I make beats.

Then I flesh the beats out into productions. Then I bring in musicians to play my ideas, and vocalists to accentuate the song-writing. Then I begin the process of mixing, post-producing and anal-retentive analysis that leads to months in a basement working on a single song.

I can’t use them all. Some of them have to just stay beats and semi-fleshed out ideas. These ideas need homes. They’re orphans with empty bowls of porridge, looking for a singer, emcee, or musician to nourish them and put a blanket over their sad, cold bodies.

Enjoy!

Oh, and here are some more from before.

Ps – Shouts the homie David Perez for the always amazing pictures of pretty ladies. And shouts to this coffee shop I’ve been in ALL DAY designing the cover.

…Kinda like “Paid-In-Full”….or not.

Ok.

Since I’ve retired this column, and the last one got such an amazing response, I figured I’d like to present a link to every column written over the past couple years. Start at the bottom and read up, and you can get a gist of my early zest, focus and determination. Then travel past the first few and embrace my pockets of  uninspired repetition until I burn out in a dull flame, only to semi-ressurect my dignity by the end. Yay.

One Final CityBeat Column:
Enjoy and Farewell to my journalism career:)

I haven’t performed live since the SLAM Festival in Cincinnati way back in early August.

This is easily the longest I’ve gone without performing.
But there’s  a lot of good reasons for that. Though they won’t be coming ’til 2012.  So come enjoy the only show I’ll be doing from now up until February:

This Saturday, November 12th, I’ll be joining my good friends Soundscape for a show in Cinci @ Mainstay Rockbar.  If you’ve ever been to a Soundscape Show, you already know.

And as Far-I-Rome Productions (one of my favorite promoters in the state) is throwing this event, expect the entire evening to be AMAZING.

Get your FB RSVP on right here.

My (second to last) Citybeat Column.
When I wrote it, I thought it would be my last.

But a couple days ago, I wrote the actual finale.

So here goes part 1:

This is not really an album.
This is a collection of instrumentals available for purchase, primarily for musicians, singers, emcees, and other artists.
This collection will keep evolving; I’ll be adding new instrumentals here and there. Some will get snatched off as I randomly decide to write to them
…or if someone purchases one. Either way really.

If you like listening to instrumental hip-hop, enjoy.

If you sing, play, emcee, etc. and one of these instrumentals hits you, you can reach me at illpoetic@illpoetic.com

Enjoy.

I really don’t know where to start here. I’m typing this off some pretty raw emotion with little-to-no filter as I haven’t even finished reading this Village Voice article.

For those who don’t know, I dropped a mash-up album producing Portishead around Joe Budden (and guests) vocals.

The mash-up got a lot of attention, going as far as Rolling Stone Magazine. Pretty awesome for something that was knocked out in a weekend over 2 boxes of Macaroni and Cheese.

A month or 2 later, I was passed an interview with Joe Budden where he gave props to the mash-up and said it was one of the better remix projects he’d come across.

No diss to Joey, that was a pretty insane moment for me.

But this moment I’m feeling right now sits at the top of a lot of special moments in my music career and life in general.

To be recognized and to have my project put in such high regard by an actual member of Portishead leaves me beyond speechless. As an artist who kinda gives 2 shits about “what blog your on”, “who’s featured on my album” and all that other bullshit that clusters over genuine love for music, nothing means more than having an artist you respect the hell out of acknowledging your work using their material.

So….

THANK YOU GEOFF BARROW. And THANK YOU PORTISHEAD.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for digging the music.

And thanks for letting all the ideas you guys throw out to the world bounce off me and right back to you again.

Thanks for pushing new music, new ideas, and new sounds forward into space.

I love this moment.

And I’m going to sit in it for a little while longer.

Here’s the Village Voice Article (the part in question is below if you don’t want to read the whole thing).

“But Portishead’s relationship with hip-hop has always been symbiotic; its music is synonymous with the flickering, noir sense that rappers have been trying to evoke for years. The band has been dutifully sampled by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and a young Timbaland, not to mention flipped on records by Slick Rick, Three 6 Mafia, and Canibus. (Barrow’s favorite Portishead rework is the Cincinnati DJ Ill Poetic’s mash-up of their music and the vocals from Joe Budden’s mixtape Mood Muzik 3.) “

Here’s Budden Meets Portishead for FREE Download

Here’s the Instrumentals as well.

This really put a battery in my back for this new album.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR CARING.

Maaaaan, Just came across this on youtube.

For those who dont’ know, I’m in a group with my partner Zone named Definition. Back in the day we were a lot more present on the scene as a duo. Since then, we’ve maintained our partnership, but more on a production, business, and most importantly friend-based level.

In 2004, we filmed this video for a song of ours called “On Point”. Our homie Fame produced it. The background story to this shoot was pretty insane. Too insane to actually explain here. Needless to say, here is the fruit of that labor.

If you’re from the Cinci scene, you might remember us performing this song all the time. I consider it a personal favorite. A Definition ‘Classic’ lol.

For those of you who didn’t know, I’ve been diving into Film Sound Design and Scoring. The film in question, “The Enemies You Keep” (Arris Productions) debuted last month at Gateway Cinema. It was one of the most memorable experiences in my life.

Friends and Family all came out. Everything was so well done. It was just an amazing night.

But that’s really just the beginning for an independent film. As “The Enemies You Keep” begins it’s trek post-release, I get to learn more about how an indie film is “released” and pushed, and how it differs or relates to the release of an album.

After a couple local screenings, I learned that the next step in the process is to begin submitting to festivals. Late last week, I was just informed that “The Enemies You Keep” has been recieved (I thought we were accepted, but just recieved so far) into the Slamdance Film Festival, which is appearantly one of the biggest festivals in the country. For my music industry heads, if Sundance is a Major Label deal, Slamdance is the Major Indie that gets an artist to a worthy level of signing a major deal. Does that make any sense at all? My metaphors don’t always cross over.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw this update on here. I’ll be diving more and more into Sound Design and Film Scoring, especially with the Arris folks, so consider this and the previous TEYK Post a prelude of things to come for both of us, as it relates very much to my next set of releases.

 Oh, AND I’M ON IMDB.

WHAT!!!!?