90 seconds of beat left....so I figured, well since I've already invited myself over, un-invited and trashed the house, ate all the food and drank all the booze, why not drop 16 bars too? Nah, why not drop 24? And there you have a very spontaneous, not exactly perfect, and very inebriated guest appearance from your remixer....not exactly sure what impregnating actresses & Entennmann's donuts have to do with the therapy of writing, but we made it work :)
It was a fun fun fun way to kill a Sunday. At the time I wasn't sure if 'Phace knew exactly what to make of my....uhhhh....remix, but it came out on the SOUTHNotTheDirtySouthNotTheEastCoastNotTheWestCoastWEST EP later that year.
