Life Imitates Art

Hey y’all. I’m so sleepy that I’m hearing colours and seeing sounds…but I really ought to stop being lazy and post more stuff. So before I catch up on some much-needed sleep, here’s a quick post just for you!

It’s JUNE and I am hella excited because everything I have been planning for the past couple of months can finally be set in motion. I can’t WAIT to get my music out there on a serious tip. I have been sitting on some tracks for months, (some for years) and I am so anxious to share it with all of you!

I’ve been busy, busy, busy since I’ve been back home. I’ve been hitting the studio with one of my favourite producers, Mr. Trace Mo; grinding hard at my day job, writing track after track, attending event after event and I GRADUATED on Thursday! I get no sleep, but I’m loving what I do and that’s what matters most to me.

I hit up the Stylus Awards earlier this month. I was glad to support Canada’s DJs, as they are VITAL to the music game, especially to hip hop! DJing is a science that not all can master and I’m glad that the Stylus Group paid homage to the most skilled of turntablists with their weekend full of events.

I missed NXNE this past weekend because I was at my graduation some four hours away, but you can read all about it over on the blog Freshly Educated Men. Shout outs to my people Diamond and real.talk.TO runnin things over there. Check out their write-up on GZA, who was in town this past weekend and who I am sorry I missed the chance to see!

I didn’t do the Much Music Video Awards this Sunday but I did get a chance to hit up Drake’s after party. Pretty much the whole world is on his jock right now and Torontonians showed up in droves to party with him over after the show. Even Chris Bosh skipped his own party to be there! While I am definitely a Drake supporter, I’m disappointed in how the night went. All I’ll say is, if you’re going out to party, go party and leave the drama at home! Those who were there with me know what I mean. Anyway, moving on...

Anyway, you know I always end my blogs with a random thought. So here’s this month’s:
They say that art imitates life, but imagine a world where life imitated art? I guess when you think about it, a lot of times life does imitate art, but people: some things are better left in a song.

Case in point…in the music world, it is perfectly acceptable to give your girlfriend sex on her birthday. Fellas, let’s be clear: in the real world, sex is a WACK birthday gift. On our birthday, sex is more like the icing on the [birthday] cake…it can supplement a real gift, but it cannot be “the” gift. Especially if you and your woman are already doing it on a regular basis. In this case, sex on her birthday would be considered re-gifting…and that’s not good look.

In the music world, it is sexy to be Boyfriend #2. I hate to break it to you boys, but in the real world, there are boyfriends and there are jump-offs. If you are not the boyfriend then unfortunately, you’re the jump-off. But I guess that on a record, Boyfriend #2 sounds nicer than Jump-Off #1…

In the music world, it is perfectly alright for your sex to be on fire. In the real world, wouldn’t that be a bad thing?

In the music world, it's ok for a dude to f*ck every girl in the world. In the real world…well, your sex certainly would be on fire after that.


I could go on for days…my imagination is overactive like that. But I’m sleepy and have a day job to get to first thing in the morning.

So for now, sleep tight and wake up smiling! = )


-‘Harm.

Slow and Steady

What’s up fam? You don’t have to tell me how terrible I am for not keeping up with the blog, believe me, I know! Everything has kind of been at a stand-still over the past couple of months. But I have good news to report for anyone that cares to know: I AM OFFICIALLY DONE WITH SCHOOL!!! It felt so good to write my last exam and George Jefferson walk OUTTA that place! Better than that, it feels good to finally be back in my hometown TORONTO! My first week back was all about sleeping, unpacking and indulging in T.Dot’s small pleasures (good hairdressers...an actual subway system...patties from Bathurst station...) and this week I dove feet first into all things music!

I am set to start recording my mixtape in June. Until that time comes, I’ve been listening to beats, writing tracks and recording demos like my life depends on it! (In a way, my life DOES depend on it)! Anyway, I have been hunting for good music to get my creative juices flowing and hot DAMN I have found some winners! If you don’t have the following albums/mixtapes, do your ears a favour and cop them quick, fast, and in a hurry:

Andreena Mill – Ready to Fly

Asher Roth –Asleep in the Bread Aisle

Ayah – 4:15

Colin Munroe – Colin Munroe is the Unsung Hero

Drake –So Far Gone

Kid Cudi –Dat Kid from Cleveland

Kim Davis--Live, Love, Learn

I’m proud to say that the majority of these artists are Canadian (with a few of them hailing from my city!). And each piece of work is insanely dope. If I want to make my project comparable to these gems I certainly have my work cut out for me…but I am definitely up for the challenge!

