I keep trying to motivate myself, but it’s days like today when I wonder what the hell I’m doing. I’m trying to be a rapper, but there’s so much I have to learn. I mean, I’m looking at people like Jay-Z, Biggie and Tupac, all of them spoke English growing up. I think that makes it a lot easier. I’m trying to communicate something in a language I don’t dominate and I’m realizing how important it is to be able to do so. I can’t rhyme spontaneously ’cause it takes me forever to think about rhymes. It’s hard because my vocabulary is not that strong yet. I don’t know a lot of slang and I don’t think that helps me when I’m writing either.

I need to find a way to be me and make it hot. I know I have my own way of doing things, I just need to find it when I’m doing my music. Maybe what I should do is stop looking at other peoples videos. No more learning from them or their lyrics. Just do me and keep practicing my rhyming.

This is cool right here. When you can sound good on a live performance I think you’ve done a really good job as an artist.

I didn’t know anything about this girl Niia, but she can do her thing. Playing the piano, singing and sounding good… nice. She looks good too.
I didn’t get what the song was about until I read the lyrics. It talks about a girl who became a prostitute.

I’m only missing half a verse to complete the lyrics on “One Night Stand.” I wish I could just do it right now, but the right ideas are not coming to me and I don’t want to push it.

I’ll definitely be doing some rewriting later when I start working on the vocals mainly to make sure everything flows well, but this is pretty much the bulk of it.

My brother is here, he made it to his new home safely and Monday we’re going to look for a two bedroom apartment.

Mentally I’m a little tired, but I’ve got a lot of energy right now so I’m not sure what else I’m going to do now. Maybe I’ll work on antoniobullen.com. Yeah… I need to get that new homepage done.

I am working on the fourth verse of “One Night Stand.” I thought I was moving kinda slow, but it’s been a week and I would have had the whole song already if it was a standard three verse song.

I recorded the first verse and I’m actually riding with the beat, but it sounds very squarish. No flow or smoothness to it. It’s very old school if you know what I mean. So that’s going to be the next step after I finish writing the song. Figure out how to make the vocals sound good. The last thing I work on is going to be the production: dressing up the lyrics is how I think of it.

My little brother, Alex, is coming today from Panama and he will be living with me for the next two years. Well, until the end of the year really cause’ then I’m going down to Mexico for a year and a half to finish my studies. At least that’s the plan.

Back to the vocals though, I don’t know why the vocals that I hear on everything that is on the radio sound so different from what I have. I don’t think it’s the microphone anymore. I think it has to do with mixing, but what? I guess it’s going to be like when I had to figure out how to make the beats sound better.

Check out this video, this dude is just sick. The way he connects with his instrument and makes the art come out of them. He looks like he’s in a trance when he’s playing. Like his up in the clouds somewhere and he’s pulling me in ya’ll. I swear to god this guy is sick.

This is the level that I want for myself. A point where I’m not thinking about lyrics, what I’m saying or if I’m riding to the beat. It all just happens and I’m way up in the clouds, taking it all in and pulling the crowd towards me.

Every time I look at this video and end up looking at it at least twice and then searching for more of his videos. I need to work with this guy one day.

I now understand that the problems I was having before with “One Night Stand” where as much lyrical as rhythmical. The lyrics and the beat just didn’t go well together. The way I’m looking at it is that I was trying to fit a woman wearing one of those elaborate dresses into a sports car. They’re both nice, but not made for each other.

If I would have given up on my lyrics or the beat months ago, I would have never come to the understanding I now have. Something that I will never forget and can use on any other piece of music or lyric. I needed to understand why it wasn’t working. And that’s what I’m all about: the why. There’s no point in doing something well when you just got to it once, or maybe twice. But you don’t really know how to make it happen over and over. Ironically, that’s how one night stands happen: one person either knows very well or doesn’t know how to help the situation.

I find out the whys for everything. That’s how I’m good at what I am so far. And I feel that much stronger now that I know.

I got tired of working on lyrics so I put it aside for a few hours and started working on the beat for One Night Stand. I want to up the tempo on the beat, but not just the tempo but the actual feel/soul. So I got this idea and I think it’s going to work, but it’s taking a lot of work.

I just finished chopping a couple of clips I’m going to be taking samples from and I still have four more. After a few hours of listening to the same sounds over and over, I think I’m ready to go to bed. When I wake up I’ll try using what I have sampled so far to see how it’s sounding and then finish sampling the rest of the clips.

Hopefully it’s going to sound as crazy as I wanted to sound. If it doesn’t… I’m back on the start line. Of course, I always have the lyrics to work on.

