NOTE: I just finished writing a new song. I’d be recording it right now, but I have a sore throat and I lost my voice, which is why I’m writing this blog post instead.

Is it just me, or are songs starting to get crappier the easier it becomes to download music?

While there might be some truth to this (rap/hiphop IS starting to really suck — albums are more of the same uninspired shit, and rappers left and right are busy copying the next man’s sound) I think a lot of it has to do with how we’re listening to the music.

Here’s what I think: if you’re going to “steal” from the musician by illegally downloading their albums, at least enjoy their music by listening to it using the best quality speakers you can afford.

It’s no doubt that downloading the latest CD release is easy to do. Shit, I’m not even gonna front, I do it all the damn time. Mediafire and Rapidshare are my best friends.

No longer do we have to pay $10 (or P275 if you’re in the Philippines) for an album — it’s easy to find a .zip file floating around the Internet somewhere, or make a trip to a bootleg shop near you. YEEHH I PWN3333D T3H MAN!!!!!111

But back in the day when we bought CDs, we actually had to play them on a CD player. For many people, this meant a pretty high quality sound. More or less, we actually hear the music the way the artist meant for us to hear it.

Nowadays, we download MP3s and are forced to listen to them on our shitty laptop speakers. You don’t hear the bass, it’s all treble, and all the sounds are fighting each other to get heard.

In other words, the sound is fucking SHIT.

For me, this is a huge reason why music started to suck, and I’m sure it goes for many people as well.

This weekend, I completely transformed my music listening experience when I hooked up my latop to my stereo speakers. The kicks are thumping, the basslines are subtle yet audible, the snares are crisp, and the vocals are in your face.

It’s like I was blind for a moment, then given the gift of vision and was able to see color again.

You wouldn’t ever think about watching Avatar or Transformers in black and white, so why are most people listening to music using shitty ass lo-fi speakers?

No fucking wonder that even the shittiest songs (“Fly Like A G6″, “Crank Dat”, etc.) hella grew on me after hearing it at the club (of course, it helped that a chick was grinding her ass into my crotch those times, but that’s another topic for another day haha).

If you really consider yourself a fan of music and download a lot of MP3s, do yourself (and the artist) a favor and invest in the best quality speakers you could afford (or headphones, if you listen on a portable MP3 player).

My next few upcoming releases are going to be available for free download. Singles, EPs, whatever… So you might as well invest that money in something that will help you enjoy music even more

If you’re going to download their music (considered to be stealing from the musician by many) you might as well enjoy it the way they wanted you to hear it.

I have more thoughts on this, but it’s getting late so I’ll save that for another blog post. Till then.. Peace!

Let me just get it clear and say this right off the bat: this battle is far from being one of my proudest moments.

Coz as you can easily see when you watch the video, I was sorta choking on some parts and forgot my lyrics pretty badly.

Not cool at all.

That’s one of those things that you always expect will happen to other people, never you. But alas.. It did!

The rest of the Audible cats tell me that it’s nothing to worry about, and that I still did pretty well given the circumstances. And that hey, at the end of it all, I won the battle.

But I don’t really care though.. I had standards that I set for myself. It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it did, but still.. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t deliver the way I wanted to. I do appreciate the folks hitting me up saying that the choke didn’t matter though.

Anyway! That’s enough of the disclaimer. Here’s the video, the recap, lyrics, plus what my intro song is after the jump…

Honestly, I wasn’t even supposed to battle during this Fliptop event.

I just flew back to Manila like a few weeks before Silat, and I was looking forward to going to my first Fliptop event as a spectator, not as a participant.

I was especially excited because this was an all-English event AND we were going up against the Malaysians. Always knew us Pinoys have talent when it came to rapping and it was time to show the rest of the world what we got.

But as I was browsing Facebook a week before the event, I saw some posts that Hallucinate’s battle would be cancelled because of the dude having problems with his visa.

Now if I was in Hallucinate’s shoes, I’d be pretty miffed.. I’d be thinking something like, “You mean to say I just spent the last few weeks preparing for a battle that won’t happen??”

So I offered to step in the Malaysian cat’s place just so Hallucinate won’t have to deal with a no-show, in the case that Evil Poets Society won’t be able to come up with a replacement.

A few days later, I got the green light from Anygma that the battle would be on.

We both had 7 days to prepare for the battle. Nothing as crazy as one night’s preparation, but a week is pretty damn short too.

