I wrote “Letter to Izriah” during the summer of 2005.  I was going through a lot, personally, trying to make sense of the circumstances I was given. 

I was writing to reclaim my life.  My sun was at the heart of the equation.  I was contemplating death on a very serious level.  Was it death, physically?  What is death, spiritually?  If I wasn’t around someday, how would that affect my sun?

Being a father changes the way you think about your life, the way you think about your actions.  Your legacy becomes what you pass on to your seeds. 

What would my sun need to know in the case of my absence?  What was I leaving to guide him?  Memories… but he was only two years old at the time. 

My music… that’s what I was leaving to my sun.  Something that he would be able to track down and listen to someday in the case I was no longer living. 

I began writing Letter to Izriah.  What were the lessons I needed to pass down?  Raw lessons.  No sugar-coating life in this world.  I needed to speak honestly to my sun, for both of us.

I wrote the first version of this song out of thin air, without a beat..  I revised a few lyrics early in 2007, recorded the vox and sent them to Mannequin Rituals. 

Mannequin Rituals wrote the beat to the lyrics.  We recorded late in 2007 and “Letter to Izriah” was released on Up Before the Sunrise in 2008. 

Ever since, I’ve been thinking about writing and recording a song that celebrates the other side of fatherhood…

The fun side…

Molina

“October Myst” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, Up Before the Sunrise (2008)

This week marks the 9-year anniversary of the War in Afghanistan – the longest war in American history.  There is no end to this war nor the war in Iraq.  These are resource wars, wars of power and geopolitical/economic control. 

Many people have asked me what “October Myst” is about.  To this point, I have given very few people a straight answer.  The Mannequin Rituals, tracks 7-10 of “Up Before the Sunrise” particular, were partially about their mystery.  The poetics.  Theatrics.  The art of storytelling.  The art of unraveling truth.  Who dares to put forth the time or effort to know? 

Enough time has elapsed to shell out more clues and provide more insight.

This is the story of an American soldier who died in the Middle East.  These are the last 4 minutes and 58 seconds of his life, flashing before his eyes after he is shot in battle.  Listen to his story, rewind, start over.  And over.  And over.  And over…

These are his reflections.  His thoughts.  His love.  His lust.  His beauty.  His dreams.  His anger.  His battle scars.  His life.  His death.  His legacy? 

What did he die for???

The October Myst is the political haze Post-911.  The lies.  The agenda.  The deception. 

Bush’s war is now Obama’s war as President Eisenhower’s “Military Industrial Complex” plays out one president after the next. 

Beyond politics, this is a soldier’s story.  This is a dedication to all those worldwide who have lost their lives to deceit. 

This is for those who believe. 

Molina

“Sea of Glass” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, Up Before the Sunrise (2008), CHiTT Productions

The human story is a puzzle, confusing, jagged and bloody, splattered about the concrete like a red sea of glass. 

Mannequin Rituals.  Stop the Police State, Save the Mannequins. 

The first piece of this journey is a dream.  An awakening from a long dream.  An agonizing journey.  A story of a scared man crawling out of the dark cave that is his history. 

The second piece is the realization of the chaos and destruction that has defined the human story.  An eye opens to the source of his madness.

The [spoken word] builds upon layers of deconstruction, making clear the patterns of misery that have plagued the human spirit and planet Earth. 

Murder, pillage, burn, rape
Jail, prison, punish, break
Lock, load, aim, squeeze
Freeze, strip down, knees
bent, kicked, cracked
Cut, gash, bust, blast
Judge, loath, hate, divide
Murder, mo murder, die

The last piece is the repudiation of this order.  The stand against it.  The revisualization of what is possible.  The pushback.  The path.  The passion. 

Meditation.  Reflection.  Action.

Manifestation.  The Age of Revision. 

Molina

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 MomoBrown, which I decided sounded childish for a 17-year-old rapper.  I eventually scrapped Mo Brown after I realized 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 movement.

I have more fun with the piece now, 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 my life as an artist, soaking it all up into my skin… 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

“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 $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. 

Molina

Independent, experimental, sucka free.

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 my 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. 

Representin’ 4 Life was the first song I wrote and recorded with Mannequin Rituals and CHiTT Productions.  After many years of flowing over other artists’ instrumentals, this was the first beat I could call my own.  Music is fun first and foremost.  But at the end of the day these are my sensibilities as an emcee: substance over blind profitability and consumerism, standing up for social justice, cross-cultural solidarity, a celebration of roots, respect for those who struggle, self-empowerment, and the ability to rise up after getting beat down.

If there is any question, check the selection: I’m representin’… 4 life. 

A.M SOLEIL, RETROSPECTIVELY is a 52-week blog series through which Molina breaks down five years of independent music (2006-2010) one track at a time… the history, the theory, the rhythm, the rhyme. 

Molina – www.molinaspeaks.com

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

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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.

La Historia is a story that traces three generations of struggle and triumph.  A tribute to los inmigrantes who risk their lives for their families, the wise elders who keep ancient knowledge alive, the young activistas who carry the flame.

