Miscellaneous Observations

It feels completely and utterly surreal.

I had been working on the album for 4 years, focusing on all the details and struggling with perfectionism to the point I was giving up and asking myself "What's it all for".

I was genuinely having the worst existential crisis of all time whilst I was working on this project.

It started to feel like a child I was building with my bare hands, I was so scared it would get damaged.

I would bear that weight because it felt so much like the art you make reflects on who you are as a person, socially and literally.

I was kinda isolating myself whilst also being more outgoing than ever, trying to find my footing in life I guess, and I tried to use this project as my balancing board.

Which meant that when the project fell out of balance, I did too. Which sucked.

There was this point where I was on a train going somewhere and I had pretty much finished all the instrumentals and I was still writing lyrics at the time.

I just told myself "I will finish this album and drop it this exact time next week", I needed to leap that big.

I had to just sprint the rest of the marathon because otherwise I would've got cold feet.

I sat in my room and recorded all of the songs, mixed the vocals, put it all together and then released it.

My friend Jay took a bunch of photos of me on our stage at college, I picked out my favourite for the album cover.

It's far from perfect, but I'm actually getting really positive feedback for it, from people I haven't spoken to in years!

I feel healed somehow, and excited for the future...

Miscellaneous Observations : a deeper dive

by Henry Bowen

Insomniac

I love 1539 N Calvert by JPEGMAFIA and I wanted to make a song that was similar. 1539 is bouncy and fun but also experimental, that song really opened up my music taste because it made me see music differently. I got these little chord chops in the mix that I made with an electric piano which I then brightened up. I was chilling with Kinozolte and I showed him the beat, he liked it but explained that the chords didn't make any sense sonically. I watched him do his wizard work on it and he moved the notes in the chords that didn't correspond to the notes in the scale of the song. I think the song would've sounded very different if he hadn't done that, and every time I've made a song since I ask myself if it actually sounds good. Because its very easy to impress yourself sometimes, but other people may see your work differently. So its super useful to get a different perspective. At that time, the beat was only around a minute long and I was struggling to develop it. I actually went to see JPEGMAFIA live in London that month and I came back super inspired. Instead of trying to develop the beat, I decided to divert it and build a new musical idea out of that. A lot of JPEGMAFIAs work is very unconventional and I wanted to base the next part of the beat on that. Experimenting. I recorded myself actually making the next part of the beat and I put that in as the makeshift bridge of the song, before continuing with that idea, and then looping back round to the original idea. After that I added the outro. The intro wasn't added until about 4 months later when I realised that this song was going to be the opening track, so I wanted to ease the listener into the experience rather than throw them straight in.

The pad drone at the start is directly inspired by Igor's Theme. That's obvious and I don't hide that. Igor had a huge impact on me artistically, so it's a nod, and a tribute to Tyler The Creator's influence on my artistic style.

Writing the song was quite a breeze. I just find myself in a zone when it comes to songwriting and it feels so second nature to me, I don't really think about it. I just do it. The lyrics are playful jabs at people I know and funny ideas (observations) I had for lyrics. I wanted the song to be as light as possible. This is me. This is what I'm doing. This is my culture.

Lyrics:

Somewhere to go

Haven't slept in like a week

My eyes been on the bag

Yeah, it really had me weak

Caught you with your panties down

Boy that was not a sag

Pushing them onto the curb

I'm the hottest out the 'burb

That's accurate factually

So here's another classic Henry Bowen CD

I'll still be doing this when I'm 83

And I bet that you will still be hating on me

I think you underestimated me

Not on my timezone

I was writing poetry while you were still on Rhymezone

Imma hit another one and put it on the microphone

You put me on your story

I'll turn you to a story

You put me on your story

I'll turn you to a

They be setting boobie traps

But I still say this with my chest

Now is a good time to invest in me

Way ahead of the rest of the rivalry

Life is a rat race and I'm never coming last

If life is a rat race, best believe I'm right on your tail

I'll pack him in if he tell another tale

Just another rapper looking for the glory

All his latest album did was bore me

Let me take him to the crematory

Cover your eyes, it's aboutta get gory

Hands in the air if you came with the forty

Balamory, I could tell the story

Take a page out of my book

Roll it up

Treadmill

After I left school, pretty much all of my friends went to different colleges and I hit hard times. I realised that I had been in this comfort zone the whole time I was in school. In school, I hung out with the same people everyday and when that routine changed it really hit me like a train. I detached myself from stuff and spent a lot of time by myself, walking the streets and feeling quite alone in my situation. I met some nice people at college but it just didn't feel the same and I was just trying stuff to fit in. Music is something that I can always fall back on, I get really lost in my DAW, hyper focusing for sometimes days on end. Its where I'm at my happiest. I'm not really good at anything else. So whenever I felt lonely or whatever, I would be on a PC in the college library grafting away at the album. I really remember making this song specifically at that particular time. The beat took a long time to make because it has so many different sections and I really wanted to make them flow as naturally as possible. I can't remember if I wrote the lyrics before, or after, the beat. I think I might've just put the two together. The way I write lyrics is normally by stitching ideas together. I'll be out somewhere, doing something and at literally anytime, anywhere, I might get an idea. It could be a lyric, a philosophical concept, a word, or a poem. I write it immediately in my notes app and leave it. Later, when I'm writing a song, I'll resurface a relevant idea from my note app that I was saving for something about that topic. So, when I was wondering the streets, that lonely feeling I felt in my chest, or stomach would inspire me to write some of the most uncanny things I've ever written, hands down. All of those ideas compiled into one and they just became a huge jumble of lyrics that I arranged and laid over the beat I had been working on. That's how TREADMILL was made.

TREADMILL, to me, is reflective and personal. That's how I felt writing it. Other people have said otherwise, but I like how it sparks different emotions in different people. I really just wanted to reach out about these feelings of isolation, not to benefit myself, but rather for someone who is going through the same phase. I just hope the song can speak to them so that they don't feel so alone.

Lyrics:

I'm sick of these rappers not switching it up

I'm sick of these streamers not backing me up

I got a flight so I'm packing it up

Hop on a treadmill, I'm running it up

You don't know what you've been told

Tell me I'm not the only one who feels this way

Did I go the wrong way down the motorway?

It's a long journey to the grave

And I haven't got a map

Even if I did behave

It wouldn't fall onto my lap

I question everything

You know the saying

Life is a test

All I've done so far is guess

And I think I'm failing

Always anything but smooth sailing

I've even considered bailing

The dark water consuming me

The cold water consuming me

The dark water consuming me

The cold water consuming me

It's too cold to swim now

You might wanna get a towel

Why do they always run away from me?

