Tag: beats

“Rebel Spirit,” My First Album on Streaming Platforms.

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I had been in my birth country of Honduras at the time of my 2 previous solo rap releases, in 2017 for Musical Alchemy and in 2019 for Expanding our Horizons, and during the time I was there I got the chance to work on some music that didn’t really fit the feel of either one of those two tapes. The beats were more intense than chill, the lyrics more controversial. These odd tracks became the base for what would become the album “Rebel Spirit.”  Some of the first tracks I made for this album were “Mass Mental Manipulation” and the first track “Rebel from the Start”, which I produced the beat for, along with the remix of the track “Rebel Spirit” from the Musical Alchemy mixtape. Since I couldn’t acquire the rights for the initial “Rebel Spirit” beat and I really liked my lyrics and flow on there I decided to make my own beat for it so I could fully release it on my first album on streaming platforms. Being in another country really inspired me to make music, both lyrics and beats. It provided me with a different perspective on life, which travelling always does. I had a simpler life in a way, with more time to dedicate to music, and more privacy to record music uninterrupted as well. I had taken my mic and laptop to Honduras, along with the mic stand. In those days it was easier to move my setup anywhere in the world, since I was still recording on a USB mic and laptop, and had no notion of what an audio interface even was. I was also making beats using only a mouse and keyboard on FL Studio. Regardless of all that, I returned to Canada 5 years later, at the start of 2022, with a good amount of work done for the album, then finished up the rest of the tracks and all the editing, mixing, etc. I also re-recorded some of the tracks with my new XLR mic and audio interface. I had been learning a lot about setting up a studio, something which has always been a dream for me but I just never took seriously, and when I got back to Canada I knew it was time to level up, including the way I made my music. Maybe I never took the studio idea too seriously because I never thought I had the money for it, but now I know that setting up a decent home studio is a lot more affordable than I had originally imagined. You always see studios full of equipment, but you don’t realize that one doesn’t need all of that to make music, only some basic things. I also picked up a great 61-key MIDI keyboard which I use both on FL and on my MPC to get melodies down in a much quicker way, which is also a lot more fun and hands-on than clicking on a mouse. In a way, although this is a kind of debut album for me, being the first I’ve released on streaming platforms, it also marks the end of some things. For one thing, this album only has three tracks that I produced, but on future records I plan to focus on all or most of the production myself. I’ve been making beats for a decade, but only recently do I feel more comfortable using my own productions to rap my lyrics over. These past few years have been instrumental, hah, in me getting into the craft of making beats, both sampled and from scratch. I had been making beats only on FL Studio since the beginning, but when I got into the MPC workflow I started to really see the beauty in crafting a beat, like a piece of art much like a full song, and now with a newfound appreciation for music production I can enjoy making beats on any platform, and I’m excited to see how I can craft the sound of my music more deliberately. As previously mentioned, this album is recorded only semi-professionally, with the other half recorded on my old setup, my USB mic which I had been using since I made my first song ever more than a decade ago. Moving forward everything will be recorded the proper way, and I’ve been learning lots about mixing, mastering, production, and just audio in general. None of this is to say that this album is lacking in quality. As I mentioned, some of these tracks were in the works for years, since 2017 when I first got to Honduras, and they’ve undergone many changes to get them to their current state, ready for release. I really put a lot of time and effort into the songs on this album, as well as a lot of thought into the lyrics, so I appreciate any and all of you who are willing to give it a listen, as well as to all of you reading this. This album, true to its name, focuses on various aspects of life from a rebel perspective, from a perspective that I feel is not always noticed, or is actually actively ignored due to a widespread, sometimes unconscious, fear of facing reality, of accepting positive change.

I hope you enjoy it! You can listen to the album on Spotify, and if you’d like to support me you can purchase the album on Bandcamp. Much love fam.

