THE SHOW WE JUST DID

I TAKE IT ALL BACK.

everybody gets an A for not beating anyone up last night.

KanCHE west did almost break a speaker hahaha

the show last night was fun in retrospect...i just looked at the pictures and basically the gang was all on stage. elucid left the stage to holla at his lady but other than that we had the rap entourage all on stage in full effect (which i didnt even notice til i seen the pictures...i was zoned out...with that said E may have still been on stage! i was just out of it from drinking my glass flask in the corner)

elucid, hook me up with that so i can finish grand vonye! i got 5 dollars for you soon as i get this tax refund

im stealing blogs

donwill said, and i quote:

"musicians have to be businessmen to survive but businessmen never have to be musicians. thats wack. i hope you ppl reading this know how fucking wack that is. i have nothing more to say right now"

GRAND VONYE!

i started "grand vonye" back in 2004...early 2004 at that. then i...oh the name. like grand marnier but vonier looks like "von-yea-r" and vonye looks like "von-yay!" and thats how we say "grand mon-yay" anyway...maybe thats another rap pronounciation massacre like "may-back" and "chris-staal" LOOKWHATEVERTHECASETHESHITISCALLEDGRANDVONYE.

and i dont care what you think about that name! im sorry, i just have a complex now that people are listening...like, i think i have to do what i think they want now. maybe i spend too much time online looking at criticisms but i know people nitpick and come across like eddie in MJ's "remember the time" video...sitting there waiting to be entertained and if they dont like it you're fed to the lions. FUCK and THAT. 2 times. thats a whole nother rant that i wont start.

anyway grand vonye is a...mixtape :-(

i dont like mixtapes. i know the lessondary has nuff mixtapes between them but im just not into mixtapes anymore. i love the clipse but i dont even listen to the "we got it 4 cheap"s like that. i mess with mixtapes that are basically "street albums" like spec boogies' "brassknucleraphustle" and little brothers...all the mixtapes they do (haha) because its mostly original songs (meaning not rapping over an instrumental).

but grand vonye is something that i left to collect dust back in 04 and donwill would ask about it every once in a while. that was the only meaning it had...one person asking about it (haha) i dont know why im finishing it, because i hate mixtapes! actually i do know why...because in the back of my mind i miss the experience of recording nobody's "what album?"

that was a week to myself recording shit for no reason. not for a chess move. just recording shit. call me too much of a romantic but i just like the feeling. doing songs so so and so can hear it or so and so can put it on this and get it to that person etc. is...im kinda over it already. no political shit i just wanna do songs and have em come out dope. theres hardly anywhere to buy cds from anyway! the record stores are closed down! get a job already! leave me alone! bitch im broke! (c) cody chestnut....im convinced theres no money to be made.

if you havent already noticed im slowly losing my mind. im on that good Mariah. if i was somebody this would be on a gossip blog as soon as i hit "publish"

but yea, im going to finish grand vonye (jack benson makes an appearance btw) by next week hopefully, then go back to workin on "nobody's perfect" and "the double entendre" (it aint really a double album i was joking lol)

take it slooowwww

so im working on making the slowest rap song ever. but reasonably slow, it may not be the slowest ever, but 62bpm is pretty damn slow.

 

not a south bounce song, not a screwed song, not a love song, a regular rap song...its tough though because its a story song and the story isnt going anywhere, its like....someone is telling me something and they keep telling me the same thing, but i have to turn it around on them at the end. i have to brainstorm on it and figure out where the story is going to go, but im not with the surprise ending thing anymore..."1st date" was enough.

 

the beatmaker is on the track....you can do pro level ice skating to the joint. figure skate to the beat! hip hop ice ballet. yea, hip hop ballet on ice. thats what it sounds like. like its some shit tanya harding would listen to, you know shes a G.

 

i dont know where im going with this entry, or this series of entries, but its going to be fun describing these songs as i make them and not letting anyone hear them. ha!

i never did finish that verse

but ive written some other things since then.

hopefully youll hear these albums this year:
spec boogie - introspective

che grand - everythings good ugly

donwill - re:iteration

von pea - self untitled

elucid - save yourself

theres a show coming up feburary 8th in NYC and all of those rappers will be there. im a lil sad right now because che didnt make the final 2 in that clipse battle, and its like damn dude would have fit perfect on the next clipse joint, but what can you do?

i think im gonna start blogging to myself about this music im working on right now...im giving myself a deadline of march 1st and i want to see what i can do (at this point in time) from now til march 1st. some people do whole records in 2-3 weeks! im gonna try to do one by march 1st. not "self untitled" just some new shit.

writers block.

