Video edited by Adrian H. Molina.  Filmed in Molina and Amy J. Iwasaki in Bahia, Brazil (Aug 2010).

“Timeless” by SOULAJU w/ DJ Icewater, released on the debut full-length album SOULAJU, March 23rd, 2010. 

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, tracing back five years of independent music by Molina. 

Time in Brazil

Aju and I had an opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Brazil this summer.  Aju danced at Escola de Danca for two weeks with American and Brazillian dancers, studying Brazilian cultural traditions, Afro-Brazilian dance, Candomblé rites and the Orixás. 

For me, the trip was a break from the pounding of time that I feel in my life, my work, my existence here in the states.  My only goal was to shoot some video footage for a possible DIY (do-it-yourself) music video.  Otherwise, I was on my own time.  No laptop, no cell phone, no schedule, no to-do lists. 

Aju’s dance program was in Salvador de Bahia.  We rented a cheap but comfortable one-bedroom apartment near the ocean and bussed to the city center (Pelourinho) every day.  I wandered around alot, just watching people and letting ideas float in and out of my head.  I took some capoeira and drumming classes, read “The Famished Road” by Ben Okri, wrote stories for my sun, but mostly wandered through the world and my mind. 

One of the things that I loved most about Bahia (north-eastern state of Brazil) was the comparative lack of cell phones.  After a few days in Bahia, spotting foreigners is easy: electronic gadgets, preoccupation with time, baggage…

I picked only a handful of days to walk around with a camera.   Bahia is over-photographed and many locals are weary of cameras.  Brazil is extremely wealthy, but that wealth is not shared.  The memory of slavery and the lived reality of historical exploitation are very much alive, despite the myth that Brazil is a racial utopia.  Frustration with tourists is evident in areas in/near the Pelourinho (Salvador’s city center), which translates to something like “whipping post”, because that’s exactly what it was. 

I tried to be as respectful and non-invasive with my flip cam as possible.  There are a lot of things I wanted to record but didn’t.  In shooting the video, I sought to capture the beauty of Bahia.  There is always “ugly”, no matter where you go, but it was the beauty that struck me most. 

Most of the video was recorded with a flip cam.  After it froze up on me, we used Aju’s outdated photo camera.  I used an old laptop and Windows Movie Maker to edit the video.  The “professional” element is the intention, the imagination behind it, the work ethic (i.e. endless hours troubleshooting).  There are endless details I could continue to tweak, but at some point you gotta call it “good.”

Timeless

Hip-Hop meets Bossa Nova, poetry meets bilingual reflections.  “Timeless” captures the essence of SOULAJU’s fusion.  Aju is a lover of languages, cultures, and foreign lands.  I’ve always been that old soul Hip-Hop head that can’t get enough of the rhymes.  We both stay hungry for fresh ideas and new challenges.  DJ Icewater continually fed that hunger in 08 and 09 with his creative energy. 

This was one of the last beats DJ Icewater sent us for the SOULAJU album.  Aju was working at a Brazilian Jazz bar in New York City at the time and thinking about how to make a trip to Brazil a reality.  The unexpected Bossa Nova influence came right on time. 

I couldn’t take the beat off repeat in my headphones but I wasn’t sure what to do with it.   I wrote rap verses and laid those down first.  After sitting on this track for a few months, it was clear that the rap wasn’t working.  Rap flows didn’t match the vibe of the beat nor the “Timeless” theme.  It doesn’t matter if the words are on point, that’s only part of the equation. 

I put my mind to work on the issue of time…  In your late 20s you begin to understand the relationship between time and life cycles.  For the first time in your young life, you understand with more than your mind that someday “this life” will end.  Time becomes less of a question and at the same time much more of a riddle that can never be answered, only appreciated. 

