Appearently a number of the songs that my grandfather is the drummer on has been made into a YouTube playlist. How cool!
Category: Music
Pusha T’s Daytona as Confession of Collaboration with Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns
Pusha T & Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns
Abstract
Existing aesthetic approaches to interpretating trap and ganga-rap music frequently conceptualize the lyrical performances as being done by someone responding to economic precarity and a low-level likelihood of upward social mobility with an entrepreneurial mindset.
This article seeks to subvert that paradigm and understand it as an expression of wholesale rejection of the existant political institutions which enforce laws. Because of the lyrics of popular artists and the numerous arrests made for those involved with rap labels that are fronts for illicit drug acitivty – most famously the Black Mafia Family – it is my claim that this music is more appropriately situated in a context of transnational drug-trafficking networks, just as narcocorridos are.
By looking at Pusha T’s recent rap-album Daytona in such a light, it appears that it could be interpretated as an articistic confession of participation in drug trafficking operations that involved the FARC, the Venezuela’s Cartel of the Sons, and the Cuban Communist Party.
Keywords: Trap music, aesthetics, drug-trafficking networks, PSUV
Pusha T and Roger Waters and Venezuela
The first two lines of Daytona establishs a connection between the luxury goods that Pusha T enjoys and Pink Floyd.
Given the braggadocio typical of King Push this seems an interesting choice given Roger Waters doesn’t isn’t even listed amongst the top ten richest rockstars.
Another reason that Pusha T could be citing this particular individual is their mutual connection via Nicholas Maduro Moros – who recently gave a “new toy,” a guitar, to Roger Waters. Waters received this because he had promoted and performed a concert to keep Hands Off Venezuela, a phrase often used by Communist political organizers and activists. Considering Nicholas Maduro Moros and Hugo Chanvez before him has given praise and money to African-Americans they considered to be “fighting their cause” – such as Ajamu Baraka and Danny Glover – this raises the likelihood of such an interpretation being true.
The two musicians also share an avowed animosity towards President Donald Trump. Whereas Waters is significantly more ostentatious in his declarations, in an interview on the Angie Martinez Show, Pusha expresses disdain towards Kanye West for his support of the President and his Christianity.
While rapping about cocaine, as Pusha T often does, doesn’t lend the same political cachet as producing the types of songs which Pink Floyd has – it’s worth considering that the valorization of his behavior has a sort of Ninotchka effect – i.e. the development of desires and aspirations within the audience that leads to the normalization of “new” behaviors – in this case accepting cocaine trafficking as the behavior of an anti-hero rather than a law-breaker.
Pusha T’s Knowledge on Cocaine Prices
In the same first song, Pusha T states that many of the rappers currently singing about the prices their connects offer them aren’t accurate. More than that, in additino to proclaiming that many of these rappers turned trappers are fake – he periodizes how long it’s been lower. Because he claims to be a “trappers turned rappers”, he knows the “real price”.
Here are some of the geopolitical events that helped drive down the cost of cocaine.
(1) Venezuela’s Begins Sponsoring Narcotrafficking Operations
In the book Bumerán Chávez: Los Fraudes que Llevaron al Colapso de Venezuela by Emili J Blasck, Chávez’s former bodyguard Leamsy Salazar states that Hugo Chávez met with the high command of FARC somewhere in rural Venezuela in 2007. Chávez created a system in which the FARC would provide the Venezuelan government with drugs that would be transported in live cattle and the FARC would receive money and weaponry from the Venezuelan government. According to Salazar, this was done in order to weaken Chávez’s perceived enemy, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. This drastically reduced the risk costs associated with cocaine production
(2) Rise of Bitcoin as a Means of Managing Drug Money
Bitcoin was first launched on 3, January 2009. The coins were first announced and promoted via an email list populated by numberous computer security specialists with connections to international anarchist organizations and Communist Party Activists. Actors connected to Occupy Wall Street – a Situationist-inspired political festival organized in coordination with above mentioned international Anarchist and Communist activists – were some of it’s first promoters. Their ability to get enough “real people” involved with Bitcoin provided cover for the FARC-EP to use it and thus drastically reduce the risk costs associated with moving money.
While both of these facts are within the public record – neither of them are “general knowledge” and indicate that Pusha T has insider information, that is the information of a co-conspirator.
Pusha T – Confessions of being Under Cuban Surveillance and Relation to Broader Conspiracy
In verse two of If You Know You Know, Pusha T states that amongst the members of a “fraternity of drug dealers” there are still people looking at him with “one eye”. When one consider’s Fidel Castro’s role in cocaine trafficking, and that ten years ago the Cuban Five were released and CubaInformation – who’s logo is a single eye – was founded then this makes much more sense. This “news network” was formed as it allowed Cuba’s Intelligence services to operate in much the same way that the spy-ring did, but with more legal cover.
Following this admission of being under surveillance, he makes two other cryptic statements that can be related to his participation in a transnational-drug trafficking network connected to the FARC, the PSUV, and the PCC.