Speaking of challenges, lately I've been thinking about the importance of patience. I’ve never been very patient, but I am learning that in this game, patience is crucial.

Last year around this time, my first feature had been sent to radio, and I was getting great feedback. My mind started swimming with a million ideas. I was going to record a few more tracks, push them to a couple more stations, put out a top-notch mixtape, write for some big-time artists and sit back and wait for the accolades to roll in…all by the end of 2008! Yet a year later, here I am still “preparing” to record! Believe me, I am by no means being lazy, and I have not lost love for my craft. In fact, it is because I love what I do so much that I made myself and slow down a bit.

Navigating this business is about finding a good balance. It’s about knowing when to give and when to take. When to drop something and when to hold onto it a little while longer. When to lead and when to humble yourself and follow. Sometimes, falling back helps you move forward. This is why I put things on pause. I’m taking time to write better music, find better studios, seek out better beats, and make sure that everything I make is fresh, new and better than before. I’m no longer in a rush…I’d rather take ten years to put out a quality project than 10 minutes to put out something “almost” hot.

In whatever you choose to pursue, apply the same patience. There’s no need to move at a snail’s pace for everything, but in some cases, taking your time pays off in spades.

Ciao for now,

A. Harmony

PS, I tweet now! Follow me on Twitter at

www.twitter.com/AHarmonyMusic

The BIG Blog...

Happy New Year, Cyberspacers! It’s none other than your girl A. Harmony, back with another installment of my blog. I still can’t believe it’s a new year! It seems like just yesterday I was ringing in 2008 and before I could blink, twelve months just kind of disappeared! ’08 was a great year for me and I started ’09 off with a bang, attending the launch party for Urban Amore. This is a brand new online magazine that will keep readers in the know about all that is new and hot in fashion, entertainment and the social scene in my hometown of Toronto. The first issue is up now and it’s fresh! Shout out to the good folks at Urban Amore and to everyone who came out to support at the launch party last week!

Despite a hectic schedule on my plate in this, my last semester of school (finally), your girl is still finding time to make music. I wrote a new song four days into the New Year, thanks to my boy Trace Mo hooking me up with a crazy beat! It’s about time I did a collabo with a fellow Torontonian! Look out for that track, as well as my work with Force Proph, Prof_AC, and producers R. Will and Smitty Tha Future. It may take a while because I am having a HARD time getting my tracks mixed down (I should write a blog about that!) but the tracks are on their way! So sit tight! And in the meantime check out the remix I made of Kanye West’s “Say U Will”.

Alright, as we all may (or may not) know, Notorious, the long-awaited biopic of Notorious B.I.G. is being released this Friday. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this film and it’s not even out yet! While I’m not impressed with the casting (Anthony Mackie as Tupac? Really?), nor the footage I am seeing in the trailers so far, I admit I am curious to see this movie. (I might even pay to go see it)! I’m a huge Biggie fan and am anxious to see his life story played out on the silver screen.

The buzz surrounding the movie started an interesting conversation between myself and a fellow hip-hop loving friend. I brought up an argument that would probably get me crucified if I uttered it on a corner in Bed-Stuy: When it comes to being an emcee, Biggie wasn’t as prolific as people make him seem.

Alright, now that you’ve read the statement and gotten mad, let me back up my point. First of all, do not misunderstand me. I’m huge fan of Big’s work. Yes, he was a great story teller, he rode beats with flair and was an undeniably strong lyricist. I just think the G.O.A.T. title that so many bestow upon him is a bit premature.

Many seem to forget how short Big’s career really was. He made his debut in ’94 and three short years later he was killed…his second and final album was released posthumously! And while Ready to Die and Life After Death were both great pieces of work, the truth is, Biggie just didn’t have the time to make his “Blueprint” or “Beautiful Struggle”. And while we’ll never know if subsequent Biggie albums would have been able to top his debut and sophomore work, my guess is, they would have. Already on Life After Death we see what time and growth did to Big’s music. Ready to Die was a hungrier, angrier Big, bursting with rawness and purity. It was the naïve, “blank slate” Biggie--the guy who just wanted to get on and only had pre-record deal stories to tell.

