The Future is NOW!

Night Rider by XRAYi

        This is basically my favorite beat of ALL TIMES and I'm not saying that just because it's mine! It's mainly because of the sample I used which is an OLD electro song that will currently remain unnamed... When I make beats I try not to use samples that much and when I do I like to make it as obscure as possible. So I basically slowed that track down, then made a call and response with it, and a wicked, grungy, rolling bassline. Top that off with the good-old sad-saga strings and the RZA "drunken snare" technique and there you have it: XRAYi - Night Rider aka My favorite beat EVER! Seriously though... Don't front! That beat is TIGHT and it's completely original meaning even though I sampled a relatively common song, you STILL ain't never heard a beat quite like that before!

    
    Anyways, I named this track Night Rider because the vibe totally reminds me of the old TV show and in fact when I was making it I was trying to find the little wooshing sound that Kitt would make but I couldn't get a clean sample. When I was making the cover art I decided however to go with an actual Night Rider, like on a horse, instead of a picture of Kitt.

 

       I tell you what though, I used to LOVE me some Knight Rider! Michael Knight, a lone crusader in a dangerous world... Kitt, I need ya buddy! Right away Michael! I just knew that ONE DAY there would be cars like that and I was gonna get me one! Well computer technology hasn't quite caught up to the A.I. design of that show YET but still, there are some REALLY DOPE ASS vehicles out there that would blow Kitt right outta the water! In fact, I was searching for some pictures of futuristic type cars for this BLOG right here when I ran across this joint that Volkswagen designed from the Chinese "The People's Car" project.

 

 

       It's uses the power of magnets to make it float and may be the next generation for the beautifully benign "BEETLE"! I'm pretty sure the promotion they made for it was computer generated but it looks HELLA real! So real that I decided to edit it down to less than a minute and put my beat "Night Rider" over it so it looks almost like a commercial. Hey I was just having some fun but I've been getting MADD hits so it's all good lol! Anything to get people to listen to my tracks yo... The world NEEDS to hear them! TELL A FRIEND! Flying cars that play DOPE BEATS do exist lol!  The FUTURE is NOW!!!

Last minute X-MAS Gifs!

      Well today is Epiphany... Everyone knows what Christmas is (or is supposed to be) but most people are clueless when it comes to Epiphany. It's the festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus and it also remembers his baptism. I know this because I was raised Catholic and this the day we would put away all our decorations. It's been MANY years since I celebrated Christmas (I have my reasons) but if YOU do I hope this holiday season brought you peace and blessings! Now with all the hoopla over and things getting back to normal which in most areas is the bitterness of winter, I thought I would post these animated gifs I found.

Overnight Sensation!

Let's just stay inside and smooch!

You just got jacked!

I got this!

Who needs skis?

Snow jump sports cam!

Now you see me now you don't!

Life's short, play hard!

Shake your money maker!

Who did that?

More fun than a bundled up monkey!

      I'm originally from Buffalo, NY so I know all about the cold although I haven't experienced it in over 20 years! I wish everyone from back east could spend just one winter here in San Diego (GO CHARGERS!) and you would see why I never went back! I feel for you though if its 10 below. :( Well back to the full-time grind; no more mid-week mini holidays (that really through me off) so let's make it happen captain! 

PEACE

Look on THE BRIGHT SIDE!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! When I look back a year ago I must say that I AM in a better place and I hope you are too! Unfortunately that 1st $$$MILLION$$$ remains elusive but on the bright side, I DID manage to accomplish what I set out to do at the beginning of the year AND some. For starters I successfully got out of a pretty TERRible relationship relatively unscathed. True I had to go on a 3 week "couch tour" while my ex had complete reign over my place. And yeah on the eve of our 6 month breakup my car window mysteriously got smashed. But like Mike said, "She's out of my life and I don't know whether to laugh or cry"  :-? (And yeah it still cuts like a knife) But you have to understand, there was no way in the world I would have accomplished my goals fucking with that crazy bitch. Sorry but there's no other way to put it. She would get high on crystal and start accusing me of chatting with hookers on MySpace, just to have something to try and keep the FOCUS away from her increasingly evident drug use. I'm like, "LOOK... it clearly says that I have not logged into MySpace for 6 YEARS!!!" Yeah so she had to go.