“The company I keep isn’t corporate enough”
This seems to be criticism levelled by the fraternity of drug dealers against Pusha T because his closeness to the street prevents him from being able to easily diversify his money laundering operations and corruption networks.
“Child Rebel Soldier, You Ain’t Orphan Enough.”
While Child Rebel Soldier was the name of a “rap supergroup” it’s also the appropriate categorical name for the 5000+ children that were recruited by the FARC for combat.
It’s in this context that we see that this is another criticism levelled by the “fraternity of drug dealers” against Pusha T.
Specifically they seem be upset that he cannot manage “real” artists – like the musicians in Child Rebel Soldier – in the same way that orphans – like Puff Daddy – can be.
This tension between Pusha T and this Fraternitiy; those – to quote from the chorus of this song – which are “coachin from the side of the ball courts” is important and comes up again later in the album.
Pusha T & Cuban Cocaine Trafficking Networks
Lest all the above seem like a reach, let’s look at Santeria, track five on Pusha T’s album Daytona.
For appropriate context, it’s important to understand that as a religion, Santeria is most appropriately associated with Cuba. According to RT, the state media outlet of Cuba’s long-time ally Russia – Cuba is a paradise for santeros. But the connection between Santeros and Cuba goes even deeper…
In his book Fidel and Religion, the theologian Frei Betto – one of the Liberation Theologists involved with the creation of the Sao Paulo Forum – transcribed his conversations with Fidel Castro. Betto asks him about Castro’s relationship with Santeria. While he denies being a practitioner, he does say that many santeros who supported the Communist Revolution saw in him a spiritual liberator for Cuba, and that there are many who consider him the son of the deity Elegguá. Also worth noting is that in the book Los Brujos de Chavez David Placer provides ample documentation that Hugo Chavez has engaged in Santeria practices.
Pretext done, to the song lyrics.
By Pusha T’s own admission, the song opens with a reference to his road manager’s murder – for reasons that the courts were never able to determine.
Cursory research shows that not only is “CHE” the name of the location of where Pusha’s tour manager DayDay Pickett was stabbed, but that the sign outside the building includes a red rose at the top – which is one of the symbols of the FARC-EP!
Given this graphic, and that restaurants (and concert tours) are often cash-based businesses that provide amble opportunity for money laundering – I would speculate that the “payola” Pusha T mentions relates to contested percentages considered due for such services – be it transporting cocaine or laundering money.
Thus we can come to understand that Pusha T’s equation of himself with a priest is to put himself on the level of Hugo Chavez – who helps grow cocaine – and Raul Castro – who helps ship cocaine.
Is Pusha T a Drug Dealing Money Launderer working on behalf of The Cartel of the Suns, the Cuban Communist Party and the FARC-EP?
Given the above – I’m curious as to what it is you think? Is Pusha T currently just a rapper – or, like his idols Big Meech and Sosa – is he engaged in cocaine trafficking with artistry as a cover..?
Leave your comments below…
Music Playing in Medellin III
Music Playing in Medellin II
Medellin Mixtape Volume II
Music That’s Playing in Medellin
This is by no means any sort of scientific attempt to curate the music scene in Medellin. This is just a short playlist of some of the songs that I’ve listened too in various places I’ve voyaged to in Medellin over the past two weeks.
Tu Me Enamoraste by Lary Over, Anuel AA, Bryant Myers, Brytiago, Almighty
Ahora Dice by Chris Jeday featuring J. Balvin, Ozuna, and Arcángel
Un Polvo by Maluma featuring Bad Bunny, Arcángel, Ñengo Flow,and De La Ghetto
Si Tu Novio Te Deja Sola by J. Balvin featuring Bad Bunny
Ella y Yo by Pepe Quintana featuring Farruko , Anuel AA, Tempo, Almighty, and Bryant Myers
Cuatro Babys by Maluma featuring Noriel, Bryant Myers, and Juhn
Ornette – “Crazy” (Nôze remix)
Esclava Remix by Bryant Myers featuring Anonimus, Almighty Y Anuel AA
Tu No Vive Asi by Arcangel x Bad Bunny
Escápate Conmigo by Wisin featuring Ozuna
Si Me Muero by Pepe Quintana featuring Farruko, Ñengo Flow, Lary Over, Darell
Si Tu Lo Dejas by Rvssian featuring Bad Bunny, Farruko, Nicky Jam, King Kosa
Why Beyoncé Should Have Won Album of the Year
Following Beck’s winning Album of the Year my Facebook feed was filled with multiple posts validating this as the correct choice. Many people I know reposted memes dealing with the below issues as well as linked to this BuzzFeed article. I, however, found myself in disagreement over this sudden solidarity and especially with BuzzFeed’s article. After all, two of the five claims made in the list (He’s deserved an Artist of the Year award since 1995 and he threw a shoe in an interview with Thurston Moore in 1995) literally have nothing to do with anything Beck has produced in the past year while the memes have a notion of artistry that are very limited and thus refute below. That said, here’s the five reasons why Beyoncé ought to have been the true winner for Album of the Year!
