So I was performing this week at a weekly showcase event for local artist in my area.
Both weeks I 3 drops of A-314, 2:1 on each wrist rubbed in and wiped my finger under my ear on the pulse point.
Last week I was getting respect from everybody (except the DJ, he just seems to hate the whole musical scene for the city). During my performance the audience and the judges gave me love and respect. My performance had heart because I was well familiar with the song I was performing. I performed on 1 shot of Hennesy, and a low dose of MDMA - the combination meshed well and both effects enhanced each other. After my performance I was having a fun time going from the bar to the stage and outside for a smoke, etc. I’m having a fun time and I’m showing it, very outgoing and social completely fearless of social stigma and open. Performers gave me love after my performance and I was returning the favor. now 1 artist I went up to and as I asked him about the song her performed last week he made eye contact with me and looked away and began interacting with someone else, just kinda brushed me off. After the show I talked to the promoter of the event who was showing me respect. The rapper who brushed me off was listening to what I was saying to the promoter (I think I was actually interjecting into their conversation as I just walked up into it). I was just talking about some of my plans and a mutually beneficial plan for everybody involved in the event and the dude who brushed me off began looking at me different, if you saw this on footage his facial expression gave all of this away and you could pinpoint the moment when he started to show me respect. Then he asked for my number and told me he wanted to talk about some business and he was gonna “hook-up with me later” so to speak.
He gave me a call later that week and we began talking business. When he was saying how much he could help me and what he could offer me I told him “if your serious enough to wanna help me I can help you to, everything mutually beneficial”. He interjects and tells me he’s gonna needa call me back in a couple mins when he gets around to calling I’m already into other things with my Saturday night that prevented me from wanting to talk business, I told him we’ll talk at the upcoming show when I’m in a better frame of mind to discuss business.
Then at the performance this week I performed a new song that wasn’t as memorized as the one from last week on just 2 shots of Hennessy this time (1 of them VSOP). The song has a more calm laid back feel and to replicate that I kept my energy level down on stage to give the allusion of effortless style to match the song. I now realized for a weekly contest with judges song selection matters. The song was written to be networked through political advocacy groups (for example NORML), so it’s not super hip-hop in essence but the elements of lyricism are still very strongly intact just presented in a way that might be more listenable for the non-rap fan. From the moment my track comes over the speakers, the beats is unbarebly distorted, it was turned up way too much. It felt like it was drowning out my voice and then I realized my mic was turned down low. The judges said hold on as the DJ redropped the track and fixed my mic (or I think he did, it sounded inconsistent and unresponsive on certain lines that were spit consistently like the lines before). The first judge responds to me respectfully with good feedback on my performance, the second judge says “as a former rapper I am actually offended. Do you take this seriously? Act like it.” - I took it, I felt my performance wasn’t so seamless I completely skipped over 2 lines and caught back onto the beat with the rest of the verse, the crowd was responsive to certain parts despite the song having a low energy level. The DJ says “Hold up..You know you gotta lot to work to do right? Can you spit a 16…spit 16 right now”
I begin spitting my bars and spit about 10 lines as I’m thinking to myself about the manner in which I’m being asked to this. And then stop.. and then the DJ goes “You got a lot of work to do” (this is an underground radio DJ with a radio DJ type personality).
I get off stage and a bunch of rappers and people in the bar went out of there way to come up to me to say my performance was good or “don’t listen to that, keep doing what your doing”. An engineer & his side kick music analyst (yup that job title carries a business card too) comes up to me and gives me his card to come by his studio. One of these dudes is at least 6’8’’ and a close talker, he was leaning in on me speaking while his friend was next to me in my other ear. I noticed one dude across the room looking at us as if I was being spoken to in a threatening manner or something, this dude looked like Suge Knight with braids. The guy says “I can tell your comfort level wasn’t where it should be but your performance wasn’t bad and that guy shoulda never said that, I don’t even know what that is. Come by our studio and we’ll make sure you’ll never hear that again”. I called and scheduled something the next day.
But when I went to talk to people at the end of the show I was it seemed like people were being a lot more inclusive. I go to speak to the dude who I spoke with on the phone and he’s into other conversations and tells me he needs to be heading out and to give him a call tomorrow. I call and get no answer or return call.
I really don’t feel like my performance was that bad, I been getting a lot of love from people who heard the studio version and my performance wasn’t off of that mark by much with the exception of missing a couple lines - but none of these people knew the song anyway.