“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.

(more…)

SOULAJU spent some time in Trinidad, CO in May and June working with a group of young people connected to a criminal justice “Diversion” program.  Good kids, smart and conscious of their surroundings, who got in some minor trouble and luckily evaded more serious problems like juvenile incarceration.  These youth meet weekly and have to satisfy a number of requirements to complete the diversion program, including weekly meetings and community service.  We had worked with Tony Diego, the diversion program director, on other youth programs through an organization called OYE (Organized Youth for Empowerment).  He had an idea for a youth video project with flip cams.  We had limited time and funding was also limited, but this is what we came up with after a few trips down to Trinidad: a documentary about youth culture in Trinidad, Colorado: 

“Trinidad Undaground”

Our main goals in working with these young people were to empower them to tell their own stories and engage in a process of creating their own media.  Before we put cameras in their hands we ran some workshops with them, talking about their experiences, identity, their dreams, life beyond Trinidad, getting them writing their thoughts on paper.  The following video is a “making of” look at our work with this group of youth.

The Making of “Trinidad Undaground”

“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. 

(more…)

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. 

(more…)

Letters to the Moon Pt. II (Omnipresent Stream) appears on the album Sacred Paths by Asia Jazz Project featuring Molina Soleil & Aju (2009)

Share 

I wrote five Letters to the Moon during a journey through northern Europe in November 2008.  Three of these poems became compositions on Sacred Paths.

This Letter was written near a small town maybe 30 miles or so south of Dublin, Ireland.  I can’t recall the name of the town, but I remember the day well.  I remember the way the pen felt in my hand, the coldness of my fingers as a I scribbled the ocean’s words. 

(more…)

Representin’ (4 Life) by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals first appeared on Representin’ 4 Life EP in March 2007.  It was re-released on Molina’s first full-length album, Up Before the Sunrise, August 2008. 

My main goal with my first EP was to clearly define my work as an artist, to define what I represented.  I knew that my music would not always carry the same serious tone… because Hip-Hop has always been about having fun… but after almost a decade of writing and performing poems and raps, I wanted everyone to understand how serious I was about creating RELEVANT music. 

(more…)

History:

I’ve been a Hip-Hop head for 18 years, over 2/3 of my young life. I’ve been emceeing for 13 years and utilizing Hip-Hop as a tool for education, consciousness raising, and social justice activism for 9 years. I have released six independent music projects and am the music supervisor for a film about immigrant youth that has screened in almost all 50 states. I have paid some dues.

My hard work has bred some success … but not without some controversy.

(more…)

“La Historia del Mexicano” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, CHiTT Productions 2008

Share 

I wrote the first version of La Historia del Mexicano back in 2002 during my days as an undergraduate student activist.  I began performing it as a spoken word piece, then a lyrical acapella piece, then rapping it over other artists’ beats.  Mannequin Rituals put a sound to it in 2008.

(more…)

Sometimes I sit on a cloud and think… Me inside of you… you inside me…

A simple but introspective/retrospective track, tracing roots, paying homage, showing respect to some of the people, and thus all of the people, who made me who I am.

The art of storytelling boils down to the ability to capture a feeling, to pull the listener in and make them feel you.  Outside/In: to transport them into your world, weaving them seamlessly back into their own world, then back again, in and out, continuously, beyond the telling of the story.

(more…)

“Young Brown Poet” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, CHiTT Productions (2008)

Share 

The Journey

Circle back to one of many beginnings.  It was November 4th, 2006.  I had the opportunity to open for Saul Williams at the University of Wyoming.  Will Ross was running sound for ASTEC—the University of Wyoming’s student government sponsored production team.

I knew of Will, having run into him continuously at UW events, but we had never really had a meaningful conversation.  Our worlds intersected, but we existed in separate realms in the small town of Laramie, Wyoming.

Something told Will to bring his mini-disc recorder to the gig.  It was probably Saul Williams’ name and notoriety.  While running sound, Will recorded my performance.  Young Brown Poet lit him up, and the next day he emailed the vocal track to Dustin Neal, his fellow band-mate and co-founder of CHiTT Productions.

Out of nowhere, I got an email from Will, telling me to check out a rough mix of Dustin’s vision of Young Brown Poet.  Will explained that he sent the track to Dustin in the morning, who ran home over his lunch hour and recorded music to the words.  Will produced a rough mixdown and it was in my inbox the night after my big performance.

I was floored by what I heard.  Completely unexpected.

(more…)