"once again its me pea and i bought the wife and kids..."

i been sitting on that one bar since 8:30 and its 11:39 right now

i collected some beats from friends of mines and im trying to write songs and record em on some therapy tip. it trips me out that people are actually paying attention so im telling myself im recording just for me to hear it, but in all reality what comes out good is coming out...

but as of right now ive written one verse and i got about 19 beats.

and oh yea, that one bar of the 2nd verse im writing.

brother donwilliam said either a) stop trying and go watch tv or b) write a bad verse intentionally just to be writing

im gonna blog about it then go listen to my friends music and hope to get inspired...

this SUCKS MAN.

they closing up all the damn record stores

beat street records (when it comes to brooklyn beat street is to music what juniors is to cheesecake...though i prefer burger king cheesecake because im ghetto), tower records (che, don and i went there yesterday. we called it the "hip hop is dead" sale. they had full legnth cassettes 10 for a dollar and rap cds for $1.50.) and so many other stores. while i was in tower i seen the dollar cds and i said "man i can just download this and save my dollar" and the next second later the artist kicked in like "NIGGA WHAT?!!?!?!??!" its like the poor consumer was on one shoulder and von pea was on the other. lol...but see i love buying cds, a brother just aint got it right now. i did buy every cd i wanted this year except snoop, but i made my brother buy it and ill get it for myself later.

but this is the rap life blog....okay in rap life news, spec boogie had his release party for "brass knuckle rap hustle" yesterday. check myspace.com/specboogie for more on that. hmm what else...oh yea, our label has disappeared off of the face of the earth. aint much else to say right now, yall stay tuned.

you need a powerstrip on tour.

you need a powerstrip on tour because nowadays hotels dont have enough power outlets for all your gadgets.

i just wanted to say that.

mic check

sound quality.

 

i dont care, but some listeners think theyre dr dre now so now i have to make studio quality music :-(

 

as much of a control freak as i am i cant see walking into a studio, putting the session in someone elses hands totally and just recording. im gonna go crazy! i know/knew that it had to be better sounding from this point on but i was banking on improving the home recording so things could still be in my/our hands. che grand has been tripping down to allentown PA to record his album. i went down with him to load up the songs i produced and do rough mixes and that studio is real ill....but then again i cant imagine leaving my work in the studio and i get home and cant hear it/tweak it. also im good for rerecording something as many times as i have to to get it the way i hear it in my mind. i can count the amount of times ive worked in a "real" studio on one hand. every time its been me settling.

 

so yea when i finish being broke (haha) im setting up shop. i have a lot of people i can talk to about mics and shit and id love to get the sound quality up on my own terms. its not that hard! yall dr dre niggas? throw your wu tang albums away or stop being hypocrits! lol

im from the era where sellin out aint fit

so now that them shows are over let me tell ya whats been up.

 

panic. haha...

 

earlier this week it was kind of like "WE HAVE TO GET IT TOGETHER! WHATS GONNA HAPPEN TO US!?!?!?!?!?" but now its like...just keep it moving. we did damn well! not to mention...none of us should be stuck with "tanya morgan". tanya morgan is ilwil and von pea. not on no breakup shit, but we gotta remember that tanya morgan is madvillain. it was a side project. the album is called moonlighting for a reason!! we just ended up becoming popular off of the side project. we had plans to do 3 albums from the beginning and thats still a go, but while theres no new TM album til 08, we can still work to get the dayjob albums out. (get it?) that would suck if nobody wanted to hear the ilwil album without me, or my album without them. maybe by the time bknati is ready itll really be like a supergroup project AND a reunion in one fell swoop! ha!

 

i was thinking about living off of making music...if i only lived from music id probably have to do a lot of things just for the money. jay z should have said "you from the era where selling outs the shit!"