1. Beck is just a musician, Beyoncé is an artist.
Beck isn’t even on the same level as Beyoncé. Beck released a CD of audio recordings while Beyoncé released a visual album. These are not just music videos that she released, but a thematically coherent and visual choreographed creation. Beck has a single video to support his album. If music is a vehicle for education, entertainment, and edification than the album Beyoncé is a spaceship while Morning Phase is a dinghy.
2. Beyoncé’s art has greater mass appeal.
At the time of writing this Beck has sold only 330,000 copies of his album Morning Phase while Beyoncé has sold over three million. Beyoncé has over seven million followers of her YouTube Channel. Beck does not even have eighty thousand. I’m not so naïve as to mistake sales and followers for great art – after all Nickleback and the Twilight movie series both had high sales. Sales are, however, a consideration that with the others prove she is the greater artist and that her album is better.
3. Beyoncé’s art has greater niche appeal.
Due to the nature of art that Beyoncé produces . For instance shortly after the publication of her her video for Run with husband Jay-Z’s discussion about elements of it were featured on Critical Theory magazine, Glenn Beck and a segment of NPR. Lest I be accused of overly emphasizing one particular video that managed to resonate across various minor sphere’s I would also encourage you to check out once of many websites that document the “Illuminati” imagery and purported history of the artist. This is because she is an audio-visual artist. Perhaps there are some corners of the internet that go into similar dissections of Beck, but I was not able to find any.
4. Beyoncé’s avowed inclusion of other artists into her production process is an item in her favor, not against it.
The production of art is not some isolated event created out of some magical sphere of inspiration. Musicians are constantly influenced by the people they meet, the places they go and the art they consume. As Picasso said, good artists borrow, great artists steal.While it may be difficult to quantify at times that doesn’t meant that given enough time and effort such influences can’t be found. Bey is giving us a list of artists that she thinks are worthy enough to work with her and thus encouraging us to expand our audience!
5. Beck is falsely lauded for introspection.
Some of the comments that I’ve read and the images like those above falsely place Beck’s introspective lyrics above what are wrongly presumed to be Beyoncé’s more lighthearted pop verse. Beyoncé deals with serious issues such as feminism, monogamy, parenthood, self-esteem and more but all in a way that is empowering rather than maudlin. To presume that because a few songs on it are lighthearted dance songs means that it is not sufficient to be “high music” is to denigrate some of the most important emotions of the human condition.
Conclusion
Beck winning was a legacy nod rather than an actual win and his doing so is more a comment on the nature of award-granting institutions than any real reflection of what is “Album of the Year”. After all, the only reason that the Grammy’s are granted any credibility as a curator of good taste in an age that makes it easier for consumers to grant similar accolades is due to their age which – 50 years – in the grand scheme of things is no long stretch of time. The composition of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences after all is but a small number of self-selected personages able to pay for membership and meet a criteria that my even my father, no music industry insider or player, is able to be a member of. The Grammy’s provide no rhyme or reason for their choices, but rely solely upon consensus of their members. I however disagree and wrote the above to refute the cases that I’ve encountered in Beck’s favor. Don’t agree with me? Decide for yourself after experiencing Beyoncé and listening to Morning Phase, make a case and share it with me.
Interview with Stitches
I first met Stitches outside of his now infamous show at Propaganda in Lake Worth. Halfway into the set he left in order to chase after his baby-mama, who was upset with him for giving out cocaine to some scantily-clad female fans on stage. I’d write more about it, but the video is, of course, available online. A few weeks later I started a correspondence with him. After he became convinced I wasn’t trying to do a hit piece similar to the one previously published by New Times but simply learn his thoughts about the role of drugs in music and society, he agreed to speak with me. He asked for my address, which I hesitantly gave, and said he’d be in contact with me. Three days later I received a letter in the mail. On it was a piece of paper “No photos bc GPS” and on the back an address with a date and time on it. When I put in the address snailmailed me into Google maps I became a little worried. I promised I wouldn’t say where it was, but this particular neighborhood has an sketchy reputation. I put aside my reservations and went anyway.
I pulled into the driveway and noticed immediately that the paint on the house was peeling like an albino gumbo-limbo tree. The metal bars over the windows and doors had a similar texture, but from rust slowly chipping away and explosing a vector for tetanus transmission. Once in the house with the unassuming exterior, the façade of normal poverty quickly dropped. Two large men guarding the door answered my knock and brusquely patted me down. “Back on the right.” one of them grumbled. He sat in an ornately decorated oaken chair with red velvet backing and a border of shiny circular metal grommets. His normally poofy mohawk was done now in spikes that stood straight up several inches. In front of him was a similarly baroque desk with a cut-open brick of cocaine sitting on top of a large mirror. Next to it was a hunting life that looked straight out of Rambo. After I declined his offer of a line of some “straight off duh boat pure flake” I began the interview.
