a neohoodonic dip dabble through time and space. an effervescence persistent. bubbling overjoy in overtime, orthofloralpoetical nuance. this will take a strong sense of self. are the visions communicable? then i have reason to doubt them.
one had to find new methods of operating outside time. rap's positioning as a mouth form, the acquired slickness and the dusty ridge of the bap's boom are my native tongues. but what of the yawp's origin?
i'm from chicago. my blood line traces its way to the city of broad shoulders by way of arkansas like many other great migratory palm road riders. my grandfather would hambone and howl, he liked music played in minor pentatonic motions on acoustic instrumentation. getting your first pair of cowboy boots was a right of passage in my family, you'd go for a drive out west and come back with somn supposedly reptilian; dyed and stretched, pointy at the appropriate places, 1 inch taller. cold blooded.
we a blues people. it's all in the hokum and the bop. my lazy eye and my drawl, my drawers and my teeth. no longer did i want to play the blues as a metaphor or an intimation of a style. the blues is not an evocation. it is breathwork and shadow play. cross colors at the crossroad crawling king snake moan. calloused on the tips of every finger and the sides of the thumbs.
i wanted to learn songs that predated the music industry and everything that means, songs that are older than recording, than amplification, songs that are older than electricity in every home. it consumed me. a stream of ideas became a mighty river. what did Black American music sound like before white American business practices began to steal / shape our rhythms? my mind itched constant.
enter crow billiken
a bad character. a tennessee hustler. student of lightskin hopkins, learned the blues from samuel james up to biddeford, maine. the old style, skrong mojo hand, sharp dress. acoustic country blues from the delta quadrant hill country memfis to tejas rhythm and lead slide and singin
"what can i say about mc's? every heart churning insult will be seen as reason to praise their demise. i hope they're buried so deep even the maggots and the worms can't breathe. "
during the first of my 15 year exile in the city of gnashville, the light emitting diamond cutter scriptures revealed themselves to i. eleven concise chapters of pure will with no dilution. these scrolls were time tested during the roughest of waters. when the monk relinquishes all things, all baggages, all material goods, all styles, all names, all containers, all ideas to become a shimmering effusion. releasing on Black Friday 2021 (11/26)
our first visual cue for these seminars is aptly titled "East Nashville", enjoy--
we shall be reading directly from the Light Emitting Diamond Cutter Scriptures on Black Friday in Los Angeles at the Echoplex. the ruby yacht will be gathered in full effect. we do humbly request your presence. tickets
we’ve been preparing. come may 29th we shall let the weapons gleam in open sunlight once again. ballyhoo and much bounty. buy tickets here this will be a live broadcast from SPACE gallery in downtown portland, me. while the stream is open to the public, the physical performance is not. for the first two weeks tickets are 15$ and 18$ day after that. we begin at 8PM EST. see you shortly
from a solitary peak on the noble Hob Mountain, i write this missive to you, kind traveller. have you been on this road long? summer seemed to expand well beyond its anticipated boundaries, scorching the whole wide world up, and while i was not burned. i am missing everyone.
i've heard tell of a curious place, available from anywhere, never closed, and open to those who are knowing. you are guaranteed to be the sole client for the duration of your visit. to put it simply? a cafe, only for you.
if you find yourself on a particular corner, in a particularly forgettable city-- across the street from a green record store, the cornerstone corner of the hotel scallops; next door to the nOstrum grOcers shop is a small coffeeshop called bob's son cafe.
a sort of haven for the real Beat Poets, neohoodooists, bluesmamas, shittalkers, seatsniffers and pianists. the air is clean, the menu is stacked and the music is exclusive.
bob's son cafe
in the cornerstone corner of the hotel scallops; next door to the nOstrum grOcers shop. yes, across the street from the green record store.
the purple moonlight pages are my reckoning. the triumph song of the perpetual student. the jack of all trades is a master of none but often times better than a master of one. i knew after completing the milo project i wanted to claim a space on the fringes, to become a poet for real. no longer hiding. returning the rhythm to the word. it became obvious to me, listening to "casual horns, dog" that my friends, the jefferson park boys, were precisely skilled to help me find my voice in this way. i will be always grateful to kenny, mike and aaron for playing and producing the music on this album. they are artists of the highest caliber, of seemingly endless inspiration, who tirelessly yank ideas out of only the ripest clouds. it has been my great honor to rap on their works.
the artwork was made by my longtime and lifelong collaborator alexander kollman. while driving through alabama, i would call alex and we would discuss the record, our visions of it, our dreams of it, and the world around us. often times our conversations veered into the realm of aspirational shadowchat and somehow mr kollman was able to distill the essence of these dialogues into the image below, an immediate and pronounced icon.
this project is the beginning of a correction. to produce work that is fundamentally about healing, uplifting, and protecting the positive and funky individuals on this planet. at the upcoming gigs, i'll be playing songs from my beginning as milo to scallops hotel, sprinkles of the hellfyre days, red wall, nostrum grocers, joints from the hoodwinker tape as well as new numbers straight out the purple moonlight pages.
the ruby yacht, soulfolks thinktank and bookoo bread co. would like to thank mr ben clarkson for his visionary work and effort on the groundbreaking video for the song "leaving hell" on purple moonlight pages.
we at potlicker enterprises would also like to announce the malasadas, borboletas, & saudade tour with r.a.p. ferreira & dazeases. dates and tickets can be found here.
we thank you for rocking with us on the other side of time.
