Hot 16…Or More…”HOMICIDE”

And now we’re here… Past the point of breaking down songs from my first opus to another set of mixtapes that I wrote between 2005 and 2006. This particular set is a double mixtape that I released titled How To Make A Mixtape Volumes 1 & 2. Today we’ll focus on a track from Vol. [...]

Hot 16…Or More…”BEYOND THE SKY”

‘Yo, you’re a deep guy’ Are the words that my homie Sol-Leks told me after hearing the first incarnation of this song in his fabled Wet Paint studios. I heard this beat that he made from a sample of Sam Cooke‘s “A Change Gon’ Come” a year before and pretty much ignored it until it stayed [...]

Hot 16…Or More…”LIKE ME”

Ahhh 2006. What a crucial year. I first reconnected with my boys Killa and Sol-Leks at the end of ’05 and began this journey as a professional solo rap artist. Sol-Leks had this dope set-up in his room and used to do these preliminary recordings until he got the place that our crew, The Balance, [...]

Hot 16…Or More… “FRIENDS”

This is a track that I had been wanting to write since the inception of the very first Crazy 8′s mixtape. Don’t ask me why….I just always wanted to flip the “If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)” instrumental and take it back to it’s original sample from Whodini‘s “Friends” and their original subject of [...]

Hot 16…Or More…”SET THE MOOD REMIX”

I was just talking about this track. It’s just perfect timing that this is this month’s Hot 16…Or More… This track is from an idea that my boy Brandon Carter had to sample an interlude from Justin Timberlake‘s FutureSex/LoveSounds album. He accompanied that sample with a long running gag about using ridiculously cheap things to [...]

Hot 16…Or More…4THEMILLIONTHTIME

Once again, a result of my original intention to make a mixtape themed as my version of Jay-Z‘s legendary In My Lifetime Volume 1 album. This track was apart of the back to back series of 3 mixtapes that I wrote between the fall of 2005 and January 2006, including both How To Make A [...]

Hot 16…Or More…”She’s Ridin In My Hooptie”

Back when I thought I was gonna be a a big deal R&B songwriter circa 2004, I started honing my chops by writing ditties over instrumentals of whatever was hot at the time – mostly Hip-Hop. This lead to the eventual composing of 30 songs over such beats. I was a fan of the revolution [...]

Hot 16…Or More…”BE RIGHT”

The homie Khadj told me yesterday that my rapping lacks aggression and that I sound too relaxed on the mic. Almost to a point where the listener may not care enough about what they’re hearing to delve any deeper into my material or personality. Well it’s obvious that he hasn’t seen the video for “Be [...]

Hot 16…Or More…”MY, NAME’s MALIK; I’MMA BLOW!!!”

This month, since it’s the month that begins everything and kicks off the year, I saw it fitting to set the first Hot 16…Or More… of the year off with the verse that kicked off the very first track on my very 1st mixtape, which began everything for me. Like most of the material on [...]

Hot 16…Or More… “WANT THAT”

Another installment. Like I said in last month’s post, I can’t get as intricate as Jay-Z did in his Decoded memoir, but follow the spaces, italics and emboldened letters to see where my points are emphasized. This excerpt is actually the entire set of verses and the hook from the track which appears as number [...]