I hold my breath but I can't see

I'm proud of all my friends that are doing well

But does my name still ring a

Remember all the plans we had for college

Way before life got in the way

They died among the broken knowledge

Like dust into an ashtray

It's a tragedy we'll never replicate that energy

A ghost in an empty body, an unfinished melody

Lying within a disjointed synergy

I see them

I see them in their new relationships

When I feel like I'm sinking

Tossing and turning over-overthinking

Sitting at the edge of my bed, staring at the elephant in my room

I think bout packing up my trunk

The existential burden weighing heavy on my heart

I wake up every day to play my part

I don't like it, but it has to be done

I'm a prisoner to life just doing my time

I find happiness at the bottom of a bottle

Well, I could really do with a genie right now

Why do they always run away from me

I hold my breath but I can't see

The dark water consuming me

The cold water consuming me

The dark water consuming me

BALTIMORE

BALTIMORE is another JPEGMAFIA-inspired track. JPEGMAFIA came out of the Baltimore underground hip hop scene, so that's why I named the song BALTIMORE. As well as Baltimore being notoriously rough in some areas, which reflects the style of the song. BALTIMORE is hard, grungy, and angry. I really wanted to vent about how messed up the world is, and how hypocritical some of my closest peers turned out to be. It's kind of from another perspective but I didn't really think about it that deeply. This song, in fact, almost didn't make the album. I first made the beat because I wanted to experiment with using a real, heavy drum sound rather than my usual 808 or percussion I usually lean towards. I got a drum track off the internet and just cooked over it. I can't remember making the beat, primarily because I just didn't think I'd really use it. I wrote to it anyways but didn't try to record it until the week I recorded the whole album. I recorded BALTIMORE on day three. I don't know if I've said this before, but I got literally no sleep for about 5 days that week because I was so focused on maximising my recording time, and also because I wanted to see how long I could stay up for. So, I was seeing stuff when I recorded BALTIMORE, I can't lie. I think that really added to the chaotic energy of the song because my sleep deprivation had me doing vocal work that I would've never pulled off If I was fully conscious and thinking rationally. I listened to the song the next day and I was honestly so torn between whether I liked it or not, that I put it to the back of my mind and forgot about it. The following week, after I had fully rested and was thinking rationally, I listened to the song and saw the potential in it. I mixed it, and put it on the tracklist. I think BALTIMORE still stands out as a slightly weird track to me, but it's actually proven to be one of the most popular tracks on the record.

Lyrics:

Half of you do not even surprise me anymore

Your talk is Baltimore

You're like an open door

I see straight through you

You don't even know who you're repping, do you?

Oh, get a money counter

Under-the-counter

Under the influence you're speaking of

Under the underground

You live in the catacombs

Stacking it up in the stockrooms

You isn't

I'm being reminiscent

My mind is like a prison

And if I went to prison

I would still make the decision

To break out and murder every single one of you snitches

We really went from rags to riches to bagging -

I will not play ball if you're screaming bingo

It is obvious to me you do not understand my lingo

The untouchable style that cannot be cloned

I'm rolling like I'm Ringo and I'm stoned

See how 2 bands won't buy you intelligence

60 shooters won't up your defence against me

The last true offspring of generation Z

About to spend a generational fee

And if I could pay in the attention they paying me

That's generational wealth

Sneaking up on this tempo with sensational stealth

Lets all just raise a toast to my good health

Say the sky is the limit

I'll show I did it

I don't fear anything

How could I? When I am the king

Cold!

What you fear is all I see

Brewing up like Tetley tea

You cannot press me

When I said it directly

Nothing you can say can affect me

Darkest corners of the internet

I need to intersect

Virtual prostitution

Slavery and thievery

We're all jailed in our rooms

Jailed in our rooms

And we learn to love it

Learn to trust it

Learn to fall

Learn to admire

Fighting fire with fire

Now I'm rising from the ashes

With a brand new perspective

I put my feelings in 3 way directive

I roll through my city with a 3 man collective

Its all free man, free man

Till Morgan was defected

'Cos I feel like I might bleed out all by myself

The truth hurts, and that's why I use it

If nothing else will wake you up

I'll have to choose it

Slack

I'm so sick of this

Why

I will quit forever

I will quit anything

What is point

When everybody a slack

Slack

If they pay me off I'll just use it as a pension

Brand new bike, and I'm bouncing the suspension

MOTOROLA

I was in the college library cooking up this super techy beat using drum chops and airy synths. I liked it but I couldn't think of a working title for it. I had broken my iphone a week before and I had to replace it. I bought a Motorola. I had a quick "eureka" moment, and voilà, MOTOROLA was born. In many ways MOTOROLA is the exact opposite to BALTIMORE but I just really like the contrast. Lyrically, the song is kinda just a massive piss take. I wanted to see how many new rap cadences I could fit into a song and to prove my ability as an MC. Lyrically its not super deep, but it is interpretive and some of my insecurity still leaks through, despite the fact that I appear confident. Similar to how Charli XCX mixes heavy EDM with deeply reflective lyrics on Brat. In fact, the chorus for the song is built around this super dirty bass line that I also partially based around Heartbeat by Childish Gambino. So in short, I never explicitly mention anything about Motorola phones on the track, the sound design is a nod to the digital age that gave birth to them.

Lyrics:

I'll do anything but name drop

You don't deserve the mention

Just wait 'til this lame drop

We pay it no attention

If they pay me off I'll use it as a pension

Brand new bike, and I'm bouncing the suspension

Riding to your crib, and I'm filled with bad intention

We might rock that crib

Make you undress

I'm in your area

Your area

I'm in your

Girl's hair

I took it there

And took her out for tea

Pillow talking guys pushing thirty

I tried to play it nicely

But now she up on IG

Feeling boujee

And for the record

I never got the spins

Never put a needle in

To feel the groove

I'm back in my roots

Smooth like a jazz chord

Jazz hands all on the dashboard

When I crash out, no hand on the wheel

No cash in the till

No planes in the sky

The world at a standstill

But yet I still stand

What I can't seem to understand

Like, what happened to integrity?

When did I become a liability

A liar, and an enemy?

What did I do?

How could I take accountability

When it was never true?

This is practically insanity

But part of your human anatomy

Like, barter me, with your back on me

Like, casually open up to everybody

Like you showing off a cavity?

Henry Bowen off to cause a casualty

Or better off, a rap tragedy

How many of my posse

Are subtly messing with me?