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DAY 31 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

I really wish I had done my writing earlier today, I gotta stop leaving it for the night. I’ve been thinking about that, just because I don’t want to rush my writing, but now I’ve got another great reason to actually write earlier. I sit here with a massive, pounding headache, wishing I could just go to sleep and wake up tomorrow feeling normal again. It just seems like I always end up writing during the last two hours of the day because work and other things take up the rest of the day. Sometimes I try to write an idea down while I’m working, in between calls, but the downtime is usually not too long, so a lot of the time I don’t even bother because I don’t want a cool idea to be interrupted by a phone call where I have to focus on the troubleshooting I’m doing. Yesterday we ended up sleeping at 2am, and this morning woke up at 6 to go walk my wife to the bus stop for work. She works from home also but does have to go work at the office a few days a week. We really need to work on our sleeping schedule, just for our overall health. Time management has always been a big issue for me, it always feels like there’s not enough time. This is probably the biggest reason why I hate the 9 to 5 life, but I get it, I have to learn how to work my own time out, this is just the fast-paced world we live in. I should have slept for a few more hours when I got back from walking Maria to the bus stop, since I didn’t have to work until 10, but I just felt like actually doing stuff I enjoy for a few hours, rather than going to sleep only to wake up and work, so I sat at my desk to work on some music, and made a pretty cool beat. I should mention I also had half of an edible, so about 10mg. The effect was not too intense, even though I just finished my 3 sober days for the week. Before I started cutting down I would eat even up to 150mg at a time to get a decent high, so 10mg shouldn’t mess me up too bad, and it didn’t. I mention this because I don’t know if it might have anything to do with this horrible headache. I never used to get headaches from edibles before, and I’ve been a stoner for years. I suspect I’m suffering from a combination of the after effects of the high, mixed with my lack of sleep last night, and the fact that I didn’t eat anything until about 2pm, on my break from work. In the morning I was just way into the beat I was making, so I didn’t wanna stop to go make food, and when I started working i felt ok so I didn’t bother to eat. I finally made some spicy noodles on my break, and they were pretty good. By the end of my shift at 5 though I was starting to feel the headache coming on. Good thing it didn’t hit hard while I was still taking calls, because that would’ve been pure hell. Maria got back home and unfortunately I couldn’t really chill with her like I wanted to. I told her about my headache and we decided to try and sleep a bit. I thought if I just slept I would wake up feeling much better, but that wasn’t the case. I woke up with my head pounding just the same. I did the Win Hof breathing method twice, once before sleeping and again when I woke up. It helped a bit but not enough, this fucking headache wouldn’t go away! I heated up some good and woke Maria up to eat, but the even with nutrition it didn’t go away. I’ve given up at this point, I know it won’t go away until I sleep the whole night and wake up tomorrow. It sucks because I can’t joke around with Maria, i feel irritable as hell, and also I have to write these words and post my daily beat up on Beatstars. Anyway, now that I’m halfway through this post I realize it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Writing is actually helping quite a bit to distract me from my headache. Posting my beat up, on the other hand, I don’t think will be so great. I have to put my headphones on, I have to master the beat, I have to put my producer tag on it, then post it up on Beatstars and YouTube as well. I’ll try to do it as quick as possible, since I really don’t feel like hearing any music right now to be honest. Well, at least my headache has provided me with some writing material of the day. Kind of random, but it is what it is, every day can’t be amazing. I’m a bit scared to eat edibles now, it feels more intense now that it’s not an everyday thing, even with such a small dose, and I can’t help but feel like I could have avoided a lot of pain today if I would have stayed sober like the past few days. It could also be that the weed is making me more sensitive to the consequences of not taking care of myself, like not sleeping well and not eating anything from. 6am until 2pm. If you get anything out of this post it might just be a reminder to watch your habits and health, to make sure you’re taking care of yourself and sleeping and eating right. I also didn’t drink much water during the first half of the day, so there’s that also, i just thought of that. I guess the next goals I’ll be setting will have to do with sleeping a certain amount of hours a night, and maybe drinking a set amount of glasses of water per day. Much love to you all, stay healthy and hydrated, and remember to get enough rest.

much love

~ rebel eye

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DAY 26 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