Aju’s chorus (In Portuguese):

Muitos dias vão nascer
Muitas noites vão acontecer
Incontáveis memórias, se criarão se criarão
E uma canção será cantada por toda eternidade
Uma canção sobre você
Uma canção com som de verdade

In English:

Many days will rise and many nights befall
Countless memories will be created
And a song will be sung throughout eternity
A song about you
A song that rings true

Dedications:

The women of DIDA Banda Feminina
Viver Brasil
Escola de Dança da Fundação Cultural do Estado da Bahia (FUNCEB), Salvador, Brazil

Like what you hear?  Purchase SOULAJU (15 tracks, name your price) here:

Download this MP3 – (Right Click)

“A Reflection of Hip-Hop” appeared on Representin’ 4 Life EP by               Adrian H. Molina aka Mo Brown (2007), CHiTT Productions

I’ve been using this acapella piece as a crowd pleaser since 2005.  I spit the rhyme for the first time at an open mic night at Coal Creek Coffee House in Laramie, WY.  I recorded this track in 2006 with Will Ross of CHiTT Productions.  We recorded in my bedroom, turned the room upside down and inside out: makeshift studio, mattresses pushed up against the windows and the walls.  Borrowed mic, laptop setup, homemade pop filter. 

We were very meticulous about the details.  Everything had to be right.  Unplugged the refrigerator and the other appliances in the kitchen even though they were all the way down the hall.  We didn’t want the reverberation of the machines’ lull fuckin’ with our energy or our soundwaves.  We paused when trucks drove by and scrapped the takes when we felt that minor noises outside might cloud the sound quality of the recording.  

CHiTT Productions released this track on Representin’ 4 Life EP (March 2007), beats supplied by “Mannequin Rituals” (Stop the Police State, Save the Mannequins).  The cover read “Adrian H. Molina” aka Mo Brown.  I was flirting with the idea of keeping Mo Brown as my emcee name, but I wasn’t sure so I released the EP with my full-name on it just in case.  Had BIG plans for the EP…  It was soon to reach the ears of tens of thousands of Hip-Hop heads coast-to-coast.  Didn’t happen like that, but that adds to the richness of the story.  You learn that your failures are your successes if you keep going.

The moniker “Mo Brown” had been with me since high school.  I shortened it from Momo Brown, which I decided sounded a bit childish for a 17-year-old rapper.  I eventually scrapped Mo Brown after I realized that how many emcees (male and female) claimed to be Mo Brown.  Adrian H. Molina became Molina Soleil (sometimes you choose your name, sometimes it chooses you), and now it’s somewhere in the middle, but I think I know where it’s going…

I sit back with my cheap glass of red wine and smile at the recording of this track.  So serious… and rightfully so.  It was the beginning of a long-awaited mission…

I have more fun with the piece now.  I’m more playful with the delivery..  I reach into the box of Molina classics and pull it out every now and then.  I’m always in front of new people who have never heard it.  Sometimes I do it for the history, or for a familiar face in the crowd.  You gotta keep things fresh and mix it up, for yourself as much as for your fans and supporters. 

It’s a good moment to be here in Denver, CO, listening to this track and blogging it, marinating on all the things that SOULAJU has done since March of 2009, soaking it all up into my skin… at the same time preparing for a fresh Molina push. 

I was brave enough to call my music a movement from day one.  I knew it was much bigger than me, that I was a filter.  But over the years I’ve realized that it doesn’t move without me.  You gotta be the engine.  If not you, than who?  For yourself, and the community…

Now’s the time, now’s the place, fight, now’s the time, one love for your rights.  Now’s the time, now’s the place, right, now’s the time, one love people unite… 

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a weekly blog in 2010 focusing on 5 years of independent music by Adrian H. Molina, breaking down the history, insight, reflections and relevance one song at a time. 

Twitter @MOLINAspeaks

Circa Dec. 2007, Ed Auditorium, University of Wyoming

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 3 (Son Como Sangre) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

Jazz meets Latin Reggae meets sultry Spanish vocals and spoken word poetry on the third Reflection of the Sun, highlighting Aju’s multi-faceted abilities as an vocalist, as well as Asia’s diverse sound. 

Asia Fajardo-Wright is an avant-garde saxophonist and composer who leads Asia Jazz Project, plays in the Latin-Reggae band Mono Verde, and writes and produces original cultural and musical productions. 

Sacred Paths – Soulaju’s 2009 collaboration with Asia – is very theme-oriented and theatric in its musicality.  My hope is that Sacred Paths leads to some experimental modern dance productions in coming years.  I would like to see a director/choreographer take Sacred Paths to another level, adding physical movement to these compositions. 

This fall, Asia will debut her own new collection of experimental works that fuse the world of theater and experimental art with her original music: 

Omecihuatl Rising (a tribute to the Divine Feminine) is a union of jazz, free-jazz, classical, world-percussion (Japanese Taiko, Native American hand-drums, Mayan water-drums, Aztec /Mexica Huehuetl) where modern dance, painting, and poetry are all woven together; free-form movement and structure are intertwined. Through the fusing of these elements, the countless representations of the Divine Feminine and age-old questions pondering ‘womanhood’ are explored.

