Reminiscing back to 2014, the early days of venturing further into making own music in the form of a mixtape.
As those who read my introduction post already know, I've always been a huge fan of music. It all started with Hip Hop and everything else just happened on its own. With that said, Hip Hop holds a special place in my heart. It always will. It will always be what I represent personally. I was scrolling through my music folders and found this mixtape that I did with a friend back in 2014. So lets talk about it.
When I got into university back in 2012, I met a guy the following year when he joined as my junior in the same course as mine. Arjun a.k.a Sykadelik (back then known as Tha Funk) was and still is a crazy Hip Hop head. I can safely say he knew more of it than I did back then. We spent a lot time before classes, breaks and after classes talking about Hip Hop. I actually learned a lot from him honestly. It all just expanded my love for the music and culture.
Eventually, all the time spent ended up sparking an idea to do our own mixtape. It was something I got excited about because besides the fact I get to write and rap more, it was an opportunity for me to learn, practice and experiment audio mixing. I was an audio student back then, still fresh so I needed this experience which I could show my lecturers and get better. This explains the quality of my mix in the mixtape. So don't judge homie! I was learning! I'm definitely better now! Yeah! The mixtape was titled "The KronikFunk Mixtape Vol.1 Codename: Resurrection". KronikFunk being the 2 of us. He was called Tha Funk and I went by the name KronikleVII (that's number 7 in roman numeral). I still use the name but only as my alter ego. Now I go by the name ill Krux. The title of the mixtape was chosen to mark the "Resurrection" of good Hip Hop music. That was our aim for it.
In the early 2014, the mixtape was in full effect. We were almost done with it. We had 16 tracks in total with an Intro and Outro alongside with 2 skits. The whole mixtape was done using instrumentals of other favorite songs of us except 3 songs, "Down With Me", "ROCKwilder" (a remake of Method Man and Redman's Rockwilder which was initially an assignment song of mine.) and "My Mind" which was all produced by myself. One song from it called "Neighbors" was a contribution by a fellow talented friend who go by the name C-A (he's a football player too). The verses were all recorded by myself and Sykadelik at our homes as we both had the setup to record ourselves. Some of the songs like "Welcomeback", "All Night", "Get Me Higher", "There's A Way", "Darkest Lights", "Mysterious Flow" and "KronikFunk", the vocals were mixed by both of us. Sykadelik would record, mix and send his vocals over to me, then I would record and mix my vocals and finalize the track on my end. That's how the whole mixtape was formed. The power of internet makes it all easier to collaborate with ease from one place to another. I did all the "artwork" for the mixtape covers. To represent the word "Resurrection", I used a background with a collage of all the classic emcees of the Golden Age of Hip Hop to show them the love they deserve for paving the path for us. Since it was only a free digital release, no CD printing hassle. It's a mixtape right?
The whole idea of this mixtape was to represent real Hip Hop music. To let off what we both had held up inside back then. We were young. You would realize it on some parts of the songs. We all get super enthusiastic right? With age comes maturity. It's been 4 years now since this mixtape was out, we changed a lot now. Anyway, the mixtape was released on the 18th of July 2014 on Datpiff.com. We ended up getting great feedback from people who actually listened to it. Our lecturers were actually impressed by it. It was all a great boost for both of us. That told us we were doing it right and we did it well. Especially at that point of time with less knowledge in the audio recording and post-production process. For 2 guys that were learning, it was huge for us.
I will include the link to this mixtape where you can stream and/or download it.
Keep in mind that it was done during the early stages of us learning about audio and all. So the quality may not be super great as how it would be if we did it again now.
Do share your thoughts about this mixtape. I'd love to read some comments on a mixtape done in the early days of learning.
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Feel free to contact me if you wish for me to work (mix/master) on any of your future projects be it songs or audio for visuals.
