What is Wreckage of the Past?

What is Wreckage of the Past?

Rock stars used to be ugly.

With the exception of freak-shows like Jamie Foxx, people don’t often fall out of the tree of life and hit every talent branch on the way down. The commercial music of today is often made by production teams with multiple writers, producers, and engineers — creating a polished, packaged, well thought out product.

West Coast hip-hop legend DJ Quik has an ironic name being that he’s basically everything, but a DJ. His album credits often read: “Written, produced, performed, and mixed by DJ Quik.” That’s an insanely heavy lift. Stevie Wonder did it, but he’s Stevie Wonder.

The point is: mastery is hard.

Being good at one thing is hard. Being good at two or three is almost impossible. Even Michael Jordan wasn’t the Michael Jordan of every facet of basketball. There’s better shooters, rebounders, defenders & even dunkers. Kyrie Irving might be the “Michael Jordan of tight-space dribbling” for example. Being the most complete basketball player made Michael Jordan the GOAT, but he couldn’t hit a baseball. 

That’s why rapping producers are so rare. It’s just too hard to be exceptional at two things. Scott Storch doesn’t rap and Kevin Gates doesn’t make beats. Guys like J. Cole, Dr. Dre, Dj Quik, Kanye West, etc. aren’t just rappers, they’re outliers, rapping over their own musical ideas. The rapper also being the producer adds an additional degree of authenticity and originality to the production. 

Being a producer is hard. Becoming a good one is impossible. Rapping is hard. Being a good rapper is impossible. Trying to do both is like having a dual major. You’ll never be in the 99th percentile of either, but if you’re lucky — maybe you could hit 80 in both. J. Cole is pretty good at both. Dr. Dre and Kanye West? Average lyricists at best. Dr. Dre is known for using ghostwriters and Kanye is often more mood than message. We’re too limited. Humans just don’t have enough bandwidth to become great at everything, unless of course, you’re some freak show like Jamie Foxx who can act, sing, and do stand up. 

Self-producing full albums has been my over-arching goal since 1997. My brother Mark helped me lug gear around for over a decade before having enough material to compile my first album, Where I Went Wrong, in 2012. To make 21 listenable songs you have to make 500 ideas, 200 parial songs, 100 bad songs, 50 ok songs and maybe you can compile an entire album worth of finished ideas. 

When I need a 100 beats to write to I don’t just download them, I have to make them. 

My self-produced albums — Where I Went Wrong (2012), Imagination to the Nation (2013), The Illusion of Logic (2015), Late Bloomer (2018) — are the exposed tip of an iceberg above 25 years of submerged trial, error, and slow, solitary progress.  A massive, chaotic ecosystem of hard drives and poorly named files. My brother would be the first to tell you beats like “RC1pauu11.mp3” or “I just assume I fail instrumental (1).wav” hung around for years on burned cds, but never became songs. Some have lyrics or a partial melody, but most ideas never get fully flushed out. 

In the ‘90s, the double album was a badge of honor. Bone Thugs n Hamony, 2Pac, Notorious BIG and others— swung for the fences with massive two-disc projects. Putting out just one cohesive album is hard. Two at once is almost impossible. Budgets, timelines, label pressure — they all get in the way.

In my case, I have no label. No pressure. No rules. It gives me complete artistic freedom. 

What Exactly Is Wreckage of the Past?

It’s just the next thing comprised mostly, of old things. 

This isn’t a shiny new project — more like version five of Where I Went Wrong. Another attempt to piece together a full body of work from two decades of chaos and an attempt to salvage some wreckage of the past. I'm no Stevie Wonder, can’t play a single instrument and understand very little music theory. 

I’m just stubborn enough to experiment until something resembling music begins to emerge. 

Wreckage of the Past is my latest attempt to do what people used to do — double albums built entirely from scratch. My original goal that began in the 90’s when I discovered DJ Quik wasn’t actually a DJ.

I may be a monkey smashing a typewriter hoping for a novel, but I haven’t stopped smashing.