"When I finished the solo to 'That Lady,' Kelly looked at me for 15 minutes straight without blinking. I felt like I had one foot on the ground, the other on Mount Olympus. Like I'd discovered how to ride a bike and eat ice cream at the same time. I went from a black-and-white world to technicolor." -Ernie IsleyMy homie Eric Roberson often says that some songs aren't written so much as they are given. I'll go on record as saying that I never fully understood the spiritual power of creating up until the last year or so. Until then, I just kinda viewed rhyming and writing songs as a job; a labor of love, of course, but still a job nonetheless. "Dreams" however, was a joint that truly changed my outlook on the nature of what we do as artists. At the end of the day we are just vessels, and our creations are the energies of God speaking through us. "Dreams" is a joint that was truly given to me.
There was a time in my career when a blank sheet of paper scared THEE living shit out of me. Going into the studio without verses already prepared was terrifying. Writing songs on the spot was something I never did. Nowadays, its the only way I work. I can honestly say that I feel no greater rush of excitement than from walking into a studio with nothing, and walking out 7 or 8 hours later with a full song recorded, mixed, and ready to go. Whereas in the past I would focus on the destination ("I gotta finish this shit already"), I eventually learned to embrace the journey ("Let's see where this takes us..."). What used to scare me about the recording process has now become the most enjoyable part.
Rashid Hadee (www.myspace.com/rashidhadee) is a producer/emcee that I've been a fan of ever since he passed me a beat CD back in 2003. The one thing that set him apart from the dozens of other beattapes I would hear was his ability to reconstruct samples and really make them his own. Most new producers at that time would chop samples to death until they sounded like atonal bits of noise, OR they would just get lazy and chipmunk loop they shit. (Keep in mind, this was the post-Blueprint era and every nigga swo' they was 'bringin that soul back.') Rashid was one of the few cats who had managed to keep it raw with the sample chops, but still maintain a strong sense of melody along with drums that knocked. Ever since that first listen to his Chapter 13 record, I knew he was a cat who I would be working with closely in the future. There are very few beatmakers who simply "get it." Rashid is one of em, and for that, he has my utmost support, respect, and admiration.
When he sent me this beat, I heard the melody for the hook in my head almost immediately. I didn't even have a full concept in mind, but I still called Pooh and warbled some shit to him about "mamadreamsdon'tkeepyalightson" and it was enough to inspire him to start writing his verses. Once Rashid sent us the parts, me and Khrysis stripped everything down and did some minor eq'ing. Khrysis played a bassline on it and we called my man Sheldon Williams to add some keys and strings. In a few hours we went from a simple four bar loop to damn near havin a symphony. There was an incredible energy in the room that night, and we could all feel that we were creating something very special.
In retrospect, it was really Pooh who saw the potential in this joint more than I did. I thought the lyrics I'd written for the hook were silly, but once we added our verses they took on a deeper emotional meaning. "Dreams" is probably my proudest moment on the album. Everything from the way it was conceived, to the verses, to the subject matter, to the beat, to the instrumentation, to the mixing, to the vocal arrangements (props to Khrysis for convincing me I could hit that Bilal-esque top note on the hook's 2nd half...lol) showed everybody at the top of their game. It was, in my opinion, a beautiful example of how God lives through our expression. The mix you hear on the album, save for a few minute adjustments, is the exact same version we walked out of the studio with that morning.
Hadee speaks on it:
Nearly there,
Tigallo