Ariel
“So I guess my first question is why do you like selling blow?”
Stitches
“Man, you even listen to my lyrics? I don’t like selling blow. I LOVE selling blow! And why, because of all the money man. I ain’t doing it anymore though cause I got too many eyes on me. Know what I’m saying? I don’t want to risk my son having to grow up without a father like I did, so I’m just making music now.”
Ariel
“You’re not selling blow anymore?” I say while motioning with my head to the desk and the house we’re in.”
Stitches
“Heh, don’t worry about none of this. Nothing’s in my name.” he said with a grin that showed off his numerous gold teeth.
Ariel
“Ok… Let me my second to last question another way. I know you come from a relatively privileged background and I can tell by the way you’ve managed to get so much attention for yourself that you’ve got some marketing savvy. If making money is your goal why do it by drawing all this negative attention via the tattoos on your face and the messages in your mix No Snitching is My Statement and just devote those skills of yours into a different career.”
Stitches
“That’s a long fucking question with a lot of presumptions in them. Yeah, true, my fams wasn’t so poor that we were on EBT, but you know that’s not even the point. I just never felt that the drug laws, not to mention a number of other laws, were fully something I could wrap my mind around. I mean I understood that they were there, but they weren’t rational to me so I never felt the need to follow them. Those are rules for lesser people, you know what I mean? That said I’m not going to lie, man, part of why I started flipping bricks was because of the thrill it gave me, not out of need. The feelings of excitement involved in the game are just so fucking strong. On the way to a pickup there this tension of wondering whether or not a cop is going to fuck with you. Then right before the meet you stress about things like: “Am I gonna have to pull a gun on someone?” While you’re their you’re on full alert. Afterwards it’s like, “What am I gonna buy with all this cash?” That shit is all a high in itself. Reading a bunch of books to become a fucking marketer like you’re talking about, man, that shit just isn’t for me. That’s for Last Men. I knew early on I’d rather study the streets and learn my lessons from there.”
Ariel
“So, would you say that a motto you live by is if it makes you feel good, do it?”
Stitches
“Naw, man, that’s some basic shit right there. Take a wider view of things. Contextualize this within the War on Drugs. Now people always talking about how it’s failed, but that all depends on what you define success as – right? “
Ariel
“True. So then how do you view the War on Drugs?”
Stitches
“Glad you asked. So, like, this cocaine right here started its production cycle in Colombia. Some broke ass farmers, whose major misfortune was being born into a region with limited choices for crops, into a family lacking any capital resources or ready legal access to it under a corrupt government still marked by colonial features that could give two shits about creating the economic conditions that will allow all but those that are already rich to thrive. Get me? So these people take this huge risk growing cocoa, cause their own government and the US government is trying to eradicate all their shit, because even though they’re making only a fractional percentage of it’s final street value they still make more than if they was growing maracuya, lulo, bananas or whatever the fuck. Now their doing this isn’t going to give them the money to send their kids to a private International school to get the kind of education and connections that will allow them to obtain true upward social mobility, but at least shit’s better and their not in as grinding a poverty if they were growing something else, right??”
Ariel
“Right. But, well, I mean they face a greater risk of death and dispossession…”
Stiches
“Spot the fuck on, man. Now think about it, that’s some real heroic shit right there. They’ve got super limited options in the conditions that they were born into and they decide to put their lives on the line to produce a product that people want just to make a little more scratch. Not to rob people or kill them, but just to be creators, producers of something. I respect that.”
Ariel
“So in your mind the war on drugs is a war against small-business entrepeneurs?!”
Stitches
“Nah, man. Like I said, think bigger and map out the connections. You’re thinking is positivistic and reified.”
Ariel
“What do you mean by that?”
Stitches
“Ok, so what I’m doing is deconstructing these positivistic notions that you and a lot of other people have about the War on Drugs. According to Frederic Jameson reification is defined as the removal of traces of production from the product. Now included in the production process are all the traces of distribution and legislation associated with it. I was just talking about the production side, then there’s the work that’s involved with processing and distribution – which is where the gangs come in.
These people are also subject to extra-national legislative pressures and policing powers that have terrible effects on the social order. Look at Mexico, man, when are people gonna start talking about that place as a failed state? Anyway, so the War on Drugs isn’t just this overreaching government attempt at the regulation of social mores, it’s really about means of partial control of countries through U.S. military aid. Not only do they give money to buy U.S. produced military equipment, but by training foreign soldiers at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly the School of America, the U.S. is able to place sympathetic military functionaries throughout the top echelons of those governments.
That ain’t the limits of product’s life cycle though. Many minds much more astute than mine have pointed out the debilitating social effects of mandatory minimum sentencing in America and how it mirrors Jim Crow policies. It’s all just a method of social and political control. A large number of businesses have attached themselves to this legislation and perpetuate the continuation of these failed policies simply because they make a lot of money off it.”
