As the years passed, as deals and opportunities came and went, a fear started to grow inside of my mind.  A fear that up until just recently became my biggest.  The fear of.. becoming an OLD RAPPER (dun dun dunnnnnnn)!

I always saw being old and doing hip hop as foreign, out of touch, and just an all around silly look.  I mean… take your grandpa.  Now put a Dipset chain around his neck.  See?  Now tell him to throw up “The Roc” and say “so wavy.”  See??  Silly isn’t it? Now stop pestering your grandpa and get back to reading this…

I did realize early in why I feared becoming an old rapper.  At that time there were no old rappers.  It was pretty much all youth, from the artists to the tastemakers to the fans.  So I had the notion that hip hop was for the youth.  I guess I figured it would stay that way, and that as I got older my listening tastes would progress to smooth jazz and NPR.  I do get my proper smooth jazz and talk radio in today, but I never lost my primary love for hip hop.  Quite the contrary, it grew even more.

As much as some of these young rap dudes want to try and convince the world that hip hop is only for the youth, that is just not the case at all.  Luckily for us all, the “old school” as a whole has stood it’s ground against the whipper-snappers and the music industry trying to push us into the old folks’ home.  The originators, the golden era artists, and the long-time hip hop fans have never stopped doing what they do and loving what they love.

So now, I see old rappers doing old music, young rappers doing old music, old rappers doing young music.  It’s ill.  There is clearly a lane for us older heads now.  Perhaps an older emcee will never reach the level of fame as some hipster who wears tight nut-hugging jeans and Boy George shades.  But, as he gets older, so does his fan base.

I’m not afraid of being an old rapper now.  There’s plenty of us out there, and we ain’t going nowhere.  Unless those damn kids are on our lawn again…

That’s the new motto for this year. There is so much I should have accomplished with music, school, and life by this point, but haven’t because I haven’t sacrificed what it takes to get there. So here is a list of resolutions to help me jumpstart the new year.

1. Finish mixing the album and rock more shows.

2. Stop spending so much time on social networking sites.

3. Curb my spending so I can get my credit report back on track and to stop moms from asking why so many people are calling for me.

4. Earn good grades in law school while continuing to make good music in 2009.

5. Spend more time in the studio making music instead of getting fucked up and chopping it up.

6. Contribute to the Illamental blog at least 2-3 times a week.

7. Continue getting my news from a variety of sources so that my music reflects the realest truth possible.

8. Remember to keep my family and friends close, cause in the end, they’re the only ones that really mean a damn to me.

Til next time,

Akim aka Hip Hop 2.1

We keep it mad hood with the Hen dogg and Shasta cola!

Just recently, we were able to finish up all primary vocals for the upcoming album by The Vox Merger. Many late nights and early mornings at our spot, which we have unofficially dubbed “The Rock Next Door,” have begun to bear fruit. And if I do say so myself (and I do), I think you’ll all like the style of hip hop that hear from the fellas. Even with the pressed time and sometimes limited resources, they’ve been hitting their milestones and are finally starting to see some daylight as far as a release date is concerned (which I’m sure will be announced soon as well).

While the Illamental camp might think that ‘finished Vox album = impromptu vacation,’ they are dead wrong. Ya boy Bamm Tronics is cooking up a mean music schedule for the ’09, which will require everyone to keep their heads surrounded by headphones and buried within composition books for many months to come. *Rubs hands together menacingly*

Rexx clearly does not agree with Bamm that the beat could use more crunk

Although I can’t openly discuss company business on the blog, I can tell you that it will equal more of “that ill shit, that soulful, that real shit” as Mighty Ro put it so eloquently.

As cliché as it may sound to say “stay tuned”, that is exactly what I’m asking you to do if you’re digging what we make over here. We’re gonna go hard, but we’re doing it by our lonesome for the most part. This hip hop game is like the wild west these days. No one seems to know what The Formula is (shout out to The D.O.C.), and we’re just trying to get in where we fit in. So feedback and support is always golden. So, if you haven’t already, friend us up on the Myspaces and video channel links you see to the right. When we’re not looking at half nekkid ladies’ profile pictures, we’ll be sure to holla back.

Unlike the rest of the performers, Bamm was lined up because he thought Todd was handing out free porn.

The Illamental fellas were at it again. Running around Los Angeles on some guerrilla ish to get another video in the can (we don’t need no stinkin’ permits!). And with one eye open for five-oh, and the other watching for the local crackhead with a penchant for selling video equipment, the video shoot for “Reasons” by The Vox Merger went off without a hitch.

With Todd Angkasuwan at the helm (much props again to Todd for blessing us), we got this baby knocked out all in one day. Started out early morning in the depths of LA county. You may notice from some of the shots, we’re not rocking the kind of garb you’d expect dudes from sunny Cali to wear. Jackets and hoodies and what not. No, we were not imitating our favorite east coast rappers. It was cold dammit! Actually, we were expecting rain, and Todd thought we’d be able to get some badass rain shots. Not a drop in sight, though. As you can see, even Mother Nature has it our for your boys. I bet if we hadn’t wanted rain… bah lemme stop right there.

