“How to Write Effectively (During a Slow Apocalypse)” is my first full length album in 5 years. That isn’t to say I have been working on it for the entirety of that time. I haven’t. Most of these songs were actually written quite quickly during late night hangs with Vesa at one of our respective apartments. Coming out of COVID lockdowns we had been collaborating for many years, but it was usually a digital exchange: Vesa emails me a handful of beats, I record myself rapping over them at home, add some synth layers and vocals and voilà. This time though, we made stuff in real time, workshopping the tracks together from the ground up, excited to just be making something fun. You can hear us laughing on a few songs, which we kept in the mix because it felt right. On “Save the World” that laughter bridges into a live recorded duel clap track that kind of sounds like kids playing patty-cake. Making music was how we hung out, how we caught up, how we connected. Most of the tracks were written and recorded in one sitting, often keeping the first vocal take and adding some quick dubs. He challenged me to make tracks that were quick, dirty and decidedly un-precious.

I still fiddled with the songs after the fact. I stretched things out, added synthy stuff, got friends to play saxophone or sing backup harmonies (big shouts to Alden, Syl, Hollye & Jilly). I recorded the entire outro to “An Afternoon in Domino Park” a year and a half after we wrote the song. But I kept the scratch vocals across the whole record, for better and for worse.

For a lot of these songs it’s difficult to say what they’re about exactly. Most of the songs start out about one thing but shift gears halfway through the song, or sometimes halfway through a verse. I often write raps while I’m out in public, so the things that are distracting me in real time make their way into the tracks themselves. There’s a lot of that on this record: finding ways to let my attention deficient brain make as many left turns as it wants and figuring out how those disparate thoughts all connect.

The truth is, this approach to writing is less a conceptual choice as it is the result of simply not having enough time in the day. I’ve been working. I’ve been living. I’ve been a General Manager, Wine Director, Beverage Director & Production Manager across 6 different NYC clubs and restaurants in the last 5 years. I was in an Off-Broadway play. I fell in and out of love, then fell in love again. I truly don’t know how I had time to make these songs at all, but their existence is both a testament to my friendship with Vesa and the naggingly persistent need to keep writing. That being said, the fire is back and I can’t wait to make the next one.

The fabric painting/collage artwork for both the single and the album were created by the wonderful Mike King. The style itself perfectly encapsulates the approach I had to writing and the approach Nick and I had to making these beats. The LP’s cover shows me staring at the painting “Homage to Nina Simone” by Bob Thompson. Mike introduced me to Thompson’s work during one of our joint visits to The Met where he gives me a 3 hour art history lesson that I definitely should be paying for. The painting is layered and referential. Mike, in a way, is sort of “sampling” Bob Thompson, whose style in a different way sort of “samples” Matisse. That’s hip-hop baby.

“How to Write Effectively (During a Slow Apocalypse)” is streaming everywhere now.