Day 26 of writing on my blog, nice. It’s also my fifteenth or sixteenth day of posting daily beats on Beatstars, and now that I have a decent catalogue of beats I have to start looking into marketing strategies to try to generate sales. One strategy is simply messaging artists and letting them know that I sell beats, probably including a few free beats they can use, obviously with a link to my beat store. I have to start searching for artists who are up and coming and whose beats match the ones I make in order to build solid business relationships so they keep on buying beats on the regular. In a way I’m happy because it feels like I’m finally starting my own business based around something I actually enjoy doing, making beats and just music in general. I’m tired of putting work in for already established companies that have nothing to do with my interests just to survive, so I know I have to put in the necessary work if I want to put and end to it for good and actually enjoy what I do for a living someday. For that reason I’m super excited to make this work. On the other hand, although I love hip-hop, from the hard beats to inspirational and thought provoking rhymes, I can’t say that I’m cool with a lot of the low effort noise that passes for rap these days, commercialized garbage promoting materialism. Unfortunately in order to promote your beats these days you have to pass them off as beats you can see some famous rapper spitting over, because if you just post it as a chill beat of happy or emotional or hard rap beat, you simply won’t get many views. This is why YouTube is super saturated with so many ‘type beat’ channels, where the title includes the name of rapper who would rap on this type of beat, along with a picture of the rapper. This is basically what I’ve been doing daily for the past two weeks, posting a beat in this format on both YouTube and Beatstars, and now I have to start marketing. The problem is that, although I do like my beats, I really would rather not post them in this way, but if I think about it for too long it feels like I’m just going back to my problem from years ago. See, I have a huge folder in my hard drive full of beats from as far back as 2011 when I first started making beats, and even thought they’re old now a lot of them are really dope, but I never released these beats in any way because my idea was to rap on them myself, not to get random rappers to rap what they want on them. See, I’ve always approached music, even my own music, as art, and I don’t like the idea of art being sold off, I’ve always wanted to release my music on my own. Unfortunately I never wrote enough rhymes to keep up with the insane amount of beats I made, and I almost always used other producers’ beats for my own tracks instead of my own, not because I didn’t like my own beats, but because the beats that fit my rapping style and content best are chill, jazzy sampled rap beats, like the ones I rapped over on my Running Rebel mixtape, whereas the beats that I produced for most of my life making music sound modern and electronic. I’ve always enjoyed making melodies from scratch, selecting the instruments and drums, and it’s only recently that I’m getting seriously into sampling instead. So my beats just sat there on my hard drive for so many years. I just got to thinking this year, I guess because I’ve grown increasingly annoyed and depressed with 9-to-5 life, that it really is time to start making a living from my music somehow, and I figured selling beats would be the most realistic way, since my rapping is not what’s most popular these days, I try to make it philosophical and inspiring, and I’m not willing to compromise that. I’ve come to peace that I might not make it as a huge success in the rap industry, and that’s okay because I enjoy doing it and I’ll keep at it no matter what. If I make it then great, if not then at least I shared my raps with whoever was willing to listen. Rap is based off of images these days, and I feel like I have too many complex ideas in my mind to just dumb myself down to be an image. The beats, on the other hand, can be made by anyone, it’s usually not a big deal since the producer is more of a behind-the-scenes person. It’s less likely that I need to sell out in order to make money on the beats side, and I’ll still be doing something I enjoy, so if I can make money making beats and that gives me the necessary time to really focus on my rapping without the need to compromise the truth, then that would be more than good enough for me. In a small way, this is why I feel shitty about putting my beats up with these random rappers’ pictures. I don’t even listen to them or like their music, so the beats are probably not even actually type beats for the artist names I post, it’s just kind of random names I choose based on what’s popular these days. Yeah, it feels wack, but no views means no sales. Hopefully as I start gaining traction I won’t need to be uploading my beats with these ridiculous names. In the meantime, I continue improving. I’ve got my new Arturia Keylab 61 mapped perfectly to FL Studio, I’ve mastered my MPC One at this point, and I’m making dope beats every day. I’m also doing daily guitar lessons so that I can eventually record myself playing and incorporate the live guitar sounds into my beats. Shout out to Justin Guitar for the super informative and easy to follow online courses, not to mention free. I really love the sound of the acoustic guitar, and that’s a big reason why I decided to learn to play it. Some of my favorite albums are Nick Drake’s albums, especially Pink Moon, and Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me”, really acoustic albums, and I can’t wait to be able to create my own chill melodies in the guitar. It’s all about consistency and never quitting. If I keep up my daily practice and put the effort in I know I can’t fail, and I’m applying the same to my beat business and every new project I take on from now on.