I'm messy with my delivery

My versatility is getting silly

So really this is an analogy

To wait on a sign like astrology

Killer psychology getting a hold of me

Nobody safe in this city

Foot down, I'm a turn key

That not a burn to me

I'm 100 degree

Imma get what I want, oh

Imma get what I want

Oh, yes

Make you undress

I'm at your address

Address

I'm at your

Make you undress

I'm in your area

Your area

I'm in your -

SAUDADE

I remember reading something once, I can't even remember what it was that I was reading, but I came across this word, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Saudade. I did some deeper research and found out that it is a Portuguese word that describes a deep emotional longing. I found that beautiful, and I thought that it really summed up that way that I felt after I left school. I had been trying to find myself the entire time. The beat is really similar to MOTOROLA as I continued to experiment with this minimalist sound that I had found through using certain synth sounds and drum patterns. The lyrics of the song are what I spent the most time on, I talked about how stuck I felt in life. Back to back, in order to create that illusion that everything is blending into one. The chorus was the hardest part of this song to work on because I couldn't think of how to incorporate this idea of saudade into the song. It was too fast, too bright. I figured I'd sing the word over the chorus but it still sounded too happy. I wanted to create something that sounded longing. I played around with it and realised that slowing it down changed the mood of the song dramatically. My voice was lower and the backing synths sounded deeper and more rounded.

I had written this poem and I didn't know what to do with it. I spoke it over the end of the track, I'm super pleased with how it turned out!

Overall, this is one of my favourite tracks on the record simply because I delivered the meaning that I conceptualised for the track and it's mostly the result of trusting in a small idea.

Lyrics:

Hey everybody, I'm stuck in my ways

I was still balling off minimum wage

Getting good paper, like page after page

Rolling it up and I'm ready to rage

Put in my 100% when I tear up the stage

Now they all wanna book me

You won't get no apology

Take it all away from me

Take it all away from

Saudade

Hey everybody, I'm going insane

I feel the loss, but none of the gain

Stick by the cross, and it's healing my pain

Planting these seeds, but getting no grain

I do these deeds again and again

I'm finding it hard to engage

It's all a facade, I'm turning a page

Take it all away from me

Take it all away from

Saudade

I'm not the person I see when I look into a mirror

I want to reach out and feel his face against my hands

And I want to run away to a place nobody else exists

My past erased, gone

And I want to create without the need to pay bills or be trapped in society's vision of success

It means nothing to me

There's got to be more to life than this

Maybe this is not my life at all

These are not my friends

My family

My house

My car

My bank details

Nothing is mine, nothing is yours

What is that?

Life is a cycle and I'm trapped inside

I'm scared of running out of ideas

I'm scared of being judged without context

I'm scared of loving, I'm scared of being loved

Enemies turn to friends

Friends turn to enemies

I want an apocalypse

To live in a lonely dystopian world

Just me, no fear

No phone

No sex

A quiet life

PLAYBOY

PLAYBOY is a party song. I really love playing around with synths and I made the beat for this song by layering heavy pads and chords. I then laid down this super heavy four on the floor over them and just started straight-up rapping over all of it. Just super fun and bouncy, I shouted out all of my friends on it too.

The most technical part of this song for me to work on was from the lyric "I only want you.." where I made the creative decision to splice two different beats, back to back, to reflect different moods. It took a long time to figure out how to do this without the two beats clashing. I did it though, and I like how it really mixes up the song and breaks the avalanche of noise.

Lyrics:

Put it in like a magazine

I don't play, boy

Getting zooted off the carti

Punching 808s like the 90s

If I lived then I'd have two pagers

Hit up The Gazette, they wrote two pages

On how I be making dark ages

For all these old ass MC's

Not ready to get past their own histories

Way too away with the fairies

Hip hop needs to pack up, it's lost it's own core

No heat

Nobody wants to hear that no more

Download, delete, repeat

Download

I'm sorry

Not sorry

I'm sorry

Not sorry

I'm sorry

Not sorry

Girls in the house

Boys in the house

People who don't know who they are yet

In the house

Oh yeah, they be in the house

Girls in the house

Boys in the house

People who don't know who they are yet

In the house

Oh yeah, they be in the house

In the -

Jack in the house

Frank in the house

Seb in the house

Shula be in the house

Stefan be in the house

Theo be in the house

Filip be in the house

Elijah in the house

Autumn be in the house

Alex be in the house

Lyrics immature

Critics insecure

I think I found the cure

Just got a manicure

Yeah, I be nailing it

Yeah, I be scaling it

Burj Khalifa

Like Mia Khalifa

I wanna go deeper

Is she a keeper?

Post to post

She post the most

I wanna raise a toast

To me myself and I

Cos I'm so fly

I wonder why

I'm still ten toes down

Ten to go

Who really runs this town?

I guess we'll never know

Humbling

Give that boy some humbling

When he's on the mic all I heard was mumbling

Fumbling

Giving in

Inflating his ego

Girl he gotta go

He gotta go

How could you ever pick him over me

I call it penalty, I'm ready to shoot out

I only want you

All to myself now

Girls in the house

Boys in the house

People who don't know who they are yet

In the house

Oh yeah, they be in the house

Girls in the house

Boys in the house

People who don't know who they are yet

In the house

Oh yeah, they be in the house

In the -

TMA

This is a song for after a party, when you're outside by yourself. It's cold, and you're gazing up at the moon with an empty feeling in your stomach. I explore that empty feeling a lot, I always feel like I'm the only person who gets it. It's like being nervous, or getting butterflies, but without anything there to cause it. Maybe that's it though. The loneliness, the longing, the saudade, of being alone. I like it though, its a very specific mood, and I wanted to capture it in a song. It's slow, ambient, with moog bass gently gliding across the top of the back-beat. The start of the song features an extract from a video that I found on the deep web, of a man bullying porn stars. Shaming them. It always sounds so wrong saying this to people, but I've struggled with porn addiction since I was a child. I stumbled across it and it's been a huge part of my life ever since. I have a strong curiosity towards it, and why it does what it does to me. It isolates me and then feeds off of my isolation. Unlike any other addiction, porn addiction is still very much a taboo, and unless you have it, is very hard to see as something substantial. They're only videos. They won't give you cancer, or liver damage, or get you killed. They do something worse than that, they give you loss of self control, and that's a dangerous line to cross.

The lyrical contents of the song are haunted by what could've been. She could've been mine, if only we had talked more. If only I knew my boundaries. I saw her at a party, I got nervous, and now I'm outside with a cigarette in my hand, I have no jacket on, and she's gone off with someone who was put on this planet to directly block me from getting what I wanted. Her. Or him. Am I gay?

It's a deep reflection on myself, the kind I only get when it's me and my thoughts. The soul and the mind meet somewhere in the middle.

Lyrics:

Freshly 18, throwing your life away already, huh?

Well you just couldn't wait, right?

Didn't wanna see what the world had to offer?

You just

Let's do porn

And ruin my life from here on out, right?

News flash, you're in Jersey

You know, making a porno

(You look like a - douche)

No, Nah, No, No

That's not how it works here

Get on your knees

(You get on your knees)

You're a little uppity -

Are you seriously walking off?