Life After Death, on the other hand, was infused with the champagne wishes and caviar dreams that Big was only just beginning to see. He had lived a little more, seen a little more, had had a taste of the good life and was a little more experienced in the crazy business of music. Everything he had experienced translated into his music and he delivered an even better product than the first time. But Life After Death in my opinion was only a precursor to the album that Biggie never had a chance to record. The album that would have hands down been a hip-hop classic. The album that would have shut the whole game down; blown every album before it out of the water and set an almost impossibly high precedent for any album to follow it. With more time, more maturity, and more life experience, Big would have made something irrevocably legendary. But he simply didn’t have the time. And so, Big’s best work remains a verse un-spit, and, as well-made as they were, the two albums that he left behind got placed in the “classic” category sort of by default. I’m not knocking the two albums at all, nor am I downplaying Big’s talent. I’m just saying that perhaps so many people are quick to label Notorious as one of the greatest emcees of all time based purely on the potential they recognized in him and not necessarily on the little work he left us with.

As I wrap up this blog, my mind is wanders toward the myriad ways the game would have been different were Frank White still in the booth today. I can only wonder...yet I’m near-certain that with his contribution, hip-hop might have still had a pulse.

-Til next time, stay blessed!

‘Harm ;-)

Ode to the Songwriter

Even though I’m pushing myself as a singer these days, I’ve always considered myself a songwriter first. I wrote my first track at seven years old. I remember it well…I was listening to SWV’s “Right Here” and just started singing my own words. Before I knew it, I had my own two verses and my very first hook…that was the day I married my pen.

The father of a friend of mine plays in a band and he gave me some good advice. He said: “anybody can sing a song…but the ability to write a good song is a talent not many possess. So never put that pen down”.

How very right he was. Take Beyoncé for example. Nobody is denying she can sing a song to death (that’s sometimes a good thing and sometimes bad), but as great as her pipes are, Mrs. Carter would kill to have a fraction of the writer’s skill of Ne-Yo (who penned Irreplaceable), or BC Jean (the person who really wrote “If I Were a Boy”. Click here for that story).

A good song can make a nobody a superstar, or revive a dying career. Not only this, but a great song can impact a listener in a big way. Everyone has that one song that has made them cry, made their heart race, or has driven everyone around them crazy from excessive repeating. Everyone has that one song that will never get old, no matter how many times they hear it. And everyone therefore, has a great composer to thank.

Amidst the glaringly witless audio vomit we’re forced to listen to in mainstream radio these days, a well-written song is appreciated more than ever. Sometimes, I’m still lucky enough to hear a song so good that it makes me say “damn, I wish I wrote this!”.

Here, in absolute random order, are ten of those songs. Believe me, there are many more classics that I wish I wrote…but if I named them all we’d be here all night!

10 Songs I Wish I wrote:

10. Hometown Glory performed by Adele

Written by Adele & Francis Anthony White

If you don’t know who Adele is, you’re seriously sleeping. She’s a singer/songwriter from London, England and you might have heard her song Hometown Glory on Grey’s Anatomy or One Tree Hill. Not only is this girl’s voice brimming with soul, but this song pays homage to her hometown of Tottenham with a grace and eloquence that not even “God Save the Queen” could match. Her album 19 is full of other songs I wish I wrote, including Melt My Heart to Stone and Chasing Pavements. If you’re still sitting there like “nope, never heard of her” then do yourself a favour and Google the chick! She’ll blow you away…

9. Ordinary People performed by John Legend

Written by John Legend & Will.I.Am.

This song is the inspiration for this entire list, as it is the first song I clearly remember saying “damn, I wish I wrote this” to. There are countless ballads chronicling the upside of love; talking about how great and wonderful it is and all that crap, but let’s face it: love sucks! Anyone who has made it past infatuation knows that it takes a lot of hard work to make a relationship thrive. Who hasn’t at some point asked themselves why the hell they’re still in the relationship they’re in? Love isn’t painless, nor is it simple, and a good relationship can’t last without effort. John Legend captured that beautifully in this song. Ordinary People is the realest love song ever written…

8. Lions, Tigers and Bears performed by Jazmine Sullivan

Written by Jazmine Sullivan and Salaam Remi

The fact that Jazmine Sullivan is an exceptional vocalist goes without question, but it was once I found out that she was behind Christina Milian’s “Say I” that I became really interested. She is the sole songwriter for her debut album Fearless, and after taking the album in, I’ve added the North Philly native to my list of songwriters to watch. While her first two singles Need U Bad and Bust Ya Windows are both great tracks, it is Lions, Tigers and Bears that fills me up with admiration and a teensy weensy bit of jealousy. This song speaks so accurately to my fear of falling in love that I wonder why the concept didn’t come to me first! In any case, excellent song…please take in Fearless if you haven’t already.