 

My next victory was getting a JOB, as we both had been on unemployment for almost a year. After that it was ON! I got my domain name SavageBeastRecords.com back (finally!) and then commenced to uploading all of my tracks EVERYWHERE! Facebook. Twitter. Google+. YouTube. SoundCloud. LastFM. Bandcamp. and finally ReverbNation where I was #1 for almost a month on the San Diego "Electronica" chart. XRAYi is still #5 but now it's time for my other "DJ Personality" Crystal Roca to take the stage and she's already at #9. What the hell, I even have a BLOG! =)) Although I didn't make much in terms of money this year, 2000+ Facebook likes and 1000+ SoundCloud followers is still a decent start... Even more important is that I'm back in touch with a LOT of people that I had lost contact with over the years! With y'all back in my life I know I can't be stopped! So looking back, I would say 2013 was a GREAT year and THE BRIGHT SIDE is that 2014 looks EVEN BETTER! PEACE to you and yours and may the NEW YEAR bring prosperity to us all!

HAFF OFF: Commercial or INSANE?

The majority of "rapper's" or "MC's" that I have met think my beats are "cool" but they can't or don't want to rap over them, which I can respect that. I used to take it personal but I've been doing this for years! Even back when I first started making beats in Buffalo (back in like 86ish?) I came in contact with a lot of rappers because I was DJing and only a small percentage of them "felt" my tracks and wanted to flow to them. We made some dope songs (imo): D-ICE - "The Sound of My Gun", Marty T - "Mackin Harder", and Kid Debonair - "Ass Kickins Are FREE"! (I have the instrumentals to those tracks on SoundCloud, if you're interested HMU) So basically I stopped trying to make beats for rappers a LONG time ago and just decided to do what I DO! I like to experiment mainly... There are SOOOOO many sounds, samples, genres... I mean just SO MUCH S**T you can do these days on a pure "beat making" level that I approach it like a kid in a candyshop! I can totally see an MC's point of view though. I mean if you're not felling it you're not feeling it! Some beats just evoke a certain emotion from you and you're compelled to write to it, flow to it, sing to it... HALF OFF is one of the last beats I made and it's off of the album, "The Impact", which I just released on December 5th aka my birthday aka the day NELSON MANDELA died... (We'll talk about that a little later) The title, "HALF OFF", came one day when I was listening to the beat, day dreaming, and I'm like "this sounds like it could be in a commercial", something I've been told before about a few tracks. But THEN, years later, when I was thinking of "cover art" I got another brilliant idea! Half Off ALSO has another connotation... Like someone being half off their rocker INSANE... And if you listen to the beat it sounds like the soundtrack to some INSANE WARD, slasher type THRILLER! To ADD to that, I recently partnered with ReverbNation and 50% of my sales go to the charity OXFAM which has basically been a dream of mine since I was in highschool; to use my musical talents to help the "less fortunate", so I don't mind them taking HALF OFF the top! PEACE Y'ALL!

What is the TRUTH?

     The truth is that the title "Beat Around the Bush" has another connotation all together and that's REALLY what this track is about. Pleasuring a woman. If you listen closely the melody has sort of an undulating, rotating, or gyrating effect with a slow build up, there are steady, deep thrust kicks, and ass-slapping snares. Beat around the bush... LOL! Hey you wanted to know the TRUTH. Then at some point I also realized the POLITICAL implications of that phrase and decided to run with that instead. Seriously though, is the TRUTH ever going to come out about 9/11? The fact is that there is so much evidence suggesting 9/11 was an inside job and not only has nothing been done about it, most people either can't conceive that our government would do such a thing or are completely apathetic and couldn't care less... All of which leaves me very disheartened. I would like to think that justice will eventually prevail and the TRUTH will be revealed in time but what if that's not so?  Hitler had the blood of millions on his hand and his death alone certainly doesn't justify the atrocities. Furthermore, IF 9/11 was an inside job and the people responsible are never identified then what does that say about US as a society? Media BRAINWASHING goes only so far as an excuse! At some point we too are held accountable if we see the TRUTH and do nothing. PEACE

CYPHER = WAR

    Anybody that has any connections to Hip-Hop has been "in" a "CYPHER" before. You may not have participated, but at least ONCE in your life you must have happened across a crowd of people in a circle... You wonder if it's a fight because they're yelling, "oooo" and there's a lot of excitement! You get closer and somebody's beatboxing and somebody else is coming off the top with some lyrics that make you go, "is he making that up as he goes along?" and you realize "F**K yeah!" becuz he's rhyming about what this other guy is wearing and dissing his mom or whatever. Bystanders are heckling but the dude he's talking about is just smiling, bobbing his head, and waiting... Now when HE gets the "mic" his retaliation is BRUTAL! One liners, punch lines, cliches; one after another... for like 10 minutes straight! (If you've never seen it happen LIVE you can always see a PERFECT example of what I'm talking about in Eminem's "8 Mile").