(Yep, I'm all set and I'm all done)

Seriously, get back

(Nope)

I saw you the other night

You didn't see me gassing myself up

To walk over to you

I'm so anxious

Keep getting flashbacks to the things we used to do

The way I loved you

The way it hurt you when I left

Wait, I

Kinda want a boyfriend now

But I don't understand why

She doesn't know what she wants

Her room smells of tobacco, marijuana and alcohol

I see the light

But I don't feel the spark

You're the prettiest

You're the prettiest I've ever seen

But I feel no way towards her because you're not on the silver screen

Bend over

Show me the breaks in your spine

From the demons you carry on your shoulder

Wait I kinda want a girlfriend now

But I don't understand why

He doesn't know what he wants

His wardrobe smells of tobacco, marijuana and alcohol

kill_everybody

This is a strange song to me because it was a very last minute addition to the record. It's kind of like a side thought, but adds so much to the overall narrative of the album. The beat was made a long time before I even started working on Miscellaneous Observations, it was infact made for an entirely different project altogether. In Colchester, my hometown, there's a café record shop called Roots and Grooves. In summer 2023, I used to go in there with my laptop and work on music. I hung out with Nathan Smith most of that summer, Nathan is a super close friend of mine and he's also a well seasoned guitarist. He plays in a band called Butterfly Handshake (who I'll mention again later) but he's also a whizz at making beats. We were there working on a beat (now released as roots&grooves on Soundcloud) originally meant for another local rapper.

Anyways, James, the lead singer of Butterfly Handshake, happened to also be in the building. He saw us making beats and asked if he could lay something down. So we open a new project and he lays down some absolutely beautiful harmonic chords using a pad, and that was that. Almost an entire year later, I stumble back across it. I lay drums, bass, and other elements to it, and then I just leave it.

Around 2 months later, I stumble upon it again and I decide to write to it. I write about the need for isolation I felt at the time and it turns into a big vent. I like it, it's angry but not aggressive. It's like a prayer or a journal entry. I record vocals for it and decide that I want it on the album. It fits perfectly.

Making this song really proved to me that its OK to let ideas marinate over time and that not everything has to be done in a day. This is my Rome.

Lyrics:

Turned off my phone

And spent some time alone

Stayed at my place

I just want my space

I'm an astronaut

And the best in my cohort

Looking at my competition

Manipulating women to use for ammunition

I'm on a mission

To reverse all the damages

Be a burse for the lyrical passages

Much more than this

I'm in metamorphosis

If music is my cocoon

I plan to break out soon

And show everybody through my artistry

I do this wholeheartedly

Not for the money

And not for the -

Psychologically, I'm Mohammed Ali

What's a butterfly to a bee?

They both collect pollen

Only one makes honey

Why's it only when I'm falling

That I'm going all in?

24 on a pay day

24 hours in a day

Intent to use them all

How could I possibly

Fall

Fall asleep

With all the secrets that I keep

But they ain't mine

I could have a headline

But I need to keep my head

If you're still sleeping on me

Get yo ass outta bed

I'm getting way too trigger happy

To put up with what has been said

They pulled up on me then they fled

I wont rest 'til I piss on them

From the top of the podium

Put me in the Colosseum

Keep them in a museum

The dinosaurs bumping their sound

Then came evolution and now I'm around

I'm thinking more, like, French revolution

Kill everybody

Who acts like they know me, what I embody

Who I sloppy-toppy, who I'd rather see as a dead body

TOSKA

Toska is a Russian word I got from a song by Molchat Doma with the same name. Though the song is actually called T0CKA because that's how it's originally spelled in Russian. Molchat Doma are a Russian band, I have no personal connections to Russia but I have to admit that they have pumped out some pretty good music. Mainly because most of its population are depressed, imprisoned by the way of life that they have been oppressed to live over the years through the soviet union and it's inevitable collapse. Toska, like saudade, is a word that doesn't have a firm definition, but rather describes a feeling. It describes a deep emotional state of longing, melancholy and spiritual anguish, which sums up the way I was feeling when I wrote this song pretty well, actually. TOSKA is about depression and hopelessness, I put it in the middle of the tracklist because its an emotional climax. You have to make critical decisions when you're depressed, all the time, because you never know whats next. It feels like a battle with yourself, and the deeper subtext of Miscellaneous Observations is about me trying to find myself. Sometimes, it's really difficult, you know? It gets so overwhelming, and that's what I wanted to capture. It gets to a point where you get so overwhelmed that you simply shut down. I've struggled with feelings of apathy for years, it's actually more painful to not feel grief when you're supposed to grieve because you feel like you're heartless and just not human. So this isn't necessarily a sad sounding song sonically, its super low key. I wanted the lyrics to stand out. That's what mattered. I really like Clipping, they are a really interesting duo and they make some of the most grating hip hop songs I've ever heard. That's exactly the kind of style I was going for. Grating, sadness is grating.

This is the first song that I recorded vocals for. I recorded it way before I recorded the rest of the vocals because I recorded TOSKA on the same day I finished the beat for it. It was originally just meant to be a demo, so I recorded it on a trashy mic, but I actually really liked the way it sounded, and the energy I was carrying at that time, so I knew I wouldn't rerecord it. At the start of the song, I sat in front of a mic scrolling through social media. I think that social media is an echo chamber, what you watch is how you feel. I feel like so many people get depressed nowadays because they sit at home all day, with no natural light, watching depressing videos. Especially men, because they watch videos that make them feel like their self worth is based on how masculine they are. It's sad.

Lyrics:

You don't understand how anything actually matters

Laying on your mattress wondering what the matter is

Life is so torturous

Nature is callous

We fell down a rabbit hole looking for Alice

What if you succumb and never recover?

What if they're reading you cover to cover?

You're so self aware

You feel every stare

They hear all the voices that burst through your skull

Walking on eggshells, it's hurting your soul

You bite all your nails, and get sweaty palms

Avoiding eye contact, you cover your arms

Thinking of dying alone

Self loathing just feels like a loan

Why does everybody always lie to me

I think I got social anxiety

Everybody tryna mould me

When they say

Shouda, woulda, coulda

Be better

Be fitter

Be you

You miss every queue

You're the bad actor

Who actually needs you?

