"The siren sings so sweetly that she lulls the mariners to sleep; then she climbs upon the ships and kills the sleeping mariners." -Leonardo Da Vinci

In Greek mythology, sirens were female monsters who sang songs to sailors on their way to battle. While their songs were sweet and no man was said to be able to resist them, they were ultimately used to distract the sailors, take them off their course, and lead them to their demise.

The story of the 'siren song' made me draw parallels to most of the stuff we hear on commercial radio and TV. Y'all know I love my share of ig'nant shit just like anybody else, and there's been PLENTY of songs that I've been duped by just because 'it knocked in the club.' At some point however, you have to wake the fuck up and wonder where all that shit leads. Sure, you may can argue that music doesn't directly cause negative behavior, but do you really believe that the message of 'get money and supersoak that bitch cause yo' chain hang low like a rockstar' is gonna yield POSITIVE results? Such was the basis for the concept of our song "Sirens."

Me and Pooh both agreed that we wanted to kick the album off with alot of energy. I figured that since "Minstrel Show ended with us being 'censored,' so to speak, it was only right that "Getback" started with niggas sayin exactly what they wanted to say. (This is why Zo's piano interlude "Please Stand By" is a replay of MS's closer 'We Got Now'...to represent a TV station with an interrupted feed waiting to come back on the air.)

With all the unfair scrutiny that hip-hop had come under in 2007, we wanted "Sirens" to be a wake up call, as well as a social document of the times we were living in. The sampled dialogue at the beginning is taken from the documentary "Confessions of a BET Producer" by my man David Bradley, aka Dbrad. The entire documentary is worth checking out, but that one soundbyte summed up all my feelings about hip hop's past few years. (You can check him out at www.myspace.com/dbrad76). Once me and Pooh finished this one, we immediately knew that our previous opening song was gonna get replaced. (The original opener, "The Getaway" produced by Khrysis, is available on iTunes.)

In the "Sleepy Pooh" mix of 'Sirens,' you'll hear the original album intro before Zo did his piano interlude, as well as Pooh's first take of his verse. It wasn't a 'bad' take by any means, but I think he realized that he was missing the energy of the loud, uncouth nigga we've come to know and love over the years...lol. He came back the next day and spit the verse that you now hear on the album.

Me and Pooh were really proud of how this one came out. The star of the show, however, is the young lady seen here:





One down and leb'm mo to go,
Tigallo