Behind The Lines: Speak Up

Friday, March 18, 2011

Behind The Lines: Speak Up

Speak Up is muscle of Unsung. Every song projected for the mixtape has a unique personality - each track a facet of who I am and Speak Up represents not only my dissatisfaction with the Hip-Hop industry and the prolific figures we idolize within it, but my readiness to stand up for what is right and the urgency and expectations I have for my listeners. In these lines, I not only express from my own perspective of what the artform has become, I urge the audience - The Resistance - to take a stand alongside me and demand more from the practitioners of this craft. I understood as I wrote this song the potential this track had to offend the artists who fit the targets of my criticisms (if they even care - I'm a 20-year old independent MC from Dallas, lol, rather mighty of me to assume they're even listening), but I felt that the track (produced by Farhan Kahn) created an epic enough canvas to convey some feelings I've had ever since I've been exposed to mainstream Hip-Hop. When I first heard the track on Youtube, I immediately thought to myself, "Oh, shit! I can't let anybody else hear this!". Fortunate for me, the track was available for purchase so I whipped out my Dallas Cowboys debit card with a balance of roughly $4.60-something cents on it (the same account presently overdrafted $59, btw), bought the beat, downloaded it and got to writing that night. Never in my life has such profundity flowed so effortlessly from me. I knew immediately exactly where I wanted to go with the track and surprised myself with how easily the message coalesced. The song was completed in a week and uploaded as described in further detail in a previous post (http://bit.ly/e33jmA). I've never been as proud of my own work as I was with Speak Up and if the response I got from this song is indicative of the hype that is to be expected from further releases, this rise to acclaim may not be as steep as previously assumed. So there you have it, Behind the Lines: Speak Up.

Favorite Lines:

I told myself I wouldn’t do this, stay focused on my music, away from the newsprint. Hold on to my two cents because the minute I use it may be the moment I lose it.

Hey, maybe I’m mistaken; maybe when you sold your soul you’re just playing, maybe every single time you bring it up you faking, it wouldn’t be the first time you’re caught perpetrating. Ungh (shots fired! lol)

When Bornfree breathes you’ll stop and freeze. When Bornfree blinks you’ll pray “not me.” I’mma keep hunting til the motherfuckers running have enough courage to stand and SPEAK UP!

those who resist either remain independent or are paid the very minimum attention by the System until the people in power look down and collectively decide that it’s time for one of us to be silenced.

Are you here to spit the truth or to prove to your allegiance?

what is your reaction when you listen to the music influenced by a movement started by youth to distract them from the same negativity embraced in it now, fakes are the face of it now, enslaved by the pay, caged by the fame only to be slain by the same kid that PRAYED for the day to be among you cowards.

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Brief Biography

One night, when I was a child, my family and I were sitting around the television watching the Banana Splits. A commercial for a compilation disc/tape set of hip-hop songs came on and I remember, I was five at the time, being in awe of all the different songs, artists and styles with which they chose to deliver the message. My father took note of my attentiveness and told me, “that could be you one day, homeboy.” I will never forget that feeling. The very next day, I woke up and immediately stood before my father and told him that I wanted to learn how to rap and that day, we painstakingly set out to write my first rhyme. Since then, I’d written small compositions from time to time, but I didn’t seriously consider becoming an artist professionally until I was about sixteen and able to express my ideas as an individual. I continued to compose songs and develop my own style and it was pretty much understood within my circle of close friends and family that I would look to get signed some day. It was when I was most confident about my abilities and preparing to leave off for college when out of nowhere, my mother died in her sleep. It was exactly a week after my eighteenth birthday and a few months before my high school graduation and God had taken my mother, a woman who worked three jobs at a time, slaving away daily to provide for her husband and children, away from me. This sent me down a path of self-destruction, I attempted to take my own life a number of times and my relationships were falling apart. It was then that I’d began writing intensely and allowing my emotions to bleed through my work. The result of which was Bornfree, an identity I inherited that encompasses all of my trials, triumphs, artistry and imperfections. I'm not anyone's favorite rapper and I'm no one's leader. I'm a guy with a song to sing to the world if such a world would allow.

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Friday, March 18, 2011