Episode 2: Feeling the Pressure

The heat is on.......

My first meeting with my producer David (aka David Elijah, aka the Professor) went well..... too well.
First the good, while we discussed where we were musically and how we felt about that, I could tell that David had something on his mind.Upon engaging him a little I began to realize I had made a potentially huge mistake, I had asked him on this project to bottle his immense and diverse talent,so I could slap my clearly designated Hip Hop label on it and therefore make it easily stocked by the figurative store that was receiving our product. Problem is, that's not how great art works. I began to see that everything great about the music he and I had made was a collaborative effort that offered the best both parties had to bring to the table. You see, David is not just Rap, he's not just rock, nor is he just pop, he is the greatest aspects of all those genres of music. He is a major league musical genius that GOD, in his providence,
has chosen to use in minor league setting, which has allowed him the luxury of being humble through it all (but please don't let me endanger that by continuing in my complements of him.).   Amidst the conversation and my own personal epiphany, the decision was made to scrap everything we had started and begin a new project. As we began, it was as if I had shaken that aforementioned bottle and twisted off the top (in the sink, like mama told me) causing greatness  to explode into the music David created. Before I knew it my ears were drinking in the delicious concoction of drums, keys, filters, and buses that were produced by his mad scientist like, feverish work. Which then leads us to the bad.....

I knew once I heard it that my contribution to this was going to have be better than anything I had ever done before. And before you go thinking that  this is all some disingenuous marketing ploy please read on as I inform you that I put so much pressure on myself that I seemingly incarcerated myself into writers block. You may now be saying "but wait, look how long this blog is...", I didn't say talkers block, I said writers block. The prospect of my contribution to this masterpiece being what brought it down to earth from its interstellar heights mixed with a unexpected/confusing/frustrating/unsolvable conflict I experienced with a particular member of my family during the past weeks has left me somewhat paralyzed creatively. No, I haven't forgotten how to rhyme, I just haven't wrote anything that in the words of the philosopher Master P would "make em say ugggghhhh, nah, nah. Nah,nah". Stuck here, I've resolved to do freestyle push ups in my cell in hopes I can survive when I hit the proverbial yard.....


There is one practically applicable nugget this experience has made me aware of: I think too often in collaboration, whether in work, church, family or art we ask others to conform to us to make it easy. But I think we miss greatness in preference to simplicity by avoiding the more difficult task of learning how to take the individually GOD-given talents of all involved and create balanced synergy. Maybe we too, should pop the top and unleash other's pinnacle of ability onto our endeavors