I spent the next couple of days writing. I already knew a couple of angles I would use for the battle — attacking the quality of Hallucinate’s songs, and his affiliation with Pennsylvania. I also explored a new “storytelling” type of style for the setup of the verses.

But everything else, I pretty much just came up with as I went along and seeing where the pen would take my lyrics.

The rest of the days before Silat I spent rehearsing. Obviously, as you can see from the video, I didn’t rehearse enough… Hahah…

What happened?

Fucking B-Side double booked the venue, so as a result there was a band that was playing inside the venue right at the same time during the battle. Couldn’t help but overhear the bass seeping through the walls. I wasn’t sure if the audience could hear what I was saying; it didn’t seem like the mic was loud enough to me and I didn’t really know where to project my voice and shit.

I knew my lines pretty well, but not well enough to overcome these distractions. I ended up forgetting a critical line during my second verse (when I cut myself off), which would’ve been a PERFECT way to end the second round. Sayang.

(Let’s make it clear though. By no means am I making excuses.. I choked up, and that’s the end of it. Just wanted to explain the thought process of WHY I choked.)

I walked away with a W, but yeah, lemme reiterate.. It’s never really about winning or losing for me. I’m all about delivering a performance that I’m proud about. No excuses, it absolutely doesn’t matter how much time I have to prepare.. When you hit the stage, you better be hitting the ground hard!

Fuck it though, past’s past.

I promise to do better next time!

Till then.. Peace!!

PS. My intro track is a short segment from the one of the new Audible MCs tracks we’re cooking up in the studio right now. Stay tuned for it!

PPS. You can read the lyrics by clicking here.

NOTE: This is the first of four releases for “Project: 1323″, a compilation of songs I made with producer Davadrian from 2004 until 2010.

I was originally saving these tracks for an album, but I never really had the time to work on music when I moved to Vancouver. Plus, my style (flow, delivery, diction, etc.) has dramatically changed over the years, and it wouldn’t feel right to put these tracks together with the new ones, so… Here they are.

“Letter To The Philippines” one of the first few tracks I ever recorded as a solo rapper. I was a sophomore in college at this time, and I’ve been living in the Philippines for about a year… READ STORY

If I remember properly, “A-Oh” was the second song I recorded as a solo artist. It’s not the traditional ONE3D type of song; if anything, I’m more of a rapper on this track than an emcee. Let me explain… READ STORY

MORE TRACKS COMING NEXT WEEK!

What a dope night. Feels good to kick it with these mofos yet once again.

I’ve been waiting for months for this battle to come out and I’m happy that it’s finally here.

The story behind this one’s kinda funky. I was going to be visiting the Philippines in September 2010 for a family member’s wedding. I think I found out the exact dates of my trip around August, and I asked Protege to ask Anygma if there was going to be a Fliptop event while I was there.

Turns out they had one scheduled for September 25, and they already had someone who needed an opponent, so I said let’s do it! It was Libs. Being so out of touch with the scene, I had no idea who he was, what he looked like or what he even sounded like. So I did a bit of research, and finished writing my shit. I was pretty happy with what I came up with.

But what’s funny is that Protege messaged me a week or two after, and told me to make sure that my shit is really dope. He saw Libs perform at an open mic and was really impressed. Based off this information, I scrapped what I had written so far and started from scratch.. Which was pretty cool, because I felt I ended up with something that was much, much better than the original shit I had planned.

Come the night of Fliptop.. We left QC around 7:30 and got to the venue at around 9:30 or so. It was good to see old faces and reconnect with people I knew from back in the day. I was battle #12 for the night. I was excited for this event because not only was I battling but there were like 7 English battles (I always thought the English conference is hella underrepresented), and there were good matchups all over (Abra vs. Zaito, Protege vs. RBTO, Skarm vs. Sincity, Plazma vs. JedLi.. way too many to mention!!!) and I always said that I was a fan first, rapper second..

The event went on for much longer than I thought it was gonna go for. I honestly thought I’d be done with my battle around midnight, but we still had ages to go before my turn was up.. Now remember that I just flew in from Vancouver and I was still sorta jetlagged, and plus I came from all the way up in QC.. Man I was getting tired and sleepy as shit!! Right before my battle I had to go to the bathroom to wash myself and wake myself up a bit LOL.