*
As I tried to wrap my mind around his unexpectedly intelligent answer to my questions a ferret with hair as white as snow freshly dropped on a Denver mountain peak came into my peripheral vision. It had in its mouth a small bag of money. It scurried past the rosewood desk. It, I presumed, climbed up one of Stitches legs. Stitches rubbed the creatures head. It cooed, dropping the bag. I noticed as the side of the animals mouth was rubbed that it’s teeth wasn’t what it was born with but was a golden grill. For fear of upsetting Stitches I held back my smirk.
Stitches then put the bag into a dropbox installed in the left drawer area of the desk. With his right hand still rolling circles onto the furred dome of the creature he then opened up the drawer to the right. The attention of the creature turned to the now visible booty. Stitches distracted the animal with by saying to it “Dineras is a good girl” repeatedly in a baby voice and a steady rubbing between the eyes. After quickly grabbing the treat from the small plastic bag he closed the drawer, turned the lock and brough the treat close to his chest. Dineras turned around. He moved the hand that had been circulating between the eyes and the top of his skull to it’s back. It ate the food from between his fingers and then continued.
*
Ariel
“Can I take a picture of her?”
Stitches
“Naw, the government’s tracking everything. I don’t want you uploading a picture that’s giving away the location of my trap house.”
Ariel
“Her name is Daenerys? Like G.O.T.?”
Stitches
“Huh? Don’t know what you’re talking about. Her name is like Spanish for money, Dinero, but cause she’s female it’s Dinera and because I want a lot of money it’s plural: Dineras”
Ariel
“Oh… Ok… Anyway, So I’m not going to lie, that was way more insightful than I was expecting. To follow up let me ask two things, first let me be clear, you admit then that you play a role in the perpetuation of this order of international domination.”
Stitches
“Bitch please, that shit ain’t on me. The majority of American’s are so apathetic to politics that they would rather let continue this sitch wherein their tax dollars finances civil wars in most of the countries that produce and traffic cocaine and pays for widespread violation of the libertarian intent of the Constitution through militarized policing just because to do otherwise would time away from their television watching.“
Ariel
“Ok, second question. So do you think that drugs should be legalized?”
Stitches
“As a tax-payer, yes. As a Christian, yes. As a libertarian, absolutely. But as someone that’s in the game and an American, hell no! The regulation that would be involved in something like that would rapidly deflate all the bumper profits from the trade. Plus without this means of controlling Latin America it’s possible they’d unite and be able to more seriously compete with to our economy instead of being crypto-colonial appendages to it!”
Ariel
“So who are some of your favorite producers and musicians right now?”
Stitches
“Mike Will Made It and Juicy J are killing it. I’d love to work with DJ Holiday and Southside. Trap Back is just fucking killer, man. You know what I’ve been playing on repeat though for the past few weeks, Run the Jewels I and II. Those tracks Oh My Darling Don’t Cry and Early, man? Fire! Speaking of which! You got to see this.”
*
Stitches got up from his chair and went into the other room. I looked at the large pile of white powder with curiosity and thought about whether this was not a set up like some of the other stunts that I’d read about. I wanted to know if it was real but didn’t want to actually try it. Right after the thought left my head he came back in with a tortoise in his hands. Every inch of its shell was various colored jewels. Green sapphires, red rubies, purple amethysts and what looked like a few diamonds were all arranged in such a way as to give the creature a motley pattern. He put it down next to me. Each step looked pained to it, as if it struggled under the weight of all the precious stones attached to it.
*
Stitches
“That’s Run the Jewels. I call him that cause he’s covered in jewels and he can’t really run. It’s ironic, get it? I also call him El-T, like El-P, cause he’s a Tortoise and Killer Mike cause he likes pizza. Get it? Like the Ninja Turtle? Hahahaha!”
Ariel
“That’s pretty funny… So, I’m curious, why you selling your donk?”
Stiches
“Got tired of getting pulled over in it and don’t want people to forget about me while my next mixtape is in production. I wish someone would buy it already cause I’m donating the money that I get from it’s sale – because I’m such a baller and respect the people that helped me gain the fame that I currently have – to a Colombian collective farm so they can use the money to buy more livestock and thus more quickly multiply their standard of living conditions.”
Ariel
“Ok, before I leave. I got to ask, is that real?” then nodded my head to the bag of cocaine.
Stitches
“What do you mean, is it real? It’s there in front of you isn’t it?”
Ariel
“Yeah, I get that. But, well, I haven’t seen you do a single line of that powder. Is it actually cocaine?”
Stitches
“You’re welcome to try it.”
Ariel
“No thanks. Can you just honestly answer the question?”
Stitches turned a little bit in his chair. It was the first time that I saw his swagger falter. A little turn in his chair, that’s all that it took. I went on the attack.
Ariel
“Why won’t you answer? Do you have something to hide?”
A tear came to his eye.
Stitches
“No. No man, ok, no. That’s not cocaine. It’s flour. Truth is I used to work at Panera Bread, and I love baking bread. Waking up really early, mixing and baking things that would feed lots of people gave me an incredible sense of purpose. It was one of the best times in my lives. The smells. Rye, barley, rosemary… Anyway, I got fired from there after I got caught smoking herb on my break. My songs are really just a celebration of that time that I felt such purpose and connection to the people around me.