You're the dull chapter

So nobody reads you

You don't add anything to the equation other than the problem

They fall easily to persuasion, you twist and you rob them

The cards are not with you today, you gambled your life away

And now the poison is being handed to you on a silver tray

You're going round in circles, never a full circle

Breathe in, breathe out

You're going round in circles, never a full circle

You're going round in circles, never a full -

Zero motivation

Procrastinating

Chronically emulating

Chemically detonating

Turn on the radio station

All you hear is static

Say you found a gun in the attic

You were feeling empathic

Because

Oh, oh

It's all poor me

Anything for some empathy

The feeling is like humidity

I can't escape it, cannot brush it off of me

When you're

Hiding in a bathroom, don't feel like socialising

From womb to tomb, you feel you're slowly dying

Becoming complacent and stuck in your ways

Adjacent to it just becoming a phase

We're nothing special

(Breathe in)

We're nothing special

(Breathe out)

We're nothing special

(Breathe in)

We're nothing

(Breathe out)

We're nothing special

(Breathe in)

We're nothing special

(Breathe out)

We're nothing special

(Breathe in)

We're nothing

(Breathe out)

You're going round in circles, never a full circle

Breathe in, breathe out

You're going round in circles, never a full circle

deleted

deleted is a super psychedelic interlude I made as a transition into the second half of the project. I made it in like 20 minutes, which is nuts. I made this arpeggio chord progression and I played it through my laptop speaker into my trashy mic and then I played around with it and streched it. I was going to just harmonise to it originally but I started just singing instead, I just started singing "somewhere to go" because it feels like a transitional idea. That's where the whole motif from the project came from. It stemmed from deleted.

Somewhere to go

Somewhere

To -

Somewhere to go

GOD™

I think part of exploring myself on this project also had to include the spiritual. GOD™ is ultimately a comeback season song, after all the emotional turmoil I went through on TOSKA, this is a song that talks about me finding my inner peace. That's what the song means to me personally. Talking to God is a sign that you're trying to reconnect, so the song is about how I'm too busy spending time with God to focus on any drama outside of that, and the chorus is the devil trying to tempt me out of that safe space. It follows a thematic line throughout the project, if kill_everybody is a prayer, then GOD™ is the answer to that prayer.

I can't remember making GOD™ at all. It was my favourite song on the album for a long time though, mainly because I liked how I rounded up the production at the second half of the track. Its groovy. I remember using a really low moog synth for the bass because I wanted it to sound like a 80s dance track. I love the 80s because that era was so synth based, they were new at the time and everyone wanted to get their hands on one. Micheal Jackson, Wham, Depeche Mode, to name a few. I love that whole sound.

I recorded all the vocals as a demo first. In fact, I made so many different versions and demos of GOD™ that I don't even know if the one I released was really the best one. I regret not fixing the clipping on the chopped vocals on the middle section, but it is what it is.

Lyrics:

Heard you were not ready

Gimme my confetti

Been talking to God

He tell me go harder

I been tryna run away

All the

Disorder

Lions and bears

At least somebody cares

(That we running outta stairs)

Can we step it up

How bout I tell you what clothes to wear

How bout I touch you there

How bout I push you to the limit there

How bout I turn around, tell you what to do

These days

These days God is the only guy I trust

Keep me away from pride and lust

Joy and pain inside of my angel dust

I self destruct, reluctant to open up

I'm coping, I swear I'm coping but I can't put down the cup

How bout I tell you what clothes to wear

How bout I touch you there

How bout I push you to the limit there

How bout I turn around, tell you what to do

BRAIN.FREEZE

I have literally no clue how I made the bass on this track sound the way it does, but I love it. BRAIN.FREEZE is the most overproduced track on the entire album. I spent about 3 weeks making the beat for this track. It started as a super basic beat with these weird drums that I cooked up, and then I added more synths and pads.

I made the beat mainly in college while I was waiting around backstage at a show. I'm an acting student and we did this big showcase before Christmas, and in between rehearsals I sat on my laptop and tinkered with the mix. BRAIN.FREEZE is the first beat I ever made in 3/4, it was fun to stretch myself and do something different!

The song has a slightly off-kilter feel to it, which sets it apart from everything else in the local hip hop scene. For the lyrics I dug through my notes app for some bars. I often write one liners or short punchlines that never actually get into a song but I pick out the ones that sound the coolest and that fit the theme of the song. BRAIN.FREEZE is just a fun blend of me talking my shit really, and that also applies to deXXXter.

Lyrics:

Why the hell you be hating on me

When you never been one of my shows?

Why the hell you be hating on me

When you never met one of my bros?

Why the hell you be hating on me when you know for a fact that you're insecure?

You be hating on me because my intentions always been pure

Always been final

Always had a backbone, always been spinal

I'm a Saw purist, I'm anti Spiral

Anti viral

You'll never catch me on the TikTok

Take a look at my flick flack

Watch me pull out my thick stock

Safety off

Click clack

Been on boom bap

Ever since I wrote my first rap

Boom

Make it go boom

Boom

(Boom)

Boom

(Boom)

Boom

(Boom)

Boom

(Boom)

(Boom boom boom)

I don't need nobody to follow

The truth is the hardest pill to swallow

That's why everybody choking

All pictures of wannabe rappers smoking

You must be joking

Put out a wacky mix-tape

Glorified earrape

I'm going ape

No monkey business

Witness the fitness

I need another cup

Career going tits up

Like your mum laying down

You should really see what I been laying down

I beat up the beat harder than you beat up your misses

I can make you go missing

New singles, new misses

Quit dismissing

Father to son

I dissed you for fun

The fact is

You're target practice

I just got another job in

Smoke you like a 2 5, you just a dupe

Now lemme give ya the scoop

I was in your hood like Robin

If I had a Tiger, I'd be like Baskin

Run that backwards, I'm not asking

Wordplay so cold

My brain freeze

They say I'm so bold

I can't explain these

First degrees

I get when I burn my CD's

I'm going nuts

Lemme pull down my jeans

Boom

Make it go boom

Boom

(Boom)

Boom

(Boom)

Boom

(Boom)

Boom

(Boom)

(Boom boom boom)

Why the hell you be hating on me

When you never been one of my shows?

Why the hell you be hating on me

When you never met one of my bros?

How can you hate me?

What's there not to like?

All of the time I spend wondering why

Why you hate me?

I sail the seven seas

Trying to find what there's not to like about me

deXXXter

I just really wanted deXXXter to go hard. I made the beat first. It's partially inspired by Brazilian phonk because I loved the sound of the leads that Brazilian phonk producers use. I also wanted to make sure that the beat had lots of beat switches and sections in it. The reason that the beat feels fast paced is because of the beat switches, but it maintains the same rhythm the whole way through. I added some bounce by syncopating some of the arpeggios on my synth patterns. I love syncopation, my music teacher at school taught me it one day and I've used it ever since. It involves accenting "weak" beats, or the off-beats between the main beats, shifting the emphasis away from the naturally strong beats to create a sense of surprise or tension. It's a mathematical probability that if you line up 3 lots of something for long enough, it will eventually be divisible by 4. In the case of a 4/4 pattern, breaking the notes down into 3 beats will mean that they will be on beat every four bars. This adds a bounce to the melody and leaves the listener slightly on edge. I also added delay to the main synth in the middle section after the beat switch. It sounds like I'm playing more than I actually did and adds a more natural bounce to the pattern.