If you will be in the Denver Area in October, you can see Omecihuatl Rising at the DNote in Arvada on October 2nd ($8) or the Fox Theater in Aurora on October 22nd ($10).  Click HERE for event info.  The production will feature Denver dancers, artists, and musicians, including Aju. 

“Sound like Blood, Blood and Song (Sound), Sound of the Heart, Pure Fusion.  We are a New Vibration, a New Sound.  Come onto these Wings.  We Shall Go, Navigating with the Heart.” – Aju (Son Como Sangre)

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 2 (Life Rituals) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

Listening to Aju’s Life Rituals Reflection I am reminded of the importance of rituals, personally, socially, and culturally.  Not so much the Mannequin/mundane rituals of day-to-day life, but the spiritual rituals, love rituals, appreciation of moments that echo the circular and spiraling nature of this life. 

I used to think of life in terms of cycles.  I often found myself in the very familiar predicaments, beating my head against different walls that all looked and felt the same.  Through meditation, discipline, reflection, life work, I began to understand these cycles as circles that will always bring you back to your points of origin. 

How could I break old, unwanted cycles while embracing the circular nature of existence?  I began to understand the possibility of spiraling higher rather than endlessly circling back to the exact same point of reference. 

To reflect and meditate on this life is to live holistically, celebrating the unexplainable, living life’s countless riddles gracefully, recreating cultural rituals, creating and co-creating new rituals.  To truly love this life takes some appreciation of magic, of dreams, of stars, moons, suns, and sky.  The organic matter of life, as well as the intangible.  The divine.  The sacred. 

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, focusing on five years of independent music by Adrian H. Molina. 

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 1 (Solar Flare) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

During weeks 32 – 34 of A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively, I get to write about and reflect on pieces that I did not write or record.  Reflections of the Sun parts 1, 2 and 3 were written by Aju, recorded with Asia Jazz Project.  These Reflections reflect, compliment, and contextualize my Letters to the Moon. 

The Letters to the Moon and Reflections of the Sun explore the cosmic dance between the sun and the moon.  This relationship has been revered and celebrated cross-culturally throughout human history.  Life on Earth could not exist without the sun or the moon and the solar balance they create on the planet. 

In dance, art, ritual, life, and love, men often appropriate the brilliance of the sun, and women the magic of the moon.  There is that connection in these compositions, but these poems say much more about life and love than what can be expressed simply between man and woman. 

Reflections of the Sun Pt. 1 was written by Aju sometime during the summer of 2008.  The dream is this reality, played out over and over again throughout the span of time, always for the first time, always reminiscent of something familiar yet impossible to name. 

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, focusing on five years of independent music by Adrian H. Molina (aka Molina Soleil of SOULAJU)

Twitter @MOLINAspeaks

“Skydreamer” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals featuring Helen Chanthongthip, Up Before the Sunrise, released by CHiTT Productions (2008)

Skydreamer is the opening track off Up Before the Sunrise, my first full-length album.  It was a dream.  I had been writing rhymes for 10 years, constantly envisioning what my first album might look like.  What would it sound like?  What would I say if I had one chance, one album, to say something to the world?

I started writing material for Up Before the Sunrise during the summer of 2006.  I had been through a lot during the years prior.  In 2005 I left the life I was living.  It was a life that wasn’t mine.  It was beating me down, slowly murdering me, and it probably would have killed me, mentally and spiritually, if not physically.  I faced my demons, handled my business, then tested out my wings.

After releasing an EP and touring my first play Phantom Discourse in 2007,  CHiTT Productions released Up Before the Sunrise in August of 2008.  I packed up what little I owned, put it in storage, and hit the road for some gigs with a $1000 in my pocket.  It was with UBTS in hand that I met the Papers film crew, Aju, DJ Icewater, E.G. Bailey of Tru Ruts, Hakim Be in Albuquerque, and a host other artistic folks.  These relationships would lay the foundation for my work in 2009 and 2010. 