much love,

~ rebel eye

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DAY 15 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

My favorite way of making music is on the MPC One. When I first started my music journey at eleven or twelve years old I started with FL Studio, since I was just a kid with a laptop and not a lot of money saved up that I could spend on gear. I had fun making beats for sure, focusing on old school beats, then experimenting with trip-hop and ambient music a lot, even trap beats, but I was never as into it as I am nowadays. Over time I stopped producing so many beats, making a beat only once in a while in FL Studio, using other plugins such as Nexus, but I was never really super into it, for the most part I just wanted to rap. I realize now that that’s mostly because of the way of making beats that involves using a mouse and keyboard. Once I got my hands on the MPC One I was hooked, and I haven’t stopped making beats ever since. The hands-on approach to making music is a lot more fun, and it feels like an instrument I’ve been learning and I never stop learning. Basically the MPC is a DAW (digital audio workstation) in a box. There’s lots of different kinds of MPCs, but I went with the One because of it’s compact size, and based off of everything I had read online. It truly does not disappoint in a way, and even know that I’m pretty comfortable with it and feel that I know it really well, I realize that there are still a lot of ways I could get even deeper into it, that’s how powerful this thing is. Of course, everything the MPC One can do can be done in a DAW, including FL Studio, which I still use, but it’s just a lot more fun using the MPC. Another thing I’ve been getting into a lot more because of the MPC is sampling. I used to sample beats in FL Studio, but everything seemed so complicated and I ended up just cutting loops that I liked from old jazzy tracks, or even reggae and classic rock, and adding my own drums and instruments to the beat within FL Studio. Those beats were not necessarily bad, but they were just very simple. The melodies were, for the most part, unchanged, although new instrument and drums were added over them. On the MPC, however, I’m chopping melodies into the pads and playing them that way, modifying them in all kinds of crazy ways, making all kinds of different patterns, and it’s just so much fun. Ironically, getting into the MPC also got me back into FL Studio and into learning how to do a lot of things in there that I had previously neglected learning about. It sort of just goes hand in hand with everything I’ve learned since getting the MPC, for example, mixing and mastering techniques in MPC One vs. mixing and mastering techniques in FL Studio. Of course, FL Studio, being a classic DAW, offers more possibilities, since you can even load third party plugins, for example. The MPC is limited to a few plugins that come with it, although those plugins have vast instrument libraries so there’s a lot to work with, apart from expansion packs and just classic sampling. With a specific cable which I have connected into the inputs of the MPC I can sample audio from any device with a normal headphone or earphone connection, so I can sample from YouTube or Spotify if I run the cable from my audio interface headphone output, or I can sample from my phone or iPad or iPod classic, or from music device really. It’s just impressive for what it is, there’s so many ways to create music within the MPC, and just for that I would recommend it to anyone who’s into making music or beats. A lot of the MPC sounds are really electronic so I make a lot of techno or house music on there, and also hip hop beats of course. Although the MPC One is definitely a beast in standalone mode, my favorite way to use it these days is to incorporate it into FL Studio. This is an interesting workflow because it allows me to make ideas on the MPC, with my hands rather than with the mouse, and then to pass on and polish those ideas within FL Studio, or just add more sounds on top of them or structure them better into a beat. The MPC One has song mode, which allows you to put different sequences, basically patterns of sounds, together to create a full song. For example, sequence two might follow sequence one, sequences can be repeated as many times as necessary, and so on. However, it’s definitely a lot simpler and faster to arrange the structure of a beat in FL Studio, looking at everything laid out across a big computer screen rather than the small MPC One screen. Don’t get me wrong, the touch-screen on the MPC One is amazing for the size of the MPC, it works perfectly and you can even access grid mode on it, basically a step sequences like in FL Studio. It’s just a lot faster to arrange the final beat in FL Studio and master it as well, to get the final product sounding loud, punchy and clear. It’s not a hassle to transfer things either. Basically, my MPC is on my desk so it’s always connected to my PC anyways. It’s not in controller mode though so I can use it in standalone even though it’s plugged in. The MPC has a software, basically Akai’s own DAW, MPC Beats, which can also be opened up as a VST plugin within other DAWs, so what I do when I select the controller mode option on my MPC is just open the MPC Beats plugin within FL Studio. The plugin recognizes the MPC and then I can load up whatever project I was working on while in standalone mode, and just drag the individual tracks from my MPC sequences into FL Studio, either as audio or MIDI files. The audio file is just the recorded audio itself, while the MIDI file is the actual notes you played, so you can even change the sound of the melody to be one of the sounds in FL Studio, or even Nexus or Omnisphere or any other third party plugin. I could go on and on about how cool the MPC One is, but I’ll leave it at that for now and maybe talk about it a bit more another time. If you’re into making music or just getting into it and are thinking about buying and MPC One though, trust me, it’s a lot of fun and you most likely won’t regret it.

