Might cop a pair of Adidas.

Everyone has regrets, some have more than others. I know for a fact that I’ve tried my hand at numerous projects and have yet to come down to completing or achieving anything serious (well besides my music collection and this blog) so I’ll take a trip back to memory lane and remember some of the stuff I tried but well …

1) Songwriting.
– Like anybody who has picked up a pen and started writing poetry, I found myself jotting down little rhymes here and there to the point where I wound up making verses and found the courage to join a hip-hop forum where people would battle one another to see who’s battle verse was better. I wasn’t too bad (actually got really good at it) and then when I tried to transfer it to actual song making – I kind of flopped. Maybe because I kind of choked up a little bit and got nervous but then when I tried my hand at one poetry contest and got third place on a whim, I figured what if I decided to pick the pen back up?

Believe me, it’s harder than it looks. A hook is hard as hell to write because it has to get the point across and be catchy, a verse can go on for sixteen bars and when the litmus test according to some is that if you can knock out a song in 15-30 minutes, you’re good – I’m not. Hell, The-Dream wrote “Single Ladies” in 30 minutes. And it’s creepy how many MALE songwriters are writing a WOMAN’s hit. Like Umbrella? The-Dream. Unfaithful? Ne-Yo. Irreplaceable? Ne-Yo. I could keep going.

2) Book Writing
– I have started at least four books since my senior year of high school and each one all had the same problem – lack of interest once I reached a certain limit. I even started on one right after Hurricane Ike but after awhile, the urge to get back to it just died down. The one I started in high school lasted the longest at nearly 200 pages double spaced but I figured how many other books/films it had slightly borrowed on and the last thing I remember writing almost took a scene directly out of “Juice” (the scene where Bishop & Co. rob the liquor store). Remember, I was a near jack of all trades in high school (acting & writing, hanging around the band so I got a feel for music, not to mention all the CDs I sold around the place).

You can also lump newspaper writing as it was a secret dream of mine to write for either a big music magazine or political one but thanks to academic apathy, that dream is on indefinite hold and radio has pushed itself in the way.

3) Producing
– “Remember what sounds you like to hear,” Swag 4.0 once told me when I chilled in my then dorm room freshman year. I couldn’t help it. I felt hooked when I added a basic hip-hop drum pattern to Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and thought I would at least try to learn the keyboard. The closest I got to any real musical cohesion was making a beat that sampled little bits of “Patron” by Yung Joc and some Timbaland esque 808 patterns. When I grab my hands on a pair of 1200s, I will learn them like no tomorrow. Because that is the main thing I’ve wanted to learn since I’ve messed with my dad’s old Technic 1200 playing his old R&B, Funk & Soul albums.

He still has an original copy of “Thriller” somewhere in this giant pile of vinyls.