In 2010, I was working quietly alone in my headphones, in a “studio” that was really just a closet in a windowless room. There was no face-to-face connection with any kind of community. That solitude completely changed what I was making — and who I was making it for.
I was trying to get a baby to sleep. We shared a wall with a shift worker who would pound on the wall to “soothe” our screaming baby. So aside from that one time I played my partner “this really chill Burial track you just have to hear,” bass music was mostly kept to a minimum.
Something to Rewind is a chill tune — just drums, bass, and me playing chords on my M-Audio Oxygen 8 keyboard (which I still have). The only vocal sample quietly says, “Listen up.”
I’ve never pretended to be an emcee, and sadly most of my hip hop productions were lost when a hard drive died. But this track feels like it could use the blessing of a proper emcee — someone who understands what it means to make something in the quiet, and hope it’s heard.