much love

~ rebel eye

DAY 10 (1000 WORDS, 3rd attempt)

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DAY 10, nice! Only have to do ten days nine more times to get to a hundred. My record right now is 81 days straight, if I’m not mistaken. This time I don’t only plan to beat that, I plan to go for as long as I can, until the end of my days if possible. Consistency is the key to improvement, and when paired with a constant flow of new knowledge it can really make things happen. It’s always a struggle, trying to find a way of keeping myself constantly reminded of this, even during days when I’m the most tired or just not feeling up to much, I’d love to have a way of just snapping back into the right mindset to get back to work, to get back into the flow of things. Usually if I miss a day of something I’ve decided to do daily, it completely kills my motivation to do it, because I know I have to get back to that point again, if I’ve done it before I can do it again but it’s gonna take me a while to get there so I may as well not even start. It’s a stupid logic, I know, and it’s the main reason why I didn’t post on here at all for 2 years after my Day 81 post in August of 2019. I mentioned all of this in a recent post, but it’s cool for me to recap since today is day 10 so it definitely feels like an important milestone. A lot is going on apart from the resurrection of my blog, mainly with my music! Music is perhaps my biggest passion, and today I posted my first beat for sale on Beatstars, something I should probably have done years ago. I always had the idea of eventually rapping on my own beats, but it’s clear that I can’t come up with enough rhymes fast enough to fill up all the beats I produce. Ultimately my goal is to live off my music, or off of any of my creative pursuits, but preferably music, so it doesn’t matter in the end whether I make money as a rapper or as a producer. I can even rap just for fun for the small group of people who do listen to me, and it won’t matter too much because I’ll be having fun making beats and making money that way. This is what I’ve recently decided, so I’ll be uploading daily beats on Beatstars, as well as accompanying videos for each beat on YouTube and Instagram, and just like this daily blog post session, I hope to be posting consecutive beats for as long as God blesses me with life. One of the biggest obstacles in my life has been that of the nine-to-five lifestyle, working soul-sucking jobs that don’t interest me in the least as a creative person, doing the bare minimum since I know a sincere and honest work ethic is not necessarily valued, but rather exploited most times, and the overall depression that comes along with this type of life, having little to no time to do what I love. Recently, during the past few years, I’ve been making my own time for myself, but not to slack off like back in the days. Sometimes I’m filled with anxiety these days even, because I feel like I absolutely have to make it with this music thing, or with some other creative pursuit, maybe like writing, if I want to be free of this lifestyle. I don’t mean to complain, I’m honestly grateful for all of my life experiences, and this type of life has taught me the importance of chasing my dreams, that the power to make anything happen is in my hands. I pray to God to help me find the right way to keep motivated and to keep putting the work in consistently. I also have to start reaching out to artists and trying to network, but this is good since it’ll sharpen up my sales skills which I haven’t really used since back when I had some other nine to five jobs.