Mighty Ro wonders if this shot is worth the risk of getting clobbered by a Mack truck

Speaking for myself, one of my favorite parts to do was the “line up” shot where you see everyone popping out behind the person in the spotlight. Mainly because it was somewhat death defying for us to make our necessary rotations with cars whizzing by at 50 mph. I can only imagine what people said to themselves as they drove past us. “Who are these idiots in the middle of the goddamn street this early in the morning?! I wanna smoke what they’re smoking!” … or something along those lines. We’d also get the occasional driver who would slow down to get a closer look at who was in the video. Once they realized that it was not Jin doing a collabo with the Dogg Pound, they’d speed off, shaking their fists.

Little did Akim know, while he was doing his cool guy closeup, he was getting styled on by Mario and Erwin

You may have also noticed the “party scene” in the video. Again, no fakin’ the funk here as well, folks. While it made for a great atmosphere and some very eye appealing camera shots, this set-up scenario quickly evolved into a full blown shindig – complete with boozing and prayers to the porcelain god. Surprisingly though, it wasn’t me this time (nah I won’t put anyone on blast…. unless the price is right). And of course, the poor hosts of the house had a big cleanup job to handle afterward. Hey now – Bamm Tronics helped too!

All in all, ’twas a good time for all. Vox got a hot video, Illamental as a whole got another notch on the ol’ belt, and we hope you at least get a couple of good head nods out of it all.  If you haven’t done so yet, get a gander at the finished product that is Reasons.  Mighty Ro & Akim would sure appreciate it.

Now… where is that line for the free porn really at?

After our last show in 2007, we (Helix) said we were gonna take a hiatus from “touring” and stay close to home to focus on Vox Merger & other music, as well as get some of our ducks in a row. And while we were successful at that, I think I’m starting to crave rocking the mic again.

Looking around the interweb I’ve seen some of my peers setting up their tour dates for ’09. Got me to thinking about all those stage performances we’ve done and how much I love that ish. As cliche as it may sound, performing for people is one of the few rich returns for me. I get up there and sweat, stomp, and shout in a way I can’t do in my everyday life. It’s a release, and it’s officially been a year since I’ve had the chance to let off some steam.

One would think that being based in the entertainment mecca would provide and endless amount of opportunities and connections. While there are definitely a lot of movers and shakers out here, it takes a whole lot of hard work, time, and elbow rubbing to get to the tier of folks who play with the rich peoples’ money. That tier is pretty elite. Below them is a whole sea of “wanna-be’s”…and I don’t use that term in the derogatory way because hell, I “wanna be” too.

When we do a show out here, the crowd is almost always full of people who are in one way or another trying to get their own foot in the hip-hop door. Because our crew is still somewhat on the come-up, those people naturally feel like they’re better than you or should be in your position (if they aren’t). Even if they aren’t hating, they’re still analyzing your show/music and grading you on their personal curve. Again, I don’t mean to throw stones because if I’m in the crowd at THEIR show I’m doing the same thing. It can’t be helped. Nonetheless, it makes for a weird vibe from the audience. Like a plumber doing some work at the home of another plumber who is over his shoulder the whole time.

So when we head out to a different city or state, I guess that most of the people from their town journeyed to LA to seek their fortune & fame. What’s left is people who are at a show just to enjoy the show.

I been producing and rhyming almost since the beginning of my career. It came out of necessity cause, frankly, me and Nameo couldn’t afford to pay producers for beats. I was like “Psssh, I can make beats” (though I had only rarely touched anything really close to a professional production tool in my life). But it was one of those things I just “felt” I would be able to do. I’d always revered producers/production and studied their techniques, but applying it was quite the learning experience…… layman’s terms – my first beats were WACK.

I know there’s a lot of producers who will occasionally jump on the mic. As well as supreme emcees that will dabble with the pads now and again. But my true admiration of those that do “double-duty” are for the ones who make ill beats as well as being excellent wordsmiths…. consistently. I can tell you from experience that this is most likely difficult for them. But not the way you may think…

I can only speak personally, but it seems that the issue with being an emcee/producer is inspiration. It seems it’s almost impossible to be inspired to produce AND write simultaneously. The last few weeks, for example, all I can seem to do is make beats. I been cranking out a lot of them too. But I can’t write anything right now. I’m too “in the zone” of making beats, and anytime I try to work on some lyrics I’m dealing with serious writers block. I went through the same thing working on the Building Blocks album, but in reverse. We were furiously writing during our studio sessions, but we needed a few more beats for songs to round out the project. I stared at my MPC for days…. I was in the “writing zone” and I was stuck there.

So you can see where this could become a problem if/when time is of the essence. All I can to to try to compensate is to work with inspiration anytime it hits. If a couple of lines pop into my head while I’m in the car, I’ll repeat it over and over again to commit it to memory until I am able to write it down. If I’m in a store and I hear an oldie with a dope break, I grab my cell phone and either text myself the name of the song or use the audio recorder to catch a piece of the song for reference.

I tip my hat to all the emcee/producers out there.