“Skydreamer” will resonate with everyone with big ideas, honest intentions and a brave heart.  I wrote the track during the fall of 2006 when I took a job doing research for a gang resistance and education program in Greeley, CO.  I watched daily as police officers scared the shit out of mostly brown and working class kids.  There were some decent moments, a few well-meaning officers, but most of these cops weren’t teaching those kids shit.  They were indoctrinating them with self-defeating ideas of obedience and complacency, setting them up to fail, basically telling them where they knew these kids were going to end up – in prison.  They were already constructing prisons in these kids’ heads. 

It was one of my last research days.  I stopped taking notes, flipped the page, and wrote “Skydreamer”, thinking about all the prisons in my head that I had busted out of in my own young life. 

Tomorrow marks the 2 year anniversary of Up Before the Sunrise.  This album doesn’t carry the classic Hip-Hop sound of Shine Flow EP and SOULAJU.  UBTS was much more on the experimental tip, no samples, straight out-the-basement musicianship by my DIY homies at CHiTT Productions. 

I love the concept of sampling.  Hip-Hop was built around the art of taking something old and giving it new context, new style.  We are constantly in the process of sampling various ideas and realities, sifting through the possibilities, throwing out what we don’t need, keeping what we do.  I embrace this.

I’m also down to try something new entirely. 

Adrian H. Molina

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, focusing on 5 years of independent music by Adrian H. Molina.  Follow MOLINA @ http://www.twitter.com/MOLINAspeaks

The music of “Skydreamer” by Mannequin Rituals is featured in the film Papers the movie: http://www.papersthemovie.com.  “Kite Runner”, another Up Before the Sunrise composition, is also featured in the film score.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Share 

This is one of two tracks SOULAJU released with DJ Ceiba for “My America”, a benefit compilation for Papers the movie, released July 4th, 2009.  The other SOULAJU/CEIBA collaboration is “Believe It”. 

Sending love out to Brotha Sean aka DJ Ceiba, who recently became a father.  Ceiba is a Harlem-based drummer, DJ, and producer.  He puts together jarring, head-nodding beats, fusing Reggae, Latin, and Hip-Hop influences.  Ceiba flirts with some samples but relies mostly on his own musicianship. 

Ceiba played this instrumental for me in his apartment studio shortly after Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.  We had watched the inauguration at a nearby Senegalese cafe a few days before.  We chopped it up over the politrix of “revolution” that afternoon, going back and forth over whether Obama really had the intention of being the agent of change he claimed to be.  If so, would this man’s intentions be enough to budge the babylon regime, or would he be co-opted?

Politics is politics, we agreed.  Real “change” is possible only on small scales, beginning first and foremost with the individual and what one chooses to stand for, and who you choose to stand with.  The small stuff individually is the big stuff socially.   

These conversations led to the writing and recording of “Rise”.  Aju wrote the hook first: an elemental call for people to rise up and reclaim a healthy and just space for themselves.  I was really focused at the time on balancing her feminine energy.  Plus, Ceiba’s hard-knock beat really set the tone for the grittier side of my mentality and delivery as an emcee. 

MOLINA

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively

“Poet Gettin’ His” by Molina of SOULAJU w/ DJ Icewater

FREE DOWNLOAD 

Share 

Switchin’ up the vibe and pulse.  Recent weekly Retrospectives have explored the lighter side of my work.  A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively now moves back into harder-hitting territory. 

Everyone’s heard the song “Gettin’ Mine.”  Every rapper’s got a Gettin’ Mine track.  The world is in a Gettin’ Mine state of mind.  This is my version of Gettin’ Mine. 

The track is produced by DJ Icewater.  Dig the bounce in the beat.  Love the organ.  Was unsure about the “hook” when the DJ sent the beat, but the more I marinated on my concept the more I got into the hook. 

My favorite rhymes on the track:

Verse I: “I swim wit da riddim, a tree said to give ‘em /somethin’ new for the listen, fresh for the mission / she grew new leaves, I saw my pen bleed / like a phantom in a dream planted a seed / like a fly new track by that man named Molina / just climbed out ya speakers and hopped in ya lap / opened up ya gut, swam through your chest / hit you in your heart so you felt it kick start…”

Verse II: “So suckers be like ‘please’, they hate when you like me / like ‘oh, I think they like him,’ now we gotta spike him / take his last life, strip him of his power / end the final game, conquer him like Bowser / I tower like a hawk, swoop through all they tricks / bypass the facade, see the game like Oz…”

Verse III: “…reflected dialectics, eclectic, polyrhythmic / A-freeka aesthetic, Mexika-type phonetic / like Nezahualcoyotl just snuck inside my head, took me for a ride, dropped me from the sky / like Damn Xicano Brown, he rip the mic right / inject the enigmatic and inflect the lime / with style that permeate, moist up the vibe /with rhymes that elevate, snake like wild vines…”

“Like a black JFK I know that I can…”

Get yours how you get it.  Give back. 

