Writing a blog about making The Beam Up the past 3 months is kinda hard because my life these past 3 months has been a blur, but I'm a try and go back to bring yall up to speed on how The Beam Up came to be.
It all started like I said 3 months ago when P Stew sent me a beat J Buttah made entitled "Watch How I Move." It had a sample of 50's voice in hook repeating his famous line from In Da Club "if you watch how I move you'll mistake me for a player or pimp, I've been hit with a few shells but I don't walk with a limp." I met Stew at a studio way out bumble somewhere to do that joint and my verse for Sharp for my homie Wale's mixtape Back To The Feature. So I'm out the joint recording, high as a kite off oxycontin and premium marijuana lol. Mind you I don't smoke (at least I didn't then ha) so I'm so far gone like the homie north of the border. Anyway we did both of those joints and Stew was crazy about the record, he wanted to make it a single and do a little campaign to it. I didn't really like it THAT much so in my mind I'm thinking I gotta do something hotter to top this. The joint was cool but I didn't want people thinking I was bragging bout getting hit up so I wasn't all the way into it like that.
My next session was key to the whole movement. My longtime engineer Fly Bry, he got a spot out Fort Washington (much closer lol) and I went through there on a mission. I had a beat CD from J Buttah and I'd been listening to joints off it trying to find that heat. The first one I settled on was a record I eventually called Slow Down, a Kanye Big Brother esque track that I did from a autobigraphically viewpoint of growing up. The next joint would turn out to be the single and the eventual catalyst for my whole movement. Powder For The Babies, it was already formatted in the exact version in which you hear it now. Me and my crew had a lil saying we'd say "beam up." Beam up just means to take it to the next level or refers to anything fly. For instance, you got some new Guccis, you got on some beam ups, a fly chic is definetely a beam up. So once again, its raining when I'm listening to the beat. And if you've been shot before, whenever it rains the low pressure from the condesation hurts so I'm off that oxycontin again, high as e mug lol sitting at the bar in my house listening to the beat. First thing that came to mind was, "this sh*t right here, is a beam up, is a beam up beam up" cause I had been stuck in the house watching that damn Katt Williams special over and over again so I took his "this sh*t right here" and put my twist on it or whatever. Then I had a friend of the caucasian persuasion lol and to be frank, she is phat as all outdoors! She used to say, "when you gonna write a song about me", so I dropped the "got the Grey Goose in my Ice Tea mix when I'm with my white b**ch on my Ice T sh*t", made it relevant to my life at that point in time. Soon as I recorded it I'm thinking "oh sh*t got one lol!"
We were having probkems getting a studio where we could just take over and make it our little headquarters or whatever. All the spots were either too far, too booked or just not good enough. We eventually got to Depthcharge which was far enough from the city but close enough to get to and had the high quality sound and environment we were looking for. And let me tell yall, when we got here it was on! I'm going in knocking out records like its nothing. The process is moving smooth, everything was feeling right and natural. I didn't have to drive, my biz partner Kofi would come scoop me, we talk biz on the way and handle biz when we got there. I did a ton of features, freestyles and exclusive records during this time. Collabs starting coming through and producers were actually having mini beat battles right there in the studio to get me to rap on they joints. We drinking Crystal Head vodka (that's the new beam up) had my man G Church of Freemind Productions film the whole thing! We hitting jays, watching the finals, all that, making and EXECUTING plans all the while staying committed to our "hate-free" goal. Simply put, we don't entertain negative energy period.
So many people played roles in The Beam Up, I'm ji leery about naming people because I don't wanna forget anybody so if I forgot about you my sincere apologies. It isn't that you didn't help its just that I had a temporary lapse in judgement lol. Shout out P Stew, Kofi, J Buttah, Team Demo, Sakwe, Dope Sunny, Juke, The GROUP, Two Tone Productions, Sadler Photography, The Board Of Adminstration, E (2hood4hollywood.blogspot.com) DJ Money, DJ Analyze, DJ Sixth Sense, DJ Alizay, DJ Iran, Quicksilva And Angie Ange, Antonio Cuban Cigar Smoker, DJ Gemini, DJ Jealousy, DJ Rico, Flexx, Two Face Ya Wild Boy, Dre All Day In The Paint, DNA, P Cutta, Prince, Dibia$e, Pharoh, Tommy Smalls, Peezy (Free Peezy), XO and the whole Studio 43 movement (yall too deep to name individually but O Boy what up), Tre and the whole UCB, Wale, Tabi Bonney and Cool Kids Forever Films (Six I see you) Raheem DeVaughn Phil Ade and the whole 368 Music Group (I see you Dre), The Narcotics (The Workshop), Judah, both Candice Nicole and Candy Nicole (A List Graphics), Krossover Ent, (Melo, Cassidy, Diego Cash what up, Don Juan (looky looky), Freemind Productions, Best Kept Secret, Red Cafe, Kevin Ross, Sypenhitaz (Bread and Mo), Garvey (Triple Team) Oy Boyz and everybody else who lent a hand
--KingpenSlim
