dearcl113

[dearcl113]

021 - Beast In The Woods, Epic literature & Slavic folklore

Above is a list of my top countries on Soundcloud currently - this is my new SoundCloud that I activated when I released 'I'm a ghost 2' so this is since 2022. I do all my own marketing generally, so this has been interesting to watch.

At some point in time my music caught on in Ukraine, then other Slavic countries around 2021-2022. My biggest listeners for along time were from a variety of random countries ranging from there to Vietnam to Pakistan, return listeners at least. Especially around Kyiv. I was really confused why this was happening - I'm sure there's a lot of reasons but when I researched Slavic literature past the mainstream stuff I've heard about I learned that in it's folklore there's often an anti-hero who is imperfect who conducts good deeds. This is pretty much my music especially around the Light trilogy. Back in the day I ghost-wrote for some artists in Eastern Europe, but I don't think it's that. It could be bots, regardless doesn't change the inspiration. Europe is a really cool place, over the years talking to people from there I generally learn a lot. It gave me something to study for sure, so when I sat down to write 'Beast in the woods' I was thinking of writing something that was reminiscent of an old Knight epic where they slayed the dragon. There's a lot of stories in European folklore of villagers banding together to slay monsters in the woods - I wanted to do my own version for my European audience as almost a thank you I guess. These stories represent overcoming adversity and what scares you, to achieve something better. The song performed decently on it's own without much push, but Fiji's verse I think really solidified it as a 'good' song in my eyes. The energy he puts onto the song really captures how hectic I felt during the final days of recording 'The Long Dark' and the pressure I put on myself to put out something decent. Throughout The Long Dark I shift through different timelines as I play with the 'Ghost world' theme. I do have ancestral backgrounds in Europe, which is what I thought of while I wrote this - there's a lake named after my family I guess, on top of some royal grounds we used to own. Another life that I only learned about because I researched my family history. There's also the repeating theme of this 'epic' poem, aka slaying monsters, becoming the hero. The Beast In The Woods is, to me, the maximum representation of that theme - the story is told so that these songs can be pictured as thoughts of the main character as they go throughout their day at work, then into the night at the party, and there-after. The main character (DEARCL) silences these thoughts by thinking of these fantasies. Sort of a play on day-dreaming.

[dearcl113]

028 - Spotlight, Plays & the TV studio

In high school the TV studio I hung out in a lot would give out jobs sometimes to some of the students. It consisted of filming town meetings, special events for the school, or plays that the drama club put on. I did this a couple times, especially filming drama. I think being around something so creative was fun to me, I wasn't really used to that outside of my friends in my neighborhood but I never really wanted to act. I did a documentary on a play my senior year, it was a recap video shot similar to how a lot of the extras would be set up on DVD's back then - the whole 'behind the scenes' process thing. This was a year after I started doing lighting and sometimes filming the play for the prior semester, Little Shop of Horrors. These events would be huge for the whole town, people of all ages would come and pack into the auditorium until it was basically full other than the crew area up top where they operated sound, lighting, everything else and back stage. I liked how creepy the story was despite it being a musical - musical's definitely aren't my favorite type of music but for story-telling purposes and world-building they work well. The song goes through my background working lighting and everything, but then sort of diverges from real life. I definitely never dated anybody in my high school drama club even if I had some crushes. In a way it's a fantasy song because of that, I pictured how I felt back then and what I could imagine for my life even if my background was different. In a sense it's a homage to the musical itself, more of an interpolation definitely inspired by 'Suddenly Seymour'. I don't listen to musicals most of the time, but I appreciate any theater honestly even if being a theater actor is like a nightmare for me. Every night after school there'd be that same electric feeling I got at Field of Screams. I tried to do a drama class once, but couldn't really get over this one exercise they made us do. It was weird, we all stood in a circle and in a line had to scream as loud as we could in front of everybody. I couldn't really do that for some reason. I get it that it's an exercise to break stage-fright, but it just felt off to me. I think over time I've gotten over that, especially since my live music I scream my lyrics a lot sometimes to give it more energy. I like Spotlight, it's a jazzy record that has this blend of Bounce/R&B. It's funny how Ghoul went from a dark record in the beginning to now a relatively fun, light record. I went through three to four drafts of this song, which this one being my final. The original versions were a lot more depressing and less structured - it was intended to be a depressing song about feeling like an 'outsider' but it ended up as this weird jazzy funk song. I didn't really feel like an outsider there. I felt like I had a job to do and that job belonged, and I was in a place where I could learn things I had always wanted. Like the sound-boards, or the spotlight I had to physically move. Doing these jobs allowed me to use the auditorium to film basically whenever, which was good for my sketch show. And in a way, it helped me get over my stage-fright. Who knows, maybe some day I'll work a show again.