- Molina

Despite his young age and youthful appearance, Adrian H. Molina is a veteran Hip-Hopper, philosopher, law school graduate, DIY/indie entrepreneur, college lecturer and all-around human bridge.  Molina is nationally renowned for his eclectic music collaborations and his work as a poet, storyteller, and youth advocate.

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week music blog in 2010 reflecting on five years of independent music, one song at a time.

Enjoying the free downloads and Retrospectives???  Support good music.  Name your price for the 15-track album SOULAJU.

Twitter @MOLINAspeaks 

FREE DOWNLOAD    Share 

I was in Brooklyn when DJ Icewater sent this beat.  This was before Aju and I were SOULAJU, before we decided to make an album together. It was a winter day in January 2009.  I had the track on loop in my headphones, staring at the thick snowflakes falling outside Aju’s apartment window in Bedstuy.   No doubt about it, this was a love song…

I had no interest in releasing love songs when I began making music. 

I don’t write many love poems or love songs.  I don’t listen to much RnB.  I find most of it sappy and boring.  People try too hard to be sexy and what they put out ends up looking and sounding corny. 

I’m sure some people listen to Letters to the Moon or a song like Love Is and think these cuts are sappy or corny.  Despite their depth and originality I can understand how these tracks may dilute my street credibility among some rap fans.   I get it, and it is what it is, cuz all I listened to as a teenager was that hyper-masculine thug shit.  I ate what TV and radio fed me.  I got over my rap thug romanticization after high school, but I still preferred aggressive “hardcore” revolutionary Hip-Hop. 

As I have grown into a more complete person, my musical tastes have broadened and shifted.  I have less of a desire to maintain a particular steelo as an emcee.  My artistic work reflects this growth. 

Some men hide from the mirror but we all have many faces.  I aim to embrace the totality of my experiences as a man.  As an artist I aim to offer as much as I can to the people who follow my work. 

Sometimes it’s Fire.  Pain.  Anger.  Frustration.  Sometimes it’s Culture.  Politics.  Worldview.  A little Bravado.  Some Swagger.  Confidence.  Insecurities.  Reflection.  A little Love.  A taste of Lust. 

Life pulse.  Enjoy. 

Adrian H. Molina is a modern-day storyteller and philosopher who uses Hip-Hop, poetry and oratory to entertain, educate & elevate diverse audiences.  In addition to lighting up stages under the alias "Molina Soleil" of SOULAJU, Molina is a college professor & music supervisor for Papers the movie.

FOLLOW MOLINA on twitter @MOLINAspeaks

Letters to the Moon Pt. 3 (Scandinavian Dream) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

Share 

I was on a train from Copenhagen, Denmark to Berlin, Germany when I wrote this poem.  There was a lot of movement that day, in the waters and in the sky.  The colors held me.  I watched everything in silence, breathing it all in until it was time to write…

I find it hard to write at the moment.  The words do not come easy now.  By contrast I was in a zone at the time I wrote these Letters to the Moon.  I had a lot of ideas and I was heavy on passion, hungry to create.  I consider these Letters to be some of the best poetry I’ve ever written. 

Those moments ebb and flow.  I don’t accept the idea of writer’s block, but at the same time creative energy is circumstantial.  Mental stagnation reflects physical stagnation.  As a writer you have to remain open and ready to put your ideas in motion when the moment is right. 

“Until then, I write of you, hovering over brick paths peacefully, humming dreams of tomorrow until the day that I come home.  To taste the color of your mouth.  To smell the sweet scent of your flow.  To get lost in you.  Again.”

Following are links to retrospectives on the other two Letters to the Moon on Sacred Paths:

Letters to the Moon Pt. 1.

Letters to the Moon Pt. 2.

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, focusing on five years of independent music by your man Molina.  For blogs, free downloads and updates, follow me on twitter @MOLINAspeaks.