The main focus on "Leave of Absence" was to reintroduce myself to the game after taking a 2 year -hiatus from releasing music. I was burnout after "Chain Letters" and at a crossroads with the direction I wanted to go.  I knew the project wasn't coming out on Soulspazm so I didn't have to worry about if fitting a certain sound to mesh with the label's sound or reputation.  I had a chance to tour abroad and see the reaction from people firsthand at shows based on the songs they enjoyed the most. That reaction influenced me to create songs that would sound even better when performed at shows so I stayed away from all the smooth and jazzy shit this go 'round.  Instead of working with the usual suspects on production (Illmind, M-phazes, Nicolay), I decided to branch out to work with other up & coming producers this time.  The problem with working with the same producers is that their signature sound usually becomes your signature sound by default (which can be a negative sometimes). This time I wanted to focus more on defining who Supastition is lyrically and take a different approach by making more aggressive tracks.    

Leave of Absence - The main focus of this one was to dead all of the hearsay that's been said about me so-called retiring from music and people believing it was because of this and that.  I never retired from music and never said I would but you know how everything gets twisted on the 'net.  It's more of an intro joint to remind people of what I'm all about and that I haven't lost a step since the last record.  I did that joint with my man D.R. from Charlotte, NC.  We've worked together through his group The Others but never had a chance to work together outside of that.  He started hitting me with a beat CD every few months and the joints were so dope that I had trouble choosing which ones I wanted to use.  It's got an electronic vibe to it but it still knocks in the speakers.  I hit up my dude White Shadow (from Norway) to lace the cuts since he also did the intro for Chain Letters.  The first version he did was a little too much with the scratching but the 2nd version came out perfectly in my opinion.  I wasn't afraid to take risks this time around and this is the perfect example.   

Bad Blood - This is probably one of my favorite records on the EP. The JB sample is easy recognizable but there is no denying that D.R. freaked the sample incredibly.  Hip Hop's foundation was created off of James Brown records so this kinda took me back to those days.  It was recorded (in mid '06) before JB's death but it was even more important to us after he passed away especially since he is from the Carolinas. On the song, I'm just being brutally honest.  The first verse addresses all of those who I felt have taken cheapshots at me in the past on records, freestyles, or whatever.  The second verse is letting people know that I'm not concerned with making another (the) "Deadline" or working with certain producers just to please anyone.  Fans tend want you to make the album that THEY want you to make rather than do what you feel is natural.   

Worst Enemy - I've been a fan of Marco Polo's production for about 3 or 4 years now and he is one of the realest dudes in the industry.  I worked with him on his album "Port Authority" so he returned the favor for my EP. I would always ridicule him for only working with old school rappers and giving all of his best beats to them.  He would joke with me saying that I only liked neo-soul sounding beats with offbeat drums and flutes...haha.  We've done a few songs together but "Worst Enemy" was a concept record that I wanted to have a harder-edged beat.  The original version had the same drums but a completely different sample so he recreated it to take it to the next level.  We got Marco's homeboy DJ Linx to murder the scratches something serious.  The concept is about how people can be their own worst enemy sometimes when it comes to their lifestyle and mentality.  Lower-class people always spend more time and money trying to look wealthy than anything else most of the time.  Then you got younger people who are more intrigued by a drugdealer's success than a wealthy businessman who made his money legally.  This track just speaks on how alot of us live destructive lifestyles.  I made sure to use "we" to include myself in that category so nobody would think that I'm pointing the finger at others while excluding myself.  We all fall victim to being our own worst enemy on occasions.  

It's All Over - I haven't done too many posse cuts on my previous projects so I wanted to put together a song featuring some of the artists who I feel are killing shit lyrically.  Everybody is so afraid that they will be outshined on their own record so they usually put a bunch of weak links on a song who won't steal any attention from them.  Fuck that... I wanted to feature 3 emcees beside me who I felt are beasts in their own right and could hold their own regardless of the lineup.  I have worked with Torae, Dan Johns, and Finale on their own projects so they blessed me with verses for "It's All Over".  The funny thing was that nobody heard the other person's verse or even knew who was going to be on the joint until it was finished.  You got brothers from NC (Greenville), SC (Florence), NY (Coney Island), and MI (Detroit) on the same track.  I've had this beat from D.R. for a minute but wasn't really sure what to do with it at first even though I loved the beat.  I think that people are about to see how ill D.R. is on the beats man.

Word Has It - This was officially the first song that I recorded as soon as I came off of my 2 year hiatus.  I've worked with Khrysis through doing songs with the JL but this was the first time we had a chance to sit down and work on a solo record.  I seriously struggled to get through the lyrics for alot of reasons.  For one, I had four wisdom teeth cut out a few weeks before so I was still in serious pain and slurring words somewhat.  Also, I had performed the night before in Raleigh so my voice was hoarse as hell while recording.  Khrysis is very critical in the studio so I gave him the nickname of the 'Bobby Knight of production' but it helped make the song that much stronger.  We were in the studio and he accidentally brought the wrong hard drive and began playing instrumentals.  I narrowed down to three different beats but I ended up finally choosing the one we used for 'Word Has It'.  The song isn't so much saying I am the best rapper out but that I consider myself one of the best at what I do.  I just wanted it to sound like an </SPAN>"I'm about to take over the world" type of joint.  I leaked the song to a few places and it spread like wildfire without much promotion behind it.  

Evil Money - This song is in the same vein of 'A Baby Story' (from Chain Letters) because it puts a spin on people worshipping material things.  It touches on the topic of money having evil effects on the lives of people and how it is a deciding factor in every aspect of life including love, family, and religion.  My man Johnny Madwreck produced this joint.  I have worked closely with him on  "The Deadline" and "Chain Letters".  Madwreck is a rapper/producer/engineer who can also scratch so his creativity always brings out another side of me as an artist.  He sent me a few tracks to choose from and I felt like this one was perfect for "Leave of Absence". I got this DJ named Wreckineyez, who I met at a music festival in Atlanta, to lace the scratches for it.  I haven't been that impressed with someone's DJ skills in awhile so he was the first person I thought of to do the hook for it.  I gave him a few ideas and he incorporated his own to make it official.  I was on tour in Europe so I never got to hear the cuts until the song was mixed but I was amped after I heard it.  Definitely one of my favorites on the projects.   

Last But Not Least - I did everything possible not to let this song die or slip through the cracks.  Originally, I recorded it to a beat that was already released because I wanted a producer who could craft the music around the vocals.  DJ Wreckineyez had already laced the cuts for it and everything so it was more less a 'just add water' joint.  I sent it to Oddisee and never heard back from him and then I sent it to Illmind as well but his schedule was hectic at the time.  DJ KO had been sending me Analogic beats for almost a year and I was having trouble choosing the beats that I wanted.  Not because they weren't dope but they were so dope that I couldn't decide on which one to record to first.  One day it hit me to just send the vocals to KO and Analogic to see what they could come up with from scratch.  We had maybe 2 weeks before the deadline to turn in "Leave of Absence" but he came through in the clutch and created a banger.  This was the biggest surprise out of all the songs and I bump this shit at least once a day.  This is just a straight spittin' record so there's no lengthy concept or anything.  Just dope rhymes, beats, and scratching.  I'm sure this is gonna be a winner at live shows.