[dearcl113]

037 - Bot Farms, Soundcloud & A decade underground

Last year the FCC officially banned bots from boosting streaming numbers, but even before that it was a system I knew about but didn't really understand. I saw a comment on /r/makinghiphop today that spoke about how 1% of Soundcloud's userbase is human, while the rest are bots. It made me think. I've been on soundcloud since 2011 when I posted the first beats I made with garage-band. Back then plays were big, and I did get random people who liked my music - my main promotional tool back then was this site called Cloud Killers where you'd be linked to a random soundcloud song, be tasked with commenting/reviewing it, in hopes of that person reviewing your song. I'd game this as to where I'd review as many songs as possible with detailed reviews, only really seeing a tenth of that effort in return. I didn't realize it, but all the followers I gained weren't the listeners I should've been focusing on. They were followers, but they didn't engage with my content - and over time as I stopped getting as much plays, I didn't get why until I made a new account. Functionally, they acted the same as bots. Around 2015 I got the first messages from what I think basically were bot-farms that were just starting - they'd message my account, but also email me. To me all these emails were from people running bots, but I tend to think too overly negative about the music industry sometimes. It made it difficult to tell who was a real music promoter, and who wasn't. It didn't help with the fact I saw songs blow up on SoundCloud that didn't make sense to me why they were - of course this was brushed off by me thinking art just being subjective. By 2017 bot farm were really picking up in an obvious sense - at least to me. The biggest way I could identify this was by play to like ratio, for instance if you had a song with 15k plays with one to two likes - that was an obvious indicator. This was before the mass of profiles which could game likes, but this was still bot farms in their infancy. It was growing to be more than a guy in his house with multiple phones running multiple accounts playing music. There were videos even back in 2017 explaining the very bare bones process, processes that would be easily caught and identified now leading to the bot-creator being banned. I've always felt weird about manipulating the plays on a song, even from my own accounts to each other. It doesn't seem necessary, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Which is an odd thing now in the age of numbers and counts indicating success - we are post an era of massive bot farms on all social media platforms. Now it's almost like you can't trust any large number, but honestly that could be a vast over negative implication. I watched these people develop their process starting from very small beginnings in email pitches, to more elaborate websites further down the road and AI music generating money for them, to now AI which sets up artists on lists where they are are either invited for promotion or added unknowingly to a botnet. I'm not sure there's much the artist can do about the last one. Botnets used to be one of the things I hated the most about the industry, blaming it for why things got so bad - why everything turned into a gimmick. But that's just a cop-out. It's not the sole reason.

It's unfortunate that music streaming has become a commodity to be hustled by people who don't necessarily make it - who don't create functional art but use it as a tool to monetize and make money off it. I can see why bot farms exist, but speaking as someone who watched them rise, I'm not sure of their validity or helpfulness. Platforms don't care if the artists don't realize they've been botted, they mark the artist the same as the promoter and then that account is either shut down or banned. As long as a method exists for money to be made, it will be. Streaming sites like Amazon & Spotify have gotten a lot better at identifying botnets, and more people are aware now of fake numbers on social media. That's all really you could want, something being done about a problem. Who knows where we'll be in eight years.

[dearcl113]

040 - T, NEIT, and early 2010s RI hip hop

Tonight I was reminded of T, another rapper from Rhode Island that died far too soon. I never met dude but I have met someone he was friends with, who is a close friend of mine, who routinely reminds me of the story of T. A general good lyricist whose life ended far too soon. I wrote this after being out all night, so it may be a little choppy. I don't really give a fuck though too be honest, it doesn't matter. The writing comes as is. RIP.

The first hip hop show I ever went too was a small event in a Veteran's hall right on the border in Connecticut where I brought my stepbrothers and other people, where only 30 people max showed up - most of them were from the college I went too. It was awkward, the sound echoed and bounced instead of that deep bass energy needed to really rock a stage. But the sound, it was classic underground hip hop - the vibes, the people on stage, there was no direct innovation in sound other than that old Masta Ace flow that Swann Notty shows a little later in the video. In 2012 I watched this video for the first time in my shed studio after my friend B asked me to put it on. I didn't think much of it other than it sounded like typical RI hip hop but she really liked it. The people in the videos seemed so surreal to me, like it was another world apart even though I only lived 20-30 minutes south from where they filmed the video. But it seemed important, like a benchmark. Today the rappers in this video that are alive don't live in Rhode Island, they live across the country but at the time they represented RI hip hop to me. When I recorded Manic All The Time I'd show my friend Eddy the drafts basically every few days, he'd come by to listen and we'd go through it sitting outside in the car near Rochambeau while smoking a blunt or something. Just having that person to share that draft with was crucial to me, especially someone who was a fan of my music. He'd also tell me stories, one of them was about his friend T who was featured in the video above. The same person I saw in 2012 in the video, just from a different context. My friend Edibles knew T well, so much so that they'd hang out together and he basically taught eddy how to rap. Eddy and I went to NEIT around the same time even if he's a couple years younger than me at the moment, in the Audio/Video production program that taught us 2 things according to what Eddy said last night. We could either work for the local news, or go get lucky working in Hollywood, or we could use it for own devices even if we didn't make the revenue work. A lot of these rappers back then would be everywhere, they had heavy promotion online and their videos would do views. This generation of rappers was post-Fedd hill, but I can hear the influences of the hill still even if these rappers weren't all from one area. But business wise the industry was fucked up and ran by a bunch of middlemen who would inflate costs or push pay-to-play models of ticket selling and other things for stage performances. This would lead to most hip-hop shows being 10+ artists on a bill each performing for an audience that was only here to see one of the acts.

I know across the country the pay to play model has it's benefits in different areas, areas where they isn't as much of a built up scene or where there isn't an over-abundance of venues. Rhode Island's hip hop scene really was birthed in the 2000s, it's still learning to walk and establish itself after the wave of pay to play performers have basically disappeared from the scene. I had my first experiences with them from 2014-2016, watching as most hip hop shows seemed to bring more drama and controversy. I watched promoters and artists cancel shows last minute with other promoters I knew, pocketing the advance given to do the show. Or, at some point after or during the show some fight would happen causing it to break up and ending up in arrests. The city weaponized these events to shut down problem clubs by giving no leeway if any event happens, even if it was just a fight where no one got hurt. My rapping wasn't the best by the time all of this came to a halt, my production was just basic beats. I'd listen, look, and learn from a community that I felt didn't accept me whether it was because of what I look like or where I'm from, southern RI was isolated then. My friends putting on their own party shows booked metal and electronic music, so I came into a scene where I booked hip hop shows at strictly rock clubs and continued that for years. Doing that opened up the idea of hip hop is safe from club owners, that it could be shown in their clubs without the problems of other shows. It's crazy the little things that we can do that push us forward.