So yeah, I’m super excited to be getting into this new chapter of my life, where I’m trying to move forward with my passion first and leaving partying and wasting time behind. To be honest I haven’t even been partying for many years now, having realized the pointlessness and stupidity of the constant party lifestyle, but I can’t say I haven’t been wasting time. A lot of it has been due to indecision, and as you may know if you’ve read some of my other recent posts, I think it may have something to do with me being constantly stoned, so I’m starting a really serious goal to stop getting baked as much, and it’s definitely allowing me to see things in a much clearer way to allow me to do what needs to be done to start marketing my business ideas. Yeah, it’s true that bud helps me get creative ideas flowing, there’s no debating that, but sometimes with so many ideas comes indecision, when what we might need at the moment is extreme focus on one specific idea, in order to get started with the execution of that idea. Everything in life has its right time, and I feel like things are starting to align in my life. Only time will tell if I stay motivated enough to constantly continue with my ideas, such as this daily blog post of a thousand words, or the daily beat I’ll be posting, but I really think I will. I really feel like this time is different than ever before, and I truly can’t wait to be writing to you all soon confirming that to be the case. To anyone who struggles with indecision, my advice is to simply get started. Start putting your ideas together, and once you do start putting them out into the world. If you have good content, and you are constantly learning and improving, and constantly showcasing that improvement, then you are applying the formula for success and it is highly unlikely for you to fail. Once again, consistency is key. Knowledge is power. Practice makes perfect. Learn as much as possible about what you do, nowadays there’s so many resources out there. Keep on learning, keep on applying your knowledge in order to practice, showcase your practice and your progress to inspire others!

much love

~ rebel eye

“Instrumental Inspiration” Volume 1

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I’ve been making beats for basically as long as I’ve been rapping, about 10 years now, and one of my favorite things to do to create chill jazzy beats at times is to sample old records. Back in 2012 I released a few mixtapes where I was rapping over those chill, jazzy kind of beats, and honestly it’s some of my favorite music of mine up until today, and I feel like those beats brought the best out of me as a writer, and even as a rapper, since I flow more naturally on those beats anyway.

I’ve always wanted to rap over my own instrumentals but most of my best ones are electronic, synth-heavy beats, and I’ve always preferred rapping over smooth, soulful sampled rap beats, which I never really felt like I perfected… maybe until recently. The beats on this beat tape, Instrumental Inspiration Volume 1, are some of my earliest sampling experiments, from way back in 2012, so right at the start of my music career. I never rapped over these beats, and they’re much simpler in structure and sound than the chopped-up, multilayered sampled beats I’m creating nowadays on my MPC. These are usually just repeating a loop that I liked off a track, and adding some drums and other sounds on them.

I feel as if I finally might have what it takes to create some kinds of those beats for myself, those chill kinds of beats which I feel at home on. I’ll be releasing all my sampled beats under the Instrumental Inspiration series from now on, and the first few volumes will consist of my older beats, like these ones, and then I’ll be moving on to the newer ones. I still felt like these beats needed to be released. They’re chill, and also dope in their own simplistic kind of way. They’re also nostalgic to me of the time when I mainly made beats in FL Studio, nowadays I feel like I’m having much more fun on the MPC, and it’s a whole different feeling, creative-wise. Anyway, here’s the collection of my 11 earliest sampled beats. A lot them are remakes of some iconic rap beats, like Many Men, Dead Presidents, Juicy, etc.