He was now sniffling to hold back tears.
My song Brick in Your face? I came up with that when I was working there. While making stuff I’d rap about what I was doing, you know? Cause I was happy? So I was all like at my station making a sourdough and I get this feeling inside and just blurt out “I love pounding dough!” which later became the chorus of “I love selling blow!” And cause I was always curious with what kind of fillings people would put between the slices of bread I’d made I was all like “I put that loaf in your face! What’re you going to do with it? You like that taste best give me respect, bake u bake up bake up!”
And Mail? Man I’d just been thinking about how I’d know that if people were willing to buy my pastries via the mail then that’d mean they really respect my skills as a baker.”
Ariel
“So the tattoos of the AK-47 on your face and the stitches across your mouth..?”
Stitches
“Are just part of a carefully crafted image designed to give me and my music the aura of illicit drug culture authenticity that unsophisticated audiences require while simultaneously arresting the drift of all of my creative significations as an musician to reference all of the colonialist, racist and classist ideologies that various state and private apparatuses use to justify micro and macro management of fears through various forms of repression and policing while also indicating the need for people to speak up and be active against the perpetuation of such widespread human suffering so that a a few people can profit.”
***
You can watch the video for Stitches new single Facts below.
As indicated about, Stitches currently has his donk available for sale.
Also, as you can probably tell by now, I’ve never actually met Phillip Katsabanis/Stitches and this entire interview is fictional. I hope you enjoyed it anyway! Thanks for reading!
Interview with Kimmy Drake
The first time I met Kimmy Drake was in Manhattan in 2010. I read the announcement of her upcoming show date in Brooklyn Vegan and was excited to go out and support a band on tour from my native Florida. I’d heard about them from friends before, so knew it would be good. Sure enough the concert crowd was invigorated by the musical energy of the band and danced wildly. I too got really into the music and while hanging out with the band afterwards drank to excess. I went into homing beacon mode and luckily for me a friend, photographer Vanessa Rondon, lived near me and made sure I didn’t fall asleep on the L. We got off at Morgan Ave, parted ways at the Wreck Room and I woke up the next day with a hangover mixed with a smile from having enjoyed every bit of the night before so much. Lucky for me, several years later she agreed to sit down and talk with me about her musical process, touring and where she finds inspiration.
*
Ariel
So as an artist myself I’m curious as to other people’s creative methods. When you approach songwriting, do you have any special process for coming up with a song?
Kimmy
Not really. I feel that as soon as you sit down and pick up an instrument you’ve already started to do something creative. The intention is there, it’s just a matter of letting it come out. And, of course, recording it. Which with the iPhone makes it easy to never lose anything because you don’t have a way of capturing it.
Ariel
That way you say that makes me imagine that you have a bunch of iPhone b-sides.
Kimmy
Oh, so many! Today I used it to record two songs I wrote on the piano, which I haven’t done for a really long time!
Ariel
Why haven’t you written from the piano in so long?
Haha, well… I couldn’t get to my piano because it was behind the drum kit for like, the last year and a half. It’s been trapped and I literally couldn’t get to it! Last night, though, I pulled it out and I wrote the beginnings of two new songs that I’m super excited about.
Ariel
Did you find that starting to write with an instrument you haven’t been able to play in a while brought out a different emotional tenor to your lyrics?
Kimmy
Oh, definitely! Like lately I’ve also been writing a lot of stuff on bass guitar, which I almost never usually do. I’ve found that the last three songs I wrote for the band started from bass and they’re just a totally different animal from the songs that start by me playing chords on guitar. The songs I wrote on the piano today were also something totally different. It’s still in the same garage music vein, but a little different. Lots of stomping. Moving around the whole body around when you’re making music kind of stuff.
Ariel
So when you and Skyler are playing around with a new song do you normally find yourself coming into agreement about what sounds best.
Kimmy
Yes. I’m the bandleader so I, you know, lead. I’m not a drummer so it’s hard for me sometimes to explain what I have in my head, but I can make enough sounds with my mouth to convey what I want that he gets it. I’ll do like choo tsk choo tsk tso he knows which ones to hit. Sometimes he’ll come up with something and fight me over it but that’s rare. Normally it works out at the end that we have a consensus.
Ariel
So can you tell me a bit about your musical training?
Kimmy
Well I went to school in Kendall for music. The school was divided between the classical people and the jazz people. I was doing classical, vocal stuff when I probably should have been doing more jazz, though I really wished there had been a rock and roll class because that was, that is, my passion. Being in an orchestra or something like that was not my dream, I always wanted to play rock and roll, so I dropped out after a while. You know. Talking about this is reminding me, going back for a moment to the piano we were talking about earlier, how my last instructor there would rap my hands with a ruler. I really hated that!
Ariel
My childhood piano teacher did that to me too! What’s with that?