[dearcl113]

037 - EP

When I was 18 listening to blog websites for new hip hop projects, you'd get an hour-long project at least for each artist each time they would drop. This was normal, and what I grew up with as a kid listening to hip hop albums - especially Ludacris's first few projects. The hour was seen as being of high value, basically better bang for the audience's buck.

When I was recording another artist's projects in my shed studio, this was also the vibe. Local Rhode Island rappers would create longer projects, 15 or more songs that would serve as the back-drop for promo releases. They'd promote a couple singles from the project, then the others would basically be B-Sides. RI was definitely not unique in this aspect, this was the blog era and people were looking for new things to listen too outside of commercial avenues. Still, a lot of the extra songs on projects sort of seemed like throwaways. I really enjoyed Dom Kennedy's projects for basically having no-skip worthy tracks on most of them, but this was relatively rare.

Working on my next project the past few months, I wanted to do something that was more of an EP. I've been used to making longer projects for a while - except for Manic All The Time which ended up an EP length when I was finished with it. Sometimes though you have to walk out of your comfort zone to find where you want to go.

For this reason, Return To Sender will be an EP. It follows a specific story, something I've been sort of working with since the start of the year - anchoring around themes of loneliness, with multiple characters. I've been going to a studio to record it for the past month and a half, when I started I was basically just recording in the dark. I had a list of 20 or so songs, which eventually grew to a list of over an hour's worth of content. The past couple weeks I've condensed that, creating a half hour worth of songs I've been working on every day. Music has become a job for me, one that doesn't really make me a ton of money but it helps me fill my time and stay productive. The Long Dark & Ghoul had a lot of tracks, even if I tried to break down and condense the story. I think this is just normal though, even as a kid I remember hearing stories of DMX and other artists recording hundreds of songs each album and then only choosing the best ones. I never really understood that process until recently. I think that's the real story behind Return To Sender, outside of the narrative I wrote in it - the progression of really trying my best with what I have and seeing how I can make it grow.

I was shooting in the dark for most of this project, hating what came out of it and trying my best to just keep going. Baby steps of one to two songs a day trying to figure out the best flows. But mostly, I've been trying to take it easy. Slow and steady. Return To Sender started as a trap soul project, but I hated it, so I scrapped it for something more traditional. More boom bap.

When I was younger these things seemed too hard for me, working for a while on a song. Working on music even when I didn't feel inspired. I was the kind of artist who'd capture a moment and then have a hard time getting the same essence again, but I don't have this problem anymore. Maybe it's because I'm finally treating the music like a job.

Along time ago when I almost worked at a recording studio, the engineer there said 'why are untalented people always so confident?'. It's been a year since I started this music journey, thinking nobody would see what I was doing so I was just having fun posting, treating this like a job. I was overly confident about how good my music sounded and my own capabilities. But it never the plan to turn this into a job, I never thought I'd still be at this a year later. It was just for fun, and to feel good about myself for the first time in a few years. But then it became my life. Even though I struggle a lot with depression, I've been digging out of the holes I've dug for myself since. Focusing on myself, my spiritual growth, my mental health. I'm in a much better place than I was last year. Next time I update this I'll talk more about the project, but either way whoever reads this, I hope you have a good week when you get this. - DEARCL

[dearcl113]

036 - Hip Hop Taglines, Content Era & Stories

March 2025 Going from thinking you have no future for basically your whole life to suddenly being presented with peace and the opportunity to move on, it's pretty difficult. I could never make a long-term plan because my situation would change by the time I really got started in whatever I wanted to do, whether it was because I didn't have money, people changed, things shifted. Now being presented with the opportunity to tell that story, it's weird to me. Stories have become the tag-lines of hip hop. The go-to marketing phrase that is attached to an artist's name when they're mentioned, that helps the listener decide whether or not they want to listen to the music. This has been a blooming trend for over two decades, I'd say 50 cent really honed this skill. As a kid listening to his music I'd hear the story of him getting shot 9 times so much, like others would use it as validation that this was 'real shit' we were listening too or something. It's hard for me to really tell my story in a tag-line - it's hard for a lot of artists. It's become a critical part of the piece that promotes you, that pushes you - that helps others identify with you. I believe we're in a new era currently media wise, I like to call it the 'content' era because of how quickly content/music is pushed out, and consumed by it's audience. I've only released The Long Dark two months and two weeks ago but it feels like I released it a decade ago in terms of how quickly media has evolved and grown. Stories have always been important in hip hop, obviously it's a story-telling genre. I appreciate the unfortunate fact that it's roots come from songs sung by slaves basically spoken in code, to tell stories and plant feelings that would spread. These stories were precious, carried upon by generations and then grew into blues, and other genres. It's a seed that still grows today, even if many stories are told differently. Even before 50 stories played a role in how an artist would be marketed - it just started out simple. You could just say 'I'm from Los Angeles' or something when marketing your music, then create your story in between that. The freedom for the artist to really craft their story pre-internet was unrivaled I say. I think this is why most of these artists have long-lasting staying power, the freedom and control was kept to them. The gatekeeping of those eras was kept to the story, if an artist didn't fit the bill - the story didn't stick. This I understand, what people want out of stories nowadays - I don't if I'm being honest. For most of my life even if I've sort of given up on the idea of being anything, I've always thought about my story. How it would be told if I had the chance too, how it'd look in media - I'd put myself in a celebrities shoes in whatever scandal they had even if I wasn't doing anything remotely close. Just to get an idea of how I'd feel - as I grew up the loss of control of stories just seemed to get worse. So I stopped really telling mine outside of my friends. You can't stop telling your story though. It's either you do, and that is the narrative you are able to present, or you don't and people will fill in the holes you haven't told. There is no stopping discussion and I don't think you should honestly, but you should have control of your story. How you tell it - how it's represented, how it grows. I want to bring more literature aspects into hip hop, even if I don't really want to be a writer. I still feel that hopeless feeling a lot if I'm being real, it's hard to shake a habit you've had your whole life basically. There's so many ways to tell stories, and the content era we're in is a perfect time to do so. Even if it feels like it's there to be told under a microscope sometimes.