I haven't got too much to say about the lyrics or vocals for the song, I just wanted to try out some new rap cadences. I think this might have been the first song I made where I double tracked my vocals. I do that all the time now, it adds more depth and punch to my voice.

Lyrics:

Like gum

(Like what?)

Like gum

(Like what?)

Like gum

(Like what?)

Like gum

Chewing you up like gum

I'm so extra with it

I might even kill some

I'm so Dexter with it

I do this thing with so much swagger

It's staggering

She hit my cart I'm tryna bag her

Throw a stag and a wedding ring

Though I'm married to the game

They know I carried a lame

This guy said my hardest song was a feature from him

Nah

Really his hardest song was a feature for me

Get this fake outta my way

I'm way high, life a high way

You better stay in your -

And never come at me again

He rapping like he in a victory lane

I did some laps and stayed off my main

Spit on this thing so good that Hailey Welch had to retire

Hitting the beat so strong that all the pros had to rewire

Back to the drawing board

Look what I'm scoring, Lord

Up early in the morning, praying for my opps

I know their girls are getting bored

Lemme take them to the shops

Show em what I can afford

Getting so much bread I should raise a toast

They think that I'm dead, I'm just on a ghost

Suicide doors switching up on the post

But when I back it out, I be doing the most

Had to mow him down cos he was a grass

Beads round my neck like a Mardi Gras

If you problem get up off your arse

Quit sending my girl paragraphs

Drinking San Miguel for a couple laughs

He was playing show and tell with them photographs

Boys gassing up to me

And the irony

Half of them are Nazi party

Verbally Kamikaze

But I don't smash planes

I crash parties

I slash veins

And open arteries

Rhyme so patterned I call it tweed

Call me up lemme know what you need

Yeah

I locked in

And through away the key

I'm patiently

Waiting for y'all to get with me

You never crashed a whip

Blue pill is the only one you slip

Never spent a milly on a crib for your grandma

Go back to school, work on your grammar

I make all salad, no dressing, all blessing

I'm puffing a 3 5, watching your girl undressing

Yeah

(Nasty!)

Chewing y'all up like gum

I'm so extra with it

I might even kill some

I'm so Dexter with it

Chewing you up like

Chewing you up like chewing you up like

Chewing you up like

Chewing you up like chewing you up like

Chewing you up like

Chewing you up like chewing you up like

ああ、膝が抜けそうだ！

BACKFLIP

I always knew that I wanted BACKFLIP to be a hype track. I go to a lot of gigs both locally and away and I love mosh pits. So I needed to make a song that would get people turnt! I started with this super heavy 808 bass and then I added drums, and then those deep synths like the ones I made for PLAYBOY. I decided to add a build up for the intro and add a super heavy contrast between where that ends and where the drums and bass come in. The whole song is really just about sex so I added in bed squeaking sounds like the kind you get in jerk beats and I just incorporated those into the song. I knew I had to kick of the song with an unforgettable one liner. I had come up with this super stupid idea for a bar when I was walking home from school which I had written down in my notes and though about for a while. If I made a sex tape, it would win an Oscar. Just super stupid considering the fact I was 16 at the time and it would be illegal to distribute anything like a sex tape and yet alone, win an award with it. But I went for the bar anyway because I thought it was funny, and also because it worked with the subtle sexual foundations of the album, as one of the pillar themes. At the end of the song I sampled an actual porn video, which I also did at the end of INSOMNIAC and kill_everybody by muffling the clip slightly and adding plugins to it until it sounded like something else. In a bizarre way, a lot of porn videos have a kind of rhythm to them, take from that what you like. The sexual theme runs parallel with TMA, and with the themes of the project. The self, the spiritual, the sexual, the social, and the creative.

Lyrics:

If I made a sex tape it would win an Oscar

Big backbone, and I'm working on my posture

This guy turned out to be an impostor

Working with the ink, I'm feeling like a monster

Do a backflip

Then back it up on me

Feel sorry for my exes, they will never find nobody better

If I get her

Then I bed her

Then I leave her in my sweater

Cos the wetter the better

Ask Siri the weather

He says it's gonna be raining

Not literally

You get the imagery

Of the bravado that I'm painting

(Woah)

When it comes to bed chemistry, I'm Walter White

I sleep with anybody, black or white

All day, all night, wide or tight

As long as we got camaraderie

We can make some really good

You got signals I'm tryna read like Riley

Can I play the lead like BB?

I could be your king, you could be my fling

This ain't a six string I'm feeling through your G string

Wait a minute

(Uh uh)

I'm not a one minute man, I got a whole damn work out plan

Do a backflip

Then back it up on me

Doing lyrical gymnastics

Over all these special-educational celibacy fanatics

Carrying my legacy through the politics

Of debating whether or not I'm into chicks

Like what?

rap is dead

I sampled my college class at the start of this song. As part of a warm up, we were making an acapella of a song out of My Singing Monsters and somebody recorded it. At first, I sampled it as a joke to show the rest of the class. I went home after college and it took me about an hour to get an idea down with it. After that, I just left it.

I started reading a book called An Artists Way by Julia Cameron. It works as a 6 week course made for artistic recovery. Its absolutely brilliant and it completely changed me, I feel more confident and creative than I ever have before. Something interesting that Julia talks about in An Artists Way is the way that negative comments can really stick with a person and weigh them down. She explains that almost everything you think about your own ability at something can be traced back to something that someone has said to you. Even if you can't remember what they said or did!

Our roots go far deeper than we think they do. So I started writing a song about all the things that have discouraged me from being my true creative self over my lifetime, in hope that I can finally address them and put them to rest.

The first verse is about my creative experiences as a child / tween and what people said to me that affected me. There's nothing wrong with getting useful feedback from people. That's like the water to a plant, it's support. However, it's so destructive to be overcritical and give someone negative feedback with absolutely no good intention behind it. Or jokes. That's obvious, but what isn't obvious is the struggle of standing on your own two feet when there's nobody to give you feedback. Being human is seeking validation, we have to know that we are a useful member of our tribe. Have I made something that people will enjoy? Something that people will benefit from? I think that writers block is your body's way of shutting down in order to stay safe. It's really important that we give artists a safe space to grow so that they can enter a flow state and make something that represents their vision. This is the second issue I raised in the song. Forcing an artist to make something that they don't want to is absolutely unacceptable. I'm not talking about putting a paint brush or a guitar in their hands and forcing them at gunpoint, I am talking about the pressure under the surface. The pressure to make something that people might like rather than what you really want to make. I was part of a toxic social circle of other artists before I wrote this song. I don't think that they fully appreciated the fact that I was experimenting and trying to find a style at the time, they just thought I was shit. I was, but that's beside the point. They weren't supportive either way. Its clear that they were trying to go one way and I was trying to go another. So I left, and I'm glad I did!