Kimmy
I don’t know! But if any of them read this interview hopefully it’ll encourage them to stop doing it to their students! Hahaha!
Ariel
At the school was there a special teacher or friend there that inspired you to follow the rock and roll path?
Kimmy
I feel like there should be, but there really wasn’t. Being into what I was there made me an outcast. I still feel like I don’t fit in anywhere.
Ariel
I can definitely relate to that and also makes me wonder where your attraction to garage and surf-rock come from?
Kimmy
Ever since I was a little kid that’s all I wanted to listen to: the oldies station. I feel like I’m a time-traveller. Like wait, should I be here. Back there. I honestly feel like that. I feel dissatisfied with current stuff. Like it was a more pure, more fun time. More pure, I guess.
Ariel
I get that. Yesterday I was reading an article the other day talking about people’s attraction to superhero films, Mad Men and other such shows. It was talking about how the root of people’s attraction to this stem from dissatisfaction with contemporary, mass-produced culture and the current economic system perpetuating such economic disparity. All of these possibilities and desires are presented and yet there are very real limits as to what people can have.
Kimmy
I get that. As for me, ever since I was a kid I would watch 60s reruns.
Ariel
TV Land!
Kimmy
Yes! Hahaha! Exactly! I wanted to be Samantha from Bewitched. I thought she was the best. I loved her clothes, her personality everything about her. I thought she was just the coolest thing ever. And I’m like: where am I now?
Ariel
Hah. That’s great! Now, to give the next question some context let me first ask: Do you know Tim Yehezkely from The Postmarks.
Kimmy
Yeah, I know of them. Tim has such an amazing voice!
Ariel
Yeah she does! Memoirs at the End of the World is really great. Anyway, so she and I first met in a poetry workshop at FAU, wow, over a decade ago now. She put some of the pieces we’d gone over in class to guitar and started performing them at the open mic night at Nakamal. A couple of month’s later she’s all like “Oh yeah, I’m producing an album and going on tour!” Point of all this backstory is that I’m curious if in addition to writing lyrics to music and music to lyrics if you also write poems?
Kimmy
Well I used to write a lot of poetry when I was younger. I do that sometime when the inspiration hits, but that’s really rare. Maybe once a year, when I have something that I know won’t work as a song. I actually just wrote one the other day.
Ariel
Are there any creative disciplines that you maintain in order to develop and practice your art. Or is it that the inspiration comes and you follow it?
Kimmy
I feel like discipline is something that I’m working on. Now, normally, it’s like whenever the inspiration hits, no matter what time it is I have to run to the guitar and grab my iPhone so I can record it. That’s how it is for me whenever the inspiration hits. But I think it’s good to be more disciplined. I’m trying to do that as I have a couple of other projects and I have deadlines. And that’s making me be more disciplined.
Ariel
I totally understand. I’m writing a book right now and I find that the time between periods of writing can be very long. And when that happens I don’t want to say that I hate myself… but I do have to fight my mental voices from reprimanding myself as that starts a negative internal dialogue that doesn’t encourage creativity.
Kimmy
I know what you mean. And no, that absolutely does not promote creative production.
Ariel
So what are some of the other projects that you are working on?
Kimmy
I can’t say. I can’t talk about them right now so just scratch that whole statement.
Ariel
What genre of music would people be surprised if they knew you listened to?
Kimmy
Oh… I don’t know if I listen to anything that would surprise anyone. I listen to mostly garage music and 60’s stuff and girl groups. Maybe something that people would be surprised about is that since junior high I’ve been super obsessed with The Cure? I’m also really into Fugazi, Descendants and other punk stuff. But I don’t know how surprising that is as we’re kind of punky too.
Ariel
No guilty pleasure artists that get rotation on, say, Power 96?
Kimmy
Haha! Absolutely not!
Ariel Ok. So then who’s your favorite artist currently producing music?
Kimmy
I love Sune Rose Wagner from The Ravonettes. I’ve always loved what he does. Love The Kills. Oh, and Mark Ronson I mean, he’s produced Black Lips. I think he’s a phenomenon. I’d love to work with him one day, that’d be my dream.
Ariel
So you’ve been to a lot of places on tour, especially New York. I’m wondering if in your experience you feel South Florida’s a more difficult nut to crack as it lacks an urban core that brings people together? Wait, let me restate that. Do you feel the vast sprawl of South Florida has an impact on audience and how you write and perform? For example, I’ve never seen you play at the Hollywood band shell but I know it’s so different from, say, Respectables and I know few people that will really commit to seeing bands they like if they have to drive more than twenty minutes to see them.
Kimmy
I get what you’re trying to say. And yeah, I mean it does. But, well, every town is different. Some towns you’ll play these amazing shows but everyone just sits like they’re in a movie theatre. They just don’t dance in that town. Some towns everyone is dancing and going nuts. It just depends on the town. Every one is completely different and Hollywood, well, is like weirdo central. You never know what you’re going to get. It’s like a wild card.