Stream or download the full beat tape here:

https://rebeleyemusic.bandcamp.com/album/instrumental-inspiration-vol-1

LISTEN TO MY MUSIC:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/561X5APMrh7xWyWrLgKbhq

Hyperfollow: https://hyperfollow.com/RebelEyeMusic

Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/rebel-eye/1620644399

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/rebeleyemusic

Bandcamp: https://rebeleyemusic.bandcamp.com/

YouTube (Main): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKyA8zKq1i8_061HyejFFVw

YouTube (Mixtapes & Remixes): https://www.youtube.com/user/YoungRicoMusic

FOLLOW ME & CONTACT ME:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RebelEyeMusic/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/officialrebelrico/

Blog: https://www.ejsade.com

e-mail: officialrebelspirit@gmail.com

Reviving My Blog!

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WOW!!! I can’t believe it’s been almost 3 years since I last posted something on here. And to think I had set the goal of writing a thousand words a day! Hah! Well, I can’t be so tough on myself, I made it up to at least like 80 consecutive days at one point. What can I say? Life happens. Although there is some truth to that, the real truth is that I let my laziness and procrastination, my indecision, get the best of me, and for that reason I’ve let this blog, and my artistic pursuits in general, fall behind. I apologize to everyone who’s followed me on here up to this point, but I want you all to know I’m going to revive this page and make it better than ever! A lot of things have happened since I last wrote on here, and I’ve realized that I absolutely need to write, to create, to try to inspire through some sort of creative output, it’s a necessity in my life. I’ve gotten back into making music, back into the feeling of it, the feeling I thought I’d lost for a good while.

Not everything can always be perfect. Lately anxiety seems to be higher than ever, lots of things happening in life, lots of thoughts that can’t be simply blazed away running through my mind. Obstacles are opportunities though, at the end of the day, and every lesson is a blessing. Anyway, I’ve been contacting some of the producers who made the lots of the beats I used back in my old tapes, all the way from back in 2011, trying to get their permission to upload those tracks on Spotify/streaming platforms, etc. One of those tracks, “Puttin’ In Work” is me rapping over an instrumental by producer Rotes, who uses heavy samples in his beats, true to the old school gritty yet jazzy sound of old school rap that I love so much. This track is from my R.A.P. mixtape from November 2011. Another is “Trip to the Back of My Mind”, this one rapped over a smoother, happier and overall livelier beat produced by David Bocuse, reminiscing about family and friends, and great times from back in the day. This track is from my 2017 mixtape “Musical Alchemy.” It feels good to finally have some music up on streaming platforms, and I’m starting to organize all of my pages online because so far it’s all a mess, from years of creating a bunch of e-mails and pages, it’s time to finally get myself organized and take myself seriously! it’s time to stop playing games is what I’m trying to say.

I’m now releasing music under the name Rebel Eye, in case anyone reading my blog is interested in checking out my music on Spotify, and from now on I’ll try to keep the blog tied to my music, but also keep it personal and continue writing about interesting topics that are on my mind, about spirituality, philosophy and everything else that interests and inspires me. Yes, I’m a rapper and mainly a rap producer, but I also love working on chill instrumental music, even techno/trance beats, trip-hop, etc., and I’ve decided I won’t go through the trouble of dealing with multiple social media accounts for multiple artist monikers, so for that reason everything will be released under Rebel Eye. I hope that having more genres will help me gain a wider audience, we’ll see.

I’m excited to write again, both music and on this blog. At the end of the day, writing is a really interesting thing, just randomly writing. We are always thinking, and when we write we decide to let some of our thoughts escape our minds, to live outside of our mental prison, our tangled-up web of images and thoughts, ideas, fears and dreams. Writing is a really powerful creative output, a way to let some of the stress of life out, to free it and let it be, to free yourself of it almost. Life is deep, and when you can’t make sense of it what else is there to do but to document it? There’s a life out there to document, and a whole world within to write about as well. Maybe what we think, what we share, might inspire others, I know I’ve been inspired by so many of my favorite books. It feels as if these authors from millennia ago were speaking to me, as if they shared some of my thoughts, it feels almost strange to see what someone wrote so long ago, and see how it is so similar to an idea that you’ve always had, a truth you’ve always perceived, for example, that nobody else around you wants to see, yet here is some proof that this idea has been alive for a while, that some of the greatest minds in history have considered it and contemplated it. We can’t live only off of that inspiration alone, of course, we need to verify and find the truth for ourselves, but often times we refuse to embark on the great quest for truth if we are not provoked to reflect upon it by external forces or influences.