What transpired during this battle you could see in the video above. In my honest opinion, bias aside this truly was one of the sickest battles to happen in Fliptop’s English Conference. Libs came so much sicker than I actually thought he was gonna do.. That mothafucka blew my mind away with his shit! And I didn’t do so shabby myself.

I talked to Libs after the battle and gave him his due props. I have nothing but respect for the dude, I mean wow. It was never about walking away with a W. Which is why I said I would rather lose against someone good than win against someone wack, because at the end of the day it’s about comin out with something for people to watch and appreciate. And based on the general responses to this battle so far, this battle was truly something fucking epic.

All in all, I had a ton of fun, and it’s a great honor to come up with somethin that was so sick. I can’t fucking wait for my next battle.

PS. I told myself I wasn’t going to read the Youtube comments, coz that shit on there could be toxic sometimes. But from what I’ve seen (taking out hater comments bitching about Filipinos rapping in English), people are lovin the battle. And I’m actually not as fazed as I thought I would be with the negative comments.. It’s great feedback, actually.

My return to the Philippines couldn’t have begun any better. Yeah boiii.

You have been given the words that people carefully dissect and hang on to whenever you speak in rhyme.

You have been given the talent to bring light to everyday situations that nobody pays much attention to.

You have been given the voice that commands people desperately looking for a leader because they can’t trust the ones in power.

Don’t abuse this gift.

They’re murdering news journalists all over the country. Getting yourself in senseless fights is stupid as fuck; but speaking up for the truth? That’s the epitome of GANGSTA.

That is all.

I miss rockin gigs, and I miss just zoning out to good music during gigs even more. Despite being an artist myself I always considered myself a fan first, rapper second.. And the lineup during this night was nothing but pure sickness!

I’m fucking happy I’m going back home FOR GOOD in just a month and a few weeks so I don’t miss out on shit like this no more.

I flew back to Manila with the family last September 2010 for my cousin’s wedding that we’ve waited several years for. Most of my family members really only stayed for a week and a half, but I had plenty of things to do (like resume my relationship/love affair with my and only San Mig Strong Ice) so I decided to stay for 3 weeks total.

Before I got there, the Audible boys have been telling me about their Talksic Ways project with several members of the AMPON crew. That whole crew is sick, but one of the guys that really caught my ear was Skarm. I only really remember the dude when he faced up against Protege in a beatbox/freestyle battle way back in 2005 in The Basement at Eastwood (by Blazin I think, I’m not really sure anymore). But when I heard his track “Amidst The Night” I absolutely loved his flow and thought that his beats were sick.

Since I consider it an honor to get down on a track with dope MCs I got in touch with him and asked him if he would be down to work on a little somethin somethin when I visit. I was a little worried coz while I’m pretty sure he knew who I was, who knows if he thought my shit was wack.. You know, stupid ass shit like that, haha. Anyway, luckily for me he was open to working with other artists outside of his camp. I exchanged numbers with him and we scheduled the session after the Fliptop battles (which also was my last week in Manila) so things wouldn’t be as hectic.

Los from The Out of Body Special was also someone I wanted to do a track with, and while we were texting I told him I was heading to Skarm’s later that day. He said he’ll drop by as well and of course Skarm was cool with it — Los is THE hitmaker, after all. I picked up Liquid before heading to the Pharm Studio (and also because he brought me back some nasi goreng from Bakmi GM so I wanted to get my hands on it ASAP), and Layman’s Terms was there when we arrived.

This was dope — what was supposed to be a 2-man track ended up being a monster 5-man collabo that linked Audible, Talksic Ways and OBS in one song. Oh yeah, before playing the beat, Skarm was like, “BTW guys, do you mind if I put this on my EP?” I was like “Hell no!!” hahahaha just playing, it was flattering for me to be featured on his EP, of course I didn’t mind.

Skarm played us a real nice, laid back jazzy beat. As soon as I heard the beat, I just KNEW I had to come proper on it. You see, one of the more popular songs from The Undivided Attention LP was “Jazz Session” and it still pains me til this day that I sat out on that track. One word came to mind after hearing this beat: redemption. Hahah.

We vibed for a while and exchanged ideas on how the song should flow… I don’t exactly remember the entire process, but I think I suggested that the beat felt like it was some shit you’d be listening to while driving and smoking, after a dope ass night that you don’t want to be over and so you’re just thinking “what’s next.” So we ran with that, we vibed to instrumental and wrote our parts, Skarm came up with the 4-8 bar exchange, decided we’ll go clockwise with the verses, and we recorded our shit later in the night.

