I think every artist should do this in some form...Zo! breaks down the making of his songs..

I am only going to give one entry. That way you can go to HIS BLOG and read about the rest of the making of the tracks.




"10. Flight Of the Blackbyrd (ft. Phonte)
The actual motivation behind this song is pretty interesting. Those who know me personally understand that I am pretty laid back for the most part, but that I am very competitive. It is part of my personality, it's a motivator for me, and I guess it's simply just the way I am wired. Hell, I played baseball through college so it was a NECESSARY trait if anything and I definitely have not "grown out of it". The reason why I remember the exact date of my creating this song is because another one of my brothers and great friends in music, Nicolay released his excellent City Lights 2: Shibuya album. Where's the connection? Well, I haven't even told Nic this... But I remember sitting at the computer and logging on to Twitter and seeing everyone talking about the new City Lights 2 album. So I'm reading, retweeting the album link, checking out all the positive comments.... and it hit me. My competitive side began to talk shit to me...

"Uhhh... what the hell are YOU doing right now?! Your people are releasing dope albums and you're sitting up on TWITTER. GET yo punk ass in the studio!!" © My Competitive Conscience

This is yet another advantage to working closely with kats who are so great at what they do, because it causes you to HAVE to be on point at all times. I put my computer to sleep and walked into the studio and a drum pattern just kinda came to me (higher power) that happened to be written in 3/4... Hmmmm, that's kinda different already. The chord progression soon followed and not too long after that, a "B" part (a section where there is a change in the music - kind of a "part 2"). I laid the song out FULLY, the intro piece, main part, the piano solo, the percussion breakdown (where I used percussion instruments that I bought specifically for the "Perfect Angel" remake), and the B part. ...I got Phonte on the phone and told him I would be sending a new one through. I sent him the instrumental and heard nothing back...............

...The next morning, I woke up to a text at about 6:55am......

Phonte: You at the crib?

Me: Yeah

P: SENT.

M: Got it... putting it on the iPod and listening on the way to the craziness (a/k/a WORK)

P: Nigga, call/text/IM/two-way/smoke signal me as SOON as you finish that shit

Maaaan, look. There are some songs that you listen to the first minute or two of them and know you're sitting on something special... THIS was that song. As soon as I heard Phonte's vocals come in, I was like... "This is it, this shit is CRAZY." I called him right back on the way to work and we were hyped up about this new joint... and the ideas started pouring. The next thing I know, here's a final version of the song with trumpeter Stan Graham goin' off on the joint with Phonte doing horn arrangements. DOPE. Overall, this joint took us the least amount of time to complete... Less than a day.

Musically, this was my "show off" joint all because my competitive side took over for a minute. Thanks to my FE family for pushing me to make music like this joint in particular and not even realizing it! lol"

Get that album here