I’ll try to keep writing on here as much as I can, and below you can find links to the singles of mine I mentioned above. Much love Fam!

Young Rico - R.A.P. - Rhythm And Poetry [2011] [OFFICIAL ALBUM COVER] “PUTTIN’ IN WORK” from my 2011 mixtape “R.A.P.”

Album: R.A.P. (Rhythm And Poetry)

Original Release Date: November 20, 2011

I went by Young Rico when I recorded this tape, it was so early I hadn’t even added to Rebel in yet!

REBEL EYE - TRIP TO THE BACK OF MY MIND (SINGLE 2022)“TRIP TO THE BACK OF MY MIND” from my 2017 mixtape “MUSICAL ALCHEMY”

Album: Musical Alchemy

Original Release Date: December 30, 2017

From my 2017 Musical Amchemy mixtape, I went by Rebel Spirit at that point.

“Musical Alchemy” (Dec 2017)

“MUSICAL ALCHEMY” 

“Musical Alchemy” is my newest musical project, as well as first released as Rebel Spirit since I took a break from music a few years back in order to really redefine the vision and mission of my music and the Rebel movement. Been working on this project for the past few months in order to get it out before 2018. Every track on here is meaningful to me in some way, so I hope you all enjoy! You can stream, download for free, or buy the album if you so desire HERE. All support is definitely appreciated!

On this tape I tried to finally move toward a more conscious approach, several tracks being about specific topics I wanted to deal with, and cutting back on unnecessary or pointless rhymes. I think music, especially hip-hop, is about expressing the unexpressed, inspiring the uninspired, and just basically saying what needs to be said. It’s about expression, connection, rhythm and revolution, and this tape is a bold statement of that. Remember, good music with meaning is not dead, you just need to pay attention and be willing to look a bit!

One Love, God bless!

~ REBEL SPIRIT
www.OFFICIALREBELSPIRIT.com

REBEL SPIRIT BEATS Vol. 1: “Back To The Beats”

Check out the release of the first of my series of hip-hop/rap beats/instrumentals. All beats are for sale individually, as well as in the form of a compilation, if you wish to use them for commercial use, and they can be streamed for free for all to enjoy.

~ REBEL SPIRIT

  • Free stream, or paid download for commercial use + cover art & tracklist below.

REBEL SPIRIT BEATS VOL. 1 (1).png

TRACK LIST:

  1. Rebelz Legacy (Rap Instrumental)
  2. Royalty & Loyalty (Rap Instrumental)
  3. Move Me (Rap Instrumental)
  4. Music Is Magic (Rap Instrumental)
  5. Hidden Meaning (Rap Instrumental)
  6. Alice In Mushroom Land (Rap Instrumental)
  7. On Another Level (Rap Instrumental)
  8. Flowin’ Through My Veins (Rap Instrumental)
  9. Bounce (Rap Instrumental)
  10. Mind On Fire (Rap Instrumental)
  11. Danger Danger (Rap Instrumental)
  12. Glory Dayz (Rap Instrumental)
  13. Intensity (Rap Instrumental)
  14. Faded Faceless (Rap Instrumental)
  15. Flow State (Rap Instrumental)
  16. UFO (Rap Instrumental)

“REBEL SPIRIT” (produced by Bearded Skull)

REBEL SPIRIT (3)“REBEL SPIRIT”

Written and recorded by Rebel Spirit. Produced by Bearded Skull. Mixed and mastered by Rebel Spirit. Cover art edited by Rebel Spirit. A track about the meaning of being a Rebel, described by me as “following the vision of realness that I’ve been haunted by, since the day I wrote a rhyme, it inspired my soul to shine.” Dope rhymes on a hard-hitting beat produced by Bearded Skull. 

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE: REBEL SPIRIT – “REBEL SPIRIT”

~ REBEL SPIRIT

http://www.OfficialRebelSpirit.com