Representin’ (4 Life) by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals first appeared on Representin’ 4 Life EPin 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.
Sometimes I sit on a cloud andthink… 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.
REMIX: The original version of Wrong Ways appeared on Shine Flow EP during the summer of 2009. That was an Aju story—a journey through cultural transformation and thus personal affirmation.
The Soleil Mix is a tale of personal struggle—something everyone can relate to. Some of us have it rougher than others and circumstances often transform us in unexpected ways.
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.
Mass deception, coups d’etats left and right, shared confusion, no way to tell what’s real and what’s fake—a collective inability to ascertain truth from lies because the spin doctors are that good.
Polar ice caps melting, mass global poverty ignored, apocalyptic natural disasters, conspiracies linking what was once natural to what is now claimed to be man-made. Seemingly no empirical way to make sense of it all, so the masses don’t even try. They just wait for 2012.
“I strut, I flow, my style I’m all mine / I shine my truth / I chop, mash up time / you work, you grind, you climb with no interlude / your push, your pull, you rise high, it’s all you…”
…the first words heard from my first collaboration with Aju and DJ Icewater. It was a big shift in style and presentation from the more gritty Up Before the Sunrise album.
As MLK Day 2010 comes to a close, I am reminded of my responsibility as an emcee. I walk in many shoes and wear many hats. I use my music to entertain, to educate, to inspire, to provoke thought, to create controversy. These lines often intersect and sometimes they become blurry. I don’t expect everyone to support everything I do. At the end of the day, I am accountable first and foremost to myself.
Circle back to one of many beginnings. It was 2007 when I released Representin’ 4 Life EP. This intro was the first track the world heard from Adrian H. Molina.
Mo-lee-na So-lay & Ah-joo = SOUL-AH-JOO: an independent, community-oriented, multilingual male/female music duo. SOULAJU fuses progressive Hip-Hop and Neo-Soul w/ world music influences. SOULAJU engages youth around issues of self empowerment, cultural identity, the power of the living word, access to education and the arts, gender justice, comprehensive immigration reform, and environmental justice.
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