Sure enough… I spent time studying B.I.G. and learned something new. Now I’m actually writing lyrics. I’m writing the second verse for a song I’m calling “I Will Be Back”. The song addresses my family, devoting a verse to my mom, one to my dad and the last one to my brothers. Each one talks about different issues and stays within the message of me coming back to visit them. It’s good practice. I like it, but it’s probably not something most can relate to. That’s OK cause I feel like  I have to make this song. After I finish on “I Will Be Back” I’m going to start working on “One Night Stand”.

I got my video camera today. I already made a quick test video, but I’m working on getting the software to be able to open it on my computer add a splash screen at the start and end of the video. Make it look all professional and shit. I got this feeling right now of moving forward, which I love, I pretty much always feel this way but usually I don’t feel like I’m moving this fast. Ever since I stopped working, I have all this time to actually do what I want to do. I wish it could always be like this, but realistically next week I’m going to have to start looking for a job. A part-time job that is. I’m not killing myself anymore. I need to focus more on the things I really want to do.

So yeah I’ve been studying Kanye West’s lyrics and I think I found a way to make my lyrics more suitable for my beats. I had said before that they were just too bulky. Too many words. So I’m simplifying things but keeping the same soul of the lyrics intact. It’s actually not as hard as I thought it would be. It’s amazing how much you can say with very few words. I feel like sometimes people don’t have to say shit and it would be the same.

I also learned something new about making my beats better for my lyrics. I didn’t get this from Kanye though, this is just my own thing. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. This one beat I’ve been working on for months now, I liked it before but when I tried to put it together with lyrics it just wouldn’t mix well. So I did the switching and tried again and now it mixes.

I still have to work hard on the vocals though. I did learn something new about it today too, but this is the are I need the most work right now. It’s also the newest area I’ve been working on so it’s ok, I know it will get better.

I can’t forget that not everybody likes the same things. Depending on who I show my lyrics, they might say they are really good or they are not. I showed a friend of mine, Steve, my lyrics and he thought they were funny as hell. Shit… he had to call his girlfriend in the room so she could read them too. It’s all good, they are expecting more of a hardcore lyric talking about “nigga I got money and I’m better than you” kind of shit.

Steve works on making beats too, and he’s trying to start a business out of that so I was paying attention to the recordings he’s made so far with local artist and it’s exactly what I’m saying. They come to Steve’s home studio and get to spitting on the mic about having money, hoes and whatever. Sounding just like the next cat is how you don’t get recognized. I know this and I’m not changing my style. I’m just too different in my own way to be someone else. I’m the kind of guy people should either laugh at or admire. You pick.

Alright…. so I’m recording my music right now and even though I can understand what I’m saying, I feel like the verses are too packed with words and the flow is very old school. Very cut and dry if you know what I mean.

Tomorrow I’m going to try taking words out, spacing the words within the bars to see how that sounds and then work on the way the words are flowing. I still like the beat and it is definitely the right beat for the song. I think this song is going to help me a lot because it’s complicated. I mean, it’s got a story to it and it needs to be told right ’cause it’s all about the lyrics. It’s not a dancing song. The whole thing is four verses. I know where I want to go with it, I just got to figure out how to take it there.

Also I need to learn how to EQ my voice. I read an article about the mixing of “Stronger” by Kanye West and the Mix Engineer, Manny Marroquin, was talking about the different plug-ins he used on Kanye’s vocals. I learned a lot about using Pro Tools and mixing in general with that article actually. He sounds like a smart dude too and he’s from Guatemala. One day I’ll work with him.

In a few hours I have to go back to work. Damn I wish I never had to do something I don’t want to.

There’s a few songs out there that I listen to on the radio all the time that make no sense. I get what they’re saying, it’s just not deep in meaning. Mostly just a good beat dressing bad lyrics.

I started thinking about new things I can do to try to make some money, and I’m thinking maybe I should give music a try. Whether it’s just making beats or writing the songs as well. The more I look into it, the more some songs are starting to make sense. But there’s still some bad ones out there.

I’m getting really excited about this, and with my knowledge in computers and as technical as my mind can be I don’t think I will have any problems making beats and being creative. Apparently I will have to make a little investment, but the last thing I want to do right now is start on another project, not finish it and move on after spending money on it. So for now I’m going to stick to what I can do without spending any money on it. If I really think it’s worth it in about a month then I’ll do it.

I’m reading right now about the history of hip hop and the techniques of rhyming. I didn’t even know there was actually a science to it. I just thought rappers did it without even thinking about it too much. And who knows… maybe they do.