[dearcl113]

039 - Godzilla, 2025

I beat myself up a lot, this has been the story of my life. Never stopping to smell the flowers basically because I'm too worried about the Godzilla sized monster destroying the city aka anxiety. In life you're supposed to take moments to enjoy it, but I always seem to get in the way of that. It makes it so I can never enjoy any of my accomplishments, as everything seems miniscule in the size of the monster rampaging through the countryside. I surpassed 20k plays on Ghoul in a month without any outside or paid promo, but it didn't make me feel anything because I've been too distracted. I wake up every day with a goal of managing myself, but struggle against the weight of myself, to the point where it's just easier to give up and be bitter. This bitterness has fucked me over in life many times, mostly preventing me from fully enjoying moments until those moments are gone. My last article was about this, towards the end of my living in the city I didn't see the goodness in events anymore. Every Monday I'd schedule a slot for me to play at the open mic, only to cancel it last minute or just not show up at all. I'd ask Nate if I could play, then later on cancel with him, feeling that disappointment but not recognizing I was the one getting in the way of myself. This was different from how it was when I first came to the city, finding any or all opportunities to put myself there despite the challenges logistically. I'd spend hours on the bus for a ten-minute set, travelling around the entire state basically to end up at Kennedy Plaza then walking where I need to go. Over the years I had a lot of discouraging moments, growth that seemingly only I could see while I screamed my lyrics on stage. I was surrounded by music, by different musicians - different egos, people working through their own problems and taking out their bitterness on others. People like me. I'm a firm believer in karma, what you put out into the world then comes back onto us - and because I didn't let go of my negativity that I still held from whatever trauma work that wasn't addressed, it came back to me. And I internalized it. There's always something to be mad at if you're growing and living your life. Especially if you come from trying to control your situation, working hard to get somewhere only to feel like it doesn't in the end because the ten stories tall monster is stomping on your village house. The older I get, the more futile it feels to even try to control anything. To set any goal, any guideline. The less things I realize that I can control out of life.

At the same time, criticism played such a big part of my life. Being in a community of artists, of different egos and different standpoints - being exposed to the world at large by these critics while having yourself be ignored. I get reminded of this period of my life through specific people, though this list is growing smaller. But I have to let this go. This is just a part of life. Life has never worked how I want it too. I've never been able to stop and enjoy the moment because I've always focused on the screaming Godzilla in the distance. It's made me root for the other ten stories tall monsters that could defeat it, not knowing that these things would cause just as much damage to the village. It's hard to not be bitter at life constantly, to be caught inside your own trauma. But at some point, you have to let it go. I can focus on the critics and people who seem to think how I react to Godzilla is bad, or I can get out of the way of the monster. In RI they run ads on the buses, like signs on the interior. One of them is 'The future is yours to build' for a local college, but still the message runs true. Maybe someday Godzilla will destroy my village, but in the meantime I have to live my life. I can't go about life in fear of what will, or could, happen, missing out on the moments in between. I can't manage Godzilla, I just have to learn to live with it the best I can.

[dearcl113]

039 - Old Urban Disappearing

In the mid 1900s, Providence was a much larger city. It had no central highway through it yet so it was made up of various neighborhoods, doubled in size. The riverfront was paved over in many places adding more concrete space to build on. Beginning at least in the 40s, the new interstate projects were constructed in Rhode Island, moving the main highway from what had been a traditional farming road paved for over a hundred years to something that was more direct. Up until the 1940s, most of America lived in cities and urban America defined the major pop culture of the country. In my hometown nearby cliffs and hills were blasted with dynamite to make the highway jut through the rock walls on both sides. In Providence, whole neighborhoods were condemned or erased in favor of this multi-lane highway which divided the city even further. In Providence, there has always been the rich East-side, and the poorer more urban West-end, North, and Southside. (East Providence is a separate place entirely, don't ask me why). Regardless, whole lives which had centered in these neighborhoods were now erased and many of these people moved elsewhere. Intended, or not, the highway erased a fragment of urban culture - Federal Hill shrunk dramatically in size to now only being a few blocks. The people there moved to places like Warwick, Cranston, or Johnston, and kept stories of their childhood alive through memories. But these people aged, and so did their stories - by the time their children came of age they were distant stories that held no relation to the present. America is going through a process now of erasing urban culture, what was Urban America in favor of something new. This is my personal opinion, I typically don't comment on politics much but this is a huge reason why I came back to do hip hop. Whether it's through mis-information, racism, polarization - anything, the country seems to be trying it's hardest to erase what used to be in favor of what will be or could be. I woke up one day last year and realized the life I grew up with is all but gone, the worst came to pass. The America I grew up with - diverse, different, full of exciting ideas and new things, I don't recognize it anymore. Now all I have of it are stories of what it used to be, what I relate it too - and I'm not alone in that. But it's weird, there was no direct highway being built through the America I share with everyone else - just polarization, hate, fear, anger, and violence. The more you embrace change, the more you let go of what once was - but you cannot eliminate urbanity as long as cities exist, you can't eliminate urban culture. Another thing that bothers me a lot about erasing culture is hearing that 'Black American's don't have a culture'. Black Americans moved to the same cities that White Americans left during the great migration to suburbs, filling the same spots and culture with their own unique blend. While I don't believe to be Black is to be urban, to say that Black people have no culture when urbanity still defines so much of America, I really disagree. A lot of my hometown is being knocked down currently to build copy/paste suburbs - long suburban rows in circular roads 12 feet apart from each other each with names like 'Pleasant Village' or some bullshit. Growing up I always heard from my relatives 'I remember when this was all farming land or nothing, I always thought it'd be like that'. Seeing the trees knocked down, makes me feel the same. I always thought urban culture would be there, but like the trees and the land here - if we don't protect it from being sold, it will be developed by someone else, molded into the image they wish it to be. There is no monoculture in Urban America, it's a melting pot of diverse ideas and everything else. And it should be celebrated, not pushed away with rising rents, costs, and amnesia of the greatness it once was and still could be. By remembering the past, you keep it alive.