LOL...dont get me wrong, theres nothing wrong with "selling out" on some fly shit. like being in a video game or getting your own shoe, or even that common gap ad is dope.

 

haha...maybe i dont see the bigger picture yet but i want to put out product i completely stand behind and not drop shit all the time/work with everybody because the rents due. its funny, now i watch tv and everything just looks like a check. celebreality, cell phone endorsements in your video, all the side hustles. im really thinking hard right now about what i want to do. im not down with doing anything half assed for a check...well when it comes to music anyway. ill take a job and half ass it all day. do my job for the check and make sure that the only time i ask for peoples money is when i fully stand behind whats on that cd.

 

and for the record, i stand behind everything thats out so far.

i found the missing blog entry

(here it is)
before i get into this blog entry...spec boogie finished his album! for real this time! im excited man..."introspective" is being mixed right now and bout to be mastered and sent to press asap....trust my judgement on this one....

okay now where the hell do i begin....

friday night we performed with strange fruit project, kaze, sean price, douja raze, and bekay...

the show went pretty good. median, oddisee, illmind, k slack, and who knows who else was in the crowd, along with our supporters and our co-d's (spec boogie, bennie guinness, nonameko, elucid, aeon....nigga the gang was there!)

saturday we tried to go see the halftooth show in alphabet city but we had a show to be at by 2am. ive never been that tired in my life....walking at least 10 blocks to the halftooth joint then having to run back to the train to our own shit and missing the whole damn halftooth show!

we got to ours on time though....actually we didnt go on til 3am!!! the juggaknots, j live, polyrhythm addicts, pumpkinhead, fresh daily, and ralph mcdaniels were all in the back chilling. dj automatic (remember the tour we were on when this blog started?) came to the show too...i heard wajeed was there, and donwill just told me truth enola was there and was talking to him afterwards about how we were dope and shit....im happy as hell that we got to rock and all of these people seen us rock...i hope that shows that we are a valid group and not some internet novelty act with a girl name.

breezely brewin and j live said they been waiting to see us rock...uncle ralph had been waiting to get our video when dj jer2 gave it to him...now that i think about it there was a dude in the front row that was stonefaced for half of our show...then by the end he was feeling it...that was truth enola! wild shit man. you would think this is shit that would gas me....this stuff is super humbling man because its like...these cats all are playing a role in what keeps hip hop relevant. so now its like...wait...are we apart of that now? are we? am i? damn im on some "were not worthy" idish. you name one of my favorite artists and chances are they've shown us some kind of love one way or another. i walk in fat beats or amoeba and half of the people on the racks are mutual fans. what. the. fuck.


i said all of that to say this...i thank god for all of this.

i made a blog

and i cant see it. what da hell? if "we did a show in dc" is the last blog you see then something is wrong with my blogger account or something.

we did a show in DC

Thanks to everybody that came out to the DC jawn...Kev i wanted to say thanks but you dipped out quick!

 

The show went pretty well but...and this is gonna look like im trying to dis but im not...Mello D went for like 40 minutes...i mean damn he should have been the headliner for all that! were not tripping on order, i prefer going early as possible so he could've/should've went after us with such an elaborate & legnthy set. When we finally did go on the crowd enjoyed it and they were jamming with us. Afterwards we took some flicks with Jati Lindsay and went to breakfast and went the hell to sleep. Che Grand performed too so i drove down with him, our peoples Tim (thank you again Tim), and P.S. from Ches joint "Gold Chains". We got there and had to go right to XM radio for the Subsoniq show with K Murdock from Panacea...we took over the show yall...i think its gonna air in November....be on the lookout for that...then to "soundcheck" (theres no such thing as soundcheck...its a myth) we left like 10 minutes later and came back for the show and you read about the show a few lines ago...im on some tarantino ish son!

 

its CMJ week and we've just been chilling for the most part. Because of our experience last year, I always think CMJ is about having a grocery list of things to do to further your career within this week, but that hasnt been the case and i honestly am not tripping...lol. wheres the free beer. no question mark, its a statement.

 

when we started this tour, our show on saturday was the last date so once again i consider that the end. its almost over!!

back in brooklyn

why does it feel like i been away for a year?

