Meaty Okra

It's bout to be on n poppin,,, or something like that. Wed 1/27/10 I will officially release my 1st mixtape "Lazy Yawn present's The Half Assed Mixtape". It's a 10 song sampler type CD. I had a completely different theme planned out, but apparantly I didn't make myself clear to certain parties and... well... it just didn't work out that way, so I improvised. Somtime in Feb the real mixtape "Able Opposition" will
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I'm not too thrilled about either one to be completely honest. The majority of the songs were recorded the same day and God knows what happened with the mixing, cuz i sure don't. Apparantly you're supposed to be there when they mix it. NOW they tell me! I hope and pray you will all take it easy on me, this is my very first recording endeavor. There will definitely be more to come. I'm hoping by the end of the year I'll put out the one I've been trying to finish for the past 6 years. I guess it's not a bad start. The big ? is would I buy and listen to it? hmmmmm even bigger ? is will YOU buy and listen to it?

Promotion is key on this one, think I know which songs to push performance wise and which to have edited for radio. I am definitely NOT doing videos this time around, I'll use live recordings. I got rusty on my stage game so.... guess I'll be at the Dub (End of the Weak check em out Sun nights 9PM illest hip hop open mic in NY) honing my craft.

I guess Meaty Okra isn't terrible, it could be cheesy corn or just plain shit.

Promo Ho

So, I'm waiting for tracks to be mixed and waiting for the covers to be designed so... what do I do with my time? Oh yeah... PROMOTIONS!!
SO I got these bright ideas. I love the whole sticker thing but it's kinda pricey so my cheap ass did the homemade thing. Got label paper and $ store Sharpies and made my own shit, Cheezy yes, but it SHOULD still get my name out right? Then I got gloves wholesale and stenciled my name in with fabric paint, which I'm told looks like white out, but... whatever. Of course NOW it's back to the 40s instead of the 20s so gloves aren't selling like they could, but Winter ain't even here yet so...
Sun night I got the J train last car to first, about 3-5 each car. Had to look out for cops and MTA staff. Some old guy yelled at me "Stop, we don't want any", which was funny cuz I wasn't giving any, but as they say one monkey don't stop the show,,, or whatever.
Hit up the A and D trains today. I was workin at my real life pays the bills job so I couldn't go in like Sun night but I got a couple of cars. Weird thing is this guy was asking me about my name (LMNOP)and what I was promoting and shit like that and instead of using it as an opportunity to promote myself, I was all shy n shit. Sure I answered the questions, but here I am with the space to give my little schpiel and all that good shit and... I didn't. Gotta step my game up. For real! here I am getting intimidated by the other passengers "disapproving looks". I got SOME stickers up but I was real quick to sit my ass down. I gotta grow some hair on my nuts if I'm gonna make it with this shit.

Jackin for beats

Why oh why do I try so hard to be “good” and do the “right” thing? I wonder. So, I have “borrowed”, shit why lie, I steal industry beats and use them for my songs because they sound good and they are free, BUT everyone has heard them already and originality is kinda nice so… I go to Soundclick and download beats for free, some of them suck, some of them are mediocre and every once in a while you get a good one. Now these are offered as a free download, so I figure that means I can use them right? Apparently not. I read somewhere that producers like credit for their beats, and that makes sense, credit is good. I also heard somewhere that if you let a producer hear the song you make with their beat and they like it they may give you more beats for freeeeeee. So here I go letting this producer, who provided the public with a FREE download of this beat that I used for a song on my mixtape, know that I used his beat, and planned to put it in my mixtape and I send him the mp3. Don’t you know this motherfucker responds with some “good luck with your mixtape, but you can’t sell it” shit. WHAT!!!. Where’s my free beats? How are you going to offer something for free and tell me I can’t profit from it? This IS a capitalist country right. Our whole existence revolves around making a profit ;). So ANYWAYS, now I’m thinking… should I get another beat and rerecord the track? Eh… Should I make the song an acappella? Naa…. I COULD just use it anyways, but I shouldn’t have asked him if I wasn’t prepared to be told "NO!", so… now I gotta think about my ethics and morals. Oh shit, I have ethics and morals… that kinda sucks. What happened to the days of “If you want it, snatch it” and “I don’t give a fuck”? Freakin maturity! Anyways, I still haven’t decided what to do, but I’ll tell you this. I’m not telling anybody else that I used their beat. If they want to find out, I guess they have to buy my CD, I mean mixtape.

So you wanna be a rapper

About a month ago I decided I was going to do a mixtape. I took some verses, created some songs, fucked around with some ideas and 2 weeks later, after a quick studio session here and a 7.5 hour studio session there… I did it. I was psyched too, thought I was super woman for real. Head all gassed up like I’m the illest artist alive. And get this, AFTER this 7.5 hour recording session, I hosted (for the 1st time ever) a showcase and performed in this competition (no I did not win,,, not even close). So now I’m really thinking I’m something else, right. 2 weeks later I did my photo shoot and I’m thinking my shit will be dropping 2 months after I decided to do it, how efficient of me. HA! That’s what I thought,,, until I got the mixes back. In my attempt to save time and $ I sacrificed quality. It’s not garbage, but it’s far from a classic. The material is not bad; the sound quality is not even bad really. Listening to each song I hear adlibs out of sync or just out of place altogether. I hear a lack of inflection, emotion, charisma, whatever in the vocals. I hear places where I left things out or added too much. I will say this. For those 2 weeks I spent every waking moment (and believe me there were plenty) that I was not working at my “real” job (and even some of those) on this CD. I wrote, revised, practiced, memorized, reviewed, rehearsed etc. etc. What it lacked the most was precision, and this comes from taking time. So what if I had to do 1 verse 4 times or 7 times or taken a whole hour for 1 song; the producer wouldn’t have gotten mad because that’s his job and what he was paid to do. It would have been worth the extra money and trip to the studio to listen to the end result with a smile instead of a cringe. OK so it’s not that bad… I guess. Judge for yourself. Hit me up and get a copy of my CD, I mean mixtape, and let me know what YOU think.