[dearcl113]

038 - A revolving door of clubs, understanding this song years later

I'm old enough that the clubs I grew up with, basically aren't around anymore. Clubs used to basically be where I'd go to just relax, be alone, catch my bearings after whatever I was living in the day. Where I could just be myself, just they were dive bars and other small venues that would serve $3 Narragansett (now $6) and host weekly open mics. I watched over the years as they shut down, first The Spot in 2016, then the Fat Squirrel, then Firehouse 13. I watched as Askew opened from Firehouse 13, Alchemy grow from a tiny club in what was formerly a hip hop club, and Dusk shut down a little after I left Providence. When I left the city I was so apathetic about everything, but honestly, I miss it. Not much happens where I am. Now Askew is closed, and there's really just two clubs left from that era. Alchemy and The Parlour. The song above was something that really defined an era of time for me, even if I didn't realize it at the time. I became friends with Nate, and looked up to him for how he organized Madcap Mondays. When I found the event, it was a synchronistic moment for me - as when I was younger I was really into Syd Barrett once I learned of his music. It lined up with the album 'Madcap Laughs'.

In 2015 I didn't live in the city, I still lived in Mishnock but would spend basically all of the day away from the house either working or recording at my producer's. Over the years my friends have helped me out a lot in terms of getting away from my house, but that doesn't last forever. People grow up, change their priorities and directives, things in general change. Nate told me that when he opened the open mic, it was a golden opportunity. He had started it basically a few months prior to my first appearance at the Spot. Even through my negativity, it sort of broke the tension over me - I can't relax the same at other events as I can at an open mic. It's so real, it's so raw and so human. He had moved from overseas a few years prior where he wrote a lot of the music he'd perform, as he was host to the event, and I'd hear this song a lot. It became a benchmark moment for me, when I'd hear this song I'd know I was in a 'safe' place even if I wasn't truly friends with everyone there. I didn't realize what this song was about until this year, about the journey of shadow-work and everything in between. It was simply just a good song to me, but one that always stuck with me. One day I was at the event with Nate and he talked to me about the next generation of artists, aka us, who will one day take his place. He's not around anymore, he's still alive but like me he returned to his roots I feel like. The last club that's still open from my era is one ironically, I never went too despite living right near there. They never had an open mic when I lived on the Eastside, so I never went. There's something about just having an audience to test ideas, to play music like a scientist and being free to make mistakes or grow. Where songs like this exist and play and define so much about the time period for so many people. I'd listen to Nate, bring my little journal, and just write out my feelings in what seemed like the only environment that I could fully do that with. Sure maybe it was the alcohol too, but a lot of it was this music. Music perfect for shadow work. Music is performative therapy, and sometimes I miss the little things being so caught up on the big. You never know when it'll be too late to experience something for the last time. We all build our shadow, and must work through it to become the best we are. Thanks to Nate for all his work. I really appreciate being apart of this time period.

[dearcl113]

GHOUL: A ghost story

Check out my first published album on soundcloud & bandcamp early today, released on all platforms tomorrow.

[dearcl113]

