This beat really takes me back. I made it around 2004 before I got my first MPC2000XL. Back then I used to make beats with a Boss DR5 Dr. Rhythm Section Drum Machine, a Zoom ST-224 SampleTrak Sampler, a Yamaha DJX Keyboard and a Roland VS840 8-Track Recorder. I named this beat “Don’t You See” for obvious reasons, and it has surfaced on many occasions while sifting through beats with my friends over the years. I always considered it one of my best works from that time of my life, and I absolutely refused to let it go to waste. It ended up being what it is now kind of by accident. Early in 2013 CasetheJoint and I were in the studio trying to write something a little different than the regular hook-verse-hook format we’re accustomed to. We started writing this song on an old 12 inch single of a Non-Phixion beat called “4 W’s” that I got for free from my friend and fan Ian Stephen. Case had a limited amount of time before he had to go home to Dubuque, but we managed to finish writing the hook and the first verses before he had to leave. I wrote my second verse not long after, but the track was almost completely forgotten about for a long time. Eventually, during a solo beat sifting; I played this beat and recited the hook and verses a couple times. I was excited to find out that it fit on this beat so well and I called Case to let him know. Yet again the track was forgotten about until I decided to do this project. I contacted Case again and to tell him I really want him to be on the project and his only chance was to finish this song. In the following weeks we set up some studio time and made it happen. We left the last word of the hook out when we recorded and I recruited our good friend DJ Richie Daggers from Des Moines to scratch it in. It sounds dope. OBSERVE….
*Note
-this beat was heavily inspired by “Time Management” by Blueprint from the album “The Weightroom” – Weightless Recordings, 2003.