     Thoroughly entertained, brain cells sparked, you go back to whatever it is you were doing and wonder how many MC's get MURDERED on a daily basis in the "CYPHER" worldwide? I would like to see a statistic for that actually LOL! Muggings - When you're not even a rapper but you start laughing at somebody's diss and they start capping on YOU. Home Invasions -  Your opponent is using YOUR style and even hits you with a rhyme you SWEAR you JUST wrote LAST NIGHT! Rapes - When females battle males in the "CYPHER" the outcome is NEVER good... She's gonna talk about his little dick and Viagra use and he's gonna talk about her Funkbox and bad weave and it just goes down hill from there. There have been a few occasions that I witnessed a communal atmosphere in the "CYPHER" where everybody is supportive but that's far and in between. In my experience CYPHER = WAR! Even "Crews" battle within their ranks just for practice. I remember "The Insomniacs" Cypher used to be DEEP! My favorite was always KABAL. At some point when he was on the MIC freestyling he would get this blank look on his face, kinda stare off into space, and just start scorching the mic! I'm like where in the F**K did that come from? Do you even remember what you said? He's like, No... but then F.A.C.E. Infinity or one of the other members would say something even MORE clever, MORE bizarre...  It always came FULL CIRCLE.

    To me FULL CIRCLE is one of those beats that makes ME want to grab a mic! I just see 4 or more DOPE MCs getting a verse and killing it like WU TANG TRIUMPH or something like that! I'm of the opinion that my beats are good enough on a standalone basis but I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT when MCs write to my tracks! It's basically the GREATEST HONOR and feeling of FULFILLMENT that is hard to describe. There is a song called "FREE SPEECH" that Pico "SOUL MYSTIC" Martinez made to one of my tracks. I had just finished working on this beat along with a few other projects when my HARD DRIVE crashed. Needless to say I was SUPER bummed about that. That weekend I was hanging out at LYLE's house (BFF since 1st grade aka Homi1) and Pico showed up with this HUGE grin on his face and I was like "What?", He's like "you gotta hear this" and put on that beat (I forgot I gave him a copy last week) and spit the rhyme he made over it and it brought me to TEARS!  Not only was it like one of the DOPEST rhymes I EVER heard, but it was on MY BEAT! Like that s**t fit PERECTLY! The BEST part is that it was SUPER f**king POSITIVE!!!

    That was ALWAYS a HUGE issue with me SPIRITUALLY, ETHICALLY, SOCIALLY... Hip-Hop, because of it's use of SPOKEN WORD, has the power to deliver a POWERFUL message POWERFULLY! Indeed when words are repeated over and over their message enters your subconscious and becomes part of your psyche. When Hip-Hop originated, although many rappers boasted about money, cars, clothes, and hoes (classic example: Rapper's Delight) and in general "Rap" was a party/club type medium, there were many people who thought Rappers had a responsibility to deliver a MESSAGE to help "our" people. I was once challenged by my brother ALI with a question: If there is a "GOD" and an ultimate RIGHT OR WRONG, will entertainers ultimately be held accountable for swaying the masses to do wrong? (drinking, drugs, adultery, murder... not uncommon themes in rap lol) This still weighs on my conscience to this day but I have come to the conclusion that if there is a "GOD", MUSIC is indeed a GIFT and if you are blessed with any talent you should do everything in your power to FLOURISH IT! At some point you will hear the song I'm talking about, again it's called FREE SPEECH but for now it's under wraps for an upcoming SOUL MYSTIC RELEASE! (uh you didn't hear that from me)

    My WHOLE point was that I want SOMEONE to make some DOPE S**T to this beat! It doesn't have to be about a "FULL CIRCLE" or nothing. I just got on a mission at one point to put a name to all of my beats (instead of my existing naming system date/bpm/version... makes it kinda hard to find that "one beat" when you need it lol) and this reminded me of the "CYPHER" which made me thing of 360 degrees, a FULL CIRCLE. The cover kinda came together randomly... I found a picture of some dudes standing in a "CYPHER", it just happened to be an ECLIPSE that day and there you have it. PEACE Y'ALL!

Split PERSONalites?

One of these days I'll get around to explaining my VARIOUS "D.J. Personalities..." (Hey didn't we JUST talk about motivation??? lol) For now I'll just put it this way... ALL 115 tracks that are on the SAVAGE BEAST RECORDS label were created, produced, arranged; whatever you wanna call it; by ME, so DON'T GET IT TWISTED! XRAYi and Frenxxy AKA ME aight?! PEACE


Go To http://www.SavageBeastRecords.com for FREE BEATS and MORE!