010 - Comedy, RI Hip Hop & Warraq 2007-2024

Going to jump forward to the present for today's article. Over the years as the local artists developed, they faced a lot of push-back from either people who didn't like hip hop, or thought it was ignorant to do so. It became a meme where over time people got tired of all the entertainment LLC's that went nowhere to the point where if you rapped, you were seen as a joke. Many people got tired of the attitude of local rappers - a lot of the times it seemed like they were just doing it to be cool and it seemed difficult to find a balanced relationship between fan/artist. Everybody wanted to be the best rapper and many thought downplaying others was the way to do this - eventually a lot of people got tired of it. Some of it could've been biases, while with others problems were more centered around gatekeeping whether or not they could do hip hop. Many people seemed to think that if a rapper didn't fit a certain bill, then they can't be a rapper - they still do today, you can still see these comments on local videos especially Billy's. But I don't think these people recognize how much this helps RI hip hop, even if they're trying to do the exact opposite. Over time all these things have developed into something unique in RI hip hop that I haven't seen as much elsewhere - and I can see why. The meme groups that were made fun of the most got the most attention on their music even if it was bad - they got more views, etc. They were the ones that would be posted elsewhere or have random people from out of state comment on their stuff. As the whole meme and downplaying of hip hop continued (not helped by the fact many places in RI ban hip hop events due to violence or social stigma) a lot of the artists sort of gave up on 'winning over everyone'. Especially artists from where I am from (west warwick area). Our freestyles would fluctuate between either not wanting to come across as the 'cool rapper' or pure comedy (this is why I can freestyle in a robot voice as Awkward Bot). This brings me to Warraq. It was common on local social media for local rappers to post cypher videos that they'd record at 2am, they'd all be angry and serious/mean. Sometimes they'd be disses, or subliminals to certain groups that they'd never mention but if you knew, you knew. Billy's videos are a parody of this, as I'm sure he grew up seeing these videos everywhere like I did too. I am sure people realized that the comedy and playing up the memes made them more successful, as it seems like most people from outside of RI don't realize that we're being bad sometimes on purpose. We're doing what you shouldn't do as a joke because we grew up seeing these things around us and it is funny to us. Not because it's a bad genre, but how people react to it. I do this with my adlibs which are intentionally either bad AI or jokes. We know how to make good music but when we know that we'll get glossed over for other artists from bigger places, it makes more sense to make music for fun and capitalize where we can. We want to break the mold on what's the norm because the mold is lame sometimes for the normal person. I know it's not for everyone but it's a segue way for his along with his friend's real music which is pretty decent. In a lot of ways I think Rhode Island was lucky to be so ahead of the curve on a lot of trends especially with hip hop, maybe it's because of how we're right in between Boston and New York City or however many people from those places moved here during the 2000s and onwards as rents rose across the major cities. Either way, I appreciate how Billy always find something to jump off of to start his freestyles, and the attitude of his friends, it's really dope to me honestly. In some ways it reminds me of how it was when I was younger with my friends. They filmed this just outside of Mishnock in the dunes.

To me it's obvious it's ironic sometimes, but maybe that's because I know exactly what he's referencing. I generally like Warraq and what they do, along with the real music they release that's melodic and with a lot of effort put into it. These videos that segue way to the music are still funny as hell either way.

[dearcl113]

020 - Open Mics, 2015-2016

In the fall of 2014 right before November I did my first open mic at The Spot Underground - it was a second floor club above an abandoned flat that was pretty large. It was full of art from local artists, and the bartenders often were musician themselves who played at the open mic. It quickly became my favorite place during a time when my life was pretty bad. Not long after I did my first show somewhere in West Warwick at a venue, I had a decent draw but that was a lot closer to my hometown than Providence so my draw was less up there. My first show was weird, there was a lot of hype but I didn't feel the same release I felt when I'd perform at open mics. In the spring of 2015 I started going to them regularly, I was recording the original 'I'm a ghost' and I'd perform the songs there, or older songs of mine that I did from my Rap Mixtape? project. I generally was received well, it was different from when I did my first show. Whenever I was at an open mic for along time I was in a really good mood, and I met a lot of different musicians from different genres - many of them I continued being friends with for years afterwards. It was cool seeing these different genres grow and how it'd blend with hip hop. The open mic was mostly poetry, alternative rock, folk music, and occasionally we'd have hip hop at first. The more I did it, the more other people came in - I think just word got out that hip hop was allowed there. It became my biggest and best way to promote, doing these little sets every week - the picture that I posted of my Everybody's Dead album was actually at one of these events in the club when it moved to it's 2nd spot. I went there so much initially that somehow I ended up volunteering to help the owner move to the new location around the building, and from there I just became accepted by this community of amazing people. I learned a lot even if I was in a bad depression. This is where I did most of my shows and received most of my live feedback - at first I'd force myself to do it, but over time that drive kind of fizzled out when I felt like I hit a 'peak'. This was around when I started doing Manic All The Time. Regardless I followed that open mic to every venue it changed - it changed at least four times. I'd invite all of my friends to it, any artist I knew - it was my method to improve and I wanted to share it with others. By the time I wanted to leave the city though I didn't go as much. There were a lot of inspiring people there - especially promoters who tended to drive whole communities together. One of them would play a Tibetan healing bowl as his set - just ring it and let the energy run out. That was pretty different for me, the open mic opened me up to different things I typically didn't hear or see. He'd also give me advice and tell stories about life - his ideology was 'be a good person and spread positivity'. Very good promoter. Unfortunately he passed away in 2016 or 2017, and his family, friends, and all of the open mic community went to his wake. There was like 50 to 100 people on a beach, and his best friend (who I also became friends with) played his Tibetan healing bowl. As he did that was kind of the end of a chapter for me, the innocence was gone. He played it for the length of an open mic set (15 minutes). Ultimately these open mics helped establish me in the city which led to paid shows, and connections where I got jobs as a sound engineer, load-out guy, barback, in general I entered the club industry in the city by working open mics and befriending the people who worked there. I didn't do it for that reason, they were just generally awesome people who felt like family to me. I'm grateful for those moments, one day who knows, maybe I'll get back on the stage. Maybe I'll see another Tibetan healing bowl in real life. Edit: Upon the time of posting, I have gotten back on the stage at one of the only open mics left. It was a great experience.