Latinos are indigenous survivors of 500 years of colonization throughout the Americas.  Most recently, brown people have been targeted by racist laws in Arizona, including SB 1070 and other legislation that bans ethnic studies and goes so far as to say that people without accents cannot teach English classes.

As “America” browns (people of color will be the majority by 2050, if not sooner), conservative white backlash will grow and become more violent, reminding us again and again of the 60s.

Us who condemn racism, us who affirm human rights and human dignity, we join together to celebrate culture, to celebrate the his/her stories of the people of the Americas.  Indigenous, black, brown, white, Asian, all relations on all continents, we join together to reaffirm a movement for justice.  We never die. 

Up Before the Sunrise.

Molina

“Hunger Pains” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, featuring Helen Chanthongthip, CHiTT Productions (2008)

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Hunger Pains first appeared on Representin’ 4 Life EP back in 2007.   Representin’ 4 Life was all about flippin’ the script on empty mainstream rhetoric like “keep it real”, “represent”, “stay true”, etc.

I was hungry to put my stamp on the definition of “true Hip-Hop”, something I now feel is unnecessary.  There isn’t one "true” form of anything.

In any case that was my mentality at the time and I took an aggressive approach to reclaiming these phrases and making them meaningful.

There were seven tracks on my first EP: three songs and four acapella pieces.  Each track was about defining what I stand for and represent as a poet and emcee. 

The three songs on the EP were “Representin’ 4 Life”, “Hunger Pains” and “Young Brown Poet”.  All three were re-released on Up Before the Sunrise in 2008.

I’m taking it back to the beginning for weeks 10 and 11, reminiscing on my start in the professional music world.

I’ve improved my skills tremendously, as have my friends Dustin Neal and Will Ross of CHiTT Productions.  We’re all operating at higher frequencies than we were when we began working together in 2006, as we should be.

Elevation is something to celebrate, but so is the rawness of a moment, the beginning of a movement.   “Hunger Pains”, along with “Representin’ 4 Life” and “Young Brown Poet”, were like a manifesto.

“Hunger Pains” is like a fossil.  It transports me back to the days of my youth in Rawlins, WY.  It takes me back to the many moments I chose to follow my heart.  Propels me nostalgically back to CHiTT Productions’ makeshift studio sessions.

I’m constantly telling young people that you gotta push.  It doesn’t matter what your dream is, big things start with a vision.  Then you gotta grind and put your passion to the test.

Achieving success, on whatever level you define it, is going to make you sweat.  It’s going to make you bleed.  And you will doubt yourself many times.  But if you refuse to fail, your hunger and pain will manifest into something well worth your time and energy.

A.M. Soleil, Retrospectively is a 52-week blog series in 2010, reflecting on 5 years of music by Molina.

www.molinaspeaks.com

“Beyond Sundown” by Adrian H. Molina w/ Mannequin Rituals, featuring Day Acoli & Helen Changthongthip, CHiTT Productions (2008) 

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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.

Not that anybody is waiting.  People are awake, in all corners of the world, resisting global dominance by the few, pushing forward with HOPE—an elusive word in an Obama Era of Bush III politics and continued Reaganomics, or Neoliberal economics (as it is known in Latin America), or Neoconservative economics (as it is known in the U.S.), or “unfettered” free market capitalism or globalization, as it is known worldwide.   It’s all the same game: global dominance.

What I’m saying is that it really depends on where you’re at in your head, because this reality really is that schizophrenic.  One day it’s all love, and the next day it’s all fear, and it’s up to you to find the balance therein and stand strong.

“Beyond Sundown” it’s like waking up from a nightmare, over and over and over again, because The Unconceivable layers the air, brick upon brick.  At the end of the day, you look in the mirror and decide which side you’re on, knowing that the question will look and sound different the next day, and the next day after that, and so on and so forth.  But it’s all the same struggle.

Truth, freedom, justice, equality, some sliver of democracy.

And then there is the age-old question: “Would you die for it?”

Today’s question: Would you live for it?

- Molina

Respect to my people at CHiTT Productions, and to Day Acoli and Helen Changthongthip for their contributions to this track and the Up Before the Sunrise project.

Video by Dustin Neal, Mannequin Rituals

Download this MP3 – (Right Click)

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.

“Kite Runner” is one of many stories of how I became an emcee.  Big things come in 2010.  Bigger stages, brighter lights, larger crowds, more opportunities to entertain.  I’m ready for these challenges.  I’m coming with more swagger and a bigger smile on my face.  But I gotta remember where I come from, what made me, and who I represent.

This week’s track is dedicated to Martin, Malcolm, Chavez, Gonzalez, Peltier, countless rebels unnamed, all my people who fight for what they believe in.  This track is for Haiti.  For the forgotten.  Dedicated to all the artists who push themselves to create relevant material.  This is for my folks at CHiTT Productions, for my son and all the kids, for my partner Aju, the homey Josh and my man DJ Icewater.  Thank you for your support.

Molina