The main hook of the song is "you were never there", it sums up the fact that I'm talking about my own experiences as an artist, and all the struggles that come with creating art. While its so easy to stand on the outside and judge it for what it is on a surface level.

Lyrics:

You was never there

Where were you when something inspired me to write my first song?

Pushing demons off my chest, they were dragging me along

What would you know about that?

When I read it out to you, you told me my voice was too flat

Come on now, I was seven years old!

Fighting off homework, not doing as I was told

So by demons I meant my times tables

As I got older those demons turned into bigger obstacles

All these cheap comments have a cost

God came to me when I found myself lost

In the dark, being gas-lighted and led in the wrong direction

When I was tired like burning rubber, no protection

Burning through my rubbers, my pen could not stand imperfection

You was never there

When something inspired me to engage my creativity

Experimenting, exploring my mental, yet they still took a shovel to me

Buried under their expectations of what a hip hop artist should be

The art didn't matter, the promotion did

This affects us all, if you allow me to be candid

Look what we did

Rap is dead, and I'm growing morbid

We're all too scared of being criticised

If nobody bumping us we'll never get commercialised

If we do not break the charts, then we don't get monetised

If we don't get any money, we cannot pay for our sins

It's a sticky situation where nobody wins

You was never there

HOURGLASS

Conceptually, HOURGLASS is very similar to rap is dead because it focuses on the need to validation and the desire to exist. Whilst rap is dead focuses on meaning in art, HOURGLASS focuses on meaning in self. I guess I had my quarter life crisis when I made this record. I was just so utterly lost and down on myself. I felt like I was separate from my body and that giving meaning to my life was so completely useless because everything I'll ever live through will be relative. This wasn't like depression, or an emotional breakdown, it was the end. It really felt like I had lived too much, seen to much, been too much. What was the point? What is the meaning of the meaningless? It was a phase that lasted for about 8 months and I still carry some of that emotional baggage with me from time to time, just not so much anymore. It was just so disheartening. I write songs because that's what I enjoy doing, but sometimes there's just a need to absolutely vent what I feel, and what I think about how I feel.

The first verse of this song was actually written by Nathan Smith. He was my best friend at the time and we both took drama at school. For our final assessment we had to make a performance based off of a stimulus. I can't remember what the stimulus was but we ended up making an experimental Brechtian style piece about depression. I can't lie, it might be one of the best drama pieces I have ever worked on. Anyways, we wanted to incorporate our love for experimental music in it and we looked to Clipping. Visions Of Bodies has so many interesting performances from Daveed Diggs. It's like spoken word over super haunting soundscapes, and we took that idea for our performance. Nathan wrote a verse for the performance, kind of as a joke at first, but it ended up as something that perfectly encapsulated the themes of the performance. We used some of it but I kept the whole thing on my phone for whatever reason, and when I was looking around for lines that I could use on HOURGLASS, I stumbled across the verse.

It just spoke to me in such a specific way, and I knew that I just had to use it. Sometimes people just casually write the words you've been trying to find for ages, and it's like a eureka moment. It would have been a shame to waste such a good verse. I wrote the rest of the song myself, but using Nathan's verse at the start allowed me to hit the ground running.

The production work is based around a piano riff I came up with, and continues inspired by the production on Goblin by Tyler, The Creator. I love the way he uses drum machines on that record, and how spooky the overall production sounds. There's a lot of different sections in this song but my favourite is the second half, where I drowned out all the bass and distorted the drum machine until it sounded incomprehensible. I wanted to shout over that section because it feels very intense, and it contrasts with the outro / bridge between HOURGLASS and ORIGAMI.

The outro / bridge is about the need to change, and the fear of running out of time to change. Or to win back the person or opportunity you once took for granted. The production is super dense, I used synthesis and heavily reverbed vocal harmonies to create a dense and powerful wave of sound.

Lyrics:

People hear but never listen

What I say is what they're missin'

And it's me that they're dismissin'

I keep on living in the distance

I can feel you judging me

Laughing, making fun of me

Shoot, life is done to me

What's the point in living life if it don't feel like I'm living?

Life is a mission

Feel like a bug on the ceiling

Feel like a thug or a villain

All I feel is this feeling

They cannot see my vision

'Cos they are blind to my inner religion

I stick to my beliefs when I need guidance

I'm pushing myself forwards, there's subsidence

In my tracks

And I'm training so hard, I'll be paying death tax

I been working on this for like four years and it's still early days, early days

Navigating the industry is a blurry maze, blurry maze

No wonder I don't know where to go

Did I give up everything for something that doesn't love me back?

Tell me why dream big, get rich, die at 40? Heart attack

Did I keep on asking myself questions I don't know the answers to?

Did this happen to all my ancestors too?

Am I living too fast?

What is the point?

What is my purpose

Give me a purpose

Show me the light

What am I doing here?

Who are my serpents near?

Who am I serving near?

And now I'm running out of time

I held it out for far too long

Your perfect hourglass body

Delicate as the sand that files through you

Slips out of my eye line against the sunset

Running, running, running

Away from the horizon

Away from everything that it is advertising

Advertising, advertising, advertising

ORIGAMI

ORIGAMI was never originally going to be on the album. I made it originally as a single, I even made a music video for it, but I scrapped the whole project because I showed it to my parents and they didn't like it. I came back to it a short while later, with a fresh mindset. I polished up the track and decided that my parent's opinions didn't matter. I decided to put it on my album because, ultimately, I was proud of it! It's the first time I've ever made a song in the style of a gospel. That was the inspiration for the track. I wanted a pocket of time on the project to talk about my relationship with Christ. It makes sense, the album as a whole is about me trying to find myself, and when you go through the process of finding yourself you have to learn that your purpose on earth is far bigger than you. Developing a better relationship with God is developing a better relationship with yourself.

In ORIGAMI, I talk about life as a metaphorical sheet of paper. God can mould you into his image, and renew you. I needed to be renewed, its something that needed to happen!

I do a spoken word speech at the end of the track about my love for God. I wrote it on a train ride home, it just came to me. God spoke through me, and he helped me finish the track.

I didn't make ORIGAMI. God did.

Lyrics:

She wants me to bring the papers

This ain't

Origami

Pull me over, wanna see my papers

This ain't

Origami

Walk out a bank, pull out with the papers

This ain't

Origami

This ain't, this ain't, this ain't

Origami

This ain't, this ain't, this ain't

Folding over (Folding over?)

White like Dover (White like Dover?)

Ripping all the fibre

How's your broadband

(How's your broadband?)