[dearcl113]

025 - The Negative Reel, introduction, 2009

By senior year in high school, I was unsure again on if rap was really for me. My first dream as a child before I found hip hop was to be a director, and I got gifted a little handheld digital camera. I would use it to make shorts, just little 2-3 minute storyline videos. I made one about drug abuse called 'passing time' that became really popular around the school, and with teachers too. This allowed me to basically spend my time working on film, as in off moments I'd slip away to the TV studio and work on editing. There were 2 iMacs in Mr. Neo's new office, which was a converted large closet that had a window put in to look in on the 'studio'. This is where I did most of my editing as it was quieter, and I could talk with Mr. Neo who became my mentor. My friend who was the woman's voice in the opening commentary sketch took the other one. I remember junior year I had a pregnancy scare with my ex, and I came into school a mess thinking my life was over. He went around to my teachers to tell them what was happening, and listened to me while I talked about my anxieties - in general he never judged me. He came from a similar background as me despite being a family man and having a good life. I knew I had something special with film cause in my class there were some people from my neighborhood who I didn't really get along with, who would still approach me saying it was dope. This made me focus, I started writing my sketch comedy series. The radio show stopped when the TV studio moved rooms, so this was my next 'project' to go on. The comedy team grew, it expanded from the original friends I had to various people who'd help with filming, organizing. We'd all hang out and sometimes film content, but otherwise it was a fun time. Overall the main locations filmed were my dad's old trailer (the start), Mishnock, and the school auditorium. My hero at this time was Trevor Moore - the fact that he and his friends focused on their comedy, performed it, and managed to get a show from it made me look to parallels in my own life. My life became about comedy, that I'd use to deal with the stress of the things around me and events happening. But still it felt like something was lacking - it felt like I was tricking people by acting as the comedian when in reality I was a pretty serious, stressed person. So I tried to create sardonic/sarcastic comedy that was very self-deprecating, something which continued in my music for decades afterwards. I don't think self-deprecating humor is funny honestly, even if I don't believe I am the things I am saying in a joke like that this is something I've eliminated from my vocabulary. Using the digital camera I started filming the sketch comedy show - this is around when I created the Awkward Bot character in 2009. He was intended just to be a funny robot, who was awkward and had a lot of errors to deal with. We filmed three episodes for the show, though we did film other sketches. I'd spend a lot of time listening to commentaries from films I liked and honestly it made me realize how similar I was to successful artists. I don't mean like talent, I mean just in general my personality, how I joked around with my friends, what I focused on, I'd see so many connections with people there. It was weird but also it made me feel not alone. The main sketch I posted above was probably one of my best, it was about a man going through perpetual puberty and finding love. It was filmed in my neighborhood with my best friend from there who I will call Kingman. We filmed it on a rented old VHS camera that I had to convert the footage digitally, and the sound fucked up, but to this day everyone remembers this sketch. Honestly writing these helps me start my day sometimes. By the time I got to college I didn't have my comedy group with me, and film didn't feel the same. Honestly, I did it for fun and the more I went to college the more I realized this. I think this is why I focused on hip hop after college, I realized even if on my own it still felt right.

[dearcl113]

I don't want to write these anymore.

[dearcl113]

017 - Freestyling & My First Spooky Music

Summers 2014 & 2015

In 2014 I recorded 'Eliminating Ego' which was the first project I really recorded a bunch of music for. I'd bring my microphone and mixer to my friends houses and record freestyles, or record in the shed and bring people there. We'd do cyphers a lot just sitting in cars or in houses. Eliminating Ego was supposed to be a psychedelic, new-age spiritual record about the path to becoming humble. It's probably not the best name, but back then (and even now) each project represented a chapter of growth for me. That's how I know a project is worth it, if I accomplish a goal in my life throughout the recording process. Throughout the entirety of my music i've always talked about new age stuff and spirituality because that was a common discussion where I was from. By the end of recording Eliminating Ego, I had nobody to mix it so I didn't release it. I also couldn't write anymore for some reason, my longest writers block ever other than the past few years. So I just freestyled, which made me able to record a ton more content and tie together all the loose freestyles I'd made with my friends. I'd just get a few beats, and record without pausing after lining all of them and freestyling. Most of these tapes are terrible, my freestyling wasn't the best and it was more so slow, melodic stuff before I really learned how to sing 'decently'. This led me to create 'Rap Mixtape?' in 2014 which was the last project I did 'on my own' (although all of my projects I did on my own before manic were incomplete imo) until Manic All The Time in 2016. Rap Mixtape? was the foundation of my lighter sound - I went away from more mainstream vibes to something more ironic. It was supposed to be cool, it represented how fun the summer of 2014 was for me. But it was also pretty egotistical, the ironic part of it didn't register nor did the story. I finished Rap Mixtape? in 2024 when I was doing the Extended's, but the quality is too bad to release. Honestly, the real story was the contrast of a rapper living a normal life while recording a project which promoted the opposite - the ironic part of it. My favorite song from it was 'when that time come round' which was a freestyle single I did. Sometimes when you tap into that energy you never know what will come out of it. One night in the summer of 2014 I had this darker beat than what I typically did. It had this dark saxophone on top of an almost trippy glitch drum pattern. It fit the mood of the recording session because I didn't feel 'alone' if that made sense, back then recording in my neighborhood I always felt like someone else was with me even if I was always recording by myself. Spooky ghost feeling I guess, but it didn't scare me. I'd freestyle in other voices just to play around, that night I was recording 'Haunted House' which was the OG paranormal mixtape I'd say - it was a joke about how someone had to meet me at a haunted house and they were confused. I freestyled songs about the monsters in the house, and other things - I tried to stay on theme but I didn't capture that fully until Manic. Still I did this one song called 'stay up' which was in a pitched down voice, it fit more than my real voice at the time which I didn't think had a dark enough vibe. The song talked about ghosts, spirits, spirituality, the beginnings of the themes on manic - all from a freestyle that I wasn't consciously saying, more so just coming out of me. I liked it a lot but it was before it's time. In 2015 while I was doing my last freestyle tapes after recording 'I'm a ghost' I got the same feeling of being watched while being in the shed one night tripping. I recorded these 3 tapes doing the beat line-up method, over-time this became more than just me creating music I did it for the experience. I think my favorite line from this was 'I can feel the spirits haunting me' which I'm unsure why I said this other than getting that feeling. I felt nervous, but recording helped me push through that. It was an experience almost, just a feeling of what could be in music.

