“So, you’re gonna be down at 2:00?” my friend asked over the phone. “You sure? Alright man,” he hung up. “We waiting a little longer?” I asked, with just a pinch of sarcasm in my tone. “Yeah, well he did originally tell me two, so that’s my bad,” he didn’t mean 2:00 in the afternoon. We were across the street from Taft projects in Harlem at a rowdy 1:45 AM. There was a huge argument on the block.  My friend told me about his friend’s studio and insisted I come check it out.  I’m too high for this shit, I thought to myself. But I was deadest on recording this crrraazzy song I had just wrote.

Around 2:15 we were met by a fairly overweight fella chomping down on a deli sandwich. He walked up to give my friend dap before turning to me.

“This the guy you were telling me ‘bout?” he asked my friend.

“Yea, that’s him,”

“Nice to meet you” the fat guy said, while holding his hand up for a dap.

“You too,” I replied.

“We gonna get started soon, I gotchu” he said.

“Soon” is a relative term. For me, it would have been 15, maybe 30 minutes later. To him, it was an hour and a half. When we finally got to his spot, it was a mess… I’ve since tried to forget the memory, so I won’t go into detail. Before finding a place to sit, I reached for my phone “You need me to email those tracks, fam?” I asked. “Yea” he blurted “But you tryna hear my some of my shit?” he asked. “Oh, of course, bruh” I replied. I mean, it was his spot, so why not?

“Cool” he said, as the first song came blaring through the speakers, he looked in my direction.

“This tight” I said, as I forced a smile… I was mad at myself for being fake in the moment. He laughed and turned back around, I got another one for you. I remained patient. Then another one. Then another one. Then DJ Khaled voice ANOTHER ONE. Before we knew it, it was pushing 5:00 AM. My friend gave me a solemn look and I nodded back. It was time to dip.

“My bad man, come back tomorrow, Ima get you in for those two hours. That’s facts,” the fat guy said, while holding his hand out to dap me. Not one to disrespect, I dapped him back but I would be damned if I was coming back tomorrow.

There are lessons on both sides of the coin on this one. Lesson one: don’t be one of THOSE rappers. You know the type. The “I only listen to me” a** n*ggas.  In all honesty, I’ve been there before. I know how it feels to be so focused on a project or an idea that it was all you wanted to listen to. In your spare time, that’s absolutely fine. Listen to yourself and enjoy and/or critique every syllable if you’d like. However, please, for the sake of anybody in your social life, do not force your playlist on mixed company. It just comes off as awkward and as a form of social bullying. Most people hate any form of confrontation, so will go along with you playing a gazillion of your own favorite songs. Gaining fans and holding ears hostage, however, are not the same thing.

Two song maximum. When letting somebody hear your music for the first time, pick the best two songs you have for them to hear. 6-9 minutes is not a long time to ask somebody to be attentive to your tunes. If you KNOW it’s good, that tease will be enough to WANT to check out your project/discography. An even better way is to simply create a playlist with familiar, more recognizable tunes. If someone responds with a “who’s this?” when your song comes up, it’s a good sign. Bask it the authenticity of knowing somebody was genuinely impressed by your music before even knowing it was yours.

On the flipside: there’s patience. I put myself in an undesirable situation by thinking a “hook-up” was what I needed to birth this song. Thing is, you get out what you put in. I should have valued my art and vision enough to book studio time (which I previously had been doing) and record it properly. Thing is, I’d been low on money, so I couldn’t afford the studio time. My willingness to go along to a complete stranger’s house to record was out of desperation. Nothing done out of desperation produces good fruit. I put myself in that situation.

Still haven’t recorded the song, but in the time since, I feel like I’ve grown with it even more! Once I do record it the way I know it’s meant to be, it will be the only thing I’ll have to play when given an aux chord.