 

actually ive been home since tuesday night. im gonna make myself leave the house tonight. i have had ZERO desire to leave this house at all. as much as i wanted to go hang with my girlfriend (not that its anybodies business but...no lol) i had to pry myself out of the door wednesday to travel to see her. ive had enough traveling for at least a week!

 

we we have a show in DC sunday night then its cmj week...should be...no WILL be loads of fun. when the team is in nyc i always have a ball. we dont know whats next for us but im trying to move this music to have some pocket change until we come up with the master plan (or find jobs lol)

 

the tour isnt officially over in my mind until the sunday show. CMJ doesnt count because it was the next step after tour but it wasnt apart of it...with that said ill attempt my massive retrospect blog sometime next week...but im gonna keep this joint alive for all things tanya morgan from now on. itll eventually become the "recording of brooklynati" blog and etc....

we did a show in LA

with oddisee, trek life, and pacific division.

it. was. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.

i was already messing with trek and oddisee, but i only knew pacific division from "act like u chillin"...those dudes are nice though...i mess with them now.

im going home tuesday...its goin DOWWWWWN. heres the hard part....whats next? i get home and try to figure out what to do next to make money. people dont think about that...when your favorite artists arent on tour what are they doing? i have no idea. im bout to find out because im one of my favorite artists...im somewhere in my top 20. 20? lol

but im having some fun though! dont trip...the fun is free sh*t. A dude named Merrell came to our show with A BAG OF VANS. Three Sixteen, Mario from Basement (in LA), and True (east) hooked us up with shirts, and sometimes youll get a free drink if youre a performer at these venues. haha...so thats the fun. my vans, my tee shirts, and a drink.

yea i edited this down. you already know why.

THE DRAMA AINT OVER

not yet...hold on. ill talk about that later.

 

okay so we had a brother come from arizona and a woman come from SWEEDEN. TO SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA. now obviously they didnt come only to see us, but they came to see us as a priority. the show with trackademicks wednesday was fun but the benefit joint was even better. that one went down last friday. spank pops (thanks for the shirts....yall need to check out donwills blog to see the crazy sh*t we got from True East out in wallnut creek...crazy!) also peformed at that one and we all pretty much did our thing. no money issues because it was all for track to get his studio back up and running...honor roll camp is pretty cool. i will say this much...the bay is driving me to the poorhouse!!!! when we got here we were eating 10 dollar meals...now its strictly the 2.49 jump off at church's chicken. jack in the box is fine dining right now man. the misses asked me if i was eating right...uh...im eating??? Ian put us on to some healthy drink the other night thats good but damn i go home in a week its too late for this tour! lol...

 

yo...this people traveling to see us thing is crazy. you know how far sweeden is? people coming up to me like "yo man im a big fan...respect keep doing your thing" or even "YO! I LOVE YALL SHIT!" im not used to it and i hope i never take that for granted...

 

OH WAIT!!! THE FOLKS FROM THE TOUR WE LEFT CAME TO THE SHOW LAST WEDNESDAY! I SEEN A GHOST!!

 

they came and performed and sh*t...no harm done, no fights, none of that. i WILL say it was pretty obvious that one person wasnt messing with us and vice versa, but you know i dont got any beefs with anyone. i dont know where they are on the tour right now, but man i think everyone that got in that truck back in september will agree that this tour was the most janky shit ever. lesson learned by all of us. i thank them for that.

 

100% real talk, i cant wait to get home, get back in my bed, make some beats on my stuff, give my woman a (skinny) bear hug, and eat some hood chinese food. i want to see my family too...my little brother was asking me if i was getting our money situation right haha...damn are your reading shawn? if you are, dont mind the cursing. haha...

the santa rosa show

Not santa monica don...haha

Tonight we finally said the wrong town on stage. Man that shit was
scary. Haha...we played it off, I think. But I learned something
tonight. Never expect to be the best show. Bottom line...lets keep it
all the way real...every artist wants to knock em dead on stage, but
some of us are sometimes like...well...most hip hop shows are low in
energy and our show isn't so we usually have that angle cornered.
Tonight we performed with eyezon and truthlive and they had the ill
energy and they worked together well on stage, so it was like ok we
have to step our "jump around the atage" game up...and we had a FEAST
prior to the show(thanks to the del benes) so we were fat bastards on
stage. Oh don't get me wrong we did our thing haha...the crowd really
enjoyed us, but I just know I was tired as hell.