Ariel
Oh yeah! Last time I was at the Hollywood band shell I would swear it was like the “Indigent Jimmy Buffett Fans” Convention, which is fitting considering they’re building a Margaritaville there. The time before that it was filled with all these German tourists in speedos!
Kimmy
Hahaha! I can see that. Anything can happen in Hollyweird. It’s wide open.
Ariel
Do you enjoy traveling with the band?
Kimmy
It’s super fun! You get to know people really well cause, well, you’re stuck with them for a long time in the car, at the hotel, on the stage.
Ariel
You don’t find hotel living to be tiresome.
Kimmy
I mean it’s not the best, but that’s just what it is so you adapt.
Ariel
Unless you’re able to stay someplace like the Sourpatch Band Space in Brooklyn. Did you hear about that?
Kimmy
Yes, I did! I’d love to stay there. The space looks awesome. Plus Sour Patch Kids are a delicious vegan candy and that rules!
Ariel
So you’re really pretty and fit. How do you work out on tour?
Kimmy
Honestly. I don’t work out too much. Like hardly ever. If I feel myself gaining weight than I’ll just eat a little bit less. And I’m vegan. I think that helps a lot. But I’m not focused on it that much. I don’t know. And in fact, I usually lose weight on tour cause you just don’t eat as much. It’s a weird thing. You eat only two times a day. Breakfast and dinner. And I’m never like: Hey, I wanna go get burgers! Let’s eat McDonalds! Haha. Though last tour we were sponsored by Taco Bell. They sent us $500 in gift cards so we ate a lot of Taco Bell. That really helped with the cost of everything because there is no money in touring for a small band like us. And I appreciate my bandmates so, so much for that.
Ariel
Speaking of money, that reminds me. I went onto The Pirate Bay to see if you were being shared on there and sure enough there were people seeding your music. How do you feel about that?
Kimmy
I think that’s fine, honestly.
Ariel
I can understand why. With this whole Taylor Swift thing I looked at some of the break downs of what artists are actually paid on Spotify and Pandora that people had posted and with so much going to the intermediaries I don’t blame her from taking it off!
Kimmy
I definitely feel like if an album comes out and it’s on Spotify, why would you buy it? You can just go to Spotify and listen to it for free. When I know that something is coming out I usually want to go get and the vinyl, but I’m different, I want to go get the record. I’ve always been like that. I can honestly say I’ve never personally pirated music. That doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t given me a copy of something they pirated! Cause they have. I use Spotify as like a listening station at a record store. If I listen to a few songs from a band and I really dig it, I’ll go get the record! If I don’t, well I won’t be listening to them anymore anyway.
Ariel
So the stuff that you said before that you’re starting to record now – can you tell me a little bit more about it?
Kimmy
Well, we’re not yet sure where we’re going to record. We don’t have a plan. We’re working on more videos for the record that came out in August. Other than that we have no plans. It’s so wide open. I find that kind freedom exciting actually.
Ariel
Well I have an idea, albeit a derivative one.
Kimmy
What’s that?
Ariel
I say this knowing your love for Hollyweird. Have you seen the movie Begin Again?
Kimmy
No.
Ariel
It’s with Adam Levine, Keira Knigtley and Mark Ruffalo…
Kimmy
Oh yeah, I did hear something about that!
Ariel
It’s really good. Anyway, the last part of the movie the protagonists set up portable recording studios all over New York to capture Keira Knightley’s “breakup album” thing. I don’t normally like musicals, except for something like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but this was really good. Anyway. Last question! I know you just came back from touring, but do you have any plans for another?
Kimmy
We’re definitely touring in March. The next thing we’re going to is Atlanta on the 22nd . Besides that we’re just having a break because we’ve pretty much been touring non-stop for the past two and a half years. We’re just chilling. I also want to give myself time to process so I can start writing the next record.
Ariel
It’s definitely good to get settled to get back into a creative place.
Kimmy
Absolutely. Also it’s good to be home for the holidays. The whole month of December, It’s awesome. I love Christmas, I’m obsessed.
Ariel
Big fan of Santa’s Enchanted Forrest?
Kimmy
I haven’t been in a few years but this year I’m definitely going, yeah!
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Beach Day’s next show is on New Years Eve at Respectable Street Cafe. You can find more info by going here!
Also, be sure check out their video for their song “How Do You Sleep At Night” below!
10 Killer Workout Mixes to Turn Up Your Heartbeat Vol. 1
When lifting heavy, HIITing or even just doing bodyweight exercises, I love to listen to music with fast rhythms to help me keep my flow going. Here’s a couple of hour-long mixes that I like to work out to as it keeps my energy level turned up even when I can start to feel the fatigue kick in.
RL Grime – Happy Halloween Mixtape
Bird Peterson – Drankenstein Vol 5
Plug for Beach Day
Some of my incredibly talented musician and videographer friends teamed up to make this incredibly cute video for the former’s song Don’t Call Me On the Phone. Make sure to check it out and then follow them on Facebook.