7. Ribbon in the Sky performed by Stevie Wonder

Written by Stevie Wonder

R&B Classic.

Point.Blank.Period.

6. Prototype performed by Andre 3000

Written André Benjamin

The first time I listened to The Love Below I really wanted to dissect Andre 3000’s brain and see what colour it was. He is way too talented to be entirely human. A lot of songs I hear are so obvious or so predictable that it’s not hard to figure out how they were conjured up. I hate listening to a song and being able to sing the next line without every having heard it before. But the melody, arrangement and lyrics of Prototype are so oddly paired that there is no way I would have ever been able to see them coming, much less write it myself. I’m so glad Andre did though.

5. Juicy performed by The Notorious B.I.G.

Lyrics written by Christopher Wallace

Who doesn’t love a good rags-to-riches story? This song in my mind is a hip hop classic. The lyrics are simple really, but so honest and so relatable that this “ashy-to-classy” anthem will never get old. Even 14 years after its release, Juicy remains the ode to the underdog. It’s the perfect track to play both during your hungry days and when you finally have your long-awaited “how-you-like-me-now” moment.

4. Umbrella performed by Rihanna

Written by: Terius “The Dream” Nash, Christopher Stewart, Kuk Harrell and Jay-Z

I knew this song was a winner the very first time I heard it. Sure it annoys the hell out of me now, but I think back to when it was new…that blessed time before it was played on every radio station, tv show, commercial, pre-teen school dance and karaoke bar. There was something so fresh and catchy about this track…I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole world became enamoured with the Umbrella-ella-ella…

This song, originally intended for Britney Spears and then Mary J. Blige, was the one that turned Rihanna from a watered down Bajan Beyoncé to a star in her own right. The track definitely built a buzz behind Terius “The Dream” Nash, who, after winning a Grammy for this song went on to become the official Radio Killa with Shawty is a Ten, Falsetto and my personal fav I Luv Your Girl. His entire debut album (Love/Hate) is a smash and he's another writer that I want to emulate.

3. Be Your Girl performed by Teedra Moses

Written by Teedra Moses and Paul Poli

Teedra’s 2004 debut Complex Simplicity is one of THE most slept-on albums ever. Ms. Moses is way more talented than she has ever gotten credit for. While the album is full of gems, the one that sticks out for me is Be Your Girl. Although it received a lukewarm response from the mainstream, any true R&B diva knows that this song is a classic. I clutch at my heart when I hear it in the club, for it strikes close to home—I’m always the girl who admires the guy from afar, wishing he would just notice me and maybe make me his girl…

2. Green Light performed by John Legend

Written by John Legend, André 3000 and Rick Nowels

Just when I started to wonder where John Legend disappeared to he emerged from the abyss with EVOLVER! The album was released yesterday and I’m so excited to take it in. From what I’ve heard so far I’m in love! Green Light is an instant booty-shaker, you can’t listen to it without moving something. Add Andre 3000’s clever lyrics and the infectious “I’m ready to go right noooow” and you’ve got a hit. I’ve also heard It's Over featuring Kanye West…another smash. I doubt I’ll soon tire of this one…

1. Got To Be There performed by Michael Jackson

Written by: Elliot Willensky and Hal Davis

Not only is this a beautifully written song, but Michael Jackson, at just 13 years old, injected a passion into this song that no other vocalist will ever be able to duplicate. I’ve been lucky enough to have never come across a cover of this track and if there is one never send it to me. I’m serious…

So that’s my list…it was hard for me to choose only ten, but I managed. Hopefully I’ll make some budding songwriter’s Top Ten List one day. I guess I’ll just keep writing tracks until I do!

Peace til next time,

~*A. Harmony*~ ;-)

Hello...

...to all of you lovely people. I am A. Harmony and this is my official blog. Some of my friends from MySpace may remember my monthly music review entitled "Don't Sleep". I really enjoyed writing that, but my schedule got a little hectic and I ended up putting Don't Sleep...well, to sleep! <--(that was a corny joke. Get used to that)...
Anyway, I started to miss standing on my soapbox and giving my two cents, and so here I am again, giving blogging another shot. I look forward to sharing with you all, and I appreciate feedback, so be sure to drop a comment!


Ciao for Now,

~*A. Harmony*~