Faster than a glider

When I shake your hand

Tell you peace

Aiming for a Jesus piece

Jesus please

I'm begging you for stronger knees

(Yah)

They buckle like a belt

Every card I dealt

Was the devils best

I fell out of the nest

Tears of a clown

I lost my balance looking down

She wants me to bring the papers

This ain't

Origami

Pull me over, wanna see my papers

This ain't

Origami

Walk out a bank, pull out with the papers

This ain't

Origami

This ain't, this ain't, this ain't

Origami

The love I have for god is like my love for nothing else

The love is so complete and trusting

I want to fall into him

I want to be his

Because he is life

God has stitched himself into every fibre of this existence

To love god is to love this existence

And if you can live this existence

You can love anything

Even yourself

Praise him

Praise the lord

Amen

instagram politics

instagram politics is the song that took the longest time to make on the album. It started off with a sample. I had friends in a local band called Butterfly Handshake and they released a song that I wanted to sample. Just to see if I could, and I knew that if I did, I would be the only local hip hop artist in Colchester to sample a local band. I just really wanted to stir up the local scene and take a first, I guess.

At first, I looped the breakdown in the song, and left it. I showed that to a couple people from the band and they didn't like it. I took that information home and sat with that for a while. I didn't give up, I tried again. This time, I took a few chords from the guitar in the song, and I chopped that over some drums, bass, and percussion. And hence, the beat to instagram politics was born!

Originally, I wanted to rap super fast over this beat, MC style. I must have done about 400+ takes of this over the space of 3 months before I realised that it wasn't going to work. I started goofing around and freestyling to it with a vocal inflection. I was trying to sound like Danny Brown. I decided, for whatever reason, that I would settle on that idea. I wrote some lyrics, and I recorded my vocals for the song.

I found Sir Save on Soundcloud, and I was immediately drawn to how original his music was. It was hip hop, but with a twist I hadn't seen anyone in the local scene pull off before. So I reached out, and we found out that we had a lot in common. Similar music taste, mutual friends, common goals. I asked him if he wanted to do a feature on a song I was working on called instagram politics. He got back with a feature pretty fast, and it was perfect! Sir Save's feature was the cherry on the cake for instagram politics, alongside the guitar solo.

Tom Groves played in a lot of local bands at the time I was working on the album. I'd see him playing at gigs, and he'd often steal the show with his guitar skills. He was just so good at shredding! I reached out to him about a guitar solo for the song, and he said yes! He sent one over to me pretty much the next day and I mixed it into the track.

The goal of the track was to, ultimately, merge the local band scene, and the local hip hop scene. There was some rivalry between the two (mostly one sided) and I wanted to change that. We're all musicians, and we share a passion. So why not share it with each other, regardless of what genre we are in?

Lyrics:

I might just do this in, like, a silly voice

Alright

It's my alter ego

Yeah, I think I can do this

We boutta shake it up

I feel the rocks

I don't see the hands

Put 'em up

Put em up, up, up

I feel the rocks

I don't see the hands

Put 'em up

Put em up, up, up

Yeah

I'm in a strip club doing doing lines like an actor

Actually

Scratch that

That not true at all

I was actually doing xannys off a narwhal

Maybe it's a unicorn

We cannot pay tuition so now we're making uni porn

Off a unicycle out the back of a store that sells utensils

I map out my flows with stencils

You guys are so trash your songs would sound better as instrumentals

The irony is

Almost ironic

Take your pick

But not mine, cos I cannot fingerstyle

See, I could turn this into an innuendo but I will be more versatile

Let it reach the crescendo

I do this when I get bored

Meanwhile, they said I couldn't sell a hip hop record

According to them, my voice isn't deep enough

Ironically, these guys are so shallow

I just know that every time I dive into their catalogues I hit my head

Yo, you know what would be crazy right now?

Like, if we just decided

Yo, lets just add a guitar solo

Well here's one right now

Oh, tear it up!

How do I?

One sec

Yo, one sec

Lemme fix my mic

Look

You grab a mic

And flex that like you're him

Keep talking 'bout money

Like a good boy who submits

Being on this beat was a must

I'm Michael Jackson, you're biting the dust

I get no girls only the chuzz

My mind is filled with lust

Please can Someone tell Chyna I'm at the back of the bus

A young man can never be greedy

I put my verses on my CV

This verse so holy, came from black midi

You gain an extra bone when you see my biddi

I - these niggas but no Diddy

You have to when you live in this city

Tell me to do ten, I'll do you fifty

('Cos why not?)

I'm only kid can say nigga on this beat

Looking out for all the Colchester cheats

Thank you Henry, for all this heat

That was a really terrible ending

MÅNGATA

MÅNGATA was produced fairly quickly compared to the other tracks on the album, but it took a long time to write. I really think that a closing track can either make, or break an album. It's like the last chapter in a book, or a closing scene of a film. An album always tells some kind of a story, most of the time indirectly or in a way that isn't obvious. But it's always there. Miscellaneous Observations is a journey through myself, and MÅNGATA is after I've made it home and I'm now reflecting on that journey. Could I have gone any other way?

Lyrics:

I just slept 7 to 7

I used to make beats in detention

When I was 14

I made my hands clean

Went to get communion

Because its, oh so humbling

On my knees for something bigger than me

I been invested in my self

Daily and nightly

Investing in a new reality

Bold as brass, groping opportunities by the horns

My head into the mirror glass, only feel my crown of thorns

Realness always wins

I confess on all my sins

Told myself that I would stop

No longer concerned with whose on top

They been more into substance abuse

Then making something with substance

If you calling on me, talk to the answer machine

I been searching inside of my soul for answers whilst also tying to stay clean

I recently put all my stars in line

Found out that none of my beliefs are actually mine

My personality

Only been my personal reality

Me and all these fools

Always fall into the, same cycles

I never had a hold of the handle's, bar

Flowing in-between between being an empath

And taking the wrong path

Whatever counts as trauma

Doesn't really matter

I got things holding me back

I'll strip it all off

I can no longer hate people if they showing ambition

Though respectfully I need to fulfil my own vision

In the midst of my isolation

I am creating more and doubting less

Because I'm no longer relying on validation

Somewhere to go

How could I be mad I fumbled all these girls, not everybody can be compatible

How could I be mad when I got humbled by them boys, when I forgot to slip my Adderall

You don't have to understand me

You don't have to

You don't have to understand me

All these lessons that I took home, I stay adaptable

When I finally got hit by maturity

Only then, I realised the choices I made in naivety

I'm sorry if I hurt anybody, that was the old me

Tripping over my ego, I fell terribly

15 13

I just laid down my life over these past 19 tracks

Feel free to use them to cover your backs

Listen

There'll be truths you will uncover, and some you'll never know

But you can always come back here when you need somewhere to

Thank you for Listening to Miscellaneous Observations. To everyone who went out of their way to listen to the album, or buy a CD, I owe you my gratitute. To Kinozolte, Nathan Smith, Tom Groves and Sir Save, thank you for being a part of the project.

Miscellaneous Observations is my most honest album to date, I held nothing back.

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