By the way we got paid upfront. HollAAAARRR.

One.

GO DUMB.

im sitting in my stunna shades blogging....WHEN IN ROME. i went to wallgeens and got some 5 dollar big grandma shades. i should have had them on today ont he bus. mad teenagers were on the bus in all black like the e 40 video. i felt like a 50 year old tourist. i was like woooooooow they might go dumb! this will be great! do it! do it! go 18 dumb! please!

 

so on friday we performed with nicolay and that went real well. we did we be, so far, and von sees. the crowd did the "yaaaaay" part in von sees so thats AWESOME. i dont know what else to say about the show but it was dope.

 

yo...san fran folks....haight street is the oddest shit EVAR. its like...take the whole downtown manhattan and give them all a blunt and a lenny kravits greatest hits record and you have haight street. golden gate park scared the hell out of me. woodstock 06. ameoba is still the sh*t though...i found a foster sylvers album from him as an adult...i didnt know that existed. i didnt buy it though.

 

so if you havent figured out by now the tour is in standby mode like a mutha right now. 3 more shows in cali then i can go back to the east. i like it over here dont get me wrong but everybody has their comfort zone and mines is the east. what biggie said? i live out there so dont go there! lol...

 

flavor of love is sponsored by popeyes. rap is outta control.

HOME.

I am extremely homesick!

We have been in oakland since monday and its been productive. We spoke
in front of 2 classrooms yesterday at santa rosa junior college. It
went pretty well...its a hip hop class and we just came in to talk
about what were going through and music in general. Later that night
we went to some club/party and I realized I need to be home. Lol...I
got in there and 5 minutes later I realized I had to be up today to
put posters up for the cali shows and to meet up with nicolay and then
the show tonight so there was no reason to be in there...I'd rather be
home with my family eating some of my mommas cooking...haha man I'm so
ready to be home! I won't be back on the east until the 27th....you
know what? Lets talk about grooming/hygene on tour. I'm changing the
topic.

Right now I'm in my labelheads building washing my whites and colors
together because I don't have enough whites to wash alone, or the time
to do that, but its all underclothes anyway so who cares? Haha...

And cutting your hair is wack because you're getting hair all over
someones sink or even in a hotel its a b*tch to clean up. I'm waiting
to make it to target so I can get some damn lotion and sh*t. I don't
want to get too metrosexual on yall lol but lets just say its hard to
encapsulate my suave' on the road.

Ok ima close this because I aint got sh*t to say other than that. COME
ONNNNNNNNN 27th!

the mountains are beautiful

Were driving through the rockies in colorado and...oh yea I can't talk
about them until the pictures go up on dons blog.

Yo...niggas said we got em kicked off the colorado date and trying to
call us shady. The colorado cats wanted tm apart of their show because
we worked with them a few months ago and it went nice. They couldn't
get us because we were on this tour but once that tour became too
shakey and we left the colorado peeps still wanted us. They bought the
whole tour because we were on it and that's the bottom line. That's
not a dis, they simply wanted tm to come through again and said fuck
it whoever they with can roll too. Once we weren't with em anymore
those rules changed. I'm not gonna badmouth anybody but...that tour is
still goin on and they're doing mad shows without us and splitting the
money less ways, but now that we want to do our 3 or 4 lil shows its
an outrage. I promise you I'm not some fake dude acting innocent and
clueless...our plan was to stay on the whole tour and have fun
hustling and performing with those guys...but we had to go! I figure
we did them a favor. Instead of splitting money 9 ways they're
splitting it 5 ways now.

Ima be quiet about it now but ill close on this note: everything
happens for a reason. Colorado was dope. We performed with approach
and he's a real good dude. We invited a bunch of people on stage and
did karaoke to "aint no fun" by snoop and had women singing along on
stage hahaha...tanya morgan isn't conscious rap.

I'm out...oh yea. There was a money issue yet again but my mans and
them mysteriously got a new 2000 dollar guitar now so somebody bout to
get their eric clapton on.

The mountains are my groupies. I want to have sex with the mountains.