verbiage.

I could say its been a while, because it has been.. albeit a tad cliche’. Oh well.

This is hopefully the first of many more musically related posts I’ll be sharing with you guys. I’ve written countless songs in the past 9 months. Still can’t believe its been almost a year since I updated my blog, but I’ve always been the type of person to keep business on the low until I’ve actually got something to talk about. No sense in using bandwidth unnecessarily, right?

What we’ve got here is behind the scenes footage of my first music video ever. Pretty big deal for me, to be quite honest. Never spent any extensive amount of time in front of a camera lens before, so the whole process was a pretty exciting (and consuming) experience. The main director, Nimi Hendrix of Secret Society Motion Pictures, was one of the many videographers I’d reached out to regarding this task, and so after further discussion and correspondence, we were able to settle on a date and location of Washington, DC as the backdrop for the shoot.  

The song for the video is titled “League of My Own Pt. 4”, and it was produced by none other than Ben Beasley (aka Anom the Phenom, who has also been mentioned previously in earlier posts on this blog - don’t worry, you’ll get to hear from him, too). The beat was epic, so I absolutely had to get something written to it. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, to say the least.

I tend to get real wordy at times with this stuff, I’m reminded after typing all of this. I suppose you could call it verbiage? Anyway, take a look at the behind the scenes and stay tuned for the official video dropping soon!

Footage was shot by BmarFamous of Secret Society Motion Pictures. Appreciate it bro!

-B3/Verb

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So its been a VERY long time since I’ve posted up any of my musical developments; I’ve been hard at work getting as many songs written as I can, while simultaneously making it to the studio anytime I’ve had a free weekend. This time around, I’ve actually got something for you all.

Presenting my very first debut project, “My Life in Syntax: The Jay-Z Instrumentals”. I changed gears regarding what type of sound I wanted people to hear on my first compilation effort, so I decided to go with some of my favorite Jay-Z beats from his extremely vast discography. Its a summary of my life up until this point, with varying perspectives from different angles of my psyche.

But enough chatter. You can download the project here (or by clicking on the artwork above).

In other news, I’ve been composing more technical numbers nonstop this past month and a half, and have lots of things lined up for the near future while I push this debut project. My output is at an optimum point right now, and I don’t see it slowing down anytime soon. Feels good to be back in the zone.

-B3/Verb

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Back from the dead! Haven’t been on here in a while, in the process of settling into a new job and getting some other songs done in between the madness; such are the hectic ins and outs of life. I will update the blog a little later with the musical developments, but in the meanwhile I figured I’d post up a photo I had edited the other day.

For those who don’t already know, I am a die-hard BMW fanatic. I spotted this M3 in the local Giant parking lot, and as he clearly parked just as far away from the supermarket as I normally do, I parked a couple spaces away and snapped this pic. Not bad for a cell phone camera, if I do say so myself. Enjoy!

-B3/Verb

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China on the come up! Stanced 1 Series hatch.

I am definitely convinced that BMW NA doesn’t want NA to have anything cool.

-B3/Verb

insanism:

theverbiage:

Just an MP3 video slideshow featuring one of my tracks, “Decision”. Pictured in the slideshow are some of my primary musical influences, along with Busta Rhymes, since the instrumental was his to begin with. :)

-B3/Verb

I went to high school with Marc (theverbiage), what a talented beast. Seriously, I can’t think of anything he isn’t good at, but mostly I remember he was the absolute best at making me laugh. Love you Marc, and best of luck with the rapping shenanigans! 

Talented beast eh? I kinda like that. ;) Thanks so much Aleena, support from people like you makes everything I do with music worthwhile.

A short video showcasing some awesome dudes with their automobiles from the Level One group out of Ontario, Canada.

Basically, I’ll always be a Euro guy, but I <3 JDM sometimes. That is all.

-B3/Verb

Just an MP3 video slideshow featuring one of my tracks, “Decision”. Pictured in the slideshow are some of my primary musical influences, along with Busta Rhymes, since the instrumental was his to begin with. :)

-B3/Verb

Favorite Girl

Good evening, Tumblrfam. Today I had the pleasure of getting to work with someone that I’ve known and respected for quite some time regarding their musical insight and visionary production, A.Sesay of Sa-Loan Productions. His work has been showcased on my blog in the past (his wonderfully produced “A Special” EP was up on here in 2010, and is still available for download/listening here), and I was more than excited when he asked me to be a part of his upcoming project The “A Chronicles” EP.

I arrived at the studio around 11:45am or so.. maybe it was a little later. Either way, we got to working right away. I had my verses written and ready for recording to a song that Sesay had produced entitled “Favorite Girl”, which also features another talent he’d come across; this artist goes by the stage name of Hawthorne, and he does an amazing job of singing the hook/bridge on the track.

Once the verses were done, we began to mix down the vocals. I even took a stab at messing around with the compression and ratios of some of the stuff. I didn’t do half bad a job with it, either (Sesay can vouch for me on this). A bit later we took a trip to the hardware store to pick up a few items for the house, as well as to Chick-Fil-A for lunch, since we were positively STARVING by this time. 

Pictured below: the obligatory shot of the 12-count meal complete with strawberry milkshake, which Sesay had put me on to, as I had never ordered a strawberry shake from Chick-Fil-A before. That will soon change (whenever I’m in the mood for a shake, that is).

I know that somewhere out there, rappers are reading/will read this. So for you rappers who don’t understand the painstaking time and effort that goes into mixing down a track, or to the ones who are CONSTANTLY pestering for your tracks to be mixed down ASAP, you should stick around with your engineer once you’re done with your portion of recording a song the next time you are in the studio. I say that to say that we spent another 3-4 hours mixing the rest of the song down after we ate, and there is still even more possible room for improvement/tweaking.

Impatient rappers, this is your final warning.

But it wouldn’t be a true studio session if we didn’t get sidetracked somehow and go on 324627384 different tangents.. which wound up leading us to just as many musically inclined conversations, anyway. This was a perfect opportunity to catch up with a very hardworking and diligent friend of mine, as well as to plan our next steps for the future and what we expect to gain from our efforts.

Once it was all said and done, we were left with a very solid song. Balance, conceptual consistency, and a lovely island vibe to the whole thing. Of course, this is one of Sesay’s project tracks, so it will not be leaked to the public until he deems it appropriate to do so. He is very pleased with what we’ve accomplished, and if he’s happy, then I definitely am as well.

-B3/Verb

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