[dearcl113]

021 - Parties & Hip Hop's Infancy

One of the most interesting things about hip hop to me is how much of it was born out of parties - people gathering to hear music and have a good time, driven by DJ's who would bring their own unique blends. With my original Instagram I wanted to keep Friday's for hip hop history - over the years I've noticed a lot of it went from being known about but not talked about to just being forgotten. Some of the younger artists I work with don't see a point in sitting down to listen to the classics and in a way that kind of bothers me. I think all art has some semblance of value as long as significant creative effort was put into the final release - but even then, you can't gatekeep what art has value and what doesn't. It's subjective. Regardless it's more than the music with this classic music and that story/lesson is hard to instill in a lot of the younger generations who don't really have the same perspective or experiences as older artists like me. When I was growing up these parties still existed, although very dispersed and people would mix in local music with mainstream music while playing drinking games or whatever. To me it's very inspiring how Kool Herc rented the community room in his building on Sedgewick Avenue and came together with his sister to promote the party. This is something anyone can do - anywhere, that universal foundation is so important to art especially urban artists who may not have the budget to establish themselves as much digitally as they do physically. It makes me think of people in Ukraine and how they do hip hop - how some of it may start from parties maybe even from rented community rooms. 'The Get Down' is a very good show depicting this era, especially the episode of the first battles - these stories have replicated themselves in movements all over the world as new waves have popped up. As new sounds came out of different areas these initial steps were repeated, even if they may or may not notice it. DJ Screw who is one of my favorite DJ's for sure established swishahouse through recording and parties. Most artists who have staying power that I've noticed have started out via parties initially. I think when people come together to have an event that's more party orientated it brings out a casual energy and excitement that typically isn't there - definitely in something more structured. This is why in Rhode Island a ton of bands and other artists play house parties or local events outside of events - typically the pay is the same as venues if there is one anyway (some parties offer a donation option if the person wants too). In venues this energy definitely used to exist more, but now maybe not as much - parties seem more isolated and 'cool' in a way. These parties spread from the Bronx to Manhattan to the clubs in the 80s and that's how hip hop began to expand past that. The DIY aspect of bringing your own equipment, setting it up - handling everything, to me runs very closely with how the punk scene was at this time. I'm unsure when the Tunnel was made, but it's crazy how hip hop went from a local genre made at a party to a country, and possibly world-wide, craze in just eight to ten years. All because someone had a crazy idea to rent a community room in their apartment building and throw a party.

[dearcl113]

020 - Writing Exercises, The Long Dark, Nerd & Video Games, (I'm a nerd), 2019-2024

Before I wrote The Long Dark I ended up doing another long run of a writing exercise I like to do - which is detail the stories or worlds of sandbox games and build on the characters in them or alternately, switch it entirely to something else while still keeping that initial feel. That's why I'm working on a few different script ideas, they all come from this except for my comedy stuff which I started in high school. I've done this since a little kid with all games in terms of imagining my own story/universe but I never started writing it down until 2019 when I thought I could translate it to scripts. Certain ideas have been so fleshed out I've built up entire universes and hundreds of years worth of lore, but I've yet to really sit down to write the script yet. It's not the time to focus on that I think. What the writing exercise I do really does is break writing blocks - any creative block. All I have to do is write it down, and continue writing it down - then eventually translate that into something. I'm still learning how to write scripts and lyric-writing, I know basic stuff but you can never not learn more as a writer in my opinion. It seems nerdy and lame to talk about but these little things matter a lot to structure and narrative building, or even just using my imagination and getting into the mode of 'play' that's important for creativity. I think every writer has their own exercise that really gets things going. After about a month of these exercises in November I started writing The Long Dark again - I definitely noticed a large improvement in my writing. The first song I wrote for it was 'Porch Light', it was supposed to be a song which showed acknowledging little things but sometimes I write things that I don't realize. The second was 'Ghost Ornament' which was supposed to be about growing up, and letting go of the past. I think both are good songs but maybe some day I'll get to record them - sometimes I'm proud of my writing and these songs I definitely think are some of the best written I've done. I'll have to break down these songs more in the future. I thought more in depth about the character I was writing (so I just thought about myself) after a month of doing that to characters in scripts, i.e. more in depth about myself. I think this self-critical analysis is pretty crucial, just being able to look at yourself form an outward perspective. Shamans in some native societies (especially the Narragansett) used to use a method of projecting themselves outside of their body to observe a traumatic event to reassess it - i.e. observing it from an outside perspective without the personal emotions. Songs are similar in the sense you're objectively writing something personal for an audience - it's a release. All of the songs I've written recently are about a future I'm visualizing in my head, or just from knowing myself, visualizing how i'd be represented in a situation. The same as how I visualize a character in a game and imagine what it is they're thinking/doing, just on a musical scale. In general there's many processes and habits people have that can be cross-linked to other goals of theirs for improvement, the more you balance, the more you grow. I turned a non-productive habit of mine into a good one, even if sometimes it feels like work.