This is what we came up with.

We’re planning on doing something again once I make it back home, so hopefully that takes place sooner than later. For now, be sure to get your hands on the INTROUBLED WATERS EP by clicking here; honestly, it’s one of the best Filipino hip hop albums I’ve heard in a long while.

Looking at my site’s web stats, it seems a handful of people searched Google for “fliptop one3d” or “one3d fliptop philippines” some other variation in the last 30 days, after I battled in Fliptop.

That’s pretty cool, in my books.

(BTW, my goal for this website is to replace Wikipedia as the #1 search result in Google when you search for “filipino hip hop” by 2011 — uh huh, you heard it here first. Check again in a few months.)

Needless to say, it was an AMAZING feeling to be part of the Filipino hip hop movement once again. To see Fliptop get this much traction in such a short time.. It’s such a great thing for Philippine hiphop.

I’ll post a recap on the blog about it sometime; probably sometime before the video gets released.

I haven’t blogged in months, so I figure now would be a good time to start filling this site up with posts again.

I was having a conversation with my girlfriend a few months back about the local rock scene back in the Philippines. See, my girlfriend was/is heavy into that sort of music, ESPECIALLY during college. Me, not so much. Not that I don’t like it, but outside of hiphop music I actually prefer to listen to soul and jazz music instead.

Anyway, so we were chatting about the local music scene and she was asking about some stuff about local hiphop (we didn’t know each other yet when Audible activity was at its peak). Now with Audible, we’ve been blessed with the opportunity to perform for all sorts of events — college parties, org events, debuts, Fete de la Musique, hiphop nights, etc.

As I was reminiscing, I actually came to realize that I enjoyed performing at the events where other rock acts were performing — sometimes, even more so than I enjoyed rocking the stage at hiphop events.

Now it goes without saying that this was a pretty damn weird realization. In my head, I was questioning my loyalty to hiphop… Like, what the fuck is wrong with me??

After further reflection though, I discovered the reason for my preference to “rock” the stage with indie rock bands, and it’s this:

In the Philippine indie rock scene, there’s pretty much no hate at all from the crowd and you can feel the crowd’s energy and love for the music when you get up on stage.

Why is it that in local hiphop, people are always so quick to bring you down? The Audible folks got A LOT of hate from people who are pretty much discriminated against us because we rapped in English. Back in ’03 or ’04, someone even throw their fucking cellphone at us while we were on stage, all while receiving taunts about being “Amboys” and getting jeered about “Hindi to America, mag-Tagalog nga kayo!!” (true story)

7-8 years later… I’m surprised that this type of ignorance still exists. When I read comments from the Fliptop Youtube videos from the English battles, it’s evident. I’m sorry, but that’s what I think this blind discrimination is: plain and simple ignorance. I mean shit.. Nobody’s ever shit on Urbandub or whoever coz they do songs in English. They don’t get accused of not being proud to be Filipino. So why is the attitude in the local hiphop scene so much different?

Filipino hiphop as a genre already gets enough discrimination from non-hiphop heads; those who instantly labelling it as “corny” or “jologs” or whatever. I loved doing the indie rock gigs simply because once we start playing the music, the crowd almost always dropped any preconceived notions they might have about Filipino hiphop and just dig the music. No hate, just open arms and vibing to good tunes. The worst reception we’ve ever got was indifference, but nobody was rude at all.

Listen, local hiphop doesn’t need anymore hate from people WITHIN the scene. Our artists are struggling enough as they are, trust me. I really wish that I’d live to see the day that hiphop heads would stop the hate and instead embrace the fact that you have DIVERSITY in the dope rappers that you can listen to. English is a universal language, so be proud that you have hiphop musicians that you can be proud of no matter what country you might be in.

And I think a lot of people forget that hiphop is NOT a culture that came from Filipinos, but rather from African-Americans. By shitting on English rappers, you are, in turn, shitting on the culture that this whole Pinoy hiphop thing came from. That makes you no different than those people who are shitting on Filipino hiphop for being “jologs.”

I several more thoughts based on what I’ve seen from the Fliptop comments, but I thought I’d address this one first. I